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Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus
The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus tops Intel's Arrow Lake HX Plus refresh, bringing desktop-derived silicon to high-performance gaming laptops and mobile workstations. Built on TSMC's N3B node with 8 Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores boosting to 5.5 GHz, it focuses on high multi-threaded compute and improved energy efficiency.
Pros
- High multi-threaded performance with up to 24 cores
- Substantial power efficiency gains over Raptor Lake-HX
- Support for fast DDR5 and PCIe Gen 5 connectivity
- Integrated NPU for dedicated on-device AI acceleration
- Upgraded Lion Cove P-core and Skymont E-core architectures
Cons
- Lacks Hyper-Threading support on P-cores
- High peak power draw under sustained heavy loads
- Integrated graphics limited compared to standard Arrow Lake-H tiles
- Requires robust thermal cooling solutions in laptop chassis
Very good
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus
General
- Announced
- 2026
- Process
- 3 nm
- Base TDP
- 55 W
- Max TDP
- 160 W
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 24
- Performance cores
- 8
- Efficiency cores
- 16
- Threads
- 24
- Base clock
- 2.7 GHz
- Boost clock
- 5.5 GHz
- L3 cache
- 36 MB
Integrated GPU
- iGPU
- Intel Graphics (4 Xe-cores)
- iGPU clock
- 2,000 MHz
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR5-6400
- Max memory
- 256 GB
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 3,198Top 10%
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 21,581Top 8%
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 2,340Top 2%
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 39,617Top 1%
- PassMark
- 58,672Top 1%
- 3DMark Time Spy Graphics (iGPU)
- 1,855Top 37%
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus good in 2026?
The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus earns an Inno Score of 73.9/100 (“Very good”) based on its specs and benchmark results. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus tops Intel's Arrow Lake HX Plus refresh, bringing desktop-derived silicon to high-performance gaming laptops and mobile workstations. Built on TSMC's N3B node with 8 Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores boosting to 5.5 GHz, it focuses on high multi-threaded compute and improved energy efficiency.
Does the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus count as "Core i7 or equivalent"?
Its PassMark CPU Mark average is 58,672 (cpubenchmark.net, retrieved Sep 26, 2026), which puts it in Tier A of our CPU tier checker: current Core i7 H / Core Ultra 7 / Ryzen 7 class and above. Requirement pages word this differently, so check the exact wording with your department.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus?
Cores: 24 · Threads: 24 · Boost clock: 5.5 GHz · Base TDP: 55 W
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are Apple M3 Max (16-core), Apple M4 Pro (14-core), Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.
