Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H may wear the crown in Arrow Lake’s H-series lineup, but in real-world testing, it hardly pulls ahead of the Core Ultra 7 255H. After benchmarking over two dozen laptops across various brands and thermal designs, the numbers don’t lie: the Ultra 9’s performance advantage is often negligible and sometimes even nonexistent.
Core Ultra 7 255H matches or outpaces its pricier sibling
On paper, the 285H holds a modest clock speed lead over the 255H. In practice, this translates to an average performance gain of just 6%. That’s across multi-core, single-core, rendering, and productivity benchmarks.
In some cases, laptops with the Core Ultra 7 255H even beat Core Ultra 9 configurations outright. One notable example is the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9 16IAH G10 outperforming the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo despite the Yoga running the lower-tier chip. Cooling and chassis design often make a bigger difference than SKU labels here.
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Why the Core Ultra 9 285H feels like a poor value
The issue isn’t just about performance, it’s about price. Laptops with the 285H tend to carry a hefty premium, despite their gains barely registering outside synthetic benchmarks. For anyone seeking good performance-per-dollar, the Core Ultra 7 255H is clearly the better deal.
Across testing, the CPUs were measured using:
- Cinebench R23, R20, and R15 (multi/single-core)
- Blender BMW27
- 7-Zip compression
- Geekbench 6.5 and 5.5
- HWBOT x265 4K
- LibreOffice export
- R Benchmark 2.5
These are enough to paint a full picture. No matter the workload, the 285H struggles to justify its higher cost.
Availability keeps the better chip out of reach
Frustratingly, not all markets offer laptops with the Core Ultra 7 255H. In the U.S., for example, premium models like the Yoga Pro 9 are sold almost exclusively with the 285H. That leads to inflated prices for what should be mid-tier performance.
For buyers chasing value or performance consistency, this skewed availability makes smart purchasing harder. Even with the performance crown, the Core Ultra 9 285H just doesn’t justify the jump.
When the name doesn’t match the gain
If you’re comparing laptops and find one with the Core Ultra 7 255H, don’t hesitate. It’ll handle the same workloads, hit the same marks, and probably save you a few hundred dollars. In this case, chasing the “Ultra 9” label gets you more heat than horsepower.
