Primate Labs Warns on Geekbench Results for Intel's New CPUs

Intel's recently launched Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus processors, part of the Arrow Lake Refresh lineup, include a new Binary Optimization Tool designed to enhance performance by restructuring executable instructions at the hardware level. However, the tool has prompted Primate Labs, developers of the popular Geekbench benchmarking software, to issue warnings on all results from these chips, citing potential invalidity due to undetectable modifications that boost scores.

The processors debuted this week, marking what may be Intel's final major update for the LGA 1851 platform before the anticipated Nova Lake series arrives later in the year. Priced lower than their non-Plus counterparts, the new chips feature four additional efficiency cores, delivering noticeable gains in multithreading performance over the preceding Core Ultra 200S series. Independent testing shows the tool, which optimizes code for better instructions per cycle without altering the underlying computations, can increase Geekbench 6 overall scores by up to 8 percent and individual workloads by as much as 40 percent.

Primate Labs explained that the tool's effects make benchmark results...