Word is now emerging about user experiences with the Intel (INTC) Core Ultra 200K chip, which appears to have some unexpected tradeoffs connected with it. That proved less than helpful with shareholders, who sent shares of the chipmaker sliding down fractionally in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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A roundup of reviews from 3DCenter took a closer look at the Core Ultra 200K and found, amazingly enough, that the chip was much more effective with applications than it used to be…but much less so with gaming.
Based on a summary of 20 reviews, 3DCenter found that application performance was up around 5% over previous incarnations. However, it was down 6% in gaming-related performance, on average. When compared to the Core i9-14900K, the Ultra 9 285K delivered a 6.9% improvement with applications but a loss of 6.6% in gaming. However, some processors simply fared worse overall. Indeed, the Core Ultra 5 had 23.8% lower application performance and 12.6% lower gaming performance at the same time.
Earnings Firestorm Ahead
In a separate development, Intel’s recent cost-cutting efforts should have been more helpful when it comes to beating a decline in earnings. But new reports suggest that Intel is looking at a disaster in its revenue figures, and that may cancel out any benefits to the bottom line that would have come from cutting costs.
New reports from Digwatch suggest that Intel will see the biggest revenue drop it has seen in the last five quarters at around 8%. That is projected to drop revenue to $13.02 billion, all told. Though the actual numbers are still waiting to arrive in two days, it is a safe bet that some declines will be seen thanks to surging competition in Intel’s primary markets and a lack of presence in more emerging markets like artificial intelligence.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold, or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds, and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 35.19% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $25.21 per share implies 10.38% upside potential.
