Intel’s Core 9 273PQE has appeared in gaming tests, and the results are interesting because this is not a normal consumer CPU. It belongs to Intel’s Bartlett Lake lineup for embedded systems, but it still uses the LGA 1700 socket and the same Raptor Cove performance core family found in Raptor Lake Refresh chips.

The unusual part is the core layout. The Core 9 273PQE uses 12 performance cores and no efficiency cores. By comparison, the Core i9 14900K uses 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores.

More performance cores seem to help in gaming

German YouTuber Zed Up tested the Core 9 273PQE against the Core i9 14900K in several games. The Bartlett Lake chip was up to 9% faster in titles such as Outcast 1.1 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It also showed around 5% to 6% higher FPS in Horizon Zero Dawn and Monster Hunter Wilds.

That does not mean it wins everywhere. The report says CS2 and Rainbow Six Siege did not show the same advantage. Still, the results suggest that a 12 performance core layout can help some games more than Intel’s usual hybrid layout.

This result is also a reminder that core count alone does not tell the whole story. The Core i9 14900K has more total cores and threads, but the 273PQE has more performance cores. In games that prefer fast high performance cores over many smaller efficiency cores, Bartlett Lake can pull ahead.

It is interesting, but not practical for most buyers

The problem is availability and platform support. Bartlett Lake is not made for regular consumers. Mainstream LGA 1700 boards do not officially support these P core only chips, and the tests required custom BIOS work.

Even if you can find the CPU, the overall platform cost and setup effort may be worse than buying a normal Raptor Lake Refresh system. For most people, a Core i9 14900K or another standard consumer CPU still makes more sense.

The Core 9 273PQE is more useful as a glimpse at what Intel could do with a P core heavy desktop chip. It shows that a clean 12 P core design can perform very well in games, but it is locked behind an embedded product path.

For PC gamers, this is a curiosity rather than a real buying option. For Intel, it is a useful signal that performance core count still matters in gaming, especially when the software does not benefit much from extra efficiency cores.