The Core Ultra 7 270K was too good, so Intel scrapped the flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus — benchmarks of the 290K prototype find slim 2% faster performance in gaming and applications

The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, which never came out, was only marginally faster than the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which explains why Intel ultimately chose not to release it. On average across 1080p and 1440p games, it's only about 2% faster, and in synthetic benchmarks and productivity workloads, it's less than 4% ahead.