Intel is once again planning to release a refresh of its Arrow Lake-S Desktop lineup which will offer some minor upgrades.
Intel Arrow Lake-S Refresh For Desktops To Utilize Same Dies As Arrow Lake-HX Refresh, Not Going To Be A Huge Update
Intel's Arrow Lake-S Refresh has been an ongoing story which was first expected later this year but was canned due to unknown reasons. Now, leakers such as Golden Pig Upgrade are reporting that the lineup has been resurrected and may in fact be using the same dies as the Arrow Lake-HX CPU family, which in itself is going to get refreshed.
The Intel Arrow Lake refresh CPU family was initially planned to be the follow-up to the current lineup and was going to be tagged under the Core Ultra Series 3 chips. These chips were going to incorporate the latest NPU architecture, which would have led to a bigger die size and offer higher AI TOPS versus the 13 TOPS on the existing Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake" chips.
According to @Jaykihn, Intel's current roadmap features a vast array of NPU architectures following the NPU4 which is incorporated into Lunar Lake CPUs. These include the NPU5, which will offer 18–50 TOPS in 1-3 Tiled configurations, while the NPU6 architecture will feature up to 75 TOPS in a 4-tiled design. Intel's own drivers have confirmed the NPU5 architecture for Panther Lake and NPU6 architecture for future CPUs such as Nova Lake.
NPU2.7:
11-13 TOPS, 2 tilesNPU4:
40-48 TOPS, 5-6 tilesNPU5:
18-50 TOPS, 1-3 tilesNPU6:
75 TOPS, 4 tiles— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) February 6, 2025
The following are the compute capabilities of existing and those expected of next-gen NPUs:
- NPU1 - 0.5 TOPs
- NPU2 - 7.0 TOPs
- NPU3 - 11.5 TOPs
- NPU4 - 48.0 TOPs
- NPU5 - ~50 TOPS
- NPU6 - ~75 TOPS
The Intel Arrow Lake Refresh lineup was going to cover both Desktop and Mobility segments until its cancellation rumors emerged last year. However, with the latest updates, it looks like Intel may once again be bringing the refresh out of the grave. Other things we can expect from the lineup are better optimizations for gaming at launch, which still isn't the case with the existing Core Ultra 200S lineup.
Intel's Arrow Lake-S Refresh Desktop CPU lineup will once again be targeting the existing LGA 1851 platform, which might get some refreshes down the road. We don't know when these CPUs will be launching, but with Nova Lake planned for 2026, it looks like a late 2H 2025 launch can be seen as a possible launch timeframe.
Intel Desktop CPU Generations Comparison:
| Intel CPU Family | Processor Process | Processor Architecture | Graphics Architecture | Processors Cores/Threads (Max) | Platform | Memory Support | PCIe Support | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alder Lake (12th Gen) | Intel 7 | Golden Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 16/24 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2021 |
| Raptor Lake (13th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2022 |
| Raptor Lake Refresh (14th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2023 |
| Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200) | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 24/24 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2024 |
| Arrow Lake Refresh (TBD)) | TSMC N3B? | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | TBD | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2025 |
| Nova Lake (Core Ultra 400?) | TBA | Coyote Cove (P-Core) Arctic Wolf (E-Core) | TBA | 52/52? | TBA | DDR5? | PCIe Gen 6.0? | 2026 |
| Razer Lake (Core Ultra 500?) | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | 2027? |
