Intel has taken the backseat on its Arrow Lake-S Refresh Desktop CPU family as the lineup is now reportedly canceled.
Rumor Alleges That Intel Has Canned Its Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPU Refresh, Now Focusing Towards Next-Gen Nova Lake For Desktops
Intel's Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs under the Core Ultra 200 series are expected to launch next month in October but reports regarding a possible refresh were already out on the net. We last reported on the Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPU refresh a couple of months ago when we got to know that it was going to feature an upgraded NPU and a larger die size if it ever came to fruition & it looks like we can forget about any refresh as per the new rumor.
The new rumor comes from Chiphell Forum member, Panzerlied, who has also passed on some rumored specs and parameters of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 "Blackwell" GPUs in the past. In a reply to a forum member, the member states that Arrow Lake-S Refresh has been canceled and that the original lineup will now be competing against AMD for at least two years on the desktop platform.
Previous details also pointed out some extra cores/threads for the Intel Arrow Lake-S Refresh Desktop CPUs but it looks like Intel is very confident with its upcoming parts and will now wait till next-generation Nova Lake CPUs for a desktop release. The Arrow Lake-S Refresh CPUs were also going to be compatible with the LGA 1851 socket and current rumors suggest that the same will be the case with Nova Lake which should stick with the LGA 1851 socket though that lineup is planned two years into the future so a lot can change.
Looking into the future, Intel's Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs will be competing against more Zen 5 chips such as the upcoming Ryzen 9000X3D parts which are expected to deliver strong gaming performance and it will be a test for Intel to tackle those effectively. We might also see refreshed with Zen 4 and Zen 5 chips though AMD's next-gen Zen 6 parts are expected for launch around the same timeframe as Nova Lake in 2026.
If Intel wants to stay competitive, then they should focus on retaining compatibility for Nova Lake CPUs on existing platforms as moving to a new platform will take away the advantage of owning a LGA 1851 or 800-series motherboard now as in that case, it will only support a single-generation of CPUs.
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? |
News Source: @Olrak29_
