PC Ekspert Forum - View Single Post - Intel "Arrow Lake" LGA-1851 Info Thread

The Exiled · 31.05.2025., 20:34

Citiraj:

Intel's lackluster Arrow Lake appears to have a refresh inbound

Citiraj:

If we are to believe a leaked manual for an upcoming Intel W880 motherboard, the Intel Arrow Lake-S processor will seemingly have a refresh successor. Previous rumors point to another generation of the Arrow Lake architecture, focusing only on high-end K and KF chips. So, it would make sense for motherboards designed for high-end workstations to take advantage of this refresh. Unfortunately, we do not see any other information on the document, so we will have to wait and see if manufacturers of more mainstream consumer and enthusiast motherboards will release new models for this alleged Arrow Lake update.

The Intel Core Ultra 200S series arrived on the scene in October 2024, around two months after the company released its disastrous financial report. Team Blue sorely needed a win to help it get back on course—unfortunately, the Arrow Lake wasn’t it, as sales for its latest processor stagnated just a week after its launch. After half a year on the market, the company still struggles to sell its AI chips, with many customers preferring the older Raptor Lake CPUs. One reason behind this could be the chip’s lack of gaming prowess. It has consistently trailed behind AMD’s outstanding offerings, especially the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and was even outperformed by Intel’s own last-generation chips. And even though the Arrow Lake processors boast an NPU and offer higher AI processing power, most buyers don’t care about that. This, combined with the higher prices, meant that there was low demand for these CPUs.

If the Arrow Lake-S Refresh chips are indeed arriving, Intel must address the gaming performance issues. Otherwise, buyers would shun them and instead flock towards options that deliver more FPS and do not bottleneck other components. Despite all the negativity in the gaming space for the Arrow Lake-S chips, Intel has made some interesting innovations in the processor. It has improved power consumption and efficiency, reducing its cooling requirements. It’s also a productivity powerhouse, with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K beating most of its competitors in Cinebench. This was the first Intel desktop CPU to use a chiplet-based design, so it’s bound to have first-generation hiccups. Hopefully, the company can fix some of the concerns with the refresh, allowing us to get the most out of the Arrow Lake architecture.

Izvor: Tom's Hardware

EDIT:

Citiraj:

Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs should arrive before the end of the year

Citiraj:

Almost a year has passed since the launch of Arrow Lake processors, and it’s fair to say the architecture hasn’t taken the world by storm in the way anyone would’ve hoped, least of all Intel. Proper successors are en route, namely Panther Lake and Nova Lake, but those CPUs aren’t ready yet. In the meantime, Team Blue is apparently planning to launch a refresh of its existing stock with frustratingly little in the way of meaningful upgrades. Whispers of Intel’s firm intent to deploy Arrow Lake Refresh first came earlier this year, following an apparent change of heart after the company cancelled the launch. Now, ZDNet is reaffirming that the processors will hit store shelves before the end of 2025. The outlet also claims to have a deeper understanding of how these CPUs will differentiate themselves from the current pack.

The biggest change for Arrow Lake Refresh comes in the way of a faster Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Intel will apparently swap out the NPU 3 accelerator found in the likes of Core Ultra 9 285K and its ilk, for the newer NPU 4. This is the same accelerator that gives Lunar Lake CPUs their Copilot+ certification and should provide these processors the same accreditation. Outside of enhancements to AI performance, the only other improvement Arrow Lake Refresh will offer are slightly better clock speeds. It’s currently unclear how much further Intel plans to push frequencies, but I expect uplifts á la Core i9-14900K rather than anything earth shattering.

As much as I’d like to see Intel return to competitive form, Arrow Lake Refresh doesn’t sound like the architecture the company needs. Neither of these upgrades sound like they’ll massively increase the attractiveness of LGA1851, leading consumers to continue purchasing Raptor Lake instead or AMD alternatives. The proof will be in the pudding, of course, so I’ll save final judgement until we have the processors in hand. For the moment, though, I’m decidedly unenthused about Arrow Lake Refresh in its rumoured form.

Izvor: Club386

Citiraj:

Intel Arrow Lake-S & Arrow Lake-HX refresh CPUs won’t feature any changes to the NPU, only offer boosted clocks

Citiraj:

The latest information states that Arrow Lake-S and Arrow Lake-HX refresh CPUs will not receive any NPU changes. This means that we shouldn't expect changes to the NPU architecture, or even the NPU clocks themselves. So we can expect the refreshed chips to retain the 13 TOPS NPU compute performance from the current-gen chips. This means that Intel's Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs will only get boosted clock speeds, which, to be honest, aren't going to change much as far as performance is concerned. Maybe they will dial up the power consumption figures and offer around 2-5% better performance, but that's about it. This has been the case with most Intel offerings, such as the most recent Raptor Lake "14th Gen" refresh, but we all know what higher power and temperatures do to CPUs, as we have seen with 13th and 14th Gen chips. Maybe Intel would be extra careful this time.

Intel has been trying hard to fine-tune the performance of Arrow Lake chips for a while with updates that include Core Ultra 200S boost, which optimizes memory performance, fine-tunes the fabric/D2D inter-connect and a few changes here and there, but those are mostly on the platform level, and not on the architecture level. Gaming performance will remain the same with the refresh so yeah, this is just Intel trying to get something out for their LGA-1851 platform which hasn't been doing too well on the retail channel, and it looks like motherboard makers are pushing Intel in doing something new to help their partners move inventory, and clear up stock before the next-generation arrives with a new socket, aka Nova Lake's LGA-1954 platform.

Izvor: Wccftech