Intel Plans "Arrow Lake Refresh" for H2 2025 with Higher Clocks and Upgraded NPU

[AleksandarK]

According to ZDNet Korea's sources familiar with the matter, Intel will release the "Arrow Lake Refresh" CPU family in the second half of this year. While no exact timeline is given, we can expect to hear more about these CPUs in the coming weeks, and for the rumor mill to intensify. The new refresh generation will introduce slight frequency adjustments, including an increased base clock and maximum boost clock, while also incorporating a faster NPU. A base clock increase, paired with a boost to maximum core clock, will give Arrow Lake Refresh a significant advantage in gaming performance. Keeping the same LGA1851 socket will extend the support for the current platform for one more generation too, until "Nova Lake-S" arrives.

Given that Intel attempted an IPO for a limited set of gamers, we could see a more widespread adoption of a similar approach. As a reminder, on the CPU side, IPO fine-tunes P-core and E-core frequencies, ring-bus speeds, the UPI interconnect, D2D links between tiles, and both PL1 and PL2 power limits. For RAM, IPO raises transfer rates and tightens timings, pushing modules beyond their factory XMP or EXPO profiles. If Arrow Lake Refresh ships with an IPO-equivalent out of the box, gamers will enjoy a significant performance increase, ready to offset some of the early disappointment with the base Arrow Lake. Additionally, Intel will place a new NPU on its IO tile. Using the NPU3 on base Arrow Lake, Intel was unable to meet the basic 40 TOPS requirement for Copilot+ AI PCs. And with NPU4, that TOPS requirement is met, allowing Intel to brand these new processors as AI PC ready.




ZDNet Korea also noted that Intel is preparing Nova Lake-S for the second half of next year, meaning that we are still months away from hearing more details about its platform. For now, we can only note that the Nova Lake-S, rumored to feature up to 52 cores, will be compatible with an LGA1954 socket and will include a mix of P, E, and LPE cores.

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[oxrufiioxo]

Yes!!! Just what we needed.... The swan song for LGA 1851.

 

[Bomby569]

Yes!!! Just what we needed.... The swan song for LGA 1851.

wasn't that already set in stone some time ago?

 

[docnorth]

Yes!!! Just what we needed.... The swan song for LGA 1851.

A swan song is supposedly a masterpiece...

Ok to be fair, Arrow Lake is actually better than the terror many 'experts' and forums spread. If those optimisations manage to significantly improve latency(-ies), it could become highly recommended.

 

[agent_x007]

1) I press "X" for doubt on those :

gamers will enjoy a significant performance increase

If it was that simple, you should be able to fix this with advanced enough OC options in Arrow Lake (which isn't the case - it's still slower than X3D stuff).

2) Dead platform is... dead platform.
No point in getting it, if you don't already own Arrow Lake (at least from my point of view).

PS. Also, Nova Lake sounds even more cursed than Arrow Lake (with three types of x86 cores inside, not counting NPU and other "AI features").
Can't Intel just figure out that all E-core CPUs for Ultra 3 (and lower) + all P-core CPUs for Ultra 5/7/9, are just fine ?

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

1) I press "X" for doubt on those :
If it was that simple, you should be able to fix this with advanced enough OC options in Arrow Lake (which isn't the case - it's still slower than X3D stuff).

I do enjoy gaming on the ARL platform I have..its more "consistent" with the game feel rather on the AMD Platform (dips and the input latency at times are worse), this is on 4k resolution gaming, outside gaming, it uses lesser power than my 9950X3D for general use case, the only thing my 9950X3D is best doing at is 7-Zip..lol..

if you do enjoy tinkering, the Intel platform has a very vast potential of options to work on, on the AMD Platform, you're much an average commoner joe, everyone has the same settings and almost same latency..lol..(no pun intended)

I believe in what you said about not going through this if you don't own it, or if you don't feel like a tinkerer yourself, personally, I like the Intel more.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Yes!!! Just what we needed.... The swan song for LGA 1851.

Yeeaahh, naaaahhh.

Will more likely be Raptor - Nova Laks-S for me.

 

[dyonoctis]

1) I press "X" for doubt on those :

If it was that simple, you should be able to fix this with advanced enough OC options in Arrow Lake (which isn't the case - it's still slower than X3D stuff).

2) Dead platform is... dead platform.
No point in getting it, if you don't already own Arrow Lake (at least from my point of view).

PS. Also, Nova Lake sounds even more cursed than Arrow Lake (with three types of x86 cores inside, not counting NPU and other "AI features").
Can't Intel just figure out that all E-core CPUs for Ultra 3 (and lower) + all P-core CPUs for Ultra 5/7/9, are just fine ?

Not when AMD is about to pull out a 24 and 32 core CPU on AM5. The 16 P-cores Nova Lake will be absolutely trashed in productivity. (Yes, Intel is still very competitive in that area, Puget is selectively proposing an AMD or Intel workstation depending on the needs of the clients)

 

[Degreco]

if you do enjoy tinkering, the Intel platform has a very vast potential of options to work on

Indeed. Pair Arrow Lake with fast ram and a z890 platform and use latest win updates for proper core management, the thing will fly.

Arrow Lake will profit hugely in gaming from a clock boost (and then also from high end DDR5). I saw what a max overclocked 265K can do, and that was coming very close to the top end CPUs in gaming and most mixed load situations in productivity (single core CB2024 around 150).

So, let's hope, Intel cranks it up a notch without forgetting about efficiency (because higher clocks are most certainly not great for efficiency).
But if we are talking about a minor update like the Raptor Lake Refresh,so only 100-200mhz on base clock and max boost, trading a little bit of power and heat to reach that, then the whole thing is bogus. Because it can be achieved with the current gen already.

 

[Eternit]

Can't Intel just figure out that all E-core CPUs for Ultra 3 (and lower) + all P-core CPUs for Ultra 5/7/9, are just fine ?

I think they should split their platform to have budget platform with E only Celeron and Pentium, E P mix U3, U5 and U7, and HEDT with P only U7 and U9. HEDT should have 3 memory channels and more PCIE lines.

 

[Daven]

I think they should split their platform to have budget platform with E only Celeron and Pentium, E P mix U3, U5 and U7, and HEDT with P only U7 and U9. HEDT should have 3 memory channels and more PCIE lines.

I believe Celeron and Pentium trade names are dead. Even Ryzen 3 and Core 3 are seldom used and mostly on mobile. There was one last attempt for a budget desktop processor called ‘Intel Processor’.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Definitely be picking one up to test out. I've been super happy with my 285k and 225

 

[Deorc Mearh]

I don't despise what Intel is doing especially in mobile production but they still have consumptions to improve. Boosting their cpus by increasing frequencies doesn't seem to me a good idea thou many users are so dumb to just considering games frame rate for judjing a cpu, without any other consideration.

 

[JustBenching]

Yeeaahh, naaaahhh.

Will more likely be Raptor - Nova Laks-S for me.

Novalake is the best argument against arrowlake refresh. However good the refresh might be - novalake is bonkers.

 

[phanbuey]

Im trying out my first 265KF build today. Everyone who buys these and OC's them seems to be super happy with them now, so want to see if the hype is real or no.

I've not been super impressed with my 9800x3d on either the B650 or the Asrock B850.

Novalake is the best argument against arrowlake refresh. However good the refresh might be - novalake is bonkers.

To be fair - this same thing was said about arrowlake... Never underestimate intel's and rumormill ability to overhype a launch.

 

[JustBenching]

I've not been super impressed with my 9800x3d on either the B650 or the Asrock B850.

Haha, I've said so in the thread i made. Its super meh coming from a high core count intel.

 

[Deorc Mearh]

Im trying out my first 265KF build today. Everyone who buys these and OC's them seems to be super happy with them now, so want to see if the hype is real or no.

I've not been super impressed with my 9800x3d on either the B650 or the Asrock B850.



To be fair - this same thing was said about arrowlake... Never underestimate intel's and rumormill ability to overhype a launch.

that's true but you can't deny Arrow Lake solved many stability (due to production quality) issues that 14th generation had

 

[phanbuey]

Haha, I've said so in the thread i made. Its super meh coming from a high core count intel.

It's so true - I get way more framedrops now from the platform. Hopefully ARL is slower but more consistent.

I essentially downgraded my overall gaming experience, and my productivity in the name of +30% average FPS and +100% highs - but WAY more noticeable lows :/. Meh is exactly the result I had as well - I thought I was crazy and ended up swapping the board to rule out BIOS issues or PCIE bottlenecks - nope.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

I've not been super impressed with my 9800x3d on either the B650 or the Asrock B850.

same bruh..same..

people advice getting the X870E Apex, though it won't help much as I have a turd chip, if in any case this chip of mine was golden, I would have spent more on that, otherwise on ARL, even if its a turd chip you're guaranteed on that 8k RAM speed on any A Tier board..

 

[Eternit]

I believe Celeron and Pentium trade names are dead. Even Ryzen 3 and Core 3 are seldom used and mostly on mobile. There was one last attempt for a budget desktop processor called ‘Intel Processor’.

And I think they should bring them back. Well I don't care about the exact naming, as long as there are different platforms and names for different segments.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Was just checking at a local store today.

245K 6P 8E $330 cdn. Z890MB for $275

Add in some 7200 CL34 ram for $149

$754 CAD for CPU/MB/Ram

9800x3d is $629

7800x3d id $540

That's a pretty decent price for a solid foundation for a build

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Yeeaahh, naaaahhh.

Will more likely be Raptor - Nova Laks-S for me.

I was being sarcastic but hopefully it's better than expected.

The 285k was fine when I had some hands on with it just expensive and gaming was solid if unspectacular on it.

 

[mrnagant]

NPU4 is up to 48 TOPS.

Does MS CoPilot spec not allow GPU AI TOPS to count at all? Why do we even have dedicated NPUs and also NPU accelerators in the GPU still?

 

[eldon_magi]

NPU4 is up to 48 TOPS.

Does MS CoPilot spec not allow GPU AI TOPS to count at all? Why do we even have dedicated NPUs and also NPU accelerators in the GPU still?

we gonna have NPU's in the dishwasher, the microwave, the laundromat, the tv, the computer, the smartphone, and the serial box, and we will be surrounded by tiny brains that have opinions, and just want to help.

with cudimm reaching 10K MT/s what would be needed to start using part of RAM as GPU VRAM?

My radeon 780M igpu in my minipc has 16GB of vram, from my pool of 96GB 5600 ddr5

 

[phanbuey]

we gonna have NPU's in the dishwasher, the microwave, the laundromat, the tv, the computer, the smartphone, and the serial box, and we will be surrounded by tiny brains that have opinions, and just want to help.

with cudimm reaching 10K MT/s what would be needed to start using part of RAM as GPU VRAM?

My radeon 780M igpu in my minipc has 16GB of vram, from my pool of 96GB 5600 ddr5

the bus is still pretty slim - 128bit for dual channel...