An Arrow Lake refresh may still be on the cards with only K and KF models, claims leaker

The topic of an Intel Arrow Lake CPU refresh has been a recurring topic of discussion among leakers for several months, though these rumors have largely been inconsistent. Jaykihn, who has a very strong track record when it comes to Intel, reports that an Arrow Lake refresh is back in development after the first concept was scrapped. This supposed Core Ultra 300 series will allegedly feature only unlocked (K/KF) variants, which typically carry a premium price versus their non-K counterparts. Details on the core architecture and a potential release timeline have not been shared, so that bit remains a mystery.

Before launch, the expectation was that Arrow Lake would be the Hail Mary Intel's chip division needed, delivering exceptional performance while being efficient. To everyone's surprise and dismay, Arrow Lake struggled to keep up with last-gen Raptor Lake chips, while taking multiple blows from AMD's Ryzen X3D chips in gaming. Several of these issues can be traced back to latency penalties incurred by the off-die IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) and slow ring-bus frequencies.

Arrow Lake also suffered from several underlying issues that pushed Intel to release a fix by December. A follow-up with further enhancements in the form of a new microcode and BIOS firmware update was promised by January. However, despite Intel's many claims and fixes, Arrow Lake still lags behind AMD's offerings and Team Blue's own Raptor Lake.

Jaykihn alleges that Intel planned and axed an Arrow Lake refresh, only to revive it later with a revised design. Initial leaks pointed towards a 40-core (8P+32E) variant, or one with an upgraded NPU design on the SoC Tile. Given the product's preliminary nature, it's hard to draw up architectural changes, if any even exist. It's anyone's guess at this point, but Intel's primary objective will likely be resolving or at least mitigating the latency problems discussed earlier.

Likewise, following Intel's updated nomenclature, this supposed Core Ultra 300 series will only feature unlocked variants, which generally have a base TDP of 125W, going as high as 295W (PL2), in the case of Arrow Lake. One more supported generation, albeit only with pricier K/KF variants, would be sufficient to prevent LGA 1851 from being considered the most short-lived platform in Intel's history.

The leaker claims Intel will offer "opt-in" uplifts to current-gen Arrow Lake chips. On further clarification, Jaykihn is referring to specific BIOS presets for increasing performance that do not void warranty. The exact specifics are unknown. However, these presets are said to be similar in premise to Intel's in-development IPO (Intel Performance Optimization) settings, designed to deliver higher performance with guaranteed stability, aimed at system integrators and OEMs.

No further details were provided on a release date, specifications, or pricing. With Nova Lake slated for a 2026 launch, we are likely to hear more about this refresh straight from Intel sooner rather than later.