Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs: Upcoming desktop Intel chips to bring faster clock speeds and new NPU
While Intel is preparing Nova Lake as the next major CPU architecture for desktops, the company also has Arrow Lake Refresh chips in the works. Like previous architecture refreshes, the Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs aren’t expected to bring major changes. However, there are still some key areas where Intel plans to make improvements.
According to ZDNET Korea (via @harukaze5719 on X), the Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs will debut sometime in H2 2025 with faster clock speeds and NPU 4. We don’t know how much better the clock speeds for the Arrow Lake Refresh chips are going to be, as the report doesn’t mention any figures.
For reference, the Core Ultra 9 285K, the flagship Arrow Lake processor, has a boost clock of 5.5 GHz, a big decrease compared to the 14th-gen Core i9-14900K (Available on Amazon). So, the Arrow Lake Refresh flagship will need to feature a boost clock bump of more than 8% to match the 14th-gen chips.
Moving to the NPU, the current crop of Core Ultra 200S desktop CPUs features NPU 3, an older version that Intel first introduced with Meteor Lake chips back in late 2023. Intel subsequently packed the much faster NPU 4 in Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake mobile chips. This is the NPU that Intel is reportedly bringing to Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs.
That said, no matter how powerful the NPU Intel packs inside its new chips, there just aren’t a lot of truly practical use cases for an NPU on Windows, at least not right now. So, we don’t know if it is a good idea to use precious silicon for something as underutilized as an NPU on desktop chips.
All in all, H2 2025 is looking quite stacked, as both AMD and Nvidia are also allegedly releasing new desktop GPUs in a few months. Coupled with new Intel CPUs, gamers will have a lot to get excited about this holiday season.
Source(s)
@harukaze5719 on X, ZDNET Korea, Teaser image: jonbonsilver on Pixabay, Intel, edited
