Intel Nova Lake Core Ultra 400 tipped to offer 10% higher single-thread and 60% gains in multi-thread perf, will be the first desktop part to feature new low-power island cores
Intel's Nova Lake Core Ultra 400 series is expected to succeed the current Arrow Lake-S and upcoming Arrow Lake-S Refresh desktop parts. While Nova Lake will only drop sometime in 2026, an early leak points to tangible performance gains over the Arrow Lake-S.
According to a post by Game.Keeps.Loading (@G_melo_ding) on X, Nova Lake could offer up to 10% gains in single-core performance purportedly in comparison with Arrow Lake. This can help with improved gaming and single-threaded responsiveness. The leaked slide indicates "Leadership Gaming Performance" with a 1.1x higher single-thread and a 1.6x increase in multi-threaded performance.
Our own review of the Arrow Lake-S Core Ultra 9 285K showed performance regressions with this CPU in gaming, although standalone CPU benchmarks ran just fine. Intel announced a couple of Field Updates at CES 2025 to improve gaming performance, but actual gains are a hit or miss depending on the game in question. Hopefully, Nova Lake-S doesn't suffer from such inadequacies.
A new low-power island is on the anvil as well. Interestingly, Nova Lake could be the first desktop part to feature a low-power island. While Arrow Lake-S and Arrow Lake-HX lack a low-power island, Arrow Lake-H features two low-power (LP) island E-cores on the SoC tile. However, it is not clear whether these low-power island cores are based on the new Skymont design or are simply repurposed Crestmont cores from Meteor Lake.
From what we know so far, Nova Lake is likely to debut with new Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores. Whether they'll be based on TSMC 2 nm or Intel 18A-P is still unconfirmed at this point. The Nova Lake-S lineup is rumored to be led by a 52-core flagship Core Ultra 9 485K (?) with 16 P-cores 32 E-cores, and 4 LP island E-cores at a 150 W TDP. We might also see Intel using a mix of Celestial and Druid iGPUs in the same SoC.
It is also being speculated that certain Core Ultra 5 Nova Lake-S SKUs will come with a big Last Line Cache or bLLC that works similar to AMD's hugely successful 3D V-cache.
That being said, this rumor should be taken with a pinch of the proverbial salt. The leak does not provide any actual information as to which CPU generation is the comparison against. Assuming it is indeed against Arrow Lake-S, the single core benefits don't seem that enticing given that Nova Lake is only expected to arrive next year.
An Arrow Lake-S Refresh later this year can even potentially narrow the gap with current Arrow Lake-S parts. Besides, we do not have any information pertaining to clocks, so any claims of performance increase sound vague at best.
A 1.6x or 60% higher multi-core looks like an interesting proposition in comparison to Arrow Lake-S chips. But the latter tops-out at 24 cores in the Core Ultra 9 285K while we are looking at a potential 52-core behemoth with Nova Lake, so the numbers don't add up just yet.
It is also possible that the performance figures in the leaked slide are against a lower Core Ultra 400 SKU. We should be knowing better in the coming months, so stay tuned.
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