Summary

  • Intel plans to launch its Meteor Lake processors in December and has teased upcoming lineups including Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and Panther Lake.
  • There may be an Arrow Lake Refresh (ARL-R) series launching in the second half of 2025, featuring a flagship chip with up to 40 cores.
  • The Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh lineups will have similarities in core types, process node, and CPU socket, potentially using the LGA-1851 platform.

At Intel's Innovation 2023 event last month, the company confirmed plans to launch its Meteor Lake processors in December and teased the upcoming Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and Panther Lake lineups. While Arrow Lake is expected to launch in the second half of 2024, Lunar Lake could arrive in late 2024 or early 2025. Panther Lake is expected to make it to the market in late 2025 or early 2026, but a new leak now suggests that the company could launch the Arrow Lake Refresh (ARL-R) series before that, possibly in the second half of 2025.

The report comes from popular YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), which claims Intel is working on the previously undisclosed Arrow Lake Refresh series that could be announced in H2, 2025. The flagship ARL-R chip will reportedly get up to 40 cores, including 8 'Lion Cove' Performance cores and 32 'Skymont' Efficient cores. This will mark a significant increase over the original Arrow Lake series, which is expected to feature up to 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores.

Apart from the core count, the Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh lineups will reportedly have much in common, including the core types, process node, and the CPU socket, with the report claiming that ARL-R will also launch on the LGA-1851 platform like the original ARL. It is worth noting here that Panther Lake is also tipped to retain the LGA 1851 socket, meaning at least three generations of processors could use the same platform.

The leak about the 40-core Arrow Lake Refresh CPU is an interesting development, as earlier rumors suggested that the original Arrow Lake series could have a 40-core processor. However, those rumors have since subsided, with more recent reports suggesting that it would instead have a 24-core chip with 8 Performance cores and 16 Efficient cores. The latest leak now seems to suggest that the report about a 40-core chip was likely accurate, but for Arrow Lake Refresh rather than the original Arrow Lake.