Intel is gearing up for yet another processor generation, with Intel Arrow Lake tipped to mark the 15th generation once it launches later this year.
With both desktop and mobile variants of Intel Arrow Lake expected, it will act as the successor to both the 13th Generation Raptor Lake and 14th Generation Meteor Lake.
The most exciting aspect of Arrow Lake is the transition to the new Intel 20A process, which is said to be the equivalent of a 2nm process node. This would be a monumental leap forwards for Intel, with the current Meteor Lake series still stuck on Intel 4, which is said to be the equal of 7nm.
It’s unclear what kind of performance jump this generational upgrade could result in. YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead claims that we could see between a 25% to 35% performance boost, while other reports have been more conservative with their estimates.
Other possible improvements include an increased number of efficiency cores, powerful integrated graphics and support for faster memory. Although reports indicate that Arrow Lake won’t see any major upgrades to AI performance, which may well raise a lot of eyebrows considering this is the hot topic in the technology world right now.
We’ve provided a more detailed breakdown below, so keep on scrolling for everything you need to know about the 15th Generation of Intel Core processors.
Release date
The Intel Arrow Lake generation of processors are expected to land towards the end of 2024.
That said, we wouldn’t expect to see many laptops featuring the new chips until 2025, so there’s still a long way to go.
Specs
Intel Arrow Lake is expected to become the very first processor family to use the Intel 20A process node. This is the equivalent of a 2nm node when compared to other processors.
If true, this would be a huge step forward for the company. Intel is currently using 7nm processors in its latest generation, while the latest AMD chips are using 5nm. A smaller process node allows a chip manufacturer to squeeze more transistors onto the processor, which generally translates to a faster performance.
A leaked presentation slide (posted by uzzi38 in the AnandTech forum) suggests the Arrow Lake will see a 15% increase in multi-core performance on average, and a 5% increase in single-core performance compared to the preceding generation.
However, renowned YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead claims that Arrow Lake may well see a 25% to 35% performance boost compared to the current Meteor Lake generation. This shows that there’s some conflicting reports on exactly how powerful the next generation will be.
For the initial launch of Arrow Lake, Intel isn’t expected to improve upon the maximum 24-core setup (8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores). This is supported by a recent report by Extreme Tech, which suggests an Arrow Lake chip has been spotted with 24 threads.
However, Moore’s Law Is Dead suggests that Intel is planning to refresh Arrow Lake at a later date, doubling the number of efficiency cores (from 16 to 32) to take the total core count up to 40.
Moore’s Law is Dead also claims that Intel will ditch hyperthreading for the new generation, with the company seemingly happy with the multi-core performance without the technology.
Intel will apparently be improving the memory support too, potentially supporting up to DDR5-6400. It’s also been speculated that the new integrated graphics could be based on Arc Alchemist.
Those hoping for a greater push for AI performance may be disappointed. Moore’s Law Is Dead has suggested there won’t be much of an upgrade for the NPU, which means AI performance won’t differ too much to the Meteor Lake series. In fact, the leaker estimates that AMD may well steal a lead in this area for the foreseeable future for desktop processors.
That’s all we know about Intel Arrow Lake for now, but we’ll be sure to update this article as soon as we see more rumours and reports for the next generation of Intel processors.
The Trusted Take
There’s still a long way to go until Intel Arrow Lake arrives, but the first signs sound promising. The jump to a new process would be huge news for Intel, which should hopefully result in a big performance boost over previous processor generations.
It’s a shame that we’ll seemingly need to wait until an Intel Arrow Lake refresh for the increased core count, but it’s still nevertheless an exciting time to be an Intel fan.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
