As Intel plans to release Panther Lake as a mobile-only architecture, most understandably assumed that the company would have nothing new to offer desktop users in 2025. However, it seems that Team Blue could return to previously cancelled plans of an Arrow Lake Refresh to plug the gap between Nova Lake. This should bring prolonged life to the LGA1851 platform albeit with minimal performance gains.
Leaker Golden Pig Upgrade claims in a Weibo post that Intel plans to resurrect Arrow Lake Refresh, quoting a previous post of theirs describing its cancellation. A translated version of their leak includes the phrase “It is really so strange,” and it’s difficult not to agree.
What would Arrow Lake Refresh amount to? Sadly, not much if rumours hold true. While Intel was considering core counts on prospective Core Ultra 300 Series processors, more recent whispers claim the company has scrapped these plans. Instead it aims to improve NPU performance alone, from the 13 TOPS found in Core Ultra 9 285K to a more potent 48 TOPS.
This technically make Arrow Lake Refresh SKUs compliant with Microsoft’s Copilot+ specification, removing the need for dedicated graphics to pick up the slack. A small plus, but one that will likely help boost sales however slightly relative to woefully underperforming Core Ultra 200S.
Arrow Lake Refresh will likely face down the same Zen 5 rivals as its predecessor, with Ryzen 9 9950X3D setting the bar at the high-end later this year. Intel faces 3D V-Cache in the mobile market too, with Ryzen 9 9955HX3D shaping up to be a beast at both gaming and productivity. How well Panther Lake compares on the latter front is anyone’s guess for now but it’s not a fight I’d want to pick.
I’m hopeful that Intel can pick itself back up again following the muted response to Core Ultra 200S and, more recently, Arc B570. Even the company’s more-successful stab at dedicated graphics, Arc B580, sadly wasn’t without controversy. This space needs competition in order to thrive and right now it’s sorely lacking.
