The competition between AMD and Intel continues to simmer away, providing great processors for us to test and use inside more powerful systems. AMD’s Ryzen chips are built on a more efficient platform, allowing the company to draw out more performance without sucking too much power. Intel is struggling with this in its fabrication plants, but we’re hopeful about the upcoming 15th-gen Arrow Lake launch.
That’s right, all eyes are set on Intel’s upcoming 15th-gen Arrow Lake launch, as it could potentially bring it back to AMD and maintain healthy competition. There’s still a lot that we don’t know about these chips, but here’s everything we know so far for those who are curious and can’t wait to see what Intel has in store for us.
Intel should be able to shrink its process node
Smaller usually means better
We’re fully expecting Intel to bring a new platform and processors, which will be built on its 20A process, the equivalent of a 2nm manufacturing process. For perspective, Intel’s 14th-gen chips are built using a 7nm process, behind AMD with TMSC’s 5nm process. The smaller the process, the more transistors can be crammed onto the silicon, and the better the performance or efficiency. This would be a substantial upgrade for Intel, which has lagged the competition with its internal struggles.
There have been rumors and speculation online about how much of an impact this will have on the 15th-gen processors from Intel. A post on AnandTech’s forum suggests we should see an approximate 15% gain for multi-core performance. What we are expecting to see is some form of improvement over the current generation of processors. Raptor Lake Refresh wasn’t brilliant but bought Intel some time to focus on putting everything in place to make Arrow Lake happen.
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Intel LGA1851 “Arrow Lake” socket details
For next-gen Arrow Lake-S CPUs and beyond
Details of the next-gen LGA1851 socket have been out for a while now, thanks to both 2D and 3D renders that were churned out by Igor’s Lab. It’s said that Intel’s next-generation LGA1851 socket was originally intended for Meteor Lake-S desktop processors. But it’s now making it way to 800 series chipset motherboards for Arrow Lake-S desktop processors, as the Meteor Lake is, well, a mobile-only processor generation.
The overall physical dimensions of the LGA1851 socket will remain largely the same as the LGA1700 socket, with just a minor difference in the z-height. This distance, in case you are wondering, is the difference from the top of the motherboard to the top of the CPU IHS. This may prompt CPU cooler manufacturers to churn out the necessary hardware. It’s not a major concern, though, as Intel may have already sent out the necessary documents to manufacturers that list the changes we will see with Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs and the LGA1851 socketed platform.
The LGA1851 socket is expected to bring a slew of changes to the table, with the first one being its ability to directly connect a dedicated PCIe 5.0 x4 interface to the CPU. This is in addition to the x16 lanes going to the GPU, meaning it will result in native support for PCIe 5.0 SSDs that can achieve insanely high read and write speeds.
AI Inside
There’s that buzz word again
Artificial intelligence (AI) is still the hot topic of the day and we are expecting Intel to capitalize on demand. Arrow Lake processors may utilize the Intel Ce-LPG Plusm GPU architecture, which will benefit from Extended Matrix Extensions (XMX), an AI acceleration engine. This would enable the new Intel chips to expedite data processing, as well as boost graphics and video performance. Intel is marketing Arrow Lake as the “world’s first gaming CPUs with [an] You have accelerator.”
With the rise of the AI PC, Intel positioning itself with accelerators integrated into the CPU package puts it in a strong position against AMD.
Arrow Lake may have a late 2024 launch
With no Hyper-Threading and DDR4 support
Intel teased Arrow Lake with a 2024 or 2025 launch, though we fully expect the company to roll out the new processor family later this year.
In terms of what we will be seeing for cores and threads, that’s anyone’s guess. But if the leaks and rumors are something to go by, then it looks like Intel Arrow Lake-S desktop processors will feature up to 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores for a total of 24 cores and 32 threads. That, in case you are wondering, is similar to the existing 14th and 13th Gen flagship CPUs on the market. The chips are also said to come in up to 125W PL1 TDPs and feature a 3.5 GHz base clock at max.
The leaks also indicate no Hyper-threading with mentions of 8 IA cores and 8 threads. A few other sources have also put out similar information, suggesting no Hyper-Threading support in the Arrow Lake chipset. The Arrow Lake chips, however, are said to have an NPU that should offer similar performance to that of the Meteor Lake NPU. The Arrow Lake chips are also said to ditch the support for DDR4 memory, so you may have to splurge on some DDR5 memory kits.
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Hold out for the launch
As with AMD processors, as well as Nvidia GPUs, I’d recommend holding out until we learn more ahead of launch and when performance figures have been confirmed. Modern processors (and I’m talking AMD Ryzen 6000 and Intel Core 12000 series) are fantastic chips with plenty of power to handle more demanding games and software. It’s not required to upgrade to the latest and greatest to enjoy a smooth and stable experience. The same goes for Arrow Lake, so we’ll have to see how good these chips are.