Fresh leaks & rumors surrounding Intel's next-gen Core CPU families, including Arrow Lake Refresh, Panther Lake & Nova Lake, have surfaced.
Intel's Next-Gen Arrow Lake Refresh, Panther Lake & Nova Lake "Core Ultra" CPUs Detailed In A Fresh Round of Leaks & Rumors
Well, it looks like there's a lot to talk about and while none of the information shared here is official, it is stated by sources with a very accurate history. One of these sources is @Jaykihn, who has posted credible Intel information; the second is Golden Pig Upgrade at Weibo, who also has a great track record. But since this isn't official information, it means that Intel could change its course with those product lines that we will discuss below.
Arrow Lake Refresh Resurrected?
The first rumor comes from Golden Pig Upgrade about Intel's Arrow Lake Refresh CPU family. The Intel Arrow Lake refresh CPU family was initially planned to be the follow-up to the current lineup & was going to be tagged under the Core Ultra Series 3 chips. These chips were going to incorporate the latest NPU architecture, which would have led to a bigger die size & offer higher AI TOPS versus the 13 TOPS on the existing Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake" chips.
According to @Jaykihn, Intel's current roadmap features a vast array of NPU architectures following the NPU4 which is incorporated into Lunar Lake CPUs. These include the NPU5, which will offer 18–50 TOPS in 1-3 Tiled configurations, while the NPU6 architecture will feature up to 75 TOPS in a 4-tiled design. Intel's own drivers have confirmed the NPU5 architecture for Panther Lake and NPU6 architecture for future CPUs such as Nova Lake.
NPU2.7:
11-13 TOPS, 2 tilesNPU4:
40-48 TOPS, 5-6 tilesNPU5:
18-50 TOPS, 1-3 tilesNPU6:
75 TOPS, 4 tiles— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) February 6, 2025
The following are the compute capabilities of existing and those expected of next-gen NPUs:
- NPU1 - 0.5 TOPs
- NPU2 - 7.0 TOPs
- NPU3 - 11.5 TOPs
- NPU4 - 48.0 TOPs
- NPU5 - ~50 TOPS
- NPU6 - ~75 TOPS
The Intel Arrow Lake Refresh lineup was going to cover both Desktop & Mobility segments until its cancellation rumors emerged last year. However, with the latest updates, it looks like Intel may once again be bringing the refresh out of the grave. Other things we can expect from the lineup are better optimizations for gaming at launch, which still isn't the case with the existing Core Ultra 200S lineup.
Intel Panther Lake & Wildcat Lake Configurations Further Outlined
The next lineup is the follow-up to Arrow Lake in the form of Panther Lake. Panther Lake is going to be a mobile-only lineup and will exclude On-Package memory solutions like the ones we saw on the Lunar Lake family. Jaykihn has further outlined the configurations for the entire family, which would include at least three segments:
- Panther Lake-H SKU #1: 4P+8E+4LPE+12Xe3 (LPDDR5X & 180 TOPS)
- Panther Lake-H SKU #2: 4P+8E+4LPE+4Xe3 (LPDDR5X/DDR5 & 100 TOPS)
- Panther Lake-H SKU #3: 4P+0E+4LPE+4Xe3 (LPDDR5X/DDR5 & 100 TOPS)
As you can tell from the configurations above, the top Intel Panther Lake-H SKU will feature 4 P-cores, 8 E-Cores, and 4 LPE cores. These will be configured alongside a 12 Xe3 iGPU based on the Celestial architecture and support LPDDR5X memory. The total platform TOPS will be rated at 180, which is a significant improvement over Arrow Lake's close to 100 TOPS. The TOPS will come from 10 INT8 (CPU), 50 INT8 (NPU5) and 120 INT8 (iGPU).
The other configurations include 4+8+4 & 4+0+4 layouts with 4 Xe3 iGPU cores and 100 TOPS of AI compute. All chips will feature a total of four Thunderbolt 4 outputs. Intel will also have an entry-tier lineup called Wildcat Lake which will feature 2 P-Cores, 0 E-Cores, and 4 LPE cores with 2 Xe3 iGPUs, two TB4 ports, LPDDR5x/DDR5 memory support and a total of 40 TOPS. This lineup will be targeting budget-tier laptop designs. The Panther Lake-H lineup will be configured between 15-45W TDPs.
PTL-H 4+8+4+12, x8 G4 x4 G5, 4x TBT4, LPDDR5x, 180 TOPS (10+50+120)
PTL-H 4+8+4+4, x8 G4 x12 G5, 4x TBT4, LPDDR5x & DDR5, 100 TOPS (10+50+40)
PTL-H 4+0+4+4, x8 G4 x4 G5, 4x TBT4, LPDDR5x & DDR5, 100 TOPS (10+50+40)
WCL 2+0+4+2, x6 G4, 2x TBT4, LPDDR5x & DDR5, 40 TOPS (4+18+18)
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) February 7, 2025
In terms of memory support, Panther Lake-H CPUs will support LPDDR5X 6800/7467/8533 MT/s speeds and DDR5 6400/7200 MT/s speeds, while Wild Cat Lake CPUs will support 6800 MT/s for LPDDR5X and 6400 MT/s for DDR5 standards. A few SKUs will also come with LPCAMM2 support. Besides TB 4.0, Panther Lake-H CPUs will also support TB 5.0 functionality through a discrete PCH controller.
According to the latest information, Intel's Panther Lake CPUs are confirmed for a 2H 2025 launch and will be the first client family to feature the 18A process node. It will remain a tiled architecture, so expect lots of updates on the design and architectural front with the new Cougar Cove P-Cores and updated Skymont E-Cores.
Nova Lake Desktop CPUs With Upto 52 Cores & 144 MB Cache
Lastly, we get to talk about Intel's Nova Lake or Core Ultra Series 4 CPUs. Jaykihn responds to the rumors from a few days ago and follows up with more details regarding the lineup. It looks like the rumor did have some weight to it, and we can expect more than double the core counts on the next-generation desktop family. As per the details, Intel's Nova Lake CPUs will come in three preliminary silicon configurations which include:
- Nova Lake Silicon SKU #1: 52 Cores (16 P-Cores + 32 E-Cores + 4 LPE-Cores)
- Nova Lake Silicon SKU #2: 28 Cores (8 P-Cores + 16 E-Cores + 4 LPE Cores)
- Nova Lake Silicon SKU #3: 16 Cores (4 P-Cores + 8 E-Cores + 4 LPE Cores)
The top SKU is going to be offered in the Nova Lake-S Desktop & most likely the Nova Lake-HX Mobility lineup. This SKU will incorporate two compute titles with each offering 8 P-Cores based on the Coyote Cove and 16 E-Cores based on the Arctic Wolf architecture. There will also be 4 Arctic Wolf LPE cores on the low-power island for a total of 52 cores. It is not known if Intel will bring back hyper-threading to the table, but 52 cores is still a lot more than the 24 core count we got on Raptor Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs.
Don’t forget the LPe.
Preliminary silicon configs are:
52 (16+32+4)
28 (8+16+4)
16 (4+8+4)— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) February 7, 2025
It will be interesting to see if Intel will be able to manage the thread scheduling of this dual CPU tile design efficiently using new interconnect methods while packaging the silicon closer together than ever using advanced Foveros and EMIB packaging.
Furthermore, the P-Core-only Nova Lake series is also discussed. However, it is stated that they won't be made for consumers and there will be up to 144 MB of cache on certain models. The Intel Nova Lake CPU family is also said to support AVX10.2 and APX.
Intel Desktop CPU Generations Comparison:
| Intel CPU Family | Processor Process | Processor Architecture | Graphics Architecture | Processors Cores/Threads (Max) | Platform | Memory Support | PCIe Support | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alder Lake (12th Gen) | Intel 7 | Golden Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 16/24 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2021 |
| Raptor Lake (13th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2022 |
| Raptor Lake Refresh (14th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2023 |
| Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200) | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 24/24 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2024 |
| Arrow Lake Refresh (Core Ultra 200 Plus) | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 24/24 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2026 |
| Nova Lake (Core Ultra 400?) | TBA | Coyote Cove (P-Core) Arctic Wolf (E-Core) | Xe3 (Battlemage) | 52/52 | LGA 1954 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2026-2027? |
| Razer Lake (Core Ultra 500?) | TBA | Griffin Cove (P-Core)? Golden Eagle (E-Core)? | TBA | TBA | LGA 1954? | TBA | TBA | 2027-2028? |
| Hammer Lake (Core Ultra 700?) | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | LGA 1954? | TBA | TBA | 2029-2030? |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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