Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)

A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
(Image credit: Future)

Speculation on whether or not Intel is planning to release a refreshed design of its Arrow Lake chips has been swirling once again. The chip maker has done everything it can to quash talk around a new Arrow Lake iteration, including confirm the 2026 release of its successor, Nova Lake. That won't be enough, however as Videocardz has spotted more Arrow Lake refresh talk out in the wilds.

Weibo is a popular Chinese social media microblogging site, and is often a great source for leaks, or just weirdly specific speculation that turns out to be true. Even with that primer, I understand if the following sentence sounds a little weird. Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, a Weibo user known for sharing information on upcoming Intel products, says the Arrow Lake refresh is confirmed and that it will be coming to both laptops and desktop variations.

That's apparently all the information we get on that for now, but I'm not one to look a gift golden pig in the mouth. If previous rumours still hold true this points to a version of Arrow Lake chips, such as the Intel Core Ultra 9 285, with an improved neural processing unit (NPU), as opposed to one with more cores. This is inline with Intel going all in on the AI processing of the unit, which would make some sense in the current climate.

Though with the questionable success of 'AI PCs' and the limited power of NPUs compared with GPUs we're still waiting on a true killer use case for the extra AI silicon CPU folk keep jamming into their cores.

What doesn't make a tonne of sense is everything else. Arrow Lake didn't exactly hit its target at launch, with most being pretty underwhelmed by the chips. Even after the second round of upgrades launched with fixes, you still won't hear much praise for this generation of chips.

We've also already seen Intel's plans for new gaming laptop CPUs with the new Core Ultra 200HX series announced in January. Though it's likely any refresh we see will be a Core Ultra 300 series instead. It'll be interesting to see how closely they release. That is, of course, if these rumours prove true.

There's a fairly good chance Intel is posed to do something like this. We don't often see rumours resurrect from the dead unless there's something behind it. Plus, it's pretty on-brand. Intel has been known to sneakily slide out processor refreshes, and Arrow Lake could do with literally anything to refresh its reputation. Here's hoping whatever comes out is a bit more inspiring than what we've seen so far.

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
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Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
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Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here. No, she’s not kidding. 

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