Intel introduced desktop processors Core Ultra 200S with the designation Arrow Lake

In August, we saw the release of a new generation of AMD Ryzen 9000 processors with Zen 5 architecture. Expectations were quite high, but the result, at least, disappointed the players. The change in game performance was minimal, and the new architecture turned out to be good mostly on servers. Thus, attention has turned to Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake processors, which were officially unveiled today, as reported by Wccftech magazine or the Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel. However, if your priority is gaming performance, then even the new product from Intel will not please you.

Cores

Arrow Lake is the first desktop architecture from Intel to use chiplets. The company has already tested them with purely laptop processors Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake. Arrow Lake has a lot in common with the second architecture mentioned and uses the same one. Lion Cove P-Cores And Skymont electron cores. For more powerful cores, Intel promises approx. 9% increase in IPC opposite Raptor Bay and larger L2 cache (3 MB vs 2 MB), but Skymont’s performance cores are much more impressive.

The company promises an average level in the presentation of the desktop Skymont Increase IPC by 32% for integer operations and even 72% for floating point operations.if we are talking about performance per thread. In a multi-core load it’s 32% and 55% respectively, all of course compared to the Gracemont cores used in Raptor Lak and Alder Lak.

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

iGPU

At the same time, Intel will release processors for desktop PCs for the first time. integrated Xe graphicswhich is known as Arc in desktop versions. But this is the first generation with a label Alchemistrather than the Xe2 Battlemage used by mobile Lunar Lake.

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

Despite this, the Xe offers a significant improvement over previous iGPUs. Support AV1 encoding, ray tracingAPI DirectX 12 Ultimate or scaling XeSS, but via DP4athat is, the standardized version that also works on AMD or Nvidia cards, not the better XMX version.

NPU

For the first time, Intel also has an NPU, or AI computing chip, on a desktop computer, but it only provides performance. 13 TOPswhich is significantly less than Lunar Lake laptop processors. On the other hand, the NPU is not so necessary on desktop computers, since the graphics card can take over the calculations.

Consumption

The main topic of Intel at the presentation of new processors was not performance, but consumption. Raptor Lake was known for its high consumption, so it is not surprising that with the transition to a new architecture and manufacturing process (TSMK N3B) consumption should decrease. For games, Intel promises average reduction in total system consumption of 73 Walthough it may be up to 165 Wthis value was measured by the company in Space Marine 2. Lower consumption is also due to lower temperatures, where Intel promises on average 13 degrees Celsius less.

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

The drop in performance consumption should be even more pronounced where Intel tested, such as the Cinebench test or light tasks like Zoom calls. The reduction in consumption in this case ranged from 42 to 58%.in the case of Zoom, it was reduced by less than half.

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

Game performance (compared to Raptor Lake)

But back to gaming, where Intel promises better performance per watt than you’d expect. However, the execution itself will not change much, quite the contrary.. In the graph comparing the older model Core Ultra 9 285K with the Core i9-14900K, we see that performance is at an average level. almost the same, although in some titles we find smaller and larger regressionsin Far Cry 6 even 13%.

Gaming performance (compared to Zen 5)

In a graph that Intel called “Clash of the Titans,” we see what Arrow Lake offers on average about the same performance as the competing Ryzen 9 9950Xbut the advantages and disadvantages reached double digits.

Performance (compared to Raptor Lake and Zen 5)

The situation is already more positive with work applications, where productivity gains occurred despite removing hyperthreading. Per-core performance of the Core Ultra 9285K (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, 24 threads) is expected to be 8% higher on average than the 14900K (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, 32 threads) . threads) and Performance is 4% higher than the competing Ryzen 9 9950X. (16 cores, 32 threads). With a multi-core load this is 15% compared to 14900K and 13% compared to 9950X.

productvszen52 | Source: Intel

productvszen5 | Source: Intel

However, it should be added that Arrow Lake was here. tested with maximum consumption set to 250W. In other words you lose any efficiency advantageYou will only see it here if you set the BIOS limit to 125 W.

Overall performance (compared to Zen 4 V-Cache)

Intel also offered an interesting comparison to AMD’s previous generation 3D processors, in other words, processors with V-Cache, namely the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. In terms of gaming performance, these are still the most powerful models AMD offers. And it is in games that it turns out that Intel is losing That’s why he chose only 5 games here, but even in them the AMD processor performs better on average. Against Arrow Lake has always had an advantage in production applicationsin three even double digit numbers.

Socket

Before we get into the models themselves, it’s worth mentioning the fact that Arrow Lake is moving to new socketwhich bears the designation LGA1851. It should offer up to 48 PCIe lanes, of which 20 are PCIe 5.0, up to 10 USB 3.2 (of which up to 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2), up to 14 USB 2.0 and up to 8 SATA 3.0. The platform should also support up to two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

Source: Intel

Source: Intel

Base memory support is now 6400 MT/s and the “sweet spot” should be 8000 MT/s. The socket supports modules up to 48 GB and a total of up to 192 GB of RAM. Needless to say, we’re already having fun only about DDR5Support for the old DDR4 standard is no longer available for the new socket.

Models, price and release date

But now to the processors themselves. The flagship will be the already mentioned Core Ultra 9 285K with 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores (24 threads) with a maximum frequency of 5.7 GHz. The price tag is set at US$589.

He’s second in order Core Ultra 7 265Kwhich will offer 8 P-cores, 12 E-cores and a maximum frequency of 5.5 GHz for the price $394.

We’re finally here Core Ultra 5 245Kwhich, like the previous generation, will offer a combination of 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores, the maximum clock frequency will then be 5.2 GHz, and the price tag will be set at $309.

All the models mentioned above have integrated graphics with 4 Xe cores. But there will be Ultra 7 and Ultra 5 also available option “F” without iGPUthe price is of course lower. The 265KF will cost $379 and the 245KF will cost $294.

The initial line of processors has been released, which will be supplemented with other options in the future October 24.