Intel has seemingly confirmed the launch windows for both its Arrow Lake Refresh and Nova Lake desktop CPUs. According to several reports, the chipmaker will launch the new processors in 2026 and spill into 2027.
Intel had earlier confirmed that it planned on launching an updated Arrow Lake Refresh silicon, given how the current Arrow Lake lineup fell short of its performance expectations. In our review of the Core Ultra 9 285K, we found the CPU to be on par with the 14900K with a better performance-per-watt, but ultimately, it was still outpaced by AMD’s own Ryzen 9 7950X.
Arrow Lake Refresh is now expected to make its debut in 2026, which means that Intel is giving 2025 a miss. To that end, Nova Lake is looking more likely to launch the following year, in 2027.
And while it is also still unconfirmed, Intel hasn’t been clear about the naming convention for both desktop CPU lineups. Currently, Arrow Lake-S goes by the Core Ultra 200 moniker. While still speculation, the LGA1851 refresh could be called Core Ultra 300, but again, that is assuming that Intel chooses to stay the course with the way it designates its products. Remember, both the 13th and 14th generation CPUs are essentially Raptor Lake, the latter generation being the refresh.
Nova Lake, then, will most likely be known as Core Ultra 400, and will also introduce a new LGA1954 socket to the PC world. Further, the new lineup could features SKUs that scale up from 28-cores to 52-cores, although these rumours remain highly unsubstantiated at current.
(Source: Videocardz, Hot Hardware)
