More Intel Arrow Lake CPU samples have been spotted in S, HX, & H flavors with higher base clocks than Raptor Lake chips.
Intel Might Offer Much Higher Base Clocks With Its Next-Gen Arrow Lake CPUs On Desktop & Mobile Platforms, 24 Core "S" & "HX" SKUs Up To 3.6 GHz
Although Intel has been very tight-lipped about its Arrow Lake "Core Ultra 200" CPUs as the chip maker focuses its attention on the imminent Lunar Lake launch which is a crucial product for the company's "AI PC" endeavors, several Arrow Lake chips have been surfacing over the last few months and we have some new updates courtesy of @InstLatX64.
Three new chips have been discovered within Intel's test platforms and log files for these systems have revealed some interesting details. The three chips include an Arrow Lake-S 24-core, Arrow Lake-HX 24-core, & an Arrow Lake-H 16-core part. While the core configurations are nothing new since 24C/24T and 16C/16T chips have appeared in the past too, what's interesting are the base clock speeds.
The Intel Arrow Lake-S 24 Core and 24 Thread chip is rated at a base clock of 3.6 GHz which is up +600 MHz from the previous entry (3.0 GHz) and +400 MHz up from the previous desktop flagship, the Core i9-14900K. Similarly, the Intel Arrow Lake-HX 24 core and 24 thread chip, which should use a die configuration similar to the desktop SKU, has been spotted 3.0 GHz base clock and this is up +800 MHz versus the previous HX flagship, the Core i9-14900HX.
- Alder Lake-S (12900K) - 3.20 GHz
- Raptor Lake-S (13900K) - 3.00 GHz
- Raptor Lake-S R (14900K)- 3.20 GHz
- Arrow Lake-S (285K?) - 3.60 GHz
Lastly, we have the Intel Arrow Lake-H SKU which is a 16-core and 16-thread part using a 6+8+2 config (Lion Cove P-Core + Skymont E-Core + Crestmont LP-E Core). This chip features a base clock speed of up to 3.5 GHz which is a +1200 MHz frequency increase over the current-gen flagship, the Core Ultra 9 185H.
- Meteor Lake-H - 2.3 GHz
- Arrow Lake-H - 3.5 GHz
If these are indeed the base clock speeds of the new Intel Arrow Lake CPUs, then Intel has really tuned them to be much higher than the existing parts and we know that the upcoming lineup is going to be a bit more power-efficient than the 14th Gen Raptor Lake and 1st Gen Core Ultra chips so things are sounding great for the lineup. Furthermore, it looks like new information has revealed that Intel has managed to up the clock speeds of its desktop lineup to 5.7 GHz from the 5.5 GHz of the early ES samples.
The 5.7 GHz speeds should match AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 9950X CPU which offers 16 Zen 5 cores, 32 threads, and a clock speed of up to 5.7 GHz. The speed will be lower than the Core i9-13900K by -100 MHz but the IPC improvements should make up for the clock speed regression. Plus this is a new node while 13th and 14th Gen chips used a refined "Intel 7" process and only then were they able to hit such high clock speeds.
That generation started with boost clocks of up to 5.2 GHz with the Core i9-12900K and the latter chips had to make use of very high power consumption to meet the advertised clock rates which did result in several issues that users are currently facing. Intel had to revise the power limits which meant that the clock speeds and performance would be degraded to ensure stability across games and applications.
Intel's Arrow Lake-S CPUs are likely going to be the first iteration of the new family & are expected to launch in October followed by the mobility parts launching in late 2024 or early 2025 (CES timeframe). The desktop lineup will be accompanied by the new Z890 motherboards which were showcased at Computex 2024, featuring the brand new LGA 1851 socket.
