Intel has unveiled the new Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake chips, its next-generation silicon platform for desktop computers billed as an official successor to Lunar Lake.
The five new chips in the series include the base 245K and 245KF versions (Core Ultra 5), the more powerful 265K and 265KF (Core Ultra 7), and the flagship 285K (Core Ultra 9). Intel designed the Core Ultra 200S series to accelerate graphics, compute, and AI workloads, sporting a thermal design power of 125W and a 159-250W power draw (varies by chip).
The company quotes 30% lower power consumption, 2x graphics performance, and 10% faster multi-threaded performance than its fourteenth-generation Core platform. The chips integrate support for Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt 4, with a 33% reduction in package size. The CPUs are paired with DDR5-6400 memory with up to 2 channels, with the maximum amount of RAM capped at 192GB in a 4x48GB configuration. Unfortunately, Intel has changed the sockets (again!), so you’re going to need new motherboards like Intel’s upcoming Z890.
These are also Intel’s desktop first processors to bring an integrated neural processing unit (NPU), referring to a specialized coprocessor designed for accelerating AI and machine learning tasks. The NPU is the same across the chips, capable of performing 13 trillion operations per second (TOPS). By comparison, Intel’s laptop Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake chips have a 48-TOPS NPU.
The 14-core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF feature six performance cores for demanding applications and eight efficiency cores for power-sipping tasks, with a maximum power draw of 159W and up to 5.2 GHz in boost mode. The 245K and 245KF are equipped with 24MB of smart cache, 26MB of Level 2 cache, and an integrated four-core GPU, limited to 1.9 GHz.
The spec sheet for the Core Ultra 7 265K and 265KF reveals a 20-core CPU comprising eight performance cores and twelve efficiency ones. Both of these chips sport a maximum power draw of 250W and feature 30MB of Smart Cache and 36MB of L2 Cache. They can boost their CPU clock frequency to up to 5.5 GHz, thanks to Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost technology which used to be exclusive to the Core i9 series. The 265K and 265KF also bring integrated Intel Xe-LP graphics with a GPU clocked at 2.0 GHz.
Lastly, the flagship 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K uses eight Lion Cove performance cores and sixteen Skymont efficient cores with 36MB of Smart Cache and 40MB of L2 Cache. The Thermal Velocity Boost feature can boost the CPU clock frequency all the way up to 5.7 GHz, while the integrated GPU is clocked at 2.0 GHz.
However, a slide from Intel’s presentation indicates that the 285K will actually be slower for gaming than its Core i9-14900K. In Intel’s testing, the 285K was capable of 261 frames per second on average versus 264 frames per second for the 14900K. On the other hand, the new 285K consumes less power than the 14900K (447W vs. 527W).
The latest Core Ultra 200S Series lineup should be available by the end of October, and they should start showing up in prebuilt PCs by the end of 2024.
Source: Intel
