Intel’s Arrow Lake processors will hit shelves within three weeks, if the latest news from the rumor mill is true.
VideoCardz quotes multiple sources who told the tech site Intel’s planned launch schedule for the next generation of desktop CPUs, supported by a known hardware leaker on @wnxod (as indicated by Tom’s hardware).
The theory is that Intel has scheduled a prelaunch press conference for October 7, early next week, with the unveiling of the Arrow Lake processors (Core Ultra 200) to follow on October 10. The sale date is then determined. before October 24, we are told.
Intel’s Z890 motherboards – premium efforts that will cost a pretty penny in the case of high-end boards, equipped with the new socket for Arrow Lake, LGA 1851 – will also be unveiled at the same time.
In other words, you’ll need one of these new motherboards to run an Arrow Lake processor – they won’t fit into the existing socket for current 700 series motherboards for Intel chips (LGA 1700).
Analysis: Matching existing rumors – to a point
So we don’t have to wait long until we witness the official unveiling of Intel’s Arrow Lake processors next week on October 10, complete with Team Blue’s internal benchmarking, no doubt, as mentioned.
If this all makes sense, that is, and note that this alleged October 10 reveal date ties in with what we’ve heard before, giving it a bit more weight. That said, previous rumors suggested this would be followed by the Core Ultra 200 chips hitting shelves on October 17. Apparently this has now been pushed back a week (or the previous information was wrong), but it’s hardly unusual for there to be a two-week gap between the unveiling of CPUs and processors going on sale.
Sure, we’re saying that the previous information may have been incorrect, but we also have to season this new rumor (let’s face it: the new dates could be completely wrong for all we know). However, since multiple sources seem to be converging on the new dates, they seem like a good bet.
Initially, Intel will only launch ‘K’ models for the Core Ultra 200 family, led by the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K – those are CPUs that are unlocked and therefore can be overclocked by PC enthusiasts. Vanilla non-K chips, which have their clock speed locked so they can’t be upgraded in this way, are expected to follow in the first quarter of 2025 (and we recently got a telling glimpse of the Core Ultra 9 285’s performance ) .