Intel is set to release its Arrow Lake-S desktop CPUs later this year, and leaks have provided insight into their features. One leak suggests that the Arrow Lake-S processors will come with an integrated NPU capable of 13 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This NPU, along with CPU and GPU capabilities, is expected to deliver a total of 37 TOPS of AI performance. In comparison, the Raptor Lake-S processors offer lower AI performance at 11 TOPS.
The rumored AI performance of Arrow Lake-S is on par with AMD’s Hawk Point APUs but falls short of Strix Point and Lunar Lake, which offer over 45 TOPS. The NPU performance of the Arrow Lake-S CPUs outshines AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 9000 line, which lacks an NPU but falls below the 40 TOPS benchmark required by Microsoft for its “Copilot+ PC” certification.
In addition to the NPU performance, leaks suggest that the Arrow Lake-S and Arrow Lake-HX CPUs will feature a different cache structure compared to Lunar Lake CPUs. The Arrow Lake chips are expected to come with 3MB (12-way) L2 cache per P-core and 4MB (16-way) L2 cache per E-core cluster, with 3MB of L3 cache per P-core and E-core cluster.
It is worth noting that Lunar Lake offers different cache settings with 2.5MB of L2 cache per P core and the same 4MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster. Lunar Lake CPUs also have 3MB of L3 cache for the P cores but lack a dedicated L3 cache for the LP-E cores. There may also be an Arrow Lake Refresh line in the future, potentially featuring an NPU update, although it remains unclear if it will adopt the latest NPU4 architecture seen in Lunar Lake CPUs.
Overall, the leaks surrounding Intel’s Arrow Lake-S desktop CPUs point to significant improvements in AI performance and cache configurations compared to previous processors. With the integration of a powerful NPU and enhanced cache structure, these upcoming CPUs are expected to offer a competitive edge in the desktop CPU market.
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