Intel Arrow Lake is right around the corner

Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake processors have been the topic of much speculation in the last few months, but we’re finally at the finish line. Multiple sources are reporting that the release date we’ve been hearing about for weeks is now final, meaning that Intel’s next-gen processors are now less than a month away. Here’s what we know.

With no Intel Innovation event this year, things have been quiet as far as Arrow Lake goes — but the leaks never cease. The initial Arrow Lake (also known as Intel Core Ultra 200 series) release date that various tipsters spoke about was always said to be October 10, but a few weeks ago, it was revealed to be October 24. Now, with today’s new information, we can say with some confidence that it appears to be the final release date.

According to VideoCardz, Intel started inviting the media to a preannouncement briefing that’s set to take place on October 7. This event won’t be streamed to the public and is meant to give publications a chance to learn more about Arrow Lake before it’s officially unveiled on October 10. The October 10 date is not random — that is the date when new Z890 motherboards are said to be announced, which coincides perfectly with a Core Ultra 200 series reveal.

An Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chip embedded in a piece of glass.
Kunal Khullar / Digital Trends

Following the announcement, the CPUs are set to hit the shelves on October 24 as previously reported. These leaks have now been corroborated by several sources who report that October 24 is when the review embargo lifts — that’s usually a safe bet for when the products become available for sale.

The initial launch might only include four models, with the flagship being the Core Ultra 9 285K. We’ve already seen some leaked benchmarks of that CPU and it did a great job, but the one benchmark of the non-K version that leaked out was nowhere near as promising. As always, we won’t truly know how these chips will perform until we’ve tested them ourselves.