Intel rumored to release Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs with higher clock speeds later this year

Intel will reportedly be releasing its "Arrow Lake Refresh" CPUs later this year, with some slight CPU clock speed increases and the reinforcement of the NPU for AI workloads.

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In a new report from ZDNet Korea, we're hearing that the new Arrow Lake-S Refresh processors will have slightly more performance over the current Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" chips, with a release in the second half of the year. As it stands, there are 22 models of Arrow Lake CPUs on the market, with 5 x Core Ultra 200S chips for the desktop with overclocking released in October 2024, with another 17 models without OC abilities earlier this year.

ZDNet reports: "Arrow Lake Refresh, which will be released in the second half of this year, is expected to target AI demand with a slight increase in operating clock and replacement of NPU".

Earlier this year, Intel released performance-boosting firmware for motherboards and its Core Ultra 200S processors at CES 2025, as well as the "200S Boost" at Computex 2025 in May, which boosted memory operating clocks for RAM. The 200S Boost feature increases the operating speed of the SOC tile that manages memory, as well as the four tiles built into the Core Ultra 200S-K processor up to 600MHz, and the memory operating speed by up to 800MHz.

Intel says that this feature improves FPS in gaming by up to 10% which is nothing to sneeze at, but I don't think we can expect those types of leaps (or maybe at about that increase: 10%) with its Arrow Lake Refresh processors later this year. The biggest feature with the Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs will come from the newer NPU inside, as the Core Ultra 200S chips have an "NPU 3" built-in, versus the new "NPU 4" that's expected in the Arrow Lake Refresh family of processors.