Intel Arrow Lake support is in CPU-Z - a sign 15th-gen CPUs will arrive earlier than expected?

A new version of CPU-Z has been released and it adds preliminary support for Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake processors.

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Arrow Lake is looking like an exciting upgrade for Intel CPUs, but the worry is how late it might turn up this year (Image Credit: Intel)

As you may be aware, rumors have been swirling about the potential release timeframe of desktop Arrow Lake CPUs for some time now.

In more recent times, most of that speculation has gravitated towards the idea that Arrow Lake is going to be arriving pretty late in 2024, towards the very end of the year, if not right at the end.

Seeing initial support turn up (hat tip to VideoCardz) in the hardware monitoring utility now, though, is a faint glimmer of hope that maybe Intel's 15th-gen processors might turn up a bit earlier than the rumor mill seems to believe.

Typically, CPU-Z will add preliminary support for a CPU range around three to six months before the launch of that processor family.

For example, Rocket Lake's initial support came in October 2020 ahead of a launch in March 2021 (five months difference). Alder Lake was first added to CPU-Z in April 2021 before its launch in October 2021 (six months). With Raptor Lake, the gap was three months (added in July 2022, launched in October 2022).

So, does this make it seem like Arrow Lake might make the cut for July 2024? Well, obviously it'd be nice to think that, but given the weight of rumors plumping for later in the year, that seems highly unlikely. It does, however, suggest we might see the 15th-gen chips debut at some point in Q3, rather than Q4 which has been the wider expectation so far.

If Intel can get Arrow Lake desktop processors out in such a timelier manner, it'd be a major victory for Team Blue in terms of keeping pace with its desktop CPU rival.

Thus far it's been anticipated that AMD will beat Intel to the next-gen desktop punch. Ryzen 8000 (or maybe they'll be Ryzen 9000) desktop CPUs based on Zen 5 are expected to arrive around the middle of 2024, or maybe in Q3, so it's likely AMD will still be first to arrive on the market - but maybe not by much of a gap.

If all Intel has is some rather lackluster Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs holding the fort against Zen 5 for a meaningful amount of time, well, that's going to turn into a losing battle quite swiftly. Even though Zen 5 is not expected to be as big a leap as Zen 4 was, it'd still leave Intel in its dust if the opposition is Raptor Lake Refresh which, as the name makes clear, was just a basic refresh of the existing line-up (with one exception - the 14700K which is definitely a worthwhile upgrade).