Intel Arrow Lake CPUs might be revealed in Q3 - running interference with Ryzen 9000 launch?

Intel's Arrow Lake desktop processors might pitch up earlier than expected, or at least ahead of what the rumor mill seems to have been floating as the most likely arrival timeframe recently.

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Intel's Core Ultra 200 desktop CPUs could be arriving in a more timely manner than we anticipated (Image Credit: Intel)

If you've been following the chatter around Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200), you won't have missed a certain amount of pessimism creeping in of late.

In the early days of leaks, there was talk of massive performance gains, and while that's still true to an extent, enthusiasm about Arrow Lake seems to have been waning somewhat with suggestions that Intel is struggling to finish the next-gen desktop silicon, and that it might even get pushed to 2025. (Or at least that volume production may not happen until next year, anyway).

However, we're now hearing that maybe Intel could have an announcement for Arrow Lake planned for Q3.

That's the word from MSI's high-profile overclocker Toppc, who was talking about the next-gen (Arrow Lake) memory controller at an MSI Dragon event in China. As VideoCardz reports, Toppc mentioned that further details on the platform would be revealed in the third quarter.

So, take that with some caution, as it's a rather veiled assertion in the first place, and even if Intel is planning this right now, well, it might not work out. Given the talk about Arrow Lake being delayed, however, perhaps Team Blue might be tempted to make an announcement of some kind earlier rather than later.

Remember, this wouldn't be a release, just an initial reveal. Arrow Lake processors might be held for some time after before hitting the shelves, and even then, they could arrive in low volumes as noted before.

Guessing game

All of this is so much guesswork, but it is good to hear something a bit more positive about the potential timeframe for the debut of Team Blue's next-gen CPUs.

This even has some folks talking about a possible Computex reveal, but that's next month - and surely too early for Arrow Lake. Clearly enough, Arrow Lake won't be here until later in 2024, so a June unveiling would be jumping the gun.

Something like an August reveal, however, makes some sense - and arguably might be necessary to run interference with a possible launch of AMD's next-gen Zen 5 CPUs, which could happen in Q3, or that's another persistent rumor.

While what should be Ryzen 9000 processors may not be in for as big a performance leap as Arrow Lake, they're still promising sizeable improvements, and if they're out long enough before Intel's Core Ultra 200 chips, that's going to make life difficult for Team Blue.

Read more: Latest AMD Zen 5 CPU performance rumor probably isn't what you want to hear