Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake-S desktop CPUs are shaping up to be a significant upgrade over the current Raptor Lake generation, with leaked information pointing to notable performance gains and enhanced AI capabilities.
Performance Improvements
According to reports from engineering samples:
- Single-thread performance: Up to 3% increase
- Multi-thread performance: Up to 15% increase
These figures are based on early ES2 (Engineering Sample 2) chips tested at 250W TDP. The final production versions are expected to show even greater improvements, potentially reaching:
- 5%+ single-thread performance gain
- Nearly 20% multi-thread performance boost
Enhanced Cache Structure
Arrow Lake-S is set to feature an improved cache configuration:
- P-Cores: 3MB L2 cache (up from 2MB on Raptor Lake)
- E-Cores: 4MB L2 cache per cluster (unchanged)
- Total L3 cache: Up to 36MB (matching Raptor Lake)
The top-end 8P+16E core configuration is expected to offer a combined cache pool of 76MB, a 12% increase over Raptor Lake.
AI Acceleration Boost
One of the most significant upgrades comes in the form of AI acceleration capabilities:
- GPU AI performance: 9 TOPS (3x increase from Raptor Lake)
- New dedicated NPU: 13 TOPS
- CPU AI performance: 15 TOPS (87.5% increase)
This results in a combined 37 AI TOPS for Arrow Lake-S, putting it in close competition with AMD's upcoming Ryzen 8000G series.
Platform Enhancements
Arrow Lake-S will introduce several platform improvements:
- PCIe Hot-Plug support
- Increased eSPI device support
- Addition of I3C interfaces
- Improved audio capabilities
Release Timeline
Intel is targeting an October 2024 release for Arrow Lake-S, alongside new Z890 motherboards on the LGA 1851 socket. This positions the new chips to compete directly with AMD's Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series, expected to launch a few months earlier.
While these early reports are promising, it's important to note that final specifications and performance may change as Intel refines the architecture closer to launch. Tech enthusiasts and PC builders should keep an eye out for further updates as we approach the official release.