There are still a few months to go until we expect Core Ultra 200 series processors to hit store shelves, but Intel is of course quietly testing its Arrow Lake CPU architecture right now. As chips leave the factory and enter the wild, though, the potential for leaks grows exponentially. Lo and behold, an alleged engineering sample’s specs are now available for all to see.
This leak is the closest look we’ve had at what should be one of Intel’s best CPUs to date. While much still remains unknown about Arrow Lake, this Core Ultra 200 series sample shines a light on some key specs, including clock speed and TDP.
We have regular hardware leaker wxnod to thank for this latest Arrow Lake leak. In an X post, they share a screenshot of CPU-Z running on an Intel Core Ultra 200 series processor. Naturally, they obfuscate some fields to protect the identity of their source. However, there are some potentially revelatory details to digest from the image.
Right off the bat, the Core Speed field catches my eye with a value of ‘5000.00MHz’ (5GHz). Prior to this leak, we’d seen another Arrow Lake CPU running at 6.2GHz. It’s possible that overclocking was in play for the earlier example. Alternatively this engineering sample could be a lower SKU or not reflective of final clocks.
What is certain, however, is that this is a K SKU processor. The 125W TDP gives away its identity, referring to a Core Ultra 200 series TDP table recently published online. Should this be reflective of final silicon, we should expect similar base power draw Intel’s prior generation of processors like Core i7-14700K and up.
Hopefully, we shouldn’t see power draws akin to Core i9-14900K though. Arrow Lake is the first CPU architecture from Intel to be built with the company’s Intel 4 process. It’s described in the screenshot as 7nm, but this is an error on the part of CPU-Z. This shift should see efficiency increase and thus bring temperatures down, alongside potential Socket LGA 1851 improvements.
We expect to see Core Ultra 200 series processors launch in October. With engineering samples doing the rounds two-three months before launch, this seems likely. Arrow Lake faces a potentially massive uphill battle against AMD’s Zen 5 CPUs, and we can’t wait to see how this competition pans out.