Those eagerly anticipating next-generation desktop processors from Intel may need to wait a little longer. According to recent reports, the brand has pushed back the launch of its Core Ultra 200K CPUs by a week for undisclosed reasons.
If true, this would mean both the best CPUs of this year from both AMD and Intel will have suffered last minute delays. Team Blue is yet to cement a release date for its Core Ultra 200K processors, but rumours previously pinned the reveal on October 10, with a retail launch following on October 17. This comes just a month after the first Lunar Lake chips hit the market in laptops.
This claim comes via hkepcmedia on X, with outlets such as WCCFTech corroborating its legitimacy. As mentioned, the reason behind the delay is currently unknown to all outside of Intel. It’s unlikely that we’ll get an official statement from the brand on the matter, but never say never.
In any case, this provides some breathing room for Intel and partners to provide an additional touch of polish to the launch, avoiding any mishaps. It could be that this extra time is in service of stacking up stock. In the immediate future, only Core Ultra 200K SKUs will be available, with recent price leaks putting them as direct replacements to current 14th Gen Core chips.
Non-K SKUs will presumably follow at a later date, likely around CES 2025. Likewise, expect to see more affordable chipsets (B860/H810) make their debut months after H870 motherboards.
Regarding Core Ultra 200K specs, a leak from earlier this year seemingly reveals core configurations and more. The flagship chip, Core Ultra 9 285K, will feature eight performance cores and 16 efficient cores. That’s a mirror for Core i9-14900K, albeit with newer architectures.
After the equally comical and tragic performance uplifts offered by Ryzen 9000 processors, we hope Intel can give us the desktop processor we launch we all need. Competition is king, after all.