Intel Desktop CPU Rumors: Raptor Lake-S Refresh In October Arrow Lake-S In Late 2024 Xeon W-2500 & W-3500 HEDT Refresh In 1H 2024

While Meteor Lake shakes up things for laptops this year, Intel has three product families planned for mainstream and HEDT desktops in the form of Raptor Lake-S Refresh, Arrow Lake-S & Sapphire Rapids Xeon W Refresh.

Intel Raptor Lake-S Refresh Launches In October, Arrow Lake-S In Late 2024, Sapphire Rapids HEDT Xeon W In 1H 2024

The latest information comes from leaker, Enthusiast Citizen at Bilibili, who has information about three desktop product families launching between 2023-2024. First up is the most obvious and we are going to get the Raptor Lake-S Refresh family which will be branded under the 14th Gen "Core" family. The Intel Raptor Lake-S Refresh desktop CPUs are expected to feature faster clocks, higher power consumption, and better support for higher-frequency memory. These CPUs are expected to hit retail shelves in October this year.

To sum things up according to the rumor:

• Raptor Lake-S Refresh "Unlocked" - October 2023
• Raptor Lake-S Refresh "Locked" - November - December 2023
• Arrow Lake-S - Late 2024 - Early 2025
• Xeon W-2500/W-3500 - Early 2024

In addition to the Intel Raptor Lake-S Refresh "K" Unlocked SKUs, the company will also introduce the Non-K parts between November and December. There are reports that Intel has added a new SKU that implements an 8 P-Core and 12 E-Core configurations but it isn't confirmed if such SKU will make its way to retail. But it will definitely be an interesting choice to upgrade the Core i7 CPU lineup to more E-Cores. All CPUs will be compatible with existing 600 and 700 series motherboards which feature the LGA 1700/1800 socket.

As for the proper desktop upgrade, that isn't expected until late 2024 or even early 2025. The Intel Arrow Lake-S CPUs will mark a major transition in terms of architecture, featuring the latest P-Core and E-Core designs. The new CPUs will be compatible with the next-gen LGA 1851 socket but will retain the 8 P-Core and 16 E-Core designs.

There are conflicting rumors with some pointing to just 6+8 Arrow Lake-S configurations while others talk about up to 40 core configurations but nothing is set in stone unless Intel reveals it themselves. They will be based on TSMC's 3nm process node but we don't know if that's for the entire chip or a specific tile since Arrow Lake CPUs utilize a multi-tiled architecture.

Lastly, we have the Intel HEDT update which will come in the form of the Xeon W-2500 and Xeon W-3500 series which replaces the existing Xeon W-2400 and Xeon W-3500 series. These Sapphire Rapids Xeon-W refresh CPUs will also be compatible with the existing W790 motherboards. Intel will be releasing an updated Emerald Rapids design for its servers but it is not known if the same design will ship with the refreshed Sapphire Rapids chips. Both 4th Gen & 5th Gen Xeon CPUs are compatible on the same platforms.

Overall, it is definitely an interesting lineup but whether it will be enough to tackle the AMD Ryzen 8000 CPUs featuring the Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 core architectures next year remains to be seen. The company has an Innovation event planned for 19th September so we can expect more details then.

Intel Desktop CPU Core Count Progression:

Family Name	Total Cores	Total Threads	P-Cores	E-Cores	Top SKU Frequency	Year
Sandy Bridge	4	8	N/A	N/A	3.90 GHz	2011
Ivy Bridge	4	8	N/A	N/A	3.90 GHz	2012
Haswell	4	8	N/A	N/A	4.00 GHz	2013
Broadwell	4	8	N/A	N/A	3..80 GHz	2014
Skylake	4	8	N/A	N/A	4.20 GHz	2015
Kaby Lake	4	8	N/A	N/A	4.50 GHz	2017
Coffee Lake	6	12	N/A	N/A	5.00 GHz	2017
Coffee Lake Refresh	8	16	N/A	N/A	5.00 GHz	2018
Comet Lake	10	20	N/A	N/A	5.30 GHz	2020
Rocket Lake	8	16	N/A	N/A	5.30 GHz	2021
Alder Lake	16	24	8	8	5.50 GHz	2021
Raptor Lake	24	32	8	16	6.00 GHz	2022
Raptor Lake Refresh	24	32	8	16	6.20 GHz?	2023
Meteor Lake	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	~2024
Arrow Lake	40	48	8	32	TBD	~2024
Panther Lake	40	48	8	32	TBD	~2025
Beast Lake	80	96	16	64	TBD	~2026

Written by Hassan Mujtaba