Intel's Core Ultra 200S CPUs will accelerate your AI tasks
Intel has launched its Core Ultra 200S processors, the company's biggest desktop refresh in three years. The new CPUs, codenamed Arrow Lake, pack many of the improvements we've already seen in Intel's Core Ultra 100 and 200 series laptop CPUs (Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake). These include a chiplet-based design, updated CPU and GPU architectures, new manufacturing technologies, and a neural processing unit (NPU) for accelerating certain AI and machine learning workloads.
A shift toward power efficiency
The Arrow Lake CPUs mark a shift toward power efficiency, a much-needed change considering how power-hungry the previous 13th- and 14th-generation CPUs were. However, performance gains aren't always straightforward with these new processors. Intel's data indicates that their speed largely depends on the specific tasks they are assigned. The pricing for these CPUs remains broadly similar to their predecessors, with minor reductions in some cases.
Chiplet-based design to desktops for the first time
The Arrow Lake CPUs bring Intel's chiplet-based design to desktops for the first time. The design features multiple silicon dies connected using Intel's Foveros packaging technology. The Foveros tech uses an Intel-manufactured "base tile" as an interconnect, enabling communication between four TSMC-manufactured tiles: a compute tile for the CPU cores; a GPU tile for graphics cores; an SoC tile featuring the NPU, video encoding and decoding blocks, and display outputs; and an I/O tile mainly handling the DDR5 memory controller.
Arrow Lake CPUs: A blend of Intel and TSMC processes
Unlike previous models where most of the silicon was made in Intel's factories, the Arrow Lake CPUs are a blend of Intel and TSMC processes. The base tile is manufactured by Intel, while the compute tile uses a 3nm TSMC process. The GPU tile is based on a 5nm TSMC process, and both the SoC and I/O tiles use a 6nm process. This unique combination marks a huge departure from traditional manufacturing methods for Intel processors.
Performance and power consumption
According to Intel, the new Core Ultra 200S chips should offer a 10% bump in multi-core performance while consuming 30% less power than their predecessors. The integrated GPU should also be roughly twice as fast as the UHD 770 integrated GPU that came with previous-generation Core chips. However, it's worth noting that these performance gains may vary depending on the exact tasks you throw at these processors.
Intel unveils 3 new processors under 200S series
Intel has launched three new processors under the Core Ultra 200S series: the $589 Core Ultra 9 285K; the $394 and $379 Core Ultra 7 265K and KF; and the $309 and $294 Core Ultra 5 245K and KF. All these are unlocked, overclockable processors that only differ by clock speed and core count. The GPUs and NPUs remain the same across the lineup for chips that feature integrated GPUs.
