Hardware leaker momomo_us, has got his paws on a reference document for an upcoming W880 motherboard which explicitly labels support for both "Arrow Lake S" and "Arrow Lake S Refresh" processors.
The manual offers nothing else in terms of juicy details, but speculation points to Intel plotting a limited update targeting only high-end K and KF chips. Workstation-class boards would be a natural fit for this kind of refresh. What remains to be seen is whether more mainstream motherboards will get similar treatment or if this is just a one-off to shift some unwanted silicon.
Intel’s Core Ultra 200S series limped onto the market in October 2024, shortly after Chipzilla published another dire financial update. Arrow Lake was meant to be a comeback. It wasn’t. Sales flatlined within a week of launch, and half a year later, Intel is still struggling to get its AI-focused chips off shelves. Meanwhile, punters are still opting for Raptor Lake, which at least works properly.
Part of the problem is that Arrow Lake chips are just not up to scratch for gaming. AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been chewing them up, and even Intel’s older offerings have outclassed their shiny new parts. The promised NPU and AI grunt haven’t swayed gamers, who care more about frame rates than theoretical tensor workloads. Factor in the inflated prices, and it’s no surprise demand is circling the drain.
If Chipzilla is going to trot out a refresh, it needs to sort the gaming performance. Otherwise, the refresh will flop just as hard, with buyers ignoring it in favour of better-performing silicon that doesn’t throttle their GPUs.
Still, Arrow Lake wasn’t a complete write-off. The architecture marked Intel’s first stab at a chiplet-based desktop design, and there were some legitimate improvements in power efficiency and thermals. Productivity results weren’t bad either. The Core Ultra 9 285K holds its own in benchmarks like Cinebench, so not all is lost.
Maybe the refresh will clean up some of the teething problems and give Arrow Lake the redemption arc Chipzilla so badly needs.
