Arrow Lake is without VVC decoding or NPU good enough for Copilot+ PCs
Information on Intel’s new generation of desktop processors, the Arrow Lake family is gradually making its way online. So far, Intel has only publicly revealed and detailed the mobile version called Lunar Lake, which has a various important innovations, including a powerful NPU that can power the so-called Copilot+ PCs with Microsoft’s AI features. Arrow Lake is their desktop version of Lunar Lake, but will lack many of these new features.
We’ve already reported on the functions and I/O capabilities of Arrow Lake (and Lunar Lake) processors and the individual chipsets on LGA 1851 boards that will be used with those Arrow Lake processors. This information came from the leaker using the Twitter handle Jaykihn, who has now posted even more information.
- Read more: Arrow Lake, LGA 1851, Lunar Lake: connectivity and platform details
- Read more: Intel Arrow Lake chipsets: Z890/B860/H810 specs and differences
NPU will be significantly weaker
Unlike Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake processors will not be eligible for use in Copilot+ PCs. This is because while they integrate a NPU, it uses older generation technology with lower performance. It is barely more powerful than in Intel Meteor Lake or AMD Ryzen 7040 processors.
According to the leaker, it is supposed to have a performance of only 13 TOPS, while in the Ryzen 8040 NPU has a performance of 16 TOPS and Lunar Lake and Ryzen AI 300 processors reach up to around 50 TOPS in their NPUs. The usability of this NPU will therefore be more limited and it will not be possible to use all the AI features of Windows 11 fully locally on the given device. Microsoft requires a more powerful NPU with at least 40 TOPS of performance for that full capability.
Weaker iGPU and multimedia support without VVC
Another thing where Arrow Lake will not be as advanced as Lunar Lake processors will be the graphics part and related blocks. It was previously reported that the integrated graphics are still to use the Xe LPG (Alchemist generation) architecture that is already used in Meteor Lake processors – not the new Xe2 LPG architecture of the Battlemage generation that is used in Lunar Lake. Desktop models could have up to 512 shaders, which even with the older architecture promises pretty decent performance by integrated graphics standards.
Intel also won’t add that much of an advanced multimedia block to the Arrow Lake processors. While Lunar Lake has support for hardware decoding of VVC (H.266) video as one of its new features, you won’t get this with Arrow Lake. These processors will have more or less the same multimedia capabilities as the current ones – they can encode AV1 and VP9 (8K30) or HEVC (8K60) and H.264 (4K60). For static image (HEIC/HEIF), the HEVC format is supported with up to 16K×12K resolution.
Decoding will be supported for MPEG2 (1080p), H.264 (4K) and HEVC, VP9 and AV1, for which Arrow Lake supports 8K30 during playback, or 8K60 during transcoding or other operations that do not need to display the decoded video. Decoding of 12-bit video in VP9 and HEVC formats is supported, but only 10-bit AV1 format is supported. Support for hardware VVC decoding will be lacking in Arrow Lake processors, which is likely to apply to both desktop processors and Arrow Lake variants for laptops.
285K, 275K, 245K models, no Core Ultra 3?
Intel is apparently set to release three Arrow Lake models in October, all with 125W TDP and an unlocked multiplier. These models will be called Core Ultra 9 285K, Core Ultra 7 265K and Core Ultra 5 245K. There will not be an “F” version with graphics disabled based of the top 285K model (with 8+16 cores), while the lower SKUs will probably offer an F option.
The same source also reports that there will be no Core i3 or better said Core Ultra 3 models in the Arrow Lake desktop processor lineup. However, it’s reportedly possible that Intel will release some such processor based on the previous generation’s older 4nm Meteor Lake silicon (with older CPU cores). It could also possibly be that the 3-tier Core Ultra won’t exist at all. When Intel first unveiled the new Core Ultra branding, it disclosed that only Core Ultra 9, 7 and 5 models would exist from that point on. However, a cheaper desktop processor could probably just be called “Core 3” (without Ultra).
Low clock speed: single-threaded performance barely rises compared to Raptor Lake?
By the way, Jaykihn also reports that Intel’s internal materials expect Arrow Lake processors to perform 3% better than Raptor Lake in single-threaded programs (which is only a marginal improvement), but 15% better in multi-threaded performance, which would be a pleasant surprise, given that the cores will not be abele to make use of HT anyore and the most powerful models will provide only 24 threads instead of today’s 32. This is probably true for the highest end Core Ultra 9 285K model.
Updated: That 3% improvement in single-threaded performance is apparently when comparing to the original Raptor Lake (13th gen) SKU, the 5.8GHz Core i9-13900K. But Intel has since released a refresh in the Core i9-14900K with a 6.0GHz clock speed that is itself 3% higher, so Arrow Lake might even then be on average with no progress in single-threaded performance (and the 6.2GHz Core i9-14900KS might be above it).
The very small progress in single-threaded performance is disappointing, it is probably due to the fact that although the P-Core is supposed to have 14% higher IPC, Intel failed to achieve nearly as high a clock speed as the 7nm Raptor Lake processors (which run as high as 5.8–6.2 GHz), either due to the new wider core or due to the use of the 3nm TSMC node. The drop in clock speeds thus “eats into” the IPC gains.
But there is one thing you have to keep in mind – these results are not yet final. They are valid for engineering samples, not for production models. Intel does not yet have the so-called qualification samples available, which are sample CPUs that already have the same parameters as the final production models. It’s quite likelye that the QS and final CPUs will achieve higher clock speeds than the ES used for this test. If so, the single-threaded performance increase should end up being better when the processors launch.
But in general, the CPU cores will be an area where Arrow Lake loses nothing compared to Lunar Lake, as the processors will use the same new CPU architectures: the Lion Cove big P-Core and the Skymont efficient E-Core.
Actually, Arrow Lake will likely run at higher clock speeds, and of course there will be more of the cores available. They may even have better performance per 1 MHz (or IPC), because while Lion Cove in Lunar Lake will have a 2.5MB L2 cache, in Arrow Lake the L2 cache is already 3MB. The E-Cores will in turn have L3 cache available in Arrow Lake, while in Lunar Lake they have to make do with just their L2 cache and a relatively slow SoC-level 8MB SLC.
- Tip: Intel’s new P-Core: Lion Cove is the biggest change since Nehalem
- Tip: Skymont architecture analysed: Intel little core outgrows the big?
- Sources: Jaykihn (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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