Intel's New Core Ultra 200S Processors Launch Today
Intel’s newest generation of desktop processors launches today, October 24. The Core Ultra 200S Series, previously codenamed Arrow Lake, is the fifteenth generation of Intel Core series Processors. There are tons of big changes coming this generation, including improved efficiency and an on-board NPU. This is also the first desktop generation to make use of Intel’s new naming scheme.
What’s new For Intel Core Ultra 200S
The most immediate change is in Intel’s naming conventions. Gone are the days of the Core i7-14700K, replaced by Intel Core Ultra. For example, in the old naming scheme, the mid-range 15th-gen chip would be called the Intel Core i5-15500K. Under the new naming convention, that chip is the Intel Ultra 5 245K. While this shift may take some getting used to, the more streamlined names should help differentiate between CPUs easier than ever.
Of course, naming conventions are far from the only thing new about the Core Ultra 200s Series. Arrow Lake adds an NPU, or Neural Processing Unit, to Intel’s desktop CPU lineup for the first time ever. Built on Intel’s NPU 3 Architecture, the Arrow Lake NPU can perform up to 13 trillion operations per second (a metric known as TOPS). That is in addition to up to 8 TOPS from the on-board GPU (if applicable) and 15 TOPs from the CPU proper. Altogether, that’s a lot of power for AI processes.
Photo: Jacob Bobo If you’re not into AI, however, there’s still plenty to love about the Core 200S Series. Namely, improved efficiency. Arrow Lake continues to make use of Intel’s Efficiency and Performance cores, though with some enhancements. The E Cores are seeing up to a 32% IPC uplift over the previous generation while the P-Cores are seeing up to a 9% IPC uplift. This is largely due to AI-based power management, which reduces power consumption by up to 165 watts and allows the chips to run as much as 17°C cooler during gaming or other intensive tasks.
It's not just improved efficiency that’ll help with gaming either. The caches are growing with as much as 36MB of L3 cache. That’ll help boost frame rates in games that make heavy use of the CPU.
Intel Core 200S Specs at a Glance
