Intel’s Lunar Lake processors are expected sooner than later for mobile machines, and may just give the competition a shock when they hit. What about desktop, though? Intel’s current-generation desktop parts are pretty fast, but they’re besieged by reliability concerns and are extremely power-thirsty. Not only that, competitor AMD’s about to launch its new Ryzen 9000 processors sporting Zen 5 CPU cores that promise to be a fair bit faster than Intel’s extant equipment. What does Intel have in response?
According to the latest rumor, not much, at least until December. While many people expected Arrow Lake to launch shortly after Lunar Lake, those parts may not appear until late September. “Shortly after” could be anytime through the end of the year, and according to reasonably reliable leakers, Arrow Lake may not be ready for market before December.
Most pressingly, we have this tweet from HXL (@9550pro on Xwitter). HXL is well known for providing reliable information, and while the person themselves labels this as a rumor, it lines up with what other leakers have been saying. Specifically, Jaykihn, a person who has been sharing a lot of insider information on Intel products lately, said awhile back that Arrow Lake CPUs haven’t even reached the “QS” or “Qualification Sample” stage yet, despite that “pre-QS” chips were found in shipping manifests as far back as April.
In a response to other enthusiasts discussing whether or not Arrow Lake had reached the “QS” phase, Jaykihn says that his information states that Arrow Lake CPUs are expected to hit qualification stage in week 40 of this year. Week 40 runs from the end of September through the first week of October. If that’s true, then these parts definitely won’t be available for sale in October and probably not November, either.
It’s difficult to say whether this is really something we should consider a “delay,” because Intel did not give an official release window for Arrow Lake beyond “2024.” With that in mind, it’s possible that this was the plan all along. However, it doesn’t look great for Intel to essentially cede the DIY space to AMD for nearly five months. Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs may well beat AMD’s Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 parts when they finally launch, but many enthusiasts who have been eager to upgrade may not want to wait for Arrow Lake.