Intel Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors are set to launch later this year, bringing the new Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores to the desktop platform. Engineering and qualification samples with specifications close to retail chips have already made their way to PC OEMs and motherboard vendors, as evidenced by the recent leaks. Jaykihn0, a prominent source of these leaks, has shared some interesting details regarding the maximum boost frequencies of these chips.
The engineering sample of a top Core Ultra 9 "Arrow Lake-S" SKU, likely the flagship model succeeding the current Core i9-14900K, is reported to have a maximum P-core boost frequency of 5.70 GHz and an all-P-core boost frequency of 5.40 GHz. The maximum E-core boost frequency, which also serves as the all-E-core boost frequency, is said to be 4.60 GHz. These chips utilize a combination of Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores, arranged along a ringbus and sharing an L3 cache, unlike the setup in "Lunar Lake."
Intel has claimed a 14% IPC gain for Lion Cove over the previous Redwood Cove P-cores found in Meteor Lake. With 8 P-cores lacking Hyper-Threading, the gaming performance of Arrow Lake-S is expected to be competitive. The cache sub-system of Arrow Lake-S is also noteworthy, with each Lion Cove P-core expected to have 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache and the 8 P-cores sharing 36 MB of L3 cache with the Skymont E-core clusters.
Intel has promised a significant IPC improvement for the Skymont E-cores over the current Gracemont, with IPC levels similar to Raptor Lake P-cores. However, the maximum boost frequency for the E-cores is 4.60 GHz, lower than that of the P-cores. Despite this, the top Core Ultra 9 "Arrow Lake-S" part appears to be targeting gaming performance leadership, aiming to surpass AMD's current fastest gaming processor.
