The Intel Core Ultra 200S uses Intel Foveros 3D packaging technology, with the Compute Tile, Graphics Tile, SoC Tile, I/O Tile, Fille Tile, and the Base Tile. The Compute Tile will feature Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores, with Intel talking about an IPC uplift of 9 percent compared for P-cores (compared to Raptor Cove), and 32 percent IPC uplift for E-cores (compared to Gracemont). Each Lion Cove P-core features 3MB of L2 cache, while Skymont E-cores are made in clusters of four, with each packing 4MB of L2 cache. Intel claims it doubled the L2 cache bandwidth. The L3 cache, up to 36MB of it, is shared with all CPU cores.

Intel is also bringing Xe-LPG GPU to Arrow Lake, which adds some features including a dedicated NPU, the NPU3.

Intel also updated the Intel Thread Director to new E-core HW-based prediction, new P-core telemetry infrastructure, and a new improved prediction model, which should bring better scheduling and more performance.

Intel has a total of five SKUs, ranging from the flagship 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K, down to the Core Ultra 5 245K(F). The KF-series SKUs will lack the GPU. The TDP of the flagship SKU is at 125W PL1 to 250W MTP. According to Intel, the Core Ultra 200S series will be up to 15 percent cooler, up to 188W more efficient, and just slightly slower, which is not a bad thing. At the end of the day, the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K SKU will provide pretty much the same performance as the 14900K, which has much lower temperature and much lower power consumption. Intel also compared it to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, claiming pretty much the same performance, depending on the game. Of course, Intel APO is enabled so we'll wait for the rest of the reviews before getting the full picture.

Intel also launched the new Intel 800-series platform, which brings the new LGA 1851 socket for Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, and offers up to 48 PCIe lanes, 20 of those PCIe Gen 5, up to 10 USB 3.2 ports including five 20G, and plenty of USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 ports. The platform brings dual-channel DDR5-6400 support with up to 48GB per DIMM and 192GB maximum capacity, ECC support, and support for UDIMM, CUDIMM, SODIMM, and CSODIMM modules. 

The new platform also brings up to two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Intel's Killer WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 1Gb Ethernet, all from integrated I/O, while discrete I/O comes with up to four Thunderbolt 5 ports, Intel Killer WiFi 7 (5 Gig), Bluetooth 5.4, and 2.5Gb Ethernet.

Intel also took a lot of attention to overclocking, bringing plenty of new features, including: Granular core clock - Top turbo frequency in 16.6 MHz steps for P-Cores and E-Cores, Dual base clock - Run an independent BCLK for SOC and compute tiles, Tile-to-Tile & fabric OC - Can apply a static/BIOS ratio and supports dynamic ratio changes for fabric, DLVR bypass - Bypass the internal voltage management using an external supply for extreme OC, Intel eXtreme tuning utility - New features including automated OC enhancements, Memory overclocking - New memory controller supports new XMP and CUDIMM DDR5, P & E-core overclocking - P-core per-core V/f control, and E-Core per cluster V/f control, and Low-temperature overvolting - Increasingly bypass voltage limits as the chip gets colder.

Availability and pricing

Intel's Core Ultra 200S series CPUs are already available for pre-order at most retail/e-tail shops, with Newegg.com already running out of some SKUs. The Z890 motherboards are also available, coming from the usual suspects like ASUS, ASRock, Biostar, Colorful, Gigabyte, MSI, and others. The Core Ultra 200S series is priced at $589 for the Core Ultra 285K, $394 and $379 for the Core Ultra 7 265K and 265KF, and $309 and $294 for the Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF. There are plenty of motherboards to choose from, ranging from around $240 to over $600.