Highly anticipated: Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan has confirmed key details about the company's upcoming Nova Lake desktop CPUs ahead of their launch next year. He also revealed that the next generation Panther Lake CPUs, shown at the company's fourth annual Tech Tour event in late September, will be formally unveiled at CES 2026 in January.
Speaking during Intel's Q3 2025 earnings call, Tan outlined the company's future plans for its client, server, and foundry businesses. On the client side, Intel will launch the Core Ultra 200S Plus Arrow Lake Refresh series in early 2026, followed by Nova Lake later in the year.
Arrow Lake Refresh will include the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which were leaked earlier this week. The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus will serve as the flagship model, offering 24 cores and 36 MB of L3 cache. Final clock speeds are not yet confirmed, but they are expected to be higher than those of the other models in the lineup.
The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus will be positioned above the Core Ultra 7 265K, offering 24 cores with a boost speed of 5.50 GHz and a base speed of 3.7 GHz. It is also expected to include 36 MB of L3 cache, an increase over the 30 MB found in the 265K. According to a recent Geekbench listing, it performs nearly on par with the Core Ultra 9 285K in both single core and multi core tests.
Tan also confirmed that the first Panther Lake mobile CPUs will arrive by the end of this year, followed by additional models during the first half of next year. Manufactured on Intel's 18A process node, the Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake family will feature Cougar Cove performance cores, Darkmont efficiency cores, and Xe3 integrated graphics.
After Arrow Lake Refresh and Panther Lake, Intel plans to introduce Nova Lake in the second half of 2026. These processors will use the new LGA 1954 socket, scale up to 52 cores, and include Xe3 graphics. Nova Lake will also bring architectural changes and software enhancements that the company hopes will help it regain some lost ground against AMD.
Intel also plans to roll out several new server and HEDT processors based on the 18A node in the coming years. This roadmap includes Diamond Rapids in late 2025 or early 2026, Xeon 6 Plus Clearwater Forest in mid 2026, and Coral Rapids sometime between 2028 and 2029.