Yesterday we wrote about the fact that Intel canceled the processors that were supposed to follow this year’s Core Ultra 200 “Arrow Lake” generation on the desktop, which is probably already out the door. Virtually at the same time, there were rumors about Intel’s more distant plans – from processors that would follow two generations later, to Nova Lake processors representing the next new generation. But these news for 2026 and 2027 may again require new plates.
The LGA 1851 platform, which is now coming to the market after the Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200) processors, will probably not be refreshed as the 300 generation, which was also supposed to be a replacement for the 1.8nm Panther Lake generation. This means that the Core Ultra 200 generation will probably be sold until 2026, which will start to be released in a few weeks.
Practically at the same time, a leaker with the nickname HXL appeared on Twitter about future processors that will come later, and will even represent the fourth new generation after today’s Raptor Lake Refresh (Core 14th generation) desktop processors. This new generation is said to have an internal name Razer Lakein the desktop form of the Razer Lake-S.
The name is somewhat surprising considering that Razer is a company (which makes laptops with Intel processors, by the way) and company brands usually don’t even appear in internal code names. However, in this case it could possibly be “razer” with a small R, a noun from the verb “raze” (to completely destroy, raze to the ground). So Razer Lake is probably not supposed to be Razer’s lake, but something like a comparison lake.
Core Ultra 500
So far we knew that Arrow Lake processors should be followed by the next Panther Lake generation as Core Ultra 300 (which will only be in notebooks, of course) and after that we also knew about the Nova Lake generation (year 2026), which was supposed to be the Core generation Ultra 400 and it is supposed to be for desktop computers again. However, Razer Lake is supposed to follow Nova Lake, so it is probably about processors that will be released as Core Ultra 500 and probably only in the second half of 2027, if Intel manages to stick to the annual cycles that are typical for this company.
Intel processor roadmap shown at the Intel InnovatiOn 2023 event. Panther Lake is to be followed by Nova Lake, and the new Razer Lake generation has been leaked
The Nova Lake processors are said to use TSMC’s 2nm manufacturing process and we still don’t know much about them, much less Razer Lake. Already Nova Lake should have a new architecture of CPU cores (perhaps Coyote Cove for P-Core cores, but this is not a confirmed name) against the Arrow Lake processors. We don’t know if there will be any changes in Panther Lake, or if it will simply “dieshrink”. Even Razer Lake could theoretically bring some architectural improvements against Nova Lake and have a better process.
Updated: Then Titan Lake?
It seems that shortly after Razor Lake there was also a name that could have yet another generation after it. According to a leaker who goes by the Twitter handle Kepler_L2 supposedly Razer Lake should be followed by a generation marked Titan Lake.
However, this information is still probably less certain. Another tweeter, Bionic_Squash, has supported the veracity of HXL’s Razer Lake report, while the only source for Titan Lake so far is Kepler_L2.
New socket right after Arrow Lake?
But HXL does introduce one thing, and that is the desktop platform. According to this source, Razer Lake could use a new socket and thus new boards instead of the LGA 1851 platform that Intel will introduce for Arrow Lake this year and which should be released in a few weeks. In fact, the new socket, the name and number of contacts of which is not yet known, should probably already have the Nova Lake processors.
But this would mean that the LGA 1851 platform will have a rather limited scope. In fact, there would be only one generation of processors on it in the end, namely the Core Ultra 200, with which this platform will start. The upgrade options will thus only be “horizontal”, i.e. from a lower model to a higher one in the same generation.
Some time ago there were assumptions that LGA 1851 could be more promising as a platform with more generations. Maybe it could have been that way originally. LGA 1851 was originally supposed to go on the market at least a year earlier and form the chassis for the desktop version of the 4nm Meteor Lake processors, with which this phase of Intel’s desktop platform was originally supposed to start. These desktop Meteor Lake processors were eventually released only for the embedded market, and in the desktop Intel instead extended the life of the LGA 1700 platform by refreshing the Raptor Lake processors. Arrow Lake was originally supposed to be the second generation on LGA 1851, but it became the first generation.
And maybe the only one. The third generation was supposed to be Panther Lake processors, but as already mentioned, the desktop version of this generation was canceled. Instead of them, the Arrow Lake refresh was supposed to come out, which would originally be the third, but actually the second generation. This refresh was originally supposed to bring models with more cores (up to 40), but Intel first canceled this plan and came to the fact that the refresh will keep the number of cores (8 P-Core, 16 E-Core) and only add a more powerful NPU. In the end, even this will not be carried out, and allegedly, at least on the desktop platform, this entire plan to release a refresh has been canceled. So Arrow Lake in its original form would probably have been sold for two whole years.
If it were confirmed that Nova Lake has a new platform and socket again, LGA 1851 would be a platform with not three, but only one generation of processors, even though its cycle will last two years.
However, this is still only preliminary and plans are subject to change. Intel might be able to redesign future processors to work in the LGA 1851 platform, although the company doesn’t seem very inclined to do so. But it’s also possible that Nova Lake desktop processors run into problems like they did with Ice Lake or Meteor Lake, and Intel ends up extending the life of the LGA 1851 platform instead. That would probably mean that there will be an Arrow refresh after all Lake, but it probably won’t be the one originally planned, but simply the original design of Arrow Lake-S, for which Intel will increase the frequency.
We will probably learn how the situation develops gradually over the next two years.
Resources: HXL, VideoCardz, Bionic_Squash
Source: www.cnews.cz
