Intel’s comeback weapon to fight AMD reportedly drops this spring — Core Ultra 200K Plus and 200HX Plus CPUs set for March or April launch

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Intel has two new processor lineups to challenge AMD and reclaim its position as one of the market’s best CPUs. According to Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, a reliable Chinese hardware leaker, the Core Ultra 200K Plus and 200HX Plus (codenamed Arrow Lake Refresh) are set for a March or April launch, with the Core Ultra 300 (codenamed Panther Lake) embargo date set for January 26.

Although Intel has confirmed plans to refresh the Core Ultra 200S (codenamed Arrow Lake) series, the chipmaker has remained deliberately vague about timing, committing only to a launch sometime in 2026. The lack of specificity left many industry watchers expecting a major announcement at CES 2026, but Intel chose a different path, instead focusing all its spotlight on Panther Lake.

Intel has already announced that Panther Lake-powered laptops will hit retail shelves on January 27, just over a week away. However, the review embargo strategy is a little different. According to the Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, Intel is allegedly employing a staggered review approach by SKU tier. The flagship Core Ultra X9 388H will spearhead the Panther Lake launch, with reviews going live on January 26—giving the top-tier chip a full day in the spotlight before the broader lineup. Reviews for the remaining Panther Lake chips will follow on January 27, coinciding with retail availability.

Intel and AMD CPU 2026 Launch Dates*

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Date	Product	Codename
January 22	Ryzen AI 400 (China)	Gorgon Point
January 27	Core Ultra 300	Panther Lake
January 29	Ryzen 7 9850X3D	Granite Ridge
February	Xeon 600	Granite Rapids-WS
March / April	Core Ultra 200K Plus, Core Ultra 200HX Plus	Arrow Lake Refresh
Late 2026	Core Ultra 400 / Zen 6	Nova Lake / Medusa

*Dates are unconfirmed by Intel or AMD.

Intel's strategic decision to delay the launch of Arrow Lake Refresh makes sense when you consider its playbook. Arrow Lake Refresh, following the pattern of previous Intel refreshes, will likely deliver incremental improvements—primarily modest clock speed bumps and improved memory support. These small uplifts are less exciting for a major trade show reveal than Panther Lake, which is the chipmaker's first chips to leverage the Intel 18A manufacturing process.

Panther Lake won’t have the stage to itself, however. AMD is preparing a counter-offensive with its Ryzen AI 400 series (codenamed Gorgon Point), which appears poised to beat Intel to market by five days. Early product listings spotted in China suggest AMD is targeting a January 22 launch in that region, giving the company a crucial head start in the laptop market. Availability will initially be limited to China, then gradually expand to other global markets throughout the year.

Adding even more intrigue to January’s launch calendar, AMD may cap off the month with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. If AMD can deliver meaningful performance gains over the already impressive Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D could cement AMD’s dominance in the gaming CPU segment for another generation.

Overall, 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most competitive and exciting years in recent processor history, with compelling options arriving for consumers across every market segment. February could mark another significant milestone with the anticipated release of Intel’s next-generation Xeon 600 series (codenamed Granite Rapids-WS) targeting the professional workstation market. However, the year’s most crucial consumer battle will unfold in late 2026 with the arrival of Intel’s Core Ultra 400 series (codenamed Nova Lake) and AMD’s competing Zen 6 (codenamed Medusa) chips.

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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

29 Comments Comment from the forums

LordVile

They operate their own fabs. How about “lower prices” and chipsets/sockets that don’t become redundant in 18 months
Reply
Gururu

Was watching GN video on Sparkle ARC card production and it answered some questions I’ve always had about who buys all of these computer parts. You hear all the time for example that ARC sales are horrible and I always figured the lowly B570 was collecting dust on shelves. I imagine the same with all these core ultra products. But geez, seeing Sparkle shipping hundreds of B570s a day by air at $20 a pop to the U.S. alone was eye opening. Seems no matter what Intel, AMD or nVidia make, they sell.
Reply
txfeinbergs

LordVile said:
They operate their own fabs. How about “lower prices” and chipsets/sockets that don’t become redundant in 18 months
I think you probably meant "obsolete". That said, I can count on zero hands the amount of times I have upgraded a CPU in my already existing computer so I don't really hold that against Intel. I will be switching back to AMD again though for my next build in March.
Reply
LordVile

txfeinbergs said:
I think you probably meant "obsolete". That said, I can count on zero hands the amount of times I have upgraded a CPU in my already existing computer so I don't really hold that against Intel. I will be switching back to AMD again though for my next build in March.
Redundant - “No longer needed or useful”

I went from a 2600 to a 5800X3D on my last system on a board that launched with Ryzen. The longevity of AM4 and 5 is a major draw vs intel.
Reply
User of Computers

Gururu said:
Was watching GN video on Sparkle ARC card production and it answered some questions I’ve always had about who buys all of these computer parts. You hear all the time for example that ARC sales are horrible and I always figured the lowly B570 was collecting dust on shelves. I imagine the same with all these core ultra products. But geez, seeing Sparkle shipping hundreds of B570s a day by air at $20 a pop to the U.S. alone was eye opening. Seems no matter what Intel, AMD or nVidia make, they sell.
MLID got you there, huh? yeah he makes it seem like if a product isn't constantly sold out it's a terrible product that nobody's buying.
Reply
logainofhades

Doesn't matter if it is competitive if nobody can buy the ram to go with it.
Reply
EzzyB

txfeinbergs said:
I think you probably meant "obsolete". That said, I can count on zero hands the amount of times I have upgraded a CPU in my already existing computer so I don't really hold that against Intel. I will be switching back to AMD again though for my next build in March.

Yes. I've been building PC's since the mid 80's. Not once have I bought a new CPU to place in an existing board except for a 486 that simply quit working. There has always been sufficient gains in other new technologies to make it worth while to simply replace the whole motherboard at least.
Reply
Gururu

EzzyB said:
Yes. I've been building PC's since the mid 80's. Not once have I bought a new CPU to place in an existing board except for a 486 that simply quit working. There has always been sufficient gains in other new technologies to make it worth while to simply replace the whole motherboard at least.
I think I upgraded a CPU on the same motherboard once in the 90s. It was either a Pentium 90 to a 120 or a 120 to a 200. Never again after that.
Reply
logainofhades

EzzyB said:
Yes. I've been building PC's since the mid 80's. Not once have I bought a new CPU to place in an existing board except for a 486 that simply quit working. There has always been sufficient gains in other new technologies to make it worth while to simply replace the whole motherboard at least.

I have done it several times, but I don't as much as I used to.
Reply
UnforcedERROR

EzzyB said:
Yes. I've been building PC's since the mid 80's. Not once have I bought a new CPU to place in an existing board except for a 486 that simply quit working. There has always been sufficient gains in other new technologies to make it worth while to simply replace the whole motherboard at least.
I've been building since the 90s and have, on a number of occasions, swapped to a new CPU instead of a full rebuild. This happened most notably with Athlon chips. I didn't consider it again until current-gen Ryzen came out, as my q6600 and 6600K lasted more than 10 years combined. That said, Ryzen's scaling is a large reason they've taken market share from Intel (along with performance parity).

At current pricing for PC components the draw to upgrade every other year is dwindling for most consumers, so having an avenue to upgrade without dropping large amounts of money is enticing. I think it's silly to overlook simply how expensive computing has become in the past 10 years. This isn't the 90s, and early 2000s, upgrades are incremental rather than exponential. It's simply foolish to look at the current economics of the situation and be dismissive about the consumers. That mindset is exactly what caused Intel trouble in the first place, make no mistake.
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