Intel’s Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake to launch this fall: Rumored launch dates revealed

12th Gen Alder Lake
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel will release its next-generation codenamed Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors for desktops and laptops this fall, according to a DigiTimes report. In particular, Lunar Lake-V will likely be launched in mid-September, whereas unlocked Arrow Lake-S processors along with the Intel Z890 platform will be released in October. If the unofficial information is correct, then Intel's partners will have plenty of PCs based on the company's latest technology by the holiday season.

Intel's next-generation codenamed Lunar Lake-V mobile platform for thin-and-light notebooks will be unveiled on the week of September 17 – September 24, so the company will be able to talk about the platform and notebooks at the Intel Innovation event taking place on September 24 – September 25, as noticed by @harukaze5719. At this point, it is unclear whether the Lunar Lake-V platform is similar to the Lunar Lake-MX platform with onboard LPDDR5X memory. 

In any case, notebooks powered by Intel's latest microarchitectures for mobile PCs will be released this year, a little less than a year before notebooks based on the Meteor Lake system-in-packages hit the market in December, 2023.

When it comes to Intel's next-generation codenamed Arrow Lake-S processors and Z890 platform for desktops, these will be released in October, 2024, about a year after Intel launched its Raptor Lake Refresh product lineup. Arrow Lake-S will be Intel's first desktop CPU based on a multi-chiplet design with advanced packaging, which will be a major change to how the company builds its desktop processors.

Intel's Arrow Lake-S with Lion Cove high-performance CPU cores will not support Intel's Hyper-Threading simultaneous multithreading technology, so it remains to be seen whether the new 24-core processors will beat their Raptor Lake Refresh predecessors (which have 24-cores and HT on eight of them) in multi-threaded workloads.

As usual, Intel will release the unlocked Arrow Lake-S processors and Z890 chipset first, presumably in October, and non-K Arrow Lake-S CPUs and B860/H810 platforms later, presumably at CES 2025. This will be in line with Intel's typical product release pattern. 

Intel yet has to confirm official launch dates for its Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors. At this point, we are dealing with unconfirmed plans and these tend to change due to various factors, such as product readiness and market demand.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • vijosef
    Sadly, the non upgradeable memory is a non starter.
    Reply
  • At this point, it is unclear whether the Lunar Lake-V platform is similar to the Lunar Lake-MX platform with onboard LPDDR5X memory.

    Both are same. Lunar Lake CPU lineup actually dropped the "MX" branding in favor of "V". That's why we have seen recent leaks such as the Core Ultra 5 234V which kind of confirms this change in nomenclature.

    https://www.bilibili.com/opus/921254597915312153?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0
    https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Intel-Lunar-Lake-Core-Ultra-200V-CPUs-GPU.png
    Reply
  • Intel will release its next-generation codenamed Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors for desktops and laptops this fall, according to a DigiTimes report.

    No. Actually, there was some misunderstanding there. You got it wrong. DigiTimes's report was actually false, and was later clarified by Benchlife.

    It was actually Benchlife whose report was confirmed by Intel. Benchlife were provided an update based on the recent reports from DigiTimes, who initially reported that Lunar Lake CPUs had been delayed.

    Which of course was not accurate, so INTEL later confirmed this to Benchlife, hence this leak we are dealing with now.

    Intel’s upcoming client processor (code-named Lunar Lake) has not been delayed. As disclosed earlier, Lunar Lake-based systems will start shipping in Q3 for the Holiday season.

    Intel To Benchlife.


    Benchlife's report via translation:

    ""Digitimes reported that the shipment time of Intel Core Ultra 2 V series processors, codenamed Lunar Lake , will be postponed from June to September.

    However, this is not actually the case, because the V-series processor devices in Intel Core Ultra 2 will go on sale in September. If the processors are only shipped in September, how will they meet the sales demand in September.

    According to the information we have, Intel currently plans to officially release the Lunar Lake platform in early September, and the actual launch time will be September 17-24, while the Intel Vision 2024 event will be on September 24-24, US time.""


    Intel yet has to confirm official launch dates for its Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors. At this point, we are dealing with unconfirmed plans

    FWIW, it was an INTEL rep who actually confirmed this launch time frame schedule to Benchlife sources.
    Reply
  • TechyIT223
    There is nothing laughable about this lineup BTW.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Metal Messiah. said:
    Both are same. Lunar Lake CPU lineup actually dropped the "MX" branding in favor of "V". That's why we have seen recent leaks such as the Core Ultra 5 234V which kind of confirms this change in nomenclature.
    Have you seen anything on how Intel is using the V branding wise?

    When I originally saw MX my brain linked it to the HX, but mobility focused so maximum perf/W. The V just doesn't have an obvious analog like that though and I don't recall Intel using it in the past.
    Reply
  • thestryker said:
    Have you seen anything on how Intel is using the V branding wise?

    No, nothing outside of the usual leaked sample chips of Lunar Lake which have been recently spotted. Yes, this V suffix is kinda odd sounding and doesn't really fit any of the company's previous nomenclature for its mobile chips.

    Is this what you are asking, or something else ?

    They have been suffixing Lunar lake chips with V in recent patches, but apart from this, I have no idea why Intel is going for this V branding, and how will they use it in future as well when these chips are officially released.

    Earlier I was being told that V stands for "validation sample" by a reputed Benchlife tech/AIB forum member, so could this also be true, but what about these patch entries ? Here it says V, and the above leaker also claims that Intel has changed the branding from MX to V ?

    But in my opinion, V makes less sense, so these could be early validation samples. If not, then Intel made an odd choice by opting for V as a suffix.


    Intel Core Ultra 5 238V "Lunar Lake" 32 GB CPU:
    https://i.imgur.com/gBEjXTF.jpeg
    Intel Core Ultra 5 234V "Lunar Lake" 16 GB CPU:
    https://i.imgur.com/j3AxoHt.jpeg
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Metal Messiah. said:
    No, nothing outside of the usual leaked sample chips of Lunar Lake which have been recently spotted. Yes, this V suffix is kind odd sounding and doesn't really fit any of the company's previous nomenclature for its mobile chips.

    Is this what you are asking,or something else ? They have been suffixing Lunar chips with V in recent patches, but apart from this, I have no idea why Intel is going for this V branding, and how will they use it in future as well when these chips are officially released.
    Yeah that's exactly what I was curious about because I just didn't get the change and found it odd.
    Reply
  • TechyIT223
    An October launch date sounds plausible though for desktop Arrow Lake. But I'm more interested in the non- K parts and the B860 motherboard lineup.

    Those K flagship parts would again be subjected to instability issues like current gen core i9 K chips, if Intel has not found any definitive solution before these chips arrive.
    Reply
  • The report also mentions that "commercial" Lunar Lake devices are expected to be launched in January 2025.
    Reply
  • TechyIT223
    Commercial as in for the enterprise and business sector? So it means consumer parts would be coming out much earlier.
    Reply