Massive Dell blunder leaks Intel and Nvidia's mobile roadmaps — Nova Lake, Panther Lake CPUs and GENxx Nvidia GPUs listed

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Huge roadmap update showing four generations of future Intel CPUs

Dell XPS 13
(Image credit: Dell)

The roadmap for Intel's future releases of its Panther Lake and Nova Lake chips have been discovered in Dell documents that appear to have been inadvertently posted to a public download server. VideoCardz discovered the Dell XPS roadmap detailing the laptop manufacturer's production strategy for its XPS lineup from 2023 to 2027. The documents highlight key information about XPS internal hardware changes, including the implementations of future Intel CPU platforms such as Nova Lake and future RTX mobile GPUs.

As with all leaks, take the info with a grain of salt; Dell's newly found roadmap was originally published in late 2023, so there's a chance some of these release targets have changed. That said, it provides the most detailed release date information that we've seen for Dell's XPS laptop lineup, Intel's future mobile CPU lineups, and Nvidia's mobile GPU release cadence.

Intel mobile CPU roadmap and Nvidia next-gen GPU release windows

(Image credit: Dell)

The biggest takeaway from Dell's roadmap is the projected integrations of Intel's future CPU lineups. The roadmap projects that Intel's Lunar Lake-MX series processors will arrive in Q4 of 2024, Arrow Lake-H will arrive in Q1 of 2025, Panther Lake-H will arrive in Q1 of 2026, and Nova Lake will arrive in 2027.

Dell's roadmap also shows a rough projection of GPU upgrades for all of the laptops mentioned below. In 2025, laptops sporting discrete graphics will apparently get upgraded to next-generation Nvidia RTX graphics hardware (most certainly RTX 50 series Blackwell). In 2026, they will get updated to a "refreshed" version of Nvidia's next-gen hardware.

Dell's next-gen laptop roadmap

Dell's outgoing XPS 16, codenamed Diablo, is projected to be refreshed twice with new internal hardware changes between 2025 and 2026. In 2025, the laptop will sport an upgrade to Intel Arrow Lake-H processors, and in 2026, the CPU will be upgraded to Panther Lake-H.

The Dell XPS 14, codenamed Pista, will see similar changes with Arrow Lake-H CPUs and next-gen Nvidia graphics in 2025. However, in 2026, the XPS 14 Pista will be replaced by a new 14-inch model codenamed Huracan that will come with Panther Lake-H internals, 2026 Nvidia GPU hardware, and SKUs featuring Qualcomm Snapdragon hardware sporting Oryon V2 cores. In 2027, the Huracan notebook will get an upgrade to Nova Lake CPUs.

Dell's outgoing XPS 13, codenamed Tributo R, will also receive several CPU upgrades. Later this year, Dell will release Snapdragon Elite variants of the Tributo R XPS 13 and Lunar Lake-MX series options. In 2026, the Tributo R will be replaced by the XPS 13, codenamed Divo, featuring Lunar Lake and next-gen Qualcomm Oryon V2 CPU options. In 2027, the Divo XPS 13 will be upgraded to Intel Nova Lake parts.

Intel roadmap CPU details

Lunar Lake is Intel's next-generation mobile CPU architecture, which will feature 100+ TOPs of performance. The chip will use a combination of Intel's own 18A (1.8nm class) fabrication process and TSMC's 3nm-class N3B node. Lunar Lake is expected to have radically lower power consumption than Meteor Lake while boasting significant IPC improvements.

Arrow Lake is in a very confusing state right now. Obviously, Dell's roadmap confirms that It will appear in the mobile market. However, most of the information we've heard about it concerns its desktop Arrow Lake-S adaptation. As far as we can tell, Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake will be very similar architecturally with very few differences.

Panther Lake will be the next major successor to Lunar Lake/Arrow Lake. It is expected to be twice as fast as its predecessors and five times faster than Intel's outgoing Meteor Lake chips.

Nova Lake is the newest CPU architecture we've heard about so far. According to unconfirmed leaks, it is expected to provide a massive 60% IPC improvement compared to its predecessors and use Intel's 3rd-gen Xe3 Celestial GPU architecture for integrated graphics.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

36 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NeoMorpheus
    DOJ needs to revisit Dell and Intel…
    Reply
  • Arrow Lake is in a very confusing state right now. Obviously, Dell's roadmap confirms that It will appear in the mobile market. However, most of the information we've heard about it concerns its desktop Arrow Lake-S adaptation.

    What's so confusing about Arrow Lake ? There have been several entries and leaks about Mobile Arrow Lake parts in the past 1 year or so.

    The lineup will include the following: Arrow Lake-U, Arrow Lake-P, and Arrow Lake-H chips.

    The laptop chips, Arrow Lake-H, will be featuring the slightly updated Xe-LPG+ architecture known as Alchemist+ while the desktop chips, Arrow Lake-S, will be using the same Arc Alchemist architecture we got with Meteor Lake.

    8 Xe-Core iGPU with 128 Execution units, a clock speed of 2.00 GHz, and 8 MB of L2 cache. This chip was running on the reference evaluation platform with DDR5 memory.
    This Arrow Lake-H Laptop CPU scored 1598.22 Mpix/s. There are dozen more leaks/entries/patches.

    https://ranker.sisoftware.co.uk/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdaedd8ead3e6c0b28fbf99fc99a494b2c1fcc4&l=en
    One desktop entry:

    https://ranker.sisoftware.co.uk/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdaedd8eadbe9cfbd80b096f396ab9bbdcef3cb&l=en
    Nova Lake is the newest CPU architecture we've heard about so far. According to unconfirmed leaks, it is expected to provide a massive 60% IPC improvement compared to its predecessors and use Intel's 3rd-gen Xe3 Celestial GPU architecture for integrated graphics.

    Nothing is officially confirmed yet, but there is a HIGH probability that Intel might just opt for the Xe4-LPG "Druid" architecture for Panther Lake's successor, which is NOVA LAKE. Some coreboot patches confirm this as well.

    As far as we can tell, Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake will be very similar architecturally with very few differences.

    Not correct. You are comparing mobile u'arch with desktop, not to mention the different process nodes used. Both are entirely different. Lunar Lake is a fresh ground-up design and CPU uArch, built with perf/watt in mind for mobile devices.

    Lunar Lake's main focus will be on entry-level and energy-efficient laptop designs. It's a new low-power architecture having significant IPC improvements, and we can expect Lunar Lake platform to support 8W fanless and 17W – 30W actively cooled designs as well.

    Also, Lunar Lake-MX will be the first batch of CPUs to mark the transition towards Battlemage architectures, known as the "Xe2-LPG" graphics. Arrow Lake still uses Alchemist/Xe1.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    NeoMorpheus said:
    DOJ needs to revisit Dell and Intel…
    Yes there is "talk" of them using AMD but that they did not leak any AMD CPU roadmap would say otherwise.
    Reply
  • estinamir
    With people using smart phones who needs 2000 dollar laptops these days, especially when they get obsolete with every new version of Windows which won’t allow you to upgrade or even install updates. May be good for businesses only.
    Reply
  • Kridian
    I think we should get rid of cell phones and make laptops the common communication device.
    And they're sexy!
    Reply
  • thestryker
    baboma said:
    We know the demarcation for RLR/Meteor Lake. RLR was for desktop, and MTL stuck with mobile.
    No they really didn't here's MTL's mobile RPL counterpart: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/236798/intel-core-processors-series-1.html
    baboma said:
    For ARL to be both desktop & mobile would indeed be confusing for the user, and a heavy lift for marketing to differentiate.
    It'll be almost identical to how they had to approach MTL and RPL both existing in the same generation for mobile. LNL is a lot more focused than most of Intel's recent CPUs and seems aimed at Qualcomm so it may actually have some sort of very specific branding.
    Metal Messiah. said:
    Not correct. You are comparing mobile u'arch with desktop, not to mention the different process nodes used. Both are entirely different. Lunar Lake is a fresh ground-up design and CPU uArch, built with perf/watt in mind for mobile devices.
    They're both using Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores which is what I believe the article is getting at. Overall design and implementation for the CPUs themselves is certainly dramatically different.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    For this price I go full intel lol
    Reply
  • baboma
    >No they really didn't here's MTL's mobile RPL counterpart: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...es/236798/intel-core-processors-series-1.html
    Thanks for the info. Of the above list, most go into embedded, and only 3 (100U/120U/150U) are in laptops, and are already out in Q1. Tracing the i7 150U shows that it's only in laptops in Australia and India.

    So, yes, "mobile" is more diverse than just laptops, and different regions have different product variants. But the gist still holds, MTL is laptops, and RLR is (mostly) desktops and embedded.

    I assume this will hold true for ARL/LNL.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    baboma said:
    So, yes, "mobile" is more diverse than just laptops, and different regions have different product variants. But the gist still holds, MTL is laptops, and RLR is (mostly) desktops and embedded.
    There's also the 14th Gen HX line for the high end (should be around 5 SKUs which are binned desktop chips) since there is no equivalent MTL.
    baboma said:
    I assume this will hold true for ARL/LNL.
    If you're assuming LNL will be like MTL in this comparison you're wrong. LNL will be extremely limited in SKU count due to it not being a full stack line. It does not go higher than 4P/4E, uses Battlemage graphics (ARL is Alchemist) and has on package memory (might be EMIB). This means it's tightly integrated and ought to have very high performance for the power profile it is in. It also means that it cannot really serve any other market than premium ultrabook type devices.
    Reply
  • thestryker said:
    They're both using Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores which is what I believe the article is getting at. Overall design and implementation for the CPUs themselves is certainly dramatically different.

    Maybe but the article's wording can be a bit misleading. But P and E cores aside, the real architecture is "dramatically" different like you mentioned.

    Most importantly, actually there has been some architectural changes as well, since we last learned about the low-power LUNAR LAKE lineup. I have mentioned this before as well here at the forums that this new CPU lineup would be replacing E-cores with the SoC-centric LPE cores instead.
    4P+0E+4LPE Core ConfigurationBut some older INTEL slides still mention 4P+4E config, but that has been changed now, as confirmed by multiple sources.

    Lunar Lake is actually a spiritual successor to Lakefield, and would feature the Foveros 3D packaging to stack the DRAM dies on top of the SoC.

    Lunar Lake CPUs might also drop the "MX" branding and utilize "V" branding instead, LNL-V. This was sort of confirmed via a recent leak, as well as by a leaker on Chinese forum. But this is not yet finalized.

    1776005067117592756View: https://twitter.com/miktdt/status/1776005067117592756
    https://www.bilibili.com/opus/921254597915312153?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0
    So based on the above info, it would appear that a single die which will feature 4 P-cores based on the Lion Cove core architecture, and 4 LP-E cores based on the Skymont core architecture.

    Assuming there aren't any standard E-Cores for Lunar Lake CPUs, this might imply how Intel would be achieving bigger generational "Performance Per Watt" gains with these thin and light series of laptop chips.

    Speaking of Battlemage Xe2-LPG iGPUs, we can expect 8 Xe-cores, so that's up to 64 EUs. Few enablement patches have already begun within Linux, and some references such as "64" and "GT1" were already found in the above leak/tweet, especially in the log file.

    https://i.imgur.com/k3P91M8.png

    So let me break this down for Lunar Lake. Rumored/expected specs:
    4P+0E+4LPE Core ConfigurationsThey are designed for thin & light Notebooks, low-power devices.Support for Lion Cove P-Cores & Skymont LPE-CoresBattlemage "Xe2-LPG" GPU ArchitectureUp to 8 Xe2 GPU CoresMax up to 64 Execution Units/EUsOn-Package 32 GB LPDDR5x Memory, rated at speeds of up to 8533 MT/sUp To 3x Faster NPU Performance Versus Meteor Lake17-30W TDPLaunch volume by early/mid 2025. Some models might come out in q4 2024 as well, but in very limited quantities as per insider industry sources.
    Reply