Next-gen Intel Arrow Lake-S CPU spotted with 24-threads and no AVX-512 functionality

InstLatX64 on X (formerly Twitter) spotted a new Intel test system featuring an Arrow Lake-S engineering sample. The CPU inside the test system features 24 threads, a 3GHz frequency, and lacks AVX512 (though it could be disabled in firmware). This new Arrow Lake test machine confirms that Intel is in the middle of testing Arrow Lake and preparing it for launch later this year.

There are a few interesting tidbits about this new Arrow Lake chip: one is the thread count. At 24 threads, the Arrow Lake chip has two more threads than the most potent Core Ultra 9 processor you can buy today, seemingly confirming that Arrow Lake will sport at least two more threads than Meteor Lake at least for the flagship model. What's even more interesting is that those 24 threads could be 24 actual cores, if rumors are true about Arrow Lake ditching hyperthreading altogether.

Another interesting tidbit is the lack of AVX-512 on this particular Arrow Lake sample. InstLatX64 specifically reports that the chip comes "without" AVX-512 but it is reasonable to assume that the instruction set might be disabled in the chip's firmware or motherboard UEFI. Nonetheless, there's a chance Arrow Lake might not come with AVX-512 and if that is true, it means that mainstream users won't have an easily accessible AVX-512 platform again and will be forced to move to other platforms like AMD's Ryzen 7000 series CPUs or Intel's latest workstation Xeon CPUs to access the feature.

However, this feature segmentation is not likely to last forever. Intel has plans to bring AVX10 and AVX-512 to its future E-core CPU architectures, which will enable Intel to re-activate AVX-512 functionality in future products.

Arrow Lake-S is Intel's next-generation desktop CPU architecture that will reportedly replace its outgoing Raptor Lake Refresh CPU lineup later this year. Intel's future desktop CPUs will allegedly bring the tile-based Meteor Lake design philosophy to the desktop market with some additional modifications to improve performance. Arrow Lake will come with a newer more enhanced Intel 20A process node that will introduce RibbonFET gate-all-round transistors and a backside power delivery technology called PowerVia to Arrow Lake processors. These two features are expected to help enhance Arrow Lake's IPC performance Meteor Lake, since Meteor Lake itself is merely a more power-efficient equivalent to Raptor Lake on the CPU side.

Arrow Lake is on track to launch sometime in the second half of 2024 along with Lunar Lake. Arrow Lake will focus on the desktop market while Lunar Lake will target mobile devices just like Meteor Lake. This marks the first architectural split between Intel's desktop and mobile segments for the first time in history since the introduction of hybrid x86 CPUs back in 2021. It won't be until Panther Lake arrives in 2025 that both segments will be treated by a singular architecture once again.