Microsoft’s newest Home windows AI options arrived first on new Copilot Plus PCs final 12 months, however they had been restricted to a particular vary of laptops. That appears set to alter due to Intel refreshing its current Arrow Lake desktop CPUs later this 12 months, that may simply ship Copilot Plus PC options in desktop PC kind components for the primary time.
Intel’s latest Core Ultra desktop CPUs launched in October with an NPU inside, but it surely wasn’t succesful sufficient to hit the 40 TOPS requirement that Microsoft mandates for Copilot Plus options. ZDNet Korea reports that Intel is now getting ready an Arrow Lake Refresh that may embrace increased clock speeds and a extra superior NPU that ought to be able to Copilot Plus options.
The brand new NPU design will reportedly transfer the refreshed Core Extremely 200 lineup to a more moderen “NPU 4” design, the identical NPU structure discovered on Intel’s Lunar Lake laptop computer CPUs that received Copilot Plus AI features in November. This may enable for true desktop PCs with a succesful NPU, as an alternative of Copilot Plus solely being out there on mini PCs and all-in-one PCs that use laptop computer processors.
It appears like a more moderen NPU would be the major a part of Intel’s Arrow Lake Refresh, as it is going to reportedly not embrace addition CPU or GPU cores over the present Core Extremely 200 chips. More room on the chip for NPU options will disappoint avid gamers who’ve been ready for Intel to be extra aggressive within the desktop CPU house, although.
The primary Arrow Lake chips ran more efficiently and cooler, however the PC gaming efficiency was disappointing and infrequently behind Intel’s earlier Raptor Lake CPUs. Intel admitted that its Arrow Lake launch “didn’t go as deliberate,” however a sequence of BIOS updates have performed little to alter the gaming efficiency scenario. It now seems unlikely that Intel will compete with AMD’s Ryzen 9800X3D and 9950X3D chips in gaming efficiency till its subsequent era Nova Lake CPUs launch in 2026.