Till now, most of us were assuming that the 14th Gen Meteor Lake-S desktop CPUs are history. Apparently, multiple technical issues forced Intel to limit it to a development vehicle for the LGA1851 platform, making 15th Gen Arrow Lake the true next-gen desktop family from Intel. Interestingly, The General Manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group claims otherwise. In an interview with PC World, MJH explained that the Meteor Lake desktop lineup will land in 2024.
Q- Let me ask you, is there gonna be a Meteor Lake desktop?
A – Desktop will come in 2024.
Q- So you are confirming Meteor Lake desktop?
A – Yes.
Q – Whether or not you guys are returning to an era where there is gonna be a processor family for mobile and a seprate processor family for desktop but doesn’t sound like that’s the case.
A – That is not the case. I want one processor family top to bottom for both segments, doesn’t everybody?
Michelle Johnston Holthaus, GM, CCG, Intel (Via PCWorld).
She went on to categorically confirm that the 14th Gen Meteor Lake-S desktop processors are launching in 2024, stating that the company wants one processor family top to bottom for both segments. The higher-end Meteor Lake die featuring over 14 cores was supposedly canceled quite early on. Meteor Lake mobile also comes with an upper limit of 14 cores. Therefore, the chances of a 16 core+ desktop MTL-S part are very low. We’ve seen zero leaks indicating its existence, and Intel has been very loose and goose with leaks lately.
This is what’s more likely to happen. Intel will likely release the 15th Gen Arrow Lake processors as the successors to higher-end Raptor Lake/Raptor Lake Refresh. A few Meteor Lake chips may fill the lower-end slots as a formality (likely out of repurposed mobility dies) or a paper launch, and that’s about it.
We know Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake share the same LGA1851 platform on desktop. They are socket-compatible, with an identical tile configuration (modular design) and the same packaging technologies (Foveros with a 36um pitch). As per Intel’s official roadmap, the only difference between Meteor and Arrow Lake is the CPU die and perhaps the iGPU tile.
The SoC, I/O, and, realistically, the Graphics Tile will be shared across the generations. Note how Intel calls them a “Scalable Architecture across Multiple Generations“. Intel claims that the 2nm-class 20A node is on track for mass production in mid-to-late 2024, so a 14th Gen Core desktop lineup composed of higher-end 2nm/20A Arrow Lake and lower-end 4nm Meteor Lake dies is very likely.
