Intel’s 15th Gen Arrow Lake flagship, the Core i9-15900K (Core Ultra 9 285K as per the updated naming) is expected to feature 8P and 16 E-cores based on the Lion Cove and Skymont architectures, respectively. These chips will be fabbed on the Intel 20A/TSMC N3B node, and won’t be able to reach the boost clocks of their predecessors. For example, the Core i9-14900K has a boost clock of 6GHz, while the 14900KS goes as high as 6.2GHz. Unfortunately, the Core i9-15900K/Core Ultra 9 285K will top out at *just* 5.5GHz, or so claim the latest rumors.
Core i9-15900K/Core Ultra 9 285K Peaks at ~5.5GHz
Unfortunately, the Core i9-15900K/Core Ultra 9 285K will top out at *just* 5.5GHz, or so claim the latest rumors.
If this claim is true, the Arrow Lake flagship might perform very close to the Core i9-14900K/14900KS. After all, a 500-700MHz deficit in operating clocks is nothing to scoff at and might end up erasing the single-core gains granted by the IPC increment. On the bright side, the “Lion Cove” P-cores will allegedly feature 3MB of L2 cache (50% more than Raptor Cove) and 3x more than Zen 4 and Zen 5.
Lion Cove Gets More L2 Cache
The CPU core cache is one of the leading factors affecting gaming performance and was primarily responsible for Raptor Cove’s advantage over Golden Cove. The source believes the Arrow Lake P-cores will feature 3MB of L3 cache per core or 24MB overall. Combining that with the 12MB of L3 cache (3MB x4 clusters), we get 36MB of shared L3 cache for the 15900K/285K (same as the 13900K/14900K).
Thunderbolt 4 and More PCIe Lanes
On the chipset side, the Z890 motherboards will feature Thunderbolt 4 and four more PCIe NVMe lanes than the Z790. Unfortunately, this upgrade is limited to the higher-end offerings, and the budget B860 chipset won’t get the same treatment. (@金猪升级包’s profile – Weibo).
The Arrow Lake-S desktop processors will allegedly get up to 4 Xe Cores with 3 and 2 Xe Core variants for the lower-end parts. This is half as much as the higher-end Meteor Lake processors, and on par with the 15-28W Core Ultra 7 U-series SKUs.
Core i3/Core 3 Rebrands
Lastly, the Core Ultra lineup will continue to range from Ultra 5 to Ultra 9, with existing Core i3 rebrands serving the lower-end markets. We likely see Core 3/5 SKUs based on Raptor Lake in new packaging as part of the next-gen lineup.
