New Intel Arrow Lake CPU leak suggests NPU could be disappointingly weak
A new Intel Arrow Lake leak reveals that the upcoming desktop processors will only feature a low-power NPU, an NPU that does not meet the hardware requirements for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC.
As noted by Video cardzHardware leaker Jaykihn over at X has posted a listing claiming to be a spec for Intel Arrow Lake-S (desktop) which states that the NPU will only deliver 13 TOPS (trillion operations per second). For context, the current crop of recently released Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered ‘AI PCs’ come with a 45 TOPS NPU.
Collection of various minor improvements/changes shipped with Arrow Lake -S. All specs are “up to” except TOPS, which may exceed the listed quantity on the retail product. pic.twitter.com/EyAxyFVZMfJuly 9, 2024
According to Minimum PC Requirements for Microsoft Copilot+Only chips with an integrated NPU capable of at least 40 TOPS are powerful enough to qualify. Should this leak prove true, Arrow Lake desktop CPUs will fall far short of the NPU goods needed for a Copilot+ PC.
Intel’s other next-gen processor lineup also coming later this year will look very different: the incoming Lunar Lake chips, which are for laptops, will feature a 48 TOPS NPU. These CPUs should start appearing in notebooks later this year (though perhaps not in volume until 2025), and are poised to rival the Qualcomm Snapdragon X (along with AMD’s incoming Ryzen AI 300 series).
All in all, it seems that Copilot+ PCs are meant to be laptops only, and that desktop PCs don’t get the same treatment as mobile components in this regard. The addition of a low-power NPU in Arrow Lake is therefore somewhat confusing.
A confusing turn for AI computing?
All in all, it’s questionable whether it makes sense for Arrow Lake to add a desktop processor with such a low NPU, as claimed in this spec sheet. In fact, it doesn’t seem to make sense at all.
It seems like a neural processor is being added for the sake of it, rather than providing any tangible benefit to desktop PCs. We’ll of course know more once Arrow Lake is officially revealed, with a practical application demonstrated (hopefully). Take all of this with a healthy dose of skepticism, though, as it’s all just fodder for the rumor mill.
It looks like NPUs will appear in multiple future processor generations over the coming years, both on mobile and, we suspect, on the desktop as well. Simply put, the “AI computing boom” has a lot of momentum behind it, even if the actual use cases are still fuzzy. Maybe desktop PCs will eventually become Copilot+ devices – or maybe they won’t, and with Arrow Lake processors, it seems like they certainly won’t.
