Intel today launched "locked" 65 W variants of its Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors in the Socket LGA1851 package. The company also announced more affordable motherboard chipset models, namely the Intel B860 mid-range chipset, and the Intel H810 value-ended chipset. The processor lineup is led by the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 (8P+16E, up to 5.60 GHz P-core boost), followed by the Core Ultra 7 265 (8P+12E, up to 5.30 GHz P-core boost); and the Core Ultra 5 245 (6P+8E, up to 5.10 GHz P-core boost). All three come with suitable boxed cooling solutions in the retail channel.

The Intel B860 chipset comes with a 4-lane DMI 4.0 chipset bus (half the bandwidth of the 8-lane chipset bus of the Intel Z890). The PCH puts out 14 PCI-Express 4.0 general purpose lanes, exactly half the number put out by the Z890. Storage connectivity, besides the configurability of the PCIe GPP lanes, include four SATA 6 Gbps ports. Networking includes a 1 GbE MAC, and Wi-Fi 6E integrated MAC, with Bluetooth 5.3. You can have up to 16 USB 3.2 lanes (each worth 5 Gbps), which can be configured as 5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, or 20 Gbps ports. The B860 lacks CPU overclocking support, but retains memory overclocking, including the ability to apply XMP 3.0 profiles.The entry-level Intel H810 chipset features the same 4-lane DMI 4.0 chipset bus, but puts out just four PCI-Express Gen 4 downstream lanes. This is a significant upgrade from the H610, which puts out Gen 3 lanes. The USB 3.2 connectivity is down to four lanes (four 5 Gbps ports that can be combined to 10 Gbps or 20 Gbps). Intel expects motherboards based on the Intel B860 chipset to start at $129, and those based on the Intel H810 to start at just $99.

Intel also used the occasion to highlight its recent software and firmware updates to the Core Ultra 200 desktop processors, to improve their performance in gaming workloads. This includes the new 0x114 microcode update, and updated UEFI BIOS from motherboard vendors.