CPU-Z Screenshot of Alleged Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake" ES Surfaces, Confirms Intel 4 Process

[Daven]

Wasn’t the Arrow Lake compute tile suppose to be 20A?

 

[R0H1T]

I wish these pointless leaks stopped and instead someone said "oops a sample fell off the truck somewhere!" and just did full benches months ahead of release.

Well you already have some at AT doing that.

Ok it's for AMD just in case it wasn't clear!

 

[Klemc]

New socket, better wait later updated versions, first gen of a socket is started from scratch they will have to learn alll about it.

 

[InVasMani]

Better be safe than assume things. There's no label on the box of the K version that says "only for extreme overclockers and undervolters". Like I said: if you like tuning, do it. If you don't, you should still be able to feel safe whichever CPU you buy.

Not to mention when it's doing stupid buggy unexpected stuff between both CPU and MB manufacturers. It 100% should be reliable stock and not just hey enjoy you're treasure hunt on how fix this out of box experience good luck and hope it doesn't degrade until you figure out all the Easter egg surprises tucked away in bios settings scattered in various area's the known UEFI bios universe that also parallel universes that differ by brand both in setting naming and locations. There is like zero consistency almost, but we should known everything inherently apparently because we all receive free sponsored top level hardware to not worry about breaking.

Set it to a 12 out of 10 chances of burning without dry ice, delid, and liquid metal as the out of box experience.

 

[Vincero]

I wish these pointless leaks stopped and instead someone said "oops a sample fell off the truck somewhere!" and just did full benches months ahead of release.

Problem with that is that usually there is a lot of optimisation still to do with software / BIOS, etc.
Hell, even release day hardware can have updates waiting that SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance or fixes a performance bug - most new motherboard/chipset BIOS updates are usually this exact thing rather than feature improvements. Can't imagine how bad / flakey some of this stuff must be before it's even finished widespread / OEM validation work.

The likelihood is that screenshot will have been taken on a device which is still actually buggy somewhere...

 

[R0H1T]

even release day hardware can have updates waiting that SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance or fixes a performance bug

That rarely happens these days & probably the last release to do that was ~ you guessed it the original Zen! And with Intel, last 2 gens, we're doing things in reverse

 

[fevgatos]

Not to mention when it's doing stupid buggy unexpected stuff between both CPU and MB manufacturers. It 100% should be reliable stock and not just hey enjoy you're treasure hunt on how fix this out of box experience good luck and hope it doesn't degrade until you figure out all the Easter egg surprises tucked away in bios settings scattered in various area's the known UEFI bios universe that also parallel universes that differ by brand both in setting naming and locations. There is like zero consistency almost, but we should known everything inherently apparently because we all receive free sponsored top level hardware to not worry about breaking.

Set it to a 12 out of 10 chances of burning without dry ice, delid, and liquid metal as the out of box experience.

Dont buy a k chip if you don't want that. No joking.

 

[Vincero]

That rarely happens these days & probably the last release to do that was ~ you guessed it the original Zen! And with Intel, last 2 gens, we're doing things in reverse

Rarely??? Literally the AM5 / DDR5 issues and some Intel DDR5 boards have had BIOS updates to fix RAM compatibility at or soon after release.

 

[R0H1T]

You said significantly (DDR5)RAM (in)compatibility isn't something that probably did that. How much did these chips gain after the BIOS updates? Keep in mind you cannot & will not test all possible memory IC's with all possible mobo/chips before launch ~ that's simply not possible! Goes for both Intel or AMD.

This is why early adopters are called guinea pigs.

 

[N/A]

Wasn’t the Arrow Lake compute tile suppose to be 20A?

20-18A is being worked on in the lab somewhere on the side just to claim the 4 nodes in 2 years achievement.
And it makes no sense to skip a fully grown intel 4 (7nm) node just like that when 14nm has been in use for almost a decade.

 

[Vincero]

You said significantly (DDR5)RAM (in)compatibility isn't something that probably did that. How much did these chips gain after the BIOS updates? Keep in mind you cannot & will not test all possible memory IC's with all possible mobo/chips before launch ~ that's simply not possible! Goes for both Intel or AMD.

This is why early adopters are called guinea pigs.

True, but when you're validating functionality months before release you will generally have very 'safe' settings to get through the validation (which may still be buggy in some untested scenarios) or you'll be on the other end of the spectrum figuring out how much headroom the silicon/architecture physically has.
To be honest, AMD actually released AM5 with some fairly high DDR5 speeds out of the box and mandating certain speeds for RAM testing. I bet if they said "hey just aim to use DDR5-4800 / 5200" there would have been a lot less issues with boards / RAM makers - they literally put themselves in a situation where everybody was in the mindset of DDR5-6000 or bust.
When Intel released the X99 platform, it was pretty much DDR4-2133 or 2400 as their pitch - sure companies like Asus were like "shoot for 3200" and many of the CPUs could make that happen but it wasn't the main company line from Intel.

Staying on topic, we have no idea what the parameters around the leaked screenshots are. Seeing as potentially less than 6 months from release, hopefully most of the BIOS/support software is out of the Alpha stages and in Beta/RC stages. For sure, OEM sampling must be going on and of course is the source for these leaks really.

 

[Sithaer]

Naturally, I always go for the non-K version because I care more about the few bucks saved than having 1% higher boost when power limits are unlocked. But this doesn't mean that K variants shouldn't be safe and stable at stock.

Same, I have zero interest in ocing in general 'can't with a budget B mobo anyway' but thanks to some weird stuff going on with the prices I've still ended up with a K CPU.
I was originally planning to upgrade to a 13400F coming from a 12100F but for some reason the 12600KF was like 30$ cheaper so I was like alright I will bite cause even at stock its still a faster CPU for cheaper. 'I've undervolted it and this way its actually decently efficient and cool'

 

[R0H1T]

True, but when you're validating functionality months before release you will generally have very 'safe' settings to get through the validation (which may still be buggy in some untested scenarios) or you'll be on the other end of the spectrum figuring out how much headroom the silicon/architecture physically has.
To be honest, AMD actually released AM5 with some fairly high DDR5 speeds out of the box and mandating certain speeds for RAM testing. I bet if they said "hey just aim to use DDR5-4800 / 5200" there would have been a lot less issues with boards / RAM makers - they literally put themselves in a situation where everybody was in the mindset of DDR5-6000 or bust.
When Intel released the X99 platform, it was pretty much DDR4-2133 or 2400 as their pitch - sure companies like Asus were like "shoot for 3200" and many of the CPUs could make that happen but it wasn't the main company line from Intel.

Staying on topic, we have no idea what the parameters around the leaked screenshots are. Seeing as potentially less than 6 months from release, hopefully most of the BIOS/support software is out of the Alpha stages and in Beta/RC stages. For sure, OEM sampling must be going on and of course is the source for these leaks really.

In a way you could argue that PC building/OCing has become significantly less rewarding & probably way more complex than it needs to be. The overall saleability of PC has declined massively IMO & the launch of Apple's Mx chips almost certainly proves that.

 

[Vincero]

In a way you could argue that PC building/OCing has become significantly less rewarding & probably way more complex than it needs to be. The overall saleability of PC has declined massively IMO & the launch of Apple's Mx chips almost certainly proves that.

Yes and No... some of Apples choices have clearly irked even some of their fans....
Since the very late 2000s most of the handheld market SoCs had moved to a memory on CPU stacked design - it offered economy of space and packaging, but of course with higher speeds now it also offers the chance to have higher clock speeds due to ultra short signal paths. PC makers have opted to instead go with LPDDR configurations as it means keeping the same core dies they use elsewhere for the most part, but even Intel is moving to a mix with their new laptop SoCs with memory on package.

I'm surprised Apple haven't actually done a two-tier memory controller with on-package memory like the A/Mx chips use and a seperate 1/2x64-bit memory channel for higher RAM quantities. They could then do volume cheaper 8GB Mx chips and have more RAM externally - with decent memory management the performance hit would be managable as most application memory space is small and (except for a few specific types of workload/datasets) most extra RAM used for data and application caches doesn't necessarily need to be ultra-quick.
Sure you could have higher RAM densities packaged with the CPU but that is more expensive and then the RAM package heat also comes in to play a bit more.

AMD's caching on their GPUs essentially already does a similar function, but scale the cache size up and then it becomes much more useful. Wouldn't surprise me if Intel/AMD aren't working on something like this with forking off a memory controller from their CPU tile / adding an extra memory channel and RAM pads to the IO-die...

Problem is really relying on Linux kernel / Microsoft devs to implement memory management to leverage such a thing.

 

[R0H1T]

I was mainly talking about the tinkering part, I've had the base M2 Mac mini for the past few months & except the ghastly amount of RAM & non expandable/replaceable SSD it's almost perfect. The OS is a personal choice so no point going into that. I've not really been into high end PC except the last decade or so but my experience with Apple has almost converted me in to a believer

The margins on high end PC is so thin these days that even a 0.009v or 0.1Ghz can create instability, I'm not even going into the messy "Windows" parts. Of course I don't support Apple's BS pricing/options so "normal" PC will still be my choice for the foreseeable future!

 

[Klemc]

I was mainly talking about the tinkering part, I've had the base M2 Mac mini for the past few months & except the ghastly amount of RAM & non expandable/replaceable SSD it's almost perfect. The OS is a personal choice so no point going into that. I've not really been into high end PC except the last decade or so but my experience with Apple has almost converted me in to a believer

The margins on high end PC is so thin these days that even a 0.009v or 0.1Ghz can create instability, I'm not even going into the messy "Windows" parts. Of course I don't support Apple's BS pricing/options so "normal" PC will still be my choice for the foreseeable future!

Soldered SSD ?.. EUropa will have again to create a law, like for the one forbidding unremovable batteries (lol).

CPU Boost is OC, that's why manual OC has only remnants.

 

[Vincero]

I was mainly talking about the tinkering part, I've had the base M2 Mac mini for the past few months & except the ghastly amount of RAM & non expandable/replaceable SSD it's almost perfect. the OS is a personal choice so no point going into that. I've not really been into high end PC except the last decade or so but my experience with Apple has almost converted me in to a believer

The margins on high end PC is so thin these days that even a 0.009v or 0.1Ghz can create instability, I'm not even going into the messy "Windows" parts. Of course I don't support Apple's BS pricing/options so "normal" PC will still be my choice for the foreseeable future!

The margins don't need to be that tight, but all parties are trying to win benchmarks so... what you gonna do?
I'm glad more reviewers and publications are starting to a) look at performance per watt, and b) look at performance with different power limits - it's starting to give people a clearer view of just how good/bad some products are at a core performance level and how much the higher end parts are being pushed to compete and take the 'performance crown'. Its been shown from several reviews now that with the thermal limits in place some of the K/KS SKUs are literally only good for a minor bump in speed - it's only a good look and a win if you ignore the crazy element.
When the 13900K with its 253W TDP was announced I was surprised it was being seen as more of a "yeah, it's a bit high" vs the "lol, you out 'bulldozered' AMD"...

Intel will no doubt push arrow lake for all it's worth and blow past that 125W TDP shown in the screenshot leak. It has a slightly larger die than raptor lake but a lot more logic on board so to a certain extent they may be able to control heat better. Will be interesting to see how good the idle efficiency is with all that extra logic sitting there...
Shame is that if the architecture performs great and scales well up until say 125W, they just will not take that win in that space. Although the media and everyone who buys stuff is to blame... "I want the best and damn the expense" has made a lot of flawed products a success.... I just think more the "damn the expense" part...

Even Apple have turned up the wick on their M parts a bit over time...

 

[kondamin]

I wish these pointless leaks stopped and instead someone said "oops a sample fell off the truck somewhere!" and just did full benches months ahead of release.

I feel the same way but samples and early bioses aren’t necessarily as performant as the retail version will be later on.

so I wish serious publications didn’t bother with it and left it to places like wccf and mlid so he rest of us aren’t bothered with it

 

[mahirzukic2]

Problem with that is that usually there is a lot of optimisation still to do with software / BIOS, etc.
Hell, even release day hardware can have updates waiting that SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance or fixes a performance bug - most new motherboard/chipset BIOS updates are usually this exact thing rather than feature improvements. Can't imagine how bad / flakey some of this stuff must be before it's even finished widespread / OEM validation work.

The likelihood is that screenshot will have been taken on a device which is still actually buggy somewhere...

That's because that stuff is getting rushed through the door, no time to do polishing and optimization.
We'll do that on the fly.

 

[Klemc]

There is new CPU gen each year, it's not like if CPU are ready, they must be for given time.

 

[Eternit]

The names of the nodes have been marketing not physical for a long time. What Intel used to name 7nm is similar to TSMC N5. They renamed it to Intel 4. Also we don’t know what Intel 3 is but I think it is updated Intel 4 not brand new node. It’s rather 20A and 18A what used to be named 5nm by Intel and being similar to TSMC N3. In the old Intel names Intel 3 would be 7nm+ and 18A 5nm+. Anyway they all ar just names. Only real life tests will show how do they perform. And yields will decide the prices.

 

[Makaveli]

Same, I have zero interest in ocing in general 'can't with a budget B mobo anyway' but thanks to some weird stuff going on with the prices I've still ended up with a K CPU.
I was originally planning to upgrade to a 13400F coming from a 12100F but for some reason the 12600KF was like 30$ cheaper so I was like alright I will bite cause even at stock its still a faster CPU for cheaper. 'I've undervolted it and this way its actually decently efficient and cool'

The fun has been taken out of overclocking when Intel and AMD started doing themselves. I really enjoyed it on my socket 1366 build however on AM4 and even more so with a X3D chip no point at all everything just works optimal out of the box. On the AMD side you maybe play with PBO for abit and that is it.

 

[AnotherReader]

The names of the nodes have been marketing not physical for a long time. What Intel used to name 7nm is similar to TSMC N5. They renamed it to Intel 4. Also we don’t know what Intel 3 is but I think it is updated Intel 4 not brand new node. It’s rather 20A and 18A what used to be named 5nm by Intel and being similar to TSMC N3. In the old Intel names Intel 3 would be 7nm+ and 18A 5nm+. Anyway they all ar just names. Only real life tests will show how do they perform. And yields will decide the prices.

Intel 3 is a refinement of Intel 4. Real World Technologies had an article on Intel 4 a couple of years ago. The relevant portion is quoted below:

The Intel 3 process (previously known as 7nm+) will be the first new foundry offering, alongside the existing Intel 16 node. It is essentially an enhanced variant of Intel 4, boosting performance and density through new process modules and other features, and will be used in the forthcoming Granite Rapids server processor. For example, Intel has promised more extensive use of EUV and faster transistors. Critically, Intel 3 will also bring a fuller and richer set of features to support a wider range of designs and customers, as appropriate for a foundry process.

 

[Tek-Check]

"CPU-Z identifies the chip with an Intel Core Ultra case badge with the deep shade of blue associated with the Core Ultra 9 brand extension"
No, i5 (u5 now) also have deep blue shade
View attachment 356216
And this screenshot is on the new i5, otherwise, the author of this fake screenshot wouldn't work so hard to hide every clue that this is i5

I agree. Even if Intel 4 is used at all, it is not used for anything higher than i5 non-K on Arrow Lake.
I was initially confused by "Intel 4" and thought what the heck...

So far, we have had information that N3 is used for all K SKUs and 20A for non-K i5 and below.
This is the first time ever I am seeing Intel 4 associated with Arrow Lake. Weird...

Yeap, I think this is an i5.

Also, we have never heard of Intel 4 being used on Arrow Lake. This is so weird...
Perhaps they had ES on several nodes and this might be an old screen-shot
For Arrow Lake, current leak suggest N3 and 20A.

Wasn’t the Arrow Lake compute tile suppose to be 20A?

20A on lower SKUs and N3 on K and higher SKUs. Intel 4 screenshot perhaps shows one of old ES that they design on several nodes.

Also we don’t know what Intel 3 is but I think it is updated Intel 4 not brand new node

Indeed. It has been released already on Sierra Forest CPUs. It's tailored for density and efficiency.

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Intel® Xeon® 6780E Processor (108M Cache, 2.20 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

www.intel.com

 

[AusWolf]

Dont buy a k chip if you don't want that. No joking.

The last time I checked, K meant "unlocked multiplier" for overclockers, and not "death trap" for people with more money than brain. No joking.