Last year, Microsoft introduced its Windows AI features on new Copilot Plus PCs; however, these features were initially limited to a specific line of laptops. This is poised to change as Intel gears up to refresh its Arrow Lake desktop CPUs later this year, potentially bringing Copilot Plus capabilities to desktop configurations for the first time.
The latest Core Ultra desktop CPUs from Intel debuted in October and came equipped with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). However, this NPU did not meet the 40 TOPS performance threshold set by Microsoft for enabling Copilot Plus features. According to ZDNet Korea, Intel is preparing an Arrow Lake Refresh, which will feature higher clock speeds and an upgraded NPU that should meet the necessary requirements.
This upcoming NPU is expected to advance the refreshed Core Ultra 200 lineup to a new “NPU 4” architecture, similar to the design employed in Intel’s Lunar Lake laptop CPUs, which gained Copilot Plus capabilities in November. This transition could provide desktop PCs with a robust NPU, moving beyond the limitation of Copilot Plus being confined to mini PCs and all-in-one devices that utilize laptop processors.
It appears that the emphasis on the new NPU will be central to Intel’s Arrow Lake Refresh, which reportedly will not incorporate additional CPU or GPU cores compared to the existing Core Ultra 200 series. This decision may disappoint gamers who have been anticipating more competitive offerings from Intel within the desktop CPU market.
While the initial Arrow Lake processors were designed for improved efficiency and thermal performance, they fell short in gaming benchmarks, often lagging behind Intel’s previous Raptor Lake models. Intel acknowledged that the Arrow Lake rollout “didn’t go as planned,” and subsequent BIOS updates have had limited success in enhancing gaming performance. It now seems improbable that Intel will catch up to AMD’s Ryzen 9800X3D and 9950X3D in terms of gaming capabilities until the introduction of its next-generation Nova Lake CPUs in 2026.
