Intel knows that Arrow Lake dealt a huge blow to its reputation among gamers and enthusiasts. The underperforming chips sporting a radically different architecture didn’t make the cut in games, underperforming in some titles compared to even last-gen parts, and although application performance is competitive, it isn’t enough to earn a spot among the best CPUs. Tom’s Hardware asked Intel’s Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of product management for Intel’s Client Computing Group, about the low prices of the newer Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus at Computex 2026, and he told us the prices were chosen to help build back Intel’s reputation.
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We’ve presented this same question to Intel multiple times before, and always with the same response. Fundamentally, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus undermines Intel’s existing Arrow Lake range. It’s faster in games and applications compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K, and it costs half the price. So, we pressed Neelalojanan further about this issue in an attempt to understand why exactly Intel decided to target such aggressive pricing.
“From an enthusiast perspective, it was... we needed to build back our reputation. I am sure you would agree with that, and this was, hey, [we’re] making sure we are providing value to the gamers, and we start with Arrow Lake Refresh, and we have a very strong roadmap to come,” Neelalojanan told me. “In terms of desktop, that was an effort to [say] ‘let's go with value focus first, and that will help us then gain confidence.’ I mean, this is obvious... I'm not saying anything which you already don't know.”
The next step in that roadmap is Nova Lake, which is a generation Intel has been talking about for quite some time. The company has reiterated that Nova Lake is set to launch at the end of 2026, but it’s not clear if we’ll have actual products by then. Speaking to a different Intel representative, they told me that demand for CPUs spans everywhere from the data center down to mainstream laptops, and that the company sometimes has meetings on a daily basis to address these changes. The rapidly evolving market around CPUs could push Nova Lake out to next year, but, at the moment, Nova Lake is still slated for the end of the year.
It seems like each new generation that isn’t a refresh from Intel is some make-or-break moment, but outside of the hype, Nova Lake has a lot of interesting murmurs surrounding it. First and most obvious is bLLC. We’ve heard continual rumors that Intel is working on a “big last-level cache” in a bid to finally combat AMD’s X3D chips, and apparently, that will show up with Nova Lake. Intel hasn’t confirmed that’s the case yet, of course.
Nova Lake has a different context compared to the launch of Arrow Lake Refresh, as well. My conversations with Intel point to a reset in the company’s enthusiast roadmap, as it clearly knows the damage Arrow Lake did to its reputation. We’re still far off from Nova Lake pricing discussions, but given the aggressive rollout of Arrow Lake Refresh, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Intel undercut AMD across the spectrum.
Neelalojanan certainly implies that’s the case. We’ll need to wait until Intel has more to share on Nova Lake, which hopefully we will hear about soon. Again, the company has said Nova Lake is on track for the end of 2026, so barring a delay announcement, that’s when we expect to see the chips in the flesh.
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