Overview
- A well-known hardware leaker, Golden Pig Upgrade Pack, reports the Core Ultra 200K Plus and 200HX Plus could launch in March or April.
- Intel skipped any Arrow Lake refresh announcement at CES 2026, responded to inquiries with "Stay Tuned," and kept public focus on Panther Lake.
- Leaked Geekbench results flagged by Benchleaks show a purported Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus scoring 3,198 single-core and 21,581 multi-core, placing it near high-end desktop chips, though the data is unverified.
- Reported specifications for the 290HX Plus include 8 performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, boost clocks a bit above 5.5 GHz, 36 MB L3, and a 55W base TDP with 160W MTP.
- Coverage frames the refresh as an incremental update emphasizing small clock gains and faster DDR5 support, with some analysis questioning desktop value given high DDR5 prices and a short runway before the next generation.