When Intel launched its all-new tile-based Meteor Lake processors in 2023, it endowed the architecture with so many changes it felt a new naming scheme was required. To reflect this new direction for the company's CPUs, it jettisoned the "Core i" branding in favor of a Core Ultra 100 numbering strategy. That trend will continue with the company's second-generation, tile-based Arrow Lake desktop processors, which will reportedly be the Core Ultra 200 series, and now we have the first batch of names for these upcoming CPUs.
Since we won't be getting a Core i9 15900K, Core i7 15700K, and so forth for these CPUs, we'll allegedly get the Core Ultra 9 285K, Ultra 7 265K, and the Ultra 5 245K. The information comes from Raichu on X, who has been accurate in the past with Intel leaks—but their account is protected, so the summary is from Videocardz. The poster didn't indicate the CPUs in question were the Ultra 9/7/5, but we're assuming those numbers will be attached because that's how Intel usually works with processor naming.
One notable aspect of this alleged naming scheme is that it almost exactly mirrors what Intel uses for its Meteor Lake mobile chips. For those, the Core Ultra 9 185H is the flagship, with the Ultra 7 165H below it. However, Meteor Lake has no "145" part, so a desktop chip with 245K branding would be new for Intel. Additionally, Raichu notes the non-K parts will feature 275, 255, and 240 branding, which will all be 65W processors instead of the 125W expected for the unlocked K CPUs.
What is notably missing from this lineup is a 290K or something similar, which would be expected given Intel's past naming scheme. Also, the fact that it's aligning its numbering with its mobile parts is a bit confusing, but perhaps Intel thinks this will be less confusing for customers since the CPU names will be similar on both platforms. Regardless, we'll have to wait and see what Intel says about all this when it finally reveals Arrow Lake. The company is expected to discuss them next month at Computex, which starts on June 4.
