The latest influx in Intel Arrow Lake rumours makes me cautiously optimistic about desktop and mobile processing for a change.

Hearing rumblings of upcoming processors makes me feel like a dog that is tentatively approaching a tasty treat. It's one of the reasons I don’t like to report too many rumours because I don’t want others to suffer the same disappointment. These latest rumours have given me a tiny glimmer hope.

Here's a quick update. We might now know the clock speeds of entry level and mid-range Arrow Lake S desktop CPUs, thanks to an apparent leaked conveyed by X users Raichu (via VideoCardz). They're also decent, considering other rumoured architectural improvements and efficiency improvements.

Lenovo's PR (via VideoCardz) has confirmed that a powerful Arrow Lake Halo processor is in the works. It was mentioned in a shipping manifesto from NBD.ltd.

Arrow Lake is just a few short weeks away. I'm sure Intel has its fingers (and possibly even toes) crossed that it will be a successful launch. After layoffs and Raptor Lake instability issues, as well as a cancelled 2024 invitation, the tides must surelynow turn for chipzilla.

These latest rumours are a positive sign for a change. Let's begin with the Arrow Lake S specs. According to rumours, the clock speeds that are most relevant to gamers will be:

It's difficult to compare the Core Ultra chips to the previous i5/i7/i9 chips because we don't know how they will stack up. We can compare them with i3 or i5 chips because they are not Core Ultra 7 and 9 chips.

These numbers are pretty impressive. The Intel Core i5 140600K, which is the current-gen Core i5 model, has a boost speed of 5.3 GHz. The Core i5 144400 has a 4.7 GHz boost clock. These rumoured Arrow Lake S clock speeds are in line with current-gen processors.

If that were the only news, there would be little reason to be excited. But we should remember that Arrow Lake-S uses a brand new layout and is produced primarily on TSMC's node N3, consuming up to 100W less power at high frequency.

After hearing that Arrow Lake was supposed to be more efficient, I worried that we wouldn't get enough high frequencies, at least with lower-end processors, for these fabled gains in efficiency to kick in. If these clock speeds are accurate, I may not need to worry at all.

This is in addition to what we already know about the higher-end Arrow Lake processors, which should launch before the lower-end ones. The upcoming flagship Core Ultra 9 285, for example, is rumoured boost up to 5.7 GHz, and perform better than Intel Core i9-14900KS and AMD Ryzen 9 99950X on single-threaded workloads and multi-core workloads.

What if you shifted this down to the lower end and also had some decent clock speed? I'm here to help.

Intel Arrow Lake Halo is the mysterious mobile graphical powerhouse, which is a bit like a Schrodinger chip, appearing and disappearing in the minds of observers who follow the rumours. The latest rumours are... that it exists. But that's not enough, since many thought it would be absorbed by the upcoming low-power Lunar Lake chip.

It's enough to be excited about a mobile PC gaming industry that is arguably more progressive and promising than desktop. Even if Arrow Lake Halo is "not available so soon", according to Lenovo's PR.

Originally, (way back then), it was rumored that the GPU would be a large Alchemist XeLPG Ark with 320 execution units (EUs). Since then, there's been a lot back-and-forth, and nobody knows what a chip like that would look like. But "Halo", as the name suggests, is supposed to denote a product. So don't blame my excitement when I see evidence of its existence.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited or at least attentive. Imagine if Intel was the one who could bring the gaming processor market back from the brink. What a great thing!