The crystal ball is a bit opaque in divining Intel's next-generation CPU plans; Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, and a refresh of the current generation Raptor Lake have all been rumored since the current 13th generation processors were released.

Intel has almost certainly abandoned Meteor Lake for desktops, opting instead for a Raptor Lake refresh (which is itself a refresh of the 12th generation Alder Lake). It would earn the designation 14th generation. And now a new rumor suggests an October release in time for the holiday shopping season.

The October date comes from Chinese leaker ECSM, which also revealed a release date of Q4 2023 for the Meteor Lake-H and late 2024 to early 2025 for the Arrow Lake-S processors Meteor Lake-. H release date is expected based on teasers and working laptops that have already been spotted.

According to ECSM, Intel plans to release the K-series SKUs in October, followed by non-K-series models in time for the year-end Christmas shopping season. The leak suggests that there will be a new 8 performance + 12 efficiency core model that will fill the gap between the 8P+8E 13700 and 8P+16E 13900 models.

The cancellation of Meteor Lake-S for desktops is disappointing for enthusiasts who were looking forward to Intel's radically different tile-based architecture (a true Alder Lake successor.) The Raptor Lake refresh is now about 18 months away. It appears to be an interim solution to fill the gap until Arrow Lake desktop processors arrive.

Performance gains from the Raptor Lake refresh should not be expected to be much; even higher clocks than the i9 13900KS can be expected. That means it can more easily run memory in the DDR5-8000 range and above.

Sadly, however, we also heard rumors of increased power consumption at Computex. This is unfortunate given the cooling and power requirements of current 13th generation chips, at least the enthusiast class chips. i5 13400-like chips have shown great efficiency, and there are few complaints about chips lower in this range.

The welcome news is that the Raptor Lake refresh chip will be available on 700 series motherboards with just a BIOS update (and most, if not all, 600 series motherboards will have it). In other words, a 14th generation chip would be a significant upgrade for users with 12th generation chips. Those looking for a new 700 series motherboard will also have several options, as new feature-rich models will be available.

With DDR5 prices now rock bottom from a year ago, 700 series boards in abundance, and 14th generation CPUs coming soon, a fairly cost-effective upgrade could be available later this year. However, with the next generation coming at least a year after the Raptor Lake refresh, many users will be forced to pull the trigger on upgrading to the 14th generation.