Intel may update its current CPU lineup with an "Arrow Lake Refresh" generation, which will potentially bring improved clock speeds and out-of-the-box software optimizations tailored to gaming and productivity. A new Geekbench entry listing shows what appears to be a Core Ultra 300 series family CPU, the Core Ultra 7 365K, carrying eight P-cores, and 12 E-Cores for a total of 20 cores and 20 threads running at 3.9 GHz base frequency. The CPU benchmark run was recorded on an MSI PRO Z890-A Wi-Fi motherboard, paired with 48 GB of DDR5 memory. In a Geekbench v6 single-core test result, the refreshed Core Ultra 7 365K achieved 2,140 points, while the multicore score showed 19,744 points total.

This places the refresh below the average score of the current Core Ultra 7 265K, which has the most recent single-core Geekbench score of 3,030 and a multicore score of 20,861 points. The lower perfromance of the new CPU is likely due to an engineering sample running the benchmark, as well as software not fully utilizing the CPU, which is expected to perfrom better than the current Arrow Lake equivalent Additonally, the software identifier in the benchmark is the same, showing "GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 198 Stepping 2," while the ID is different, carrying a number eight, instead of the regular Arrow Lake's number nine. Interestingly, all other CPU characteristics are the same, meaning that the L2 and L3 cache structures remain unchanged. We initially expected to see Arrow Lake refresh bring an improved NPU performance to classify it as a Copilot+ AI PC. However, later rumors indicated that the change will not arrive at the NPU. As Intel bets big on its 2026 "Nova Lake" family, we are left to wonder if Intel will launch this lineup at all and if it makes market sense to do it before Nova Lake arrives.