Intel Ultra 400 “Nova Lake” CPUs to feature 5x NPU boost over Arrow Lake

Intel’s NPU6 will give Nova Lake a dramatic AI speed boost

According to the hardware leaker Jaykihn, Intel’s next-generation Nova Lake-S (desktop) CPUs will deliver a huge leap in NPU performance. Using Intel’s 6th generation NPU (NPU6), Intel aims to deliver 74 TOPS of AI performance. Compared to Arrow Lake-S (Core Ultra 200S), which has 13 TOPS of NPU performance, Nova Lake delivers a 5.69x boost in AI performance.

With such a dramatic boost in desktop AI performance, Intel’s Nova Lake-S CPUs will be Microsoft Copilot+ ready. This release will make strong NPU hardware common across Intel’s consumer hardware stack, giving developers more reason to adopt it.

Note that Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs use Intel’s NPU3 hardware. NPU4 was used in Lunar Lake and delivered 48 TOPS of AI performance. NPU 5 is being used in Panther Lake and delivers 50 TOPS of AI performance. Intel’s NPU6 hardware represents three generational leaps over Arrow Lake’s NPU3 hardware. Over these generations, Intel has focused on delivering greater AI performance and improving the area and power efficiency of its NPU hardware. If you are wondering why NPU5 is barely any more powerful than NPU4, it’s worth noting that NPU5 delivers more than 40% more TOPS per unit area than NPU4.

NVL-S ships with NPU6 at 74 TOPS, a three-generation uplift from the 13 TOPS of ARL-S.

The iGPU is comprised of 2 Xe3-LPG cores, a regression in core count from the 4 in ARL-S.

— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) November 24, 2025

(Jaykihn on Twitter/X)

Jaykihn has also stated that Intel’s Nova Lake-S (NVL-S) CPUs will feature a built-in Thunderbolt 5 controller. Furthermore, they are expected to feature a smaller integrated GPU with only two Xe3 LPG cores. This is less than the 4 cores in Arrow Lake CPUs, though this isn’t a big deal given how Intel’s desktop CPUs are intended to be paired with discrete graphics cards.

You can join the discussion on Nova Lake’s powerful NPU on the OC3D Forums.