The roadmap for Intel's future releases of its Panther Lake and Nova Lake chips have been discovered in Dell documents that appear to have been inadvertently posted to a public download server. VideoCardz discovered the Dell XPS roadmap detailing the laptop manufacturer's production strategy for its XPS lineup from 2023 to 2027. The documents highlight key information about XPS internal hardware changes, including the implementations of future Intel CPU platforms such as Nova Lake and future RTX mobile GPUs.
As with all leaks, take the info with a grain of salt; Dell's newly found roadmap was originally published in late 2023, so there's a chance some of these release targets have changed. That said, it provides the most detailed release date information that we've seen for Dell's XPS laptop lineup, Intel's future mobile CPU lineups, and Nvidia's mobile GPU release cadence.
Intel mobile CPU roadmap and Nvidia next-gen GPU release windows
The biggest takeaway from Dell's roadmap is the projected integrations of Intel's future CPU lineups. The roadmap projects that Intel's Lunar Lake-MX series processors will arrive in Q4 of 2024, Arrow Lake-H will arrive in Q1 of 2025, Panther Lake-H will arrive in Q1 of 2026, and Nova Lake will arrive in 2027.
Dell's roadmap also shows a rough projection of GPU upgrades for all of the laptops mentioned below. In 2025, laptops sporting discrete graphics will apparently get upgraded to next-generation Nvidia RTX graphics hardware (most certainly RTX 50 series Blackwell). In 2026, they will get updated to a "refreshed" version of Nvidia's next-gen hardware.
Dell's next-gen laptop roadmap
Dell's outgoing XPS 16, codenamed Diablo, is projected to be refreshed twice with new internal hardware changes between 2025 and 2026. In 2025, the laptop will sport an upgrade to Intel Arrow Lake-H processors, and in 2026, the CPU will be upgraded to Panther Lake-H.
The Dell XPS 14, codenamed Pista, will see similar changes with Arrow Lake-H CPUs and next-gen Nvidia graphics in 2025. However, in 2026, the XPS 14 Pista will be replaced by a new 14-inch model codenamed Huracan that will come with Panther Lake-H internals, 2026 Nvidia GPU hardware, and SKUs featuring Qualcomm Snapdragon hardware sporting Oryon V2 cores. In 2027, the Huracan notebook will get an upgrade to Nova Lake CPUs.
Dell's outgoing XPS 13, codenamed Tributo R, will also receive several CPU upgrades. Later this year, Dell will release Snapdragon Elite variants of the Tributo R XPS 13 and Lunar Lake-MX series options. In 2026, the Tributo R will be replaced by the XPS 13, codenamed Divo, featuring Lunar Lake and next-gen Qualcomm Oryon V2 CPU options. In 2027, the Divo XPS 13 will be upgraded to Intel Nova Lake parts.
Intel roadmap CPU details
Lunar Lake is Intel's next-generation mobile CPU architecture, which will feature 100+ TOPs of performance. The chip will use a combination of Intel's own 18A (1.8nm class) fabrication process and TSMC's 3nm-class N3B node. Lunar Lake is expected to have radically lower power consumption than Meteor Lake while boasting significant IPC improvements.
Arrow Lake is in a very confusing state right now. Obviously, Dell's roadmap confirms that It will appear in the mobile market. However, most of the information we've heard about it concerns its desktop Arrow Lake-S adaptation. As far as we can tell, Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake will be very similar architecturally with very few differences.
Panther Lake will be the next major successor to Lunar Lake/Arrow Lake. It is expected to be twice as fast as its predecessors and five times faster than Intel's outgoing Meteor Lake chips.
Nova Lake is the newest CPU architecture we've heard about so far. According to unconfirmed leaks, it is expected to provide a massive 60% IPC improvement compared to its predecessors and use Intel's 3rd-gen Xe3 Celestial GPU architecture for integrated graphics.
