The packaging for the new lineup of Intel Arrow Lake gaming CPUs has just leaked out, and shows that the forthcoming new Core Ultra 9 285K is going to come in a special box, just like the company’s previous flagship chips. You might think the box is a negligible part of the equation, particularly when there’s no cooler in the box any more, but Intel knows the value of packaging when it comes to hardware enthusiasts, and it looks like it wants its new chips to be under the spotlight in unboxing videos.
Intel is expected to release its new Arrow Lake gaming CPU lineup in October 2024, when they will go up against the latest AMD Zen 5 chips in the best gaming CPU battle. If Intel can get the performance right for the price, and avoid the stability issues that have plagued its 14th-gen Raptor Lake CPUs, then it could be onto a winner, and it looks as though the company is hoping the packaging will entice some gamers to its new top-end chip.
All the new box designs are very black (none more black?) compared to previous Intel packaging designs, which have been mainly blue and white. Let’s start with the Core Ultra 9 285K box, which has just been leaked by Videocardz. It’s a deep package, with another, strangely-angled silver box inside it. Frustratingly, we can’t see any more of that inner silver box from the angle of the render, but it’s likely to be fancy. In the past Intel has made inner silver boxes that look like wafers for its Core i9 12900K and 13900K CPUs, while its Core i9 9900K came in a dodecahedron box, and the Core i9 11900K came in an attractively-angled, translucent blue box.
This box leak also gives us an indication of the language it will use to distinguish between different generations of CPUs, now that it’s abandoned using terms such as “14th-gen.” The box clearly says ‘unlocked’ at the bottom, showing that it will have an unlocked multiplier for overclocking, and underneath this it says “Series 2.”
We’re going to assume that “Series 2” is the term Intel will use as an umbrella name for its Core Ultra 200 chips, following on from the Core Ultra 100 Meteor Lake CPUs it’s been using in laptops this year.
This “Series 2” name is also used on the Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 5 CPU boxes, which have just been leaked by regular tech leaker momomo_us in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
As with previous Core i7 and Core i5 boxes, these don’t have the fancy packaging with the inner box, and their thinness shows they won’t be coming with a CPU cooler either, although this has been standard for Intel’s K-series CPUs for a few years now. These packages are basic black boxes that go big on the new Intel Core Ultra branding, with some blue dots on the top and right edges of the front face.
As always with leaks, bear in mind that none of these box renders have been officially released by Intel, and as such they may not represent the design of the final packaging when it’s released.
For more information about these forthcoming new CPUs, check out our Intel Arrow Lake guide, where we share everything we know about them, including the specs and expected performance.