Intel still says Meteor Lake CPUs are coming out in late 2023, but there might be a catch

On Thursday, Intel revealed its latest financial numbers for the first quarter of 2023. As expected, the big slowdown in overall PC shipments for that quarter affected Intel's numbers. Intel recorded a loss of $2.8 billion for the quarter, which was its biggest-ever quarterly decline. However, those numbers still exceeded Intel's previous expectations.

Moreover, the company seems to be very optimistic about its future CPU plans, according to its press release:

Intel continues to be on track to meet its goal of achieving five nodes in four years, with two of the five nodes nearly complete. Intel 7 is in high-volume manufacturing and CCG's Meteor Lake product on Intel 4 is ramping production wafer starts for an expected launch in the second half of 2023. Intel 3, Intel 20A, and Intel 18A remain on track.

While on the surface, hearing that the Meteor Lake CPU design is still coming out this year is good news, PC Gamer notes that it might be released first as a low-power laptop product, rather than a high-end desktop or laptop CPU. In fact, Meteor Lake might not be released as a desktop chip at all. Current rumors claim that the next big 14th Gen Intel Core desktop chip might actually be a minor refresh of the current Raptor Lake-S design.

2024 is when we might see a big desktop CPU architecture launch, with Arrow Lake, which is supposed to use the previously mentioned Intel 20A node. That will be a true next-gen desktop release from the company, if it keeps its current schedule. If you are wondering about performance, Intel could be bringing a new L4 "Adamantine" or "ADM" cache, which could boost booting speeds.

Intel still says Meteor Lake CPUs are coming out in late 2023, but there might be a catch