ASUS Announces Arrow Lake Refresh BIOS Update Coming Late January

Low Boon Shen
3 Min Read

For some reason, Intel has seemingly completely forgotten the existence of Arrow Lake Refresh throughout the CES 2026 event, so the very first official confirmation of the Core Ultra 200 series refresh didn’t come from the chipmaker, but rather ASUS instead. The motherboard maker said BIOS updates for the new lineup will be available later this month.

Arrow Lake Refresh Coming Soon

Since ASUS made this announcement public for everyone to see, it’s safe to say Arrow Lake Refresh, which likely will be referred as Intel Core Ultra 200 Plus series if prior leaks are any indication, will be available soon after BIOS updates become available. The entire lineup of ASUS Z890, W880, Q870, B860, and H810 motherboards will get the update, and given that the company didn’t announce new Intel motherboards in the most recent CES, expect all of them to require manual updates in order to get everything working as intended.

Intel hasn’t made any announcement thus far relating to the new lineup at all, so there’s a good chance this is going to be a lukewarm launch at best, if the launch timing is set within the this or next month. That said, Chinese leaker Golden Pig Upgrade noted that the current target is March or April, so there’s at least six weeks away before these models appear in retailers and in laptops, which will also get their mid-cycle refreshes.

ASUS Announces Arrow Lake Refresh BIOS Update Coming Late January

As a quick recap, these refreshed models will feature a β€œPlus” branding suffix (i.e 290K Plus, 290HX Plus, 250K Plus) to indicate their refreshed nature, but exactly what will be brought to the table is unclear for now. It’s likely more than just a clock speed boost, as leaks suggest that memory support will be further upgraded to work with faster modules, but with the current memory market climate, not many PCs will be able to tap into the added performance potential these chips may offer.

Pokdepinion: Arrow Lake has been unpopular among gamers due to its lackluster gaming performance, so I doubt this refresh is going to do much to shift the balance away from AMD’s 3D V-Cache offerings.

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