AMD's upcoming EPYC 9006-series 'Verano' CPUs that are specifically designed for AI servers will use an all-new SB1 socket and will require different cooling systems than other processors in the lineup, according to a listing at Dynatron, a leading maker of server coolers, discovered by InstLatX64. The new SB1 socket will be smaller than SP7 and SP8 sockets for other Zen 6-based EPYC CPUs and will therefore have different power and cooling needs.

AMD's Verano is quite different from conventional EPYC processors. The CPU will feature up to 72 Zen 6 cores operating at up to 5 GHz and a massive 24-channel LPDDR5X memory subsystem that uses replaceable SOCAMM2 modules. AMD positions Verano as a host processor for AI servers, where CPUs primarily orchestrate workloads running on AI accelerators rather than provide maximum general-purpose performance themselves. Such specialization could explain why AMD developed SB1 instead of using SP7, which accommodates up to 256-core EPYC 'Venice' processors, or SP8, designed for models with up to 128 cores. Meanwhile, AMD has not disclosed SB1's specifications, dimensions, or capabilities just yet.

In fact, given Verano's highly specialized role as a host processor for AI accelerators, AMD may not need to offer a broad range of Verano SKUs typical of its general-purpose EPYC families. If Verano is deployed in systems with a predetermined number of Instinct accelerators, AMD could offer just one or a small number of CPU configurations to ensure a consistent ratio of CPU cores, memory bandwidth, and host-to-accelerator connectivity per GPU and simplify power, cooling, and system qualification, something that Nvidia does with its Grace and Vera processors.

If AMD decided to take a page from Nvidia's book, this explains why it intends to use a dedicated SB1 socket instead of using existing ones. Rather than supporting a broad range of CPU configurations compatible with SP7 and SP8 sockets and systems, SB1 could be optimized for one or a few CPU SKUs, their 24-channel LPDDR5X memory subsystem, and a particular system topology. Note that AMD has not announced how many Verano SKUs it plans to offer, so consider our thoughts speculation for now.

Dynatron's preliminary SB1-4U-Active cooler provides the first indication of what cooling Verano will require. The 4U unit measures 128.05 × 106.6 × 130.7 mm and uses an aluminum fin stack combined with a vapor chamber and heat pipes. The unit is equipped with a double-ball-bearing fan that operates at up to 6,000 RPM and delivers up to 91.7 CFM of airflow, which makes it a quite powerful device.

It is noteworthy that these specifications are virtually identical to those of Dynatron's J26 4U cooler for AMD's much larger SP7 CPUs, to the degree that even the dimensions are similar. This may either indicate that Dynatron reused the J26 design for SB1, or simply copied and pasted J26's specifications onto the SB1-4U-Active cooler's product page to use them as placeholders until the actual cooler is finalized.

For now, Dynatron does not specify the cooler's maximum supported processor power, so its listing cannot currently be used to determine Verano's TDP with confidence. Nevertheless, a large vapor-chamber-based 4U active cooler suggests that Verano will be a server processor with a rather high power consumption despite having considerably fewer cores than the higher-end EPYC 'Venice' CPUs for general-purpose workloads.

AMD plans to launch Verano in the second half of 2027.

This deal has sold out. The best price currently on the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is $210 at Newegg.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is down to its lowest price ever, with Amazon slashing 34% off the list price to bring it down to $145. That's even cheaper than the lowest price we've seen on the Core Ultra 5 250KF. Despite being priced like an entry-level CPU, the 250K Plus ranks among our best CPUs for gaming.

• Check out this Core Ultra 5 250K Plus deal on Amazon

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus originally launched for $200, but it didn't take long for its recommended price to climb to $220. That's likely because it punches far above what its price would suggest, even at full MSRP. It, along with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, was framed as a last-ditch effort to bring Arrow Lake to the masses after the failed launch of the original range.

And the refresh has worked. The Ultra 5 250K Plus is an 18-core CPU with a split between six Lion Cove P-cores and 12 Skymont E-cores. As with all Arrow Lake CPUs, the 250K Plus doesn't have Hyper-Threading, but having 18C/18T isn't too shabby, with its AMD arch rival offering 6C/12T. The chip comes with a maximum boost clock of 5.3 GHz, and a PL1/PL2 power of 125W/250W. As it's an unlocked K-series processor, you can overclock the chip, though you'll need to pair it with a more pricey Z-series chipset.

Although we almost always recommend a Z-series chipset with a K-series SKU, there actually isn't a locked version of the 250K Plus. Further, many of the OC improvements are baked into the chip, including a 900 MHz bump in die-to-die frequency and a 400 MHz increase in memory fabric speed. Overclocking is a big upside, though it's not strictly required, especially when we're looking at a $145 CPU.

Although the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is priced like an entry-level CPU, it performs much better than its current sales price would suggest, particularly in productivity workloads. You can see the results for the 250K Plus from our CPU benchmark hierarchy in the gallery below.

The 18 cores and threads help Intel's mid-ranger punch up in multithreaded performance. The chip is 33% faster in our multithreaded productivity geomean compared to AMD's competing Ryzen 7 9700X, despite Team Red's chip costing twice as much right now. Compared to the Ryzen 5 9600X that's in the same price bracket, Intel is a massive 80% ahead. Check out our Intel Core Ultra 250K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 5 9600X faceoff feature for more about that particular battle.

Intel's multithreaded performance here isn't a result of simply throwing a ton of weak cores at the problem. As you can see from our single-threaded rankings, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus came out ahead of every AMD offering we tested, including the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. Last-gen's Core i9-14900K is slightly faster, though it also costs nearly three times as much.

Gaming is where Intel has started to take a backseat to AMD, and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus slips some rankings. On average, the chip is about as fast as the Core i5-14600K. That's marginally faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X and about 3% behind the Ryzen 7 9700X. AMD's Ryzen 5 7600X3D is about 10% faster, though in this current Core Ultra 5 250K Plus sale, Intel's CPU is about $100 cheaper.

At under $150, just getting a competent CPU is tough — just see our list of the best budget CPUs — and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is more than competent. Don't miss this deal on Amazon.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, gaming chair, or CPU Deals pages.

Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh (aka 14th Gen) CPUs have been tough to recommend over the past several months. Although you could find them readily available online, they almost never went on sale, often selling for above the prices we saw throughout the majority of last year. As Amazon's Big Deal Days event kicks off, Raptor Lake Refresh chips are finally seeing better prices, some of them hitting all-time lows.

• Check out these deals at Newegg

Raptor Lake Refresh has remained a surprisingly relevant platform as DDR5 prices continue to push the cost of building a PC higher. Intel's 14th-Gen chips support DDR4 and DDR5, given you have a compatible motherboard, making them an easy upgrade path if you don't already have DDR5 memory. Keep in mind that DDR4 will give up about 13% of your gaming performance, however.

Earlier this year, Intel's Robert Hallock told Tom's Hardware Premium that Raptor Lake is a core part of Intel's strategy for "years to come," signaling a stabilization in prices and inventory. Hopefully that's what we're seeing in action now. The main Raptor Lake Refresh stack is on sale, with popular chips like the Core i7-14700KF hitting their lowest price ever.

Intel's 14th-Gen CPUs are still its fastest gaming chips, with the Core i9-14900K outclassing the newer Core Ultra 7 270K Plus based on the results in our CPU benchmark hierarchy. Although newer Arrow Lake CPUs are faster in applications, Raptor Lake Refresh still holds some of the best gaming performance for Team Blue.

Both the Core i9-14900K and Core i9-14900KF are on sale, but the KF version (unlocked without integrated graphics) is a particularly good deal. It's down to its lowest price ever at $369.99, beating the low it saw last year of around $391. The only difference between this chip and the Core i9-14900K is the integrated graphics. If that's a dealbreaker, the Core i9-14900K is on sale for $400 right now, too.

The Core i9-14900KF is Intel's fastest gaming CPU based on our test suite. It's also a potent chip in productivity applications with 24 cores split across 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, with single-core boosts up to 6 GHz. If you end up picking up the 14900K (or any chip here), make sure you're using the latest BIOS for your motherboard to apply Intel's Raptor Lake degradation mitigations.

A step down the stack, we have the Core i7-14700KF, which is also down to an all-time low price at $279.99. The Core i7-14700K is also on sale for $299.99. This is the sweet spot for Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh range, especially when it comes to gaming. You get 97% of the gaming performance of the Core i9-14900K for around $80 less.

That's due to the core split. The Core i7-14700K has 20 total cores, but it comes with the same eight performance cores as the Core i9, offering similar performance in applications that primarily live on those cores. The 12 efficiency cores still pitch when in heavily-threaded workloads.

Unfortunately, the Core i5-14600KF is not on sale, though its selling price of $239.99 is better than what we've seen over the past few months. Lower down the stack, the Core i5-14400F is on sale, which is a chip that rarely sees discounts.

The Coire i5-14400F has dropped as low as $130 before, so the price right now isn't the best we've ever seen. However, it's better than the selling price of this chip over the past year. Following the holiday rush at the end of last year, the chip has hovered around $200 for the majority of 2026.

The Core i5-14400F is a good alternative to the 14600K if you only care about gaming. That's because it comes with the same six performance cores, shaving the efficiency cores in half to just four. That limits the chip's multi-threaded grunt in applications, naturally.

Hopefully these price drops are a sign of Raptor Lake Refresh inventory stabilizing, not a clearance sale. Time will tell on that front. For now, these are some of the best prices we've seen on Raptor Lake Refresh chips.

Nvidia is expected to launch RTX Spark devices later this week, following a not-so-subtle tease at the end of last week (and the chip’s announced fall release). Ahead of Microsoft’s event on Wednesday, October 7 (where the launch is expected) AMD has shared some benchmarks for its new Gorgon Halo chips — the range that will directly compete with RTX Spark devices. The extra insight comes a matter of days after the first Gorgon Halo devices launched, some of which cost upwards of $7,099.

Short of a few questionable Geekbench leaks, we haven’t seen any performance results for the RTX Spark yet, so AMD isn’t using it as a comparison point. Rather, it’s comparing the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 to Intel’s Core Ultra X9 388H. These chips aren’t in the same class of device, though AMD would argue that it’s comparing its top-of-stack part to Intel’s top-of-stack part.

AMD used ComfyUI to measure generative AI performance. AMD averaged multiple runs of various models, comparing total throughput to Intel’s competition. AMD used its top-spec 192GB configuration of the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 and compared it to the Core Ultra X9 388H in a system with 64GB of memory (Panther Lake supports up to 128GB).

The performance advantage ranges from 1.1x up to 32.2x, though the end point is a clear outlier. We searched for Yuve on Hugging Face and didn’t find any results. It’s possible this delta comes down to an optimization issue, or that it’s simply too big to run on the Panther Lake machine.

We don’t have gaming or general application performance, but we don’t expect a major swing compared to last-gen Strix Halo chips. Gorgon Halo is largely a refresh of that range.

Gorgon Halo isn’t getting into the ring with Panther Lake, however. It’s going mainly against the RTX Spark, and to a lesser extent, Apple’s larger M-series SoCs. This category of agentic PCs, as AMD calls it, is seemingly expanding, though it’s still far smaller than some of the hype around the RTX Spark would have you believe. AMD bragged in a prebriefing with the press about shipping “10s of millions” of AI PCs (read: laptops) before clarifying that it had slipped “over half a million” agentic PCs. Presumably, those are numbers for Strix/Gorgon Halo devices.

The matchup between Gorgon Halo and the RTX Spark has, up to this point, focused mainly on memory capacity. RTX Spark devices top out at 128GB of unified memory, same as the GB10 in the DGX Spark (the two chips are nearly identical). AMD, on the other hand, supports up to 192GB with Gorgon Halo. Higher capacity means running larger models locally, though at a lower performance level.

In the GLM 5.3 Flash with 320 billion parameters, AMD saw peak throughput of 20 tokens per second, though using Unsloth's UD-IQ4_XS mixed-quantization format. For context, we clocked peak token throughput on the DGX Spark running GPT-OSS 120B with 4-bit quantization at 64 tokens per second, and the last-gen Ryzen AI MAx+ 395 at 56 tokens per second.

Note that although GLM 5.3 Flash has 320 billion total parameters, only 18 billion are activated for each token. Similarly, GPT-OSS 120B is another mixture-of-experts model with 120 billion total parameters, though only around 5 billion are active per token.

AMD also shared Qwen 3.8 Flash Next performance, a multimodal MoE model with 125 billion main parameters, 51 billion embedding parameters, and about 4 billion parameters for multi-token prediction (MTP), with 5 billion parameters active per token. AMD says the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 achieves up to 42 tokens per second with this model, once again using Unsloth’s dynamic 4-bit quantization and MTP.

That’s solid performance, but in both cases, “up to” carries a lot on its shoulders. The story of token throughput is told as the context length increases, showcasing what happens when someone actually runs these models locally, not just boots them up cold. Performance drops at higher context lengths, naturally, which could pose some issues for the larger models. If GLM 5.3 Flash provides up to 20 tokens per second, it could very easily decline into unusable territory as the context length increases.

We largely know what performance to expect out of the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495, and Gorgon Halo more broadly. It’s a refresh of Strix Halo, with notable spec changes being the bump up to 192GB of unified memory from 128GB, as well as a 100 MHz jump on boost clocks for the 495. Otherwise, the range is using identical core counts and microarchitectures as previous-gen Strix Halo chips.

With these proxies — Strix Halo for Gorgon Halo, and GB10 for RTX Spark — we can already get a good idea about how these parts will stack up. As you can see in our Ryzen AI Halo review (packing the Ryzen AI Max+ 395), AMD’s part universally underperformed compared to the DGX Spark in both time to first token and tokens per second across three models. More unified memory will allow you to run larger models, but that doesn’t mean those models will run faster.

The first Gorgon Halo devices are available for sale now, such as the Minisforum MS-S1 Max-P495. For the top-line configuration, prices sit around $7,000 right now, though we expect a broad range of prices once different devices are available, likely driving above that $7,000 mark.

Full presentation

Despite being on the market for four years, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D remains one of the best CPUs for gaming on the AM4 platform. A Ryzen 9 5900X3D, if AMD had released it, would surely have given it a run for its money. Now, years later, an engineering sample of the Ryzen 9 5900X3D has emerged on the Chinese Chiphell forums, giving us a taste of what could have been an awesome 12-core chip for gaming and productivity.

What is really funny about the Ryzen 9 5900X3D is that we all knew it existed because AMD teased it at Computex 2021. The chipmaker showcased a “12-core 3D Chiplet Prototype" outperforming a regular Ryzen 9 5900X by up to 15% in average gaming performance, with both processors fixed at a 4 GHz frequency.

The Ryzen 9 5900X3D engineering sample (100-000000652-20_48/32_Y) brought to light by a Chiphell user reveals 128MB of L3 cache, double the amount found on the standard Ryzen 9 5900X. This comes from AMD integrating 64MB of 3D V-Cache onto one of the two Core Complex Dies (CCDs) inside the chip. The CPU-Z screenshot also shows a 4,649 MHz clock speed, which is likely the boost clock. If so, and rounding the boost clock speed to 4.7 GHz, the Ryzen 9 5900X3D could have launched with a boost clock just 100 MHz lower than the Ryzen 9 5900X.

Intriguingly, the 128MB configuration was just one of several experiments AMD was exploring. During a visit to AMD's labs, Gamers Nexus captured a 12-core Zen 3 chip with a staggering 192MB of L3 cache. It is the result of a Ryzen 9 5900X equipped with 64MB of 3D V-Cache on both CCDs. Another 16-core Zen 3 chip also had a similar 192MB L3 configuration, likely a Ryzen 9 5950X3D if it had come out on the retail market.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X3D Specifications*

*Specifications are unconfirmed by AMD.

These early 12-core and 16-core Zen 3 X3D prototypes paved the way for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, a processor that reigned as the gaming king for several years. AMD's decision to ultimately pursue an asymmetric design was spot on for gaming. An eight-core chip like the Ryzen 7 5800X3D delivers exceptional gaming performance and is not burdened by cross-die latency that can arise when stacking 3D V-Cache on both CCDs.

While AMD initially skipped equipping its 12-core and 16-core Zen 3 chips with 3D V-Cache, it eventually did so on Zen 4 and beyond, leading to the introduction of the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, Ryzen 9 7950X3D, and, more recently, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D, or even the over-the-top Ryzen 9 9950X3D2.

A dual-stack configuration is very advantageous for productivity workloads, but it wouldn’t do much for gaming. Equipping both CCDs with 3D V-Cache means dealing with cross-die latency and lower clock speeds due to thermal and power constraints, which are significant trade-offs for gaming. Our CPU hierarchy shows this clearly: for example, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (12 cores, 128MB L3) falls behind the Ryzen 7 9800X3D (8 cores, 96MB L3) in gaming. Or, in another scenario, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D (16 cores, 192MB L3) offers similar gaming performance to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

AMD knows what it is doing, and the eight-core, single-CCD design is where gaming is at. This winning formula is clearly embodied in the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and, after it, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D, chips that have set the standard for high-end gaming processors.

A rumored SKU table for Intel's upcoming Nova Lake desktop CPUs has surfaced, showcasing seven models that will (presumably) make up Intel's initial NVL-S lineup. The list includes three models with the "BFC" tag, which seems to be Intel's branding for bLLC, or big last level cache. It's been heavily rumored to show up with Nova Lake, countering AMD's assault on the best CPUs for gaming with its X3D chips.

As previously rumored, the table tops out at the flagship Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC, which the spec list suggests is a 28-core chip with 8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores. It also lists a 125W TDP and an integrated GPU with 32 Execution Units (EUs). This 32-EU iGPU is apparently a staple across the range, short of the Core Ultra 5 4650KF, which lacks integrated graphics.

Intel retired the use of "EUs" in favor of its Xe cores several years ago. Rumors suggest Intel isn't releasing a large, 12-Xe core model of Nova Lake. The 32-EU count here likely comes out to 4 Xe cores (each core has eight matrix and vector ALUs).

The table does not include the heavily rumored 52-core Nova Lake model. However, as the Nova Lake launch approaches, it has become clear that the 52-core model, as well as other potential models with a dual-tile configuration, will arrive after the main range of chips. Presumably, these models will target the HEDT crowd with their high core counts.

*Names and specifications rumored, unconfirmed by Intel

There are several interesting details when looking at the range broadly. Most notably is the four-number model identifier, which Intel didn't use with Arrow Lake chips like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. This larger identifier has been previously rumored, and it makes sense if the lineup above is indeed real. There's quite a bit of specificity in this stack, and something like the "Core Ultra 9 497K" doesn't signal what a "Core Ultra 9 4970K" does.

Regardless of naming, the SKU table shows three models with BFC, two of which fall under the Core Ultra 9 umbrella. There isn't a Core Ultra 5 BFC option. The most interesting model is the Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC, which matches the 22-core count of the Core Ultra 5 models, though with the addition of BFC and a lower 65W TDP. Given this chip doesn't have a K suffix, it looks like a specialized, low-power gaming chip, perhaps for small form factor desktops.

In addition, the Core Ultra 5 model is the only one with an F suffix, noting that it lacks integrated graphics. As we saw with the Arrow Lake refresh, Intel released a Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus, though it never gave the 270K Plus the KF treatment.

According to the table, Intel could use "BFC" to note chips with a larger L3 cache, something that's been heavily rumored for Nova Lake as AMD's X3D chips dominate gaming in our CPU benchmark hierarchy. This is the first time we've heard it referred to as BFC; however, with previous rumors referring to the additional cache as bLLC.

As for what BFC stands for, there are a few possible candidates, and we'll leave it to your imagination as to what words that start with "F" could fit between "Big" and "Cache."

Although Intel's Nova Lake chips have been the topic of the rumor mill for well over a year, the launch is approaching. At the beginning of the year, Intel's CEO confirmed Nova Lake would arrive before the end of the year. Assuming that's still true, we'd expect to learn more any day now.

Signs certainly point to a launch happening soon. Just this week, Nova Lake platforms passed compliance at USB and PCIe standard bodies. At Computex earlier this year, we saw two Z990 motherboards in the flesh. And last month, a leaked slide presumably from one of Intel's partners provided a tease as to what the platform could look like.

Hopefully we'll have more details soon. In the meantime, make sure to check out our recent interview with Intel's Robert Hallock, where the executive goes into some of the expectations around Nova Lake, on Tom's Hardware Premium.

OpenAI’s new Jalapeño ASIC is being deployed internally alongside AMD EPYC Turin hosts, each with 1.5TB of memory. SemiAnalysis described the rack-scale deployment of Jalapeño following the reveal of the chip, which we asked Richard Ho, VP and Head of Hardware at OpenAI, about in an interview. Ho told us that the decision to use Turin was “pragmatic,” describing Nvidia’s new Vera CPU as “a little bit behind… on that maturity level.”

“The way we approached that design was really in terms of de-risking and being able to do that design fast. Vera, as a standalone, is a little bit behind on that maturity level. The Turing device is strong. It did what we needed to do, and partly our partners had some experience with it,” Ho told Tom’s Hardware Premium. “For the Jalapeño program, we were trying to make very pragmatic decisions. We wanted to be aggressive on the goals of the performance and the cost, but we didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. That felt like a good design decision that would fit within the parameters of how we make these design decisions."

There are many Arm-based CPUs on the market, many of which are deployed internally at different hyperscalers, such as Google Cloud’s Axiom and AWS’ Graviton, but Vera and Arm’s own AGI have been described as agentic CPUs, purportedly accelerating the complex reasoning involved in agentic loops compared to their x86 counterparts from AMD and Intel. We asked Ho about this dynamic, and why Turin was the right choice given the close working relationship between OpenAI and Nvidia, who responded with the quote above.

Arm has long touted the virtues of the AArch64 ISA compared to x86, going as far as to claim that its own AGI CPU provides more than twice the performance of modern x86 platforms. That claim is based on internal estimates, not real benchmarks, however. The company has been naturally bullish on AGI’s adoption in the market, though even with an impressive $2 billion in commitments, analysts say the market penetration will still be in the low single digits after two years.

With the explosion of server CPU demand this year and evolving agentic workloads, Nvidia has been at the forefront of messaging, comparing its Arm-based Vera to the x86 competition, boldly claiming a 1.8x improvement over a competing AMD Turin chip; a figure that’s extracted from an overall benchmark suite showing Vera just 3% ahead of AMD’s EPYC 9755.

Many semi-custom Arm designs, from Graviton to Azure’s Cobalt, have focused on core density and efficiency for cloud workloads. Vera and AGI are a shift toward messaging against peak performance. In early Vera benchmarks, Nvidia’s CPU looks impressive, though we’ve yet to see the chip in action in a wide variety of workloads, much less benchmarked against AMD’s upcoming Venice CPUs or Intel’s Diamond Rapids.

What’s interesting about OpenAI’s decision to use Turin is that it’s one of Arm’s deployment partners for AGI, as well as among the list of customers “exploring the Vera CPU,” according to Nvidia. OpenAI, other frontier labs, and hyperscalers keep a wide variety of hardware in their fleet. Pairing Jalapeño specifically with Turin came down to reducing risk, with Ho pointing to the maturity of the platform.

Broadly, x86_64 is more mature than AArch64; ARM has been around since the mid-1980’s, though a proper 64-bit extension didn’t arrive until 12 years after it was introduced on x86. And although Arm has worked its way into data centers over the past two decades, there’s still a much deeper x86 foundation reaching back several decades.

It doesn’t seem Ho’s comments were specifically on the delineation between AArch64 and x86, however. Rather, the comments are focused on the dynamic between Turin and Vera, with the latter being Nvidia’s first foray into a custom CPU core for the data center. Although the early benchmarks of Vera are impressive, it nonetheless represented an unnecessary risk for OpenAI’s rack-scale Jalapeño deployment.

Ho’s comments about OpenAI’s partners having experience with Turin expose where the thinking for the hardware team was at, as well. There are some differences in the practicality of servicing the host system between Turin and Vera, most notably the fact that Vera is board-mounted while Turin chips are socketed; swapping chips isn’t common in a server regardless, but it’s easier with Turin.

Given that OpenAI has a fleet of hardware available, it’s possible Jalapeño will be deployed with a different host system in the future, potentially paired with Arm’s AGI or Nvidia’s Vera. For now, however, Turin was the right choice.

Unreal Engine 5 isn’t particularly heavy on the CPU, but Gears of War E-Day changes that narrative. If you have a monitoring overlay open when you load into the game, you’ll immediately notice your CPU pinned at between 80% and 90% utilization, which is a far cry from most other UE5 titles. Even stranger is that the scaling between CPUs is clear. For instance, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D netted 42% higher performance than the Ryzen 5 7600X at 1080p with the High graphics preset.

We’ve tested a lot of UE5 games with our pool of CPUs to evaluate them, not only for our rankings of the best CPUs for gaming, but also for our ongoing CPU benchmark hierarchy. Most of them haven’t made the cut, simply because of a lack of scaling. We’ve tried to include games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and Halo: Campaign Evolved, due to the prevalence of Unreal Engine 5 in modern AAA games, but the CPU scaling just doesn’t matter.

There are some exceptions, notably Marvel Rivals with its dense fighting arenas, large teams, and destructible environments, and The Blood of Dawnwalker, which has a large, sparsely populated city in the middle of the map that will bring most CPUs to their knees. Even then, however, these UE5 games don’t show the same level of scaling as other games in our test suite, such as Starfield or Baldur’s Gate 3.

Gears of War E-Day is an exception. It’s not only demanding on the CPU, easily spiking even the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to full utilization at 1080p, it also shows scaling across a wide pool of chips. And further, this is true even at the game’s Ultra preset (though not the Ludicrous preset, which we’ll dig into later). This heavy CPU burden was consistent throughout the opening hours of the game, as well, regardless of scene complexity or interactions.

If you're interested in GPU performance, make sure to check out our Gears of War E-Day GPU benchmarks, as well.

Gears of War E-Day CPU benchmarks

We tested Gears of War E-Day on the same test systems we use for CPU reviews, short of the GPU driver, which we changed for this benchmarking session (the game won’t launch without the Game Ready driver). Otherwise, everything is identical, down to the frozen OS images we use across AMD and Intel test systems.

As usual, we tested with the RTX 5090 Founders Edition at 1080p to showcase the differences between each CPU. We ran a handful of chips at 1440p, as well, to get an idea of how performance scales at a higher resolution. We omitted 4K, as our graphics analysis of the game showed that it was completely GPU-bound at that high of a resolution. Go figure.

Before getting to the scaling benchmarks, we looked at scene performance and preset performance in E-Day. The game includes a built-in benchmark, common for titles published by Microsoft, so the first step to evaluating performance is ensuring that the benchmark actually matches in-game performance. It doesn’t, but it’s not far off.

As you can see, we saw slightly higher performance with our two in-game scenes than we did in the benchmark, likely due to the benchmark’s sweeping camera angle that draws much more than you’ll ever actually see on screen. We stuck with an in-game scene (scene 2) for testing, but the benchmark is a good approximation of what’s actually in the game.

For graphics settings, we went with the High preset. Gears of War E-Day includes five presets, and we tested the top four to see where the scaling starts and stops. The dynamic is binary. If you’re using the Ludicrous preset, the scaling between CPUs goes down drastically. We saw a 6.8% difference between the 9800X3D and 9600X with the Ludicrous preset. At the Ultra preset, that jumped up to nearly a 29% difference, which grows further at the High preset.

We eventually settled on High, as that’s the visual floor for becoming CPU-bound. Going down to Medium nets very little extra performance and slightly exaggerates the scaling between chips. High, then, is a good compromise. It shows near-maximum scaling between CPUs without being an unreasonable test case.

It should come as no surprise that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D occupy the top two spots on our chart. E-Day, like a lot of titles, is accelerated by X3D chips. You can see that with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D much lower down the chart, as well. What’s interesting here is how E-Day scales with core count, however. Take the Ryzen 5 7600X as an example. We expect less than a 5% jump with the Ryzen 7 7700X on average, but in E-Day, that increase nears 9%.

Elsewhere, the 12-core Ryzen 9 models usually underperform their 8-core counterparts in games. Again, the 7900X and 7700X are in lockstep, while the 9900X is 3.5% ahead. It’s worth stressing that, based on our data, the Ryzen 9 9900X and 7900X are slower than the straight eight-core models from AMD’s last two generations. The fact that they’re ahead here speaks to the importance of core count in this game.

Perhaps the greatest evidence of that comes from the Intel camp. Not only do we see Intel’s main Raptor Lake and Arrow Lake stack outperforming all but AMD’s X3D Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs, we also see strange comparisons between Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is typically around 5% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265K on average in games. Here, the situation is flipped, with the Core Ultra 7 265K leading by about 2%.

It’s interesting to see core count as a performance driver, which isn’t usually the case in games past six or maybe eight cores. Although E-Day scales past that point, it still plateaus around 150 FPS.

We ran a few tests at 1440p, as well, foregoing the whole pool simply for the sake of time. For scaling comparisons, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is about 18% faster than the Core i5-14400 at 1440p, but it’s about 36% faster at 1080p. Further, that scaling isn’t consistent. Running CPUs at 1440p with our test suite and settings, we found a ceiling around 130 FPS where performance becomes bound by the GPU. Any CPUs that performed above that mark at 1080p normalized to that 130 FPS, while CPUs below that mark offered performance at 1440p within a few frames of the 1080p performance.

When looking at a weak CPU compared to a strong one, there’s clear scaling at 1440p. However, with CPUs within similar product ranges and families, the game is mostly bound to GPU performance at the higher resolution.

Looking at other aspects of performance, there aren’t any surprises. Power use is in line with our expectations, with AMD’s Zen 4 and Zen 5 flagships sitting alongside Intel’s most powerful Raptor Lake chips. And, on the efficiency front, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 7800X3D easily win the day with nearly two frames per watt used. Temperatures stayed in check, as well, with even the highest chip in our test pool averaging just 65.4 degrees Celsius.

Investigating ‘low core mode’ in Gears of War E-Day

Buried in the “System” menu of the settings in E-Day, there’s a curious option called Low Core Mode. The game says in the setting’s description that it can improve performance on low core count devices and handhelds, which is worthy of closer inspection. This isn’t a standard UE5 toggle — as we’ve established, the engine is not particularly heavy on the CPU at stock — and we haven’t seen similar settings, at least among most recent AAA releases.

We ran each chip through another pass of tests with this mode turned on, using the same test scene and settings, to see how it impacts performance. It universally lowered performance across our entire pool of 25 CPUs, even going down to the quad-core Core i3-14100. 1% low performance wasn’t improved either. For the sake of clarity, we’ve laid out the results in a table below so you can easily see the performance change between toggling Low Core Mode on and off.

With everything down to a strict quad-core tested — E-Day’s system requirements bottom out at hexa-core chips — we assumed the situation was settled and were content to leave Low Core Mode for others to explore further. However, we gave it one more try with the Core i3-14100, disabling two of the cores in the BIOS to see how the game would function with a dual-core chip.

That revealed a lot about what’s going on behind the scenes with this feature. Above, you can see a screenshot we gathered when booting into the game with the dual-core 14100. The texture streaming system completely breaks. We didn’t wait for an opportune moment to capture this screenshot, either; the low-res, half-loaded assets persisted throughout the entire run.

Further, whenever we went to pause the game to adjust settings or reload the checkpoint, the game froze and hung for upwards of 30 seconds before the menu appeared. Turning on Low Core Mode resolved both the asset streaming issue and the game freezing, as well as improved performance by 30%. That’s impressive, but keep in mind that going from four cores to two on the 14100 resulted in a 59% decrease in performance, dropping from an average of 89 FPS to just 36 FPS.

It appears E-Day switches up the streaming system with Low Core Mode. That would explain a lot, notably the heavy, all-core demand when running the game normally and the severe streaming issue we noted at two cores. E-Day is using some sort of asset streaming system, as most modern games do, and those assets look very expensive. Past a certain point, the streaming simply breaks as the CPU is overloaded with work.

Although we didn’t notice a performance improvement at four cores, keep in mind that we’re testing with the newest true quad-core on the market. The 14100 is one of the best budget CPUs, but it’s still new. The system requirements call for an older hexa-core chip at minimum. Taken together, you may run into issues with older quad-cores that necessitate the use of Low Core Mode, but those situations are few and far between. Assuming you have a relatively recent processor, or a processor with at least six cores, and ideally both, Low Core Mode will reduce your performance.

We didn’t test mobile chips, however, nor the handhelds those chips are inside of. This mode may have more practical applications there.

Test configuration

As mentioned, we used the same platform for testing Gears of War E-Day that we use for a CPU reviews, which you can find in the table below. All configuration and software is duplicated across all test systems, and AMD and Intel configurations never touch each other to avoid any conflicts.

There are a few important configuration details worth highlighting outside of the broad strokes of a frozen OS image. We disable Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) for all platforms, enable ReBAR, and enable XMP/EXPO. We've tested the memory to ensure stability with our platforms.

We also disable any automatic overclocking features that are unstable or not covered by warranty. For instance, we disable AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive and Intel's Extreme power profile, as neither is covered by warranty. Intel's Core Ultra 200S Boost, on the other hand, is covered by warranty, so we enabled it on the Arrow Lake chips we tested. Similarly, the 9600X and 9700X from AMD have a warrantied 105W operating mode, which we use, as it improves gaming performance slightly.

When Nuvacore, a new CPU startup founded by legendary CPU and system architects Gerard Williams, John Bruno, and Ram Srinivasan, emerged from stealth earlier this year, it promised to "rewrite the rules of silicon," but did not say how it planned to do so. On Thursday, the company finally broke its silence and revealed that it is taking an unusual development approach that allows it to design a significant portion of its CPU core IP before committing to a particular instruction set architecture (ISA).

Traditionally, CPU developers start development of a new processor project with a particular ISA — such as Arm, RISC-V, or x86 — already selected. Although modern high-performance processors translate instructions into internal micro-operations and therefore separate the ISA from much of the underlying execution pipelines, the instruction set still influences numerous architectural decisions, including instruction decoding, register handling, memory ordering, and, of course, software compatibility.

Nuvacore says its Core First approach reverses at least part of this process. Instead of designing WarpCore around the requirements and limitations of a predetermined ISA, the company's engineers are developing a significant portion of the foundational CPU IP independent of a particular ISA. To a large degree, one can compare such an approach to the development of a car around its engine and not trying to fit an engine into an already developed platform.

"Rather than beginning with the constraints of an existing architecture and iterating from there, we are starting with the core itself," the company said in its statement.

As a result, the team may be able to better focus on the core's microarchitecture and optimize it for performance, power efficiency, and sustained workloads typical of modern data centers and AI infrastructure, the target application for the company. Nuvacore intends to select an instruction set later based on what works best for the systems that it and its partners plan to build.

There are obvious limits to how ISA-independent a CPU design can be. Eventually, WarpCore will need front-end logic designed around its chosen instruction set, and those architectural requirements will inevitably affect other parts of the processor. Nevertheless, substantial pieces of a modern CPU — such as execution units, branch-prediction units, data paths, caches, and portions of the memory subsystem — can be developed and evaluated before every ISA-related implementation decision is finalized.

In addition to not disclosing its ISA, which is arguably the biggest unanswered question surrounding the project, Nuvacore also has not disclosed the project's schedule, configuration, manufacturing process, power, or performance targets, though given the lack of the ISA commitment, one could say that the remaining details are not that important.

For now, the only thing that Nuvacore discloses about WarpCore is that it is "a new class of general-purpose CPU designed specifically for the sustained performance and power-efficiency requirements of AI infrastructure and contemporary data centers."

AMD's ambidextrous strategy returns?

Nuvacore's approach is not entirely without precedent. Under CEOs Rory Read and Lisa Su, AMD spent part of the 2010s pursuing an "ambidextrous" strategy intended to let it address x86 and Arm customers by sharing substantial processor and platform IP.

Arguably the most detailed part of the initiative was AMD's SkyBridge platform, announced in 2014. Under SkyBridge, AMD envisioned pin-compatible 64-bit Arm and x86 systems-on-chips that were to use AMD's own Puma+ x86 cores and Arm's Cortex-A57 cores with common platform infrastructure. Separately, AMD developed its custom 64-bit Arm K12 core under Jim Keller that was supposed to share microarchitecture features with Zen. Ultimately, due to lack of resources, SkyBridge was ultimately scrapped, while K12 never became a commercial product as AMD only pursued x86 Zen cores. The difference is, of course, that Nuvacore appears to be taking the idea further by deliberately postponing the ISA decision for WarpCore.

Since Nuvacore is still just a startup, we can only wonder whether its business plan includes marketing of CPUs at all. Nuvia, which was also founded by Williams and Bruno along with Manu Gulati, was acquired by Qualcomm and ultimately shaped the company's Snapdragon X Elite SoCs. In that light, its approach could give the company considerable commercial flexibility.

By developing much of its WarpCore design without tying it to a particular ISA, the company could potentially adapt the technology to the requirements of a future customer or partner. An Arm licensee could use the underlying core technology for an Arm implementation; another customer could choose RISC-V or another ISA. An established x86 vendor could potentially acquire or license the underlying microarchitecture and create its own x86 CPUs if it needs to.

Nuvacore, of course, has not indicated that such a transaction is its objective, but keeping WarpCore ISA-agnostic for as long as possible potentially broadens the number of companies to which its CPU technology could be valuable.

All in all, the Core First announcement tells us considerably more about how Nuvacore intends to develop WarpCore than what the processor itself will eventually look like. But if the company really does keep its ISA options open until relatively late in development, WarpCore represents an unusual attempt to separate development of a high-performance CPU microarchitecture from one of the decisions that normally defines a processor project from its earliest stages.

The USB Implementers Forum now lists some of Intel's Core Ultra 400-series 'Nova Lake' platforms in its Integrators List, meaning that the products have passed applicable USB compliance and interoperability tests. The PCI-SIG Integrators List also includes Intel’s 900-series chipsets for Nova Lake-S processors. Such tests are conducted ahead of product launches to ensure interoperability and to gain the right to use the PCIe and USB logos on new products.

The USB-IF listing confirms that Intel's mobile Nova Lake-H processor (Device ID D331, D333) is compliant with the USB4 80 Gbps specification (which is not surprising, as the part is also supposed to support Thunderbolt 5). In contrast, Intel's desktop Nova Lake PCH-S chipset (Device ID 6E6E) is compliant with the USB 3.2 Gen2 standard and supports a data transfer rate of up to 20 Gbps, which is in line with unofficial information about Intel's 900-series chipsets. Meanwhile, the Integrators List lacks Intel's desktop Nova Lake processor that is expected to support USB4 (more on this later).

The choice of the products to certify first — a desktop chipset and a high-performance notebook CPU — may seem a bit odd. However, there is a good explanation for why Intel submitted these parts to the Integrators List ahead of others and why the order of such submissions for compliance testing does not matter significantly in this case.

The USB-IF has a program called Qualification by Similarity (QbS) for sufficiently similar products, under which testing one product can enable related products to be certified and added to the Integrators List with limited or no additional compliance testing. Since USB4 and USB 3.2 circuitry in different Nova Lake products is similar, Intel can submit select CPUs and chipsets for USB-IF compliance tests and then follow up with the QbS.

Meanwhile, since USB-IF certification is formally attached to a specific product name, model, and revision, differently named products are not certified automatically simply because they contain identical USB circuitry. These products must be submitted separately under QbS, after which USB-IF decides whether the differences are significant enough to require additional testing.

The PCI-SIG Integrators List has included Intel's 900-series chipset (Device 6E38-6E3F, 6E30-6E35, 6E40-6E47) for Core Ultra 400-series 'Nova Lake-S' processors since April. In early August, the company’s as-yet-unidentified processor (Device IDs D461, D465, and D467–D46A) with a PCIe 5.0 x16 root complex passed interoperability tests and was listed alongside the chipset. We cannot state with certainty that this is a desktop Nova Lake CPU, although it is reasonable to suspect that the device belongs to the desktop Core Ultra 400-series platform.

As the official launch of Intel’s Core Ultra 400-series ‘Nova Lake’ processors for desktops and laptops looms, these platforms must pass various compliance and interoperability tests administered by industry standards organizations. So far, Intel’s Nova Lake CPUs and supporting chipsets have passed interoperability tests with the PCI-SIG and USB-IF. However, in the coming weeks or months, they will likely appear on other compliance and interoperability lists as well. Intel will also eventually need various regulatory and environmental documents, depending on what exactly is being sold and where, though such documents rarely enter the public domain ahead of formal launches.

Anyway, Nova Lake's listings in PCI-SIG and USB-IF Integrators List point to Intel's preparations for the launch of new CPUs for desktops and laptops. The latest leaks point to Core Ultra 400-series launches in Q1 2027, so setting the stage for their release early next year is a natural move for Intel.

After unveiling the EPYC 9006 (codenamed Venice) series in July and previewing a few impressive Zen 6 benchmarks, AMD has now released full pricing for its highly anticipated next-generation server chips. According to the list StorageReview obtained, AMD has big plans for the data center, with a wide range of SKUs from eight to 256 cores and pricing from $700 to $14,904.

As a quick refresher, AMD strategically divided the Venice lineup into two distinct segments. The SP7 platform is the flagship offering, delivering maximum memory capacity and throughput. It supports up to 16 memory channels, accommodating both RDIMMs and MDRDIMMs up to DDR5-12800. The platform offers up to 96 PCIe 6.0 lanes and supports Venice chips with TDPs between 400W and 600W.

The Venice parts designed for the SP7 socket offer scalable performance for enterprises. The lineup begins with the 64-core EPYC 9556, priced at $8,008, and extends to the flagship 256-core EPYC 9996, which commands $14,904. In retrospect, the EPYC 9996's price tag does not seem particularly shocking, especially since the previous-generation EPYC 9965 (codenamed Turin) launched at nearly the same price, around $14,800.

As is typical for server processors, the total price increases as the number of cores rises. However, the price per core actually decreases substantially as you move up the core ladder. The pricing dynamic is very notable with Venice. For example, the flagship EPYC 9996, with a massive 256 cores, comes out to just $58.21 per core, whereas the "entry-level" SP7 chip, the 64-core EPYC 9556, costs around $125.12 per core. As a result, higher core-count models are more attractive from a per-core value perspective for data centers, cloud service providers, and enterprises.

AMD EPYC 9006 SP7 Specifications and Pricing

The SP7 SKUs support both 1P and 2P socket configurations. The latter, in particular, enables up to 512 Zen 6 cores in one system by pairing two EPYC 9996 chips on a single motherboard. That level of performance logically comes with a substantial investment, since the processors alone would cost $29,808 before factoring in the significant expense of memory today.

Among the nine SP7 SKUs, two models in particular stand out: the EPYC 9686F and EPYC 9586F. The "F" suffix means these chips feature maximum boost clock speeds, in this case, 5 GHz. While both are impressive in their own right, AMD optimized these parts to hit 5 GHz. Naturally, this level of optimization carries a price premium. For example, the 64-core EPYC 9586F costs almost as much as the 96-core EPYC 9656, despite offering 33% fewer cores. The trade-off is also apparent in the thermal envelope. The EPYC 9586F has a TDP that is 100W higher than the EPYC 9656.

AMD EPYC 9006 SP8 Specifications and Pricing

The SP8 platform is a more streamlined and cost-effective counterpart to the SP7 platform for the Venice family. It supports eight-channel memory and does not embrace MRDIMMs. However, the limitation balances out by expansion possibilities, as the SP8 platform offers 128 PCIe 6.0 lanes, 33% more than the SP7 platform. Additionally, the SP8 platform has a lower thermal footprint, as these Zen 6 parts carry TDP ratings between 130W and 400W.

The SP8 platform offers an accessible entry point for organizations, with the octa-core EPYC 9106 priced at just $700. At the other end of the spectrum, the EPYC 9746, which is the top SP8 SKU, offers 128 Zen 6 cores at $11,679.

With the SP8 platform, we also see Zen 6 models with the “P” suffix, which indicates support for single-socket systems only. These variants deliver the same performance as their standard counterparts but at a significantly lower price. For example, the 128-core EPYC 9736P is 6% less expensive than the EPYC 9736. In an even more dramatic case, the 32-core EPYC 9356P retails for 26% less than the EPYC 9356.

One of the more unusual Venice chips is the 16-core EPYC 9176F. Despite its modest core count, it features a massive 192MB of L3 cache, 4X that of the 16-core EPYC 9116, while costing more than 3X as much. This translates to 12MB of L3 cache per core. With its high cache capacity and 5 GHz boost clock, AMD likely designed the EPYC 9176F for organizations seeking to minimize licensing costs for software priced per core.

AMD’s SP7 and SP8 platforms are scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year and the first half of 2027, respectively. However, these Venice prices are not final, as AMD has stated that the list is subject to change. AMD will extend the lineup further later in 2027 with Venice-X chips, which use the company's 3D V-Cache stacking.

Intel has published a patent to integrate MicroLEDs directly into a CPU package. Aside from communication functions, Intel lists many possible uses, including using multi-colored lights to light up the wording on a processor. The patent, filed in 2022 but only published earlier this month, describes embedding a MicroLED into the package by using a glass substrate and through-glass vias (TGV), connecting directly to a die for power and signal routing. The patent says the purpose of the LEDs is "either aesthetic components of the electronic device or to indicate certain operations being performed by the electronic device."

As is the case with any patents, the purpose of embedding MicroLEDs into a chip is left open-ended. However, Intel interestingly calls out implementing MicroLEDs into a CPU, specifically, and provides several examples of how the tech might be used. The patent says the processor "may operate the micro LEDs so that the micro LEDs visually indicate that certain functions are being performed by the processor or simply for aesthetic effects."

In one part of the patent, Intel describes the LEDs being used to "light up wording across a central processing unit," suggesting some sort of read-out available directly on the CPU. How that would work on a standard processor with a heatsink atop remains an open question. In addition, the patent explicitly calls out that the LEDs can be different colors depending on the implementation. That could mean something more akin to RGB memory than a diagnostic readout. The patent leaves room for both designs.

You can see the main drawing for the patent above. In the middle is the glass substrate, sandwiched between two layers of package substrate. A semiconductor die is partially embedded within the glass substrate, leaving just the back surface of the die exposed; however, the patent says the die can be fully embedded in other implementations. The LEDs are connected directly to the semiconductor die, or through nanowires, and TGVs deliver power and signal to the semiconductor die through the glass substrate.

Intel says it builds the package with two layers of silicon nitride, which are formed on the package substrate surface and then attached to the glass substrate. Intel has been working through glass substrates for over three years now, as Intel claims it has 10 times better interconnect density than organic substrates.

The main patent drawing only shows a single IC, though the patent notes that's simply shown "for clarity." A finished product implementing this technology "will have an array or arrays of micro LEDs on one or more IC packages." So, given an ambitious-enough design, Intel could implement multiple LED-based functions directly into the processor.

Patents aren't products, and that's always an important reminder. Intel filed this patent over four years ago, and it's just now being published. Whether we actually see MicroLEDs embedded in a processor remains an open question. However, Intel has laid the groundwork to do something like that in the future.

Meta's new AI agent Muse is powered by AMD EPYC Turin host systems, with each sandbox sporting two dedicated cores and 8GB of memory. Blogger Evan Hoffman and analyst Tae Kim both discovered that Muse will run some rudimentary Ubuntu commands if prompted, passing along the output to help identify things like the specs of the host system. More concerning is that Muse seems able to execute commands that might be unsafe, with Hoffman claiming that Muse offered to set up SSH to Muse's private VM.

Both Kim and Hoffman asked Muse about the VM's specs, and in both instances, Muse revealed that it's running on AMD EPYC 9D25 CPUs, a high-density Turin chip with up to 128 cores (two of which are generally fused off or reserved). The VMs are running on Ubuntu 24.04 and using Linux kernel 7.0. The systems hosting Muse don't include GPUs. The AI agent revealed that Meta uses separate GPU servers for inference, isolating the agent to CPU-only sandboxes.

The agent suggests that each user gets their own private sandbox that's persistent, which allows us to do some math on how many people an individual tray can host. Assuming a 2P system that offers up to 510 vCPUs with 2TB of memory, hosting up to 254 Muse users. Muse has reportedly passed over 500,000 daily active users as of a few days ago, which would come out to somewhere around 2,000 server trays with dual EPYC 9D25 CPUs and 2TB of memory.

This is just some rough napkin math; don't take it as law. It's possible Meta has CPU-only servers deployed with multiple different chips to host Muse, and it's also possible there's overhead in the configuration. Turin chips support up to 6TB of memory with high-density DIMMs, for instance. Still, EPYC hosts seem popular for this use case, mainly because of their core density, as even a dual-core sandbox can add up quickly when multiplied across hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of users.

Muse isn't completely open. Hoffman shared an example where an attempted command failed due to improper permissions when Muse tried to query the kernel buffer. Presumably, sudo (admin) commands would be blocked as well.

However, there might still be some security loopholes. Hoffman says that Muse offered to set up SSH into the private Muse VM. With a reverse SSH tunnel — where the destination machine initiates the connection, bypassing the firewall — an attacker may be able to execute more damaging commands.

Meta's David Singleton says this is intended behavior, however, describing Muse as "a free computer in the cloud." Meta has an extensive white paper on the security architecture of Muse published on its research website.

AMD's new Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500 are available for sale, though the prices are higher than AMD originally suggested. On Amazon, the Ryzen 5 5500F is available for $120, while the Ryzen 5 7500 is listed at $210, both $20 more expensive than AMD's suggested retail pricing. Both are sold directly by Amazon, suggesting we'll see slightly higher prices for these two chips than AMD originally suggested.

• Get the AMD Ryzen 5 5500F from Amazon
• Get the AMD Ryzen 5 7500 from Amazon

AMD revealed the budget CPUs nearly two weeks ago, and despite launching on that date, the chips haven't been available for sale in the U.S. until now. The Ryzen 5 5500F is particularly interesting, as the $90 Ryzen 5 5500 has continually been among Amazon's best sellers in CPUs. Although the Ryzen 5 5500 and 5500F sound similar, there are actually quite a few differences between the two CPUs.

Both are six-core, 12-thread chips using AMD's Zen 3 architecture, but the 5500 falls under the Cezanne family, while the 5500F falls under Vermeer. The 5500F comes with PCIe 4, compared to PCIe 3 on the 5500, as well as a higher 4.4 GHz boost clock — the base 5500 tops out at 4.2 GHz. These changes apparently allow the 5500F to achieve higher performance, somewhere in the range of 5% to 10%, in games. We'll be getting the CPU in the Tom's Hardware lab to test the performance ourselves.

Although Zen 3 is aging, it has become an ideal home for budget builders as the RAM pricing crisis continues to surge. In addition to the Ryzen 5 5500F, we saw AMD re-release the Ryzen 7 5800X3D earlier this year to combat rising DDR5 prices.

We took the Ryzen 5 5500 (non-F) out for a spin earlier this year for a budget $100 CPU shootout. Generally, it underperforms the Intel competition at this price, but a 5% to 10% jump would close that gap. If performance holds up, the Ryzen 5 5500F may have a shot at our best CPUs for gaming list with its low price.

The Ryzen 5 7500 is easier to parse. It's identical to the 7500F, just with integrated graphics. It comes with six Zen 4 cores for a total of 12 threads, and unlike the 5500, it exclusively supports DDR5 memory. The 7500 comes with a boost clock of 5 GHz and supports PCIe 5. Like the 5500F, it has a 65W TDP and comes bundled with AMD's Wraith Stealth cooler.

AMD originally announced the Ryzen 5 5500F at $99 and the 7500 at $190, though the current Amazon listings are both $20 higher than that — $120 and $210, respectively. At the time of writing, the CPUs are only available at Amazon in the U.S.; Micro Center and Newegg don't have listings available. When other retailers pick up the chips, prices could come down.

This isn't the first time we've seen oddly high prices on new AMD releases at Amazon. Earlier this year, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 went up for sale on Amazon prior to release, selling for $1,000, $100 above MSRP. After the launch dust settled and listings went up at other retailers, the pricing dropped back down to $900. Hopefully, we'll see something similar happen here.

Google’s “brand-new category of flagship laptops,” called Googlebooks, will contain MediaTek’s next-gen Dimensity CX C10 Max processor, the first SoC to launch in the Dimensity CX lineup. It’s built on a 3nm node (TSMC N3) and uses an all-performance-core design, packing eight cores on the CPU and 11 cores on the GPU, along with MediaTek’s NPU 890, delivering up to 55 TOPS of AI performance, according to MediaTek. The new CX lineup will sit between MediaTek’s other offerings, between the RTX Spark in higher-end laptops and Chromebook with Kompanio chips.

MediaTek calls the C10 Max the “flagship of the lineup,” though we don’t have full specs on the chip, and not so much as a name for the other chips in the lineup. MediaTek is launching the CPU on the same day Googlebooks go on sale (September 21), and the company says it will power an upcoming Googlebook device. MediaTek hasn’t explicitly said that the chip is exclusive to Googlebook devices, though that seems likely given the company’s previous work with Google on Chromebooks.

The C10 Max is an “all big core” CPU, according to MediaTek, but not all eight cores are equal. MediaTek is using three different core types: one Cortex-X925 core, three Cortex-X4 cores, and four Cortex-A720 cores. The Cortex-X925 is the successor to the Cortex-X4, with higher clock speeds, a larger 10-wide decode, and larger L2 cache. The Cortex-A720 fits in a different range, though it was succeeded in 2024 by the Cortex-A725. This core split is identical to what MediaTek has used in its Dimensity 9400, 9400+, and 9500s mobile chips (though, presumably, the C10 Max will be afforded a larger power budget and higher boost clocks).

Perhaps more pressing, it’s identical to the core split in the Kompanio Ultra 910, MediaTek’s previous flagship in this category. The C10 Max features the same GPU and NPU, as well: the Arm Immortalis-G925 MC11 for the GPU and MediaTek NPU 890. The C10 Max also comes with the same 12MB of L3 and 10MB of system-level cache. The biggest difference, at least based on the specs MediaTek has shared, is memory speed. Both use LPDDR5X, but the C10 Max climbs up to 9,600MT/s from 8,533MT/s on the Kompanio Ultra 910.

On performance, MediaTek has two rather vague claims, which you can see in the slide below. It claims the C10 Max has up to 15% faster multi-threaded performance and 50% lower power in single-threaded workloads, though without any mention of performance, compared to the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100. That chip is the second from the top of Qualcomm’s last-gen X Elite stack, sporting 12 cores (8+4) and a 4.2 GHz boost clock. MediaTek says it used Geekbench 6.5 and ran the multi-threaded tests at iso-power, that being 12W (the X1E has a base TDP of 35W, and MediaTek didn’t clarify what power usage it was referencing).

Unfortunately, the performance numbers here aren’t worth much, at least not how they’re presented. Perhaps most notably, the test platforms were completely different, with MediaTek using a reference board running ChromeOS R133 for its chip and using a Galaxybook 4 Edge with Windows 11 from Samsung for Qualcomm’s chip. They’re only comparable on memory capacity (16GB) and battery (60Whr). MediaTek also didn’t share any actual numbers, leaving the claim about 50% lower single-threaded power usage dead in the water.

During a press Q&A, MediaTek VP of computing platforms PD Rajput said the C10 Max is competing with the X1 Elite, not Qualcomm’s newer X2 series. “In the category of devices we’re looking at, and the segment we’re on, it’s the X1E we’re competing with.” MediaTek didn’t share any performance numbers comparing the C10 Max to x86 CPUs from AMD or Intel.

Rajput also said that the Dimensity CX C10 Max won’t flow down to Chromebook or Chromebook Plus devices, saying MediaTek is “elevating our compute portfolio” with the C10 Max. We asked if the chip will come to Windows laptops as well, and the company said it’s only confirmed for Googlebooks at this time.

MediaTek says the C10 Max is capable of delivering up to 19 hours of battery life, which is certainly possible, though battery life is more of a system-level concern than a chip-level one. MediaTek arrived at that number testing a reference board with a 60Whr battery, so it's possibly the battery life could climb higher if the chip is paired with a larger battery.

Full MediaTek Dimensity CX C10 Max presentation

An Intel Celeron 1200 (Tualatin) was revived from the dead following an intricate bit of repair work by Bits und Bolts. The quarter-century-old chip looked like it had a fatal injury, with one of the pins missing and the underlying pad ripped off. As things stood, a system with this close relative of the Pentium III installed simply wouldn’t boot. However, thanks to careful digging “deep into the substrate” and some delicate preparation work, the enthusiast managed to solder on a donor pin and get this CPU running again – and then overclocked it by 33%.

As the Celeron 1200’s missing pin was a data pin (D47), this was a definite fix-or-be-damned situation. Sometimes CPUs can have a pin or two missing, and they will work anyway. I’ve seen CPUs shrug off such missing connections when several remaining pins duplicate a function – power or ground pins, for example.

Bits und Bolts started the repair process with a close-up of the serious-looking damage. Then we see the missing pin area after they have apparently “dug a hole” so that the work/issue can be seen more clearly. Zoomed-in images show that there were several layers of copper exposed from under the green surface. The new pin must be connected solely to the central circular area you can see, and not accidentally connect with any of the copper planes surrounding it. Thus, the TechTuber started by applying solder mask to this area. Remember, these pins are very small, and it would have been an intricate job to mask the surrounding area solidly yet cleanly.

While the solder mask surrounding the Intel Celeron 1200’s vacant pin cured, Bits und Bolts harvested a few pins from another Tualatin chip that was “definitely broken.” Returning to the CPU under repair, it was time to add flux, then try to ‘tin’ the central circular copper area to which the donor pin would be soldered.

Soldering the donor pin went smoothly, leaving it perfectly in position and upright. You can definitely see which pin has been added by Bits und Bolts, but after nervously adding the repaired Celeron 1200 to a socket, the TechTuber was relieved that everything mated cleanly.

Instead of firing up the computer with the repaired processor installed straight away, the tech tinkerer took a few readings with their multimeter. There were no obvious issues. At last, the moment of truth came, and the patched-up processor-packing PC system booted without issues. Bits und Bolts commented that this was the first time they’d repaired a processor pin issue that looked so grave. The end of the video sees the CPU tested in various benchmarks, including SiSoft Sandra. Moreover, it was even overclocked by 33%, stable at 1,600 MHz.

Following the launch of AMD's EPYC 'Venice' CPUs in July, AMD extended the performance claims for its upcoming generation of server chips on Friday. The high-level claim hasn't changed. AMD still says a 96-core, high-frequency Venice chip is around 20% faster than Nvidia's 88-core Vera in SPEC CPU 2026's Integer Rate test. However, the company went into far greater detail about the benchmarks in a new white paper.

There are several configuration differences depending on the benchmark throughout AMD's white paper, and although we'll call out those differences here to the best of our ability, we don't have all of the details. For the Vera comparison, in particular, AMD is mixing data from different sources, and in some cases, using different major releases of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). That can have a substantial impact on performance, so keep your salt shaker handy.

First up are results in SPEC CPU 2026 with the intrate test, looking at total throughput. These are older numbers, gathered in July with GCC 15.2. The intrate test runs multiple copies of an application on the same CPU, and the SOP is to run one copy per thread. Presumably, that's what AMD did here, but the white paper doesn't clarify, even in the footnotes.

The 256-core 9996 is 2.37x faster than the Intel Xeon 6980P and 2.24x faster than Vera according to the slide. The white paper clarifies the mystery 9006 CPU is the 256-core flagship. Perhaps most impressive is AMD's gen-on-gen comparison. According to these results, the 9996 is around 78% faster than last-gen's 192-core EPYC 9965.

Although the high-level results bring in data from Intel and AWS, much of the white paper focused squarely on the comparison between Venice and Vera. AMD broke down the individual subtests of SPEC CPU 2026 intrate in the white paper, which you can see below.

The comparison looks good for AMD, naturally, though there are a few wrinkles in the configuration. AMD is testing a down-cored EPYC 9996, dropping from 256 cores to 96 cores. It made no mention of power budget, but when AMD originally shared SPEC numbers, the 96-core model had access to the same 600W as the 256-core model — AMD's 96-core, high-frequency Venice SKU tops out at 500W. More consequential is the compiler, however. AMD is using GCC 16.1 and comparing the results to the ones Nvidia shared in its Vera white paper. Nvidia used GCC 15.2.

Michael Larabel over at Phoronix has a nice write-up about the difference between GCC 15 and 16, but the short story is that there are performance differences, not always for the better. GCC 16 takes longer to compile due to better optimizations, hence the lower scores on the GCC and LLVM compilations above. However, that leads to faster binaries. By how much depends on the flags, software, and a whole host of other factors. Regardless, it's not best practice to compare benchmarks using two different compiler versions. It makes sense that AMD used GCC 16.1 — it includes support for Zen 6 — but ideally Vera would also be on GCC 16.1.

Speaking of Phoronix, AMD pulled some data for the publication's initial, controlled testing of Vera. Above, you can see the Stream, an industry-standard benchmark for measuring memory bandwidth. Again, AMD is using a down-cored 9996 from 256 cores to 96, and offering it a 600W power budget. Still, this is an impressive showing, as Vera absolutely clobbered the competition in the publication’s original Stream results. Here, AMD is ahead by about 18%, with per-core performance about 8% ahead.

Breaking out of Vera, AMD also showed performance in cloud workloads, including database, Java, and cryptography. Once again, the gen-on-gen comparison stands out, as AMD was already leading in these workloads with its last-gen chips. AMD ran these tests itself, rather than relying on third-party data, though the Graviton5 results came from an AWS cloud instance.

Similarly, in HPC workloads, AMD furthers its lead over Intel's flagship Granite Rapids-AP offering. Intel's next-gen data center CPUs, codenamed Diamond Rapids, are set to be released next year.

Finally, we have "agentic AI workload performance," which uses actual benchmarks for comparison, despite what the names in the chart above suggest. From left to right, AMD used NGINX, TPCx-AI kit, FAISS, TPC-H and TPC-C, and a replay of a multi-persona agent. For TPC-H and TPC-C, AMD says it derived workloads from those benchmarks, so the results here aren't comparable to published results.

Although looking at benchmark results is always interesting, it doesn't say much in the context of a server deployment, at least at the scale that AMD is targeting. Peak performance is only one of the major factors that go into server deployments, after all, and even then, performance can vary wildly depending on what software you're running and how it's built.

Still, Venice looks impressive, perhaps more so in the gen-on-gen comparison than any competitive comparison. Hopefully that bodes well for AMD's future Zen 6 rollout on consumer desktops, but we'll have to wait until Team Red has more to share before drawing any conclusions on that front.

Intel's Nova Lake CPUs are no stranger to leaks. We've been talking about the processors for close to two years now, with rumors swirling about bLLC and a 52-core flagship for well over a year. However, this week (and this month more broadly), we've seen leaks hit a fever pitch, suggesting that Intel is finally gearing up to release a generation of processors that's been the zeitgeist for over 24 months.

Intel hasn't shied away from discussing Nova Lake, with Intel's enthusiast channel VP Robert Hallock telling Tom's Hardware Premium that it's one of the most important launches for the company ever. At the beginning of the year, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said that Nova Lake would launch in the second half of 2026, and despite expected hubbub about delays/cancellations, that's the North Star Intel itself has set. So, that's also going to be our North Star here.

There are three stories that have come out over the past week and a half. First, a screenshot of some high-level details about Nova Lake surfaced online, showing the launch schedule and platform details. The slide in question is almost certainly from one of Intel's partners and not Intel itself.

Just in the past few days, we've also seen a barrage of Z990 motherboards from ASRock surface in the NBD shipping database, as well as some entries in the SiSoftware database for a next-gen HP EliteBook X sporting an unknown Intel processor.

An increase in the number of leaks/rumors, especially those that are more than a known leaker writing up a post on X, usually points to an imminent launch. We've heard about Nova Lake for over two years, yes, but now we're seeing more concrete details. In addition to the shipping manifest, snapped slide, and SiSoftware results, we also saw two Z990 motherboards ourselves at Computex earlier this year, with a third rumored. We will not predict the Nova Lake release date here. However, the launch is coming soon. That much we're confident in.

Intel's typical release cycle for desktop CPUs

In order to establish a timeline, we first need to look back. We could go back far, but we're cutting the timeline short here at Alder Lake. That was when Intel finally moved off 14nm, following generation after generation of either an underwhelming launch or a delayed one, and it's most relevant to what Intel is doing today.

The timeline above is fairly straightforward. Intel has, short of 2025, launched a new generation of desktop processors in the fall every year for the past five years. This annual cadence was even more intense previously; 7th-Gen and 8th-Gen CPUs were both released in 2017, and 9th-Gen in 2018. Then, Intel took a year off and followed up with 10th-Gen in 2020 and 11th-Gen in early 2021. Keep in mind that we're talking about desktop CPU launches with a new microarchitecture here. Obviously, Intel has released a ton of other products in between the gaps.

The interesting bit about the timeline is actually the end with Arrow Lake Refresh. When we spoke to Robert Hallock earlier this year, he told us that a team that was "pretty much completely different" worked on Arrow Lake Refresh compared to Arrow Lake. That might explain the strangely large gap between Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh. Even looking at the Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh stacks side-by-side, it's obvious that a different mentality went into how they were positioned in the market. That team is in in-place now, and Hallock told us the team is "moving faster than we ever have in product, in release cadence."

Don't take Hallock's comments about Intel moving faster than ever at face value — he was probably being at least a little hyperbolic — but the sentiment is clear. Following the poor reception of Arrow Lake, Intel reorganized and set a new roadmap in motion that extends out to 2030, and now, that roadmap is being executed, starting earlier this year with Arrow Lake Refresh. That sets up Arrow Lake Refresh similar to 11th-Gen Rocket Lake, serving as somewhat of a stopgap before the next generation properly arrives (that is, thankfully, where the comparisons between Arrow Lake Refresh and Rocket Lake end).

Back to Nova Lake. Earlier this year at Computex, we saw two Z990 motherboards, one of which we confirmed was not a finalized unit. The complete development process takes generally four to six months for a motherboard, and you can add another two months or so on top of that for channel sales, as pallets of PCBs are loaded onto ships and swim across the Pacific Ocean. That was in June.

The shipping manifest that surfaced this week showed shipments in July for ASRock. Critically, it also shows shipments from two different sources: Taiwan and Vietnam. Given what we saw at Computex and the two different sources for ASRock, we're firmly past the early prototype and engineering validation stage of motherboard design. Assuming everything goes according to plan, that means Z990 motherboards should be ready to go on store shelves by no later than October or November.

Keep in mind that does not mean Nova Lake will launch in October or November, just that motherboards will most likely be ready by then. This aligns with what motherboard vendors told us earlier this year, with some brands pointing to Q3 but most to Q4 for a Z990 rollout.

Parsing the details about Nova Lake so far

Currently, there are two camps when it comes to when Nova Lake will release. Some say it'll arrive this year, likely in Q4, while others say CES 2027 in January of next year. As we wrote earlier in the article, we will not predict the Nova Lake release date. However, we will side with one of the camps here as more likely based on what we've seen so far.

Given everything we've seen, a late 2026 launch is more likely. The strongest evidence of that is the comment from Tan earlier this year, where the executive said Nova Lake is "coming at the end of 2026." The critical context is that Tan made that comment as part of his prepared remarks, preceding the actual financials that you hear in an earnings call. An earnings call is not a keynote, and making material promises you knowingly can't keep can land you in hot water.

Executives massage the truth all the time during earnings calls — that's half the reason there are prepared remarks ahead of the financials. However, that key detail about an end of 2026 launch isn't massaging the truth. It's a concrete claim devoid of weasel words and qualifiers. In addition, Intel's fiscal year aligns with a calendar year; when Tan said end of 2026, he meant end of 2026, regardless of fiscal or calendar year.

It's possible that something changed between now and January when that call took place. However, the timeline still lines up given the various motherboards that showed up between June and July of this year. At this point, Intel can slide the actual release date around by a bit, but not by months. Retailers aren't going to sit on pallets of motherboards with no home indefinitely.

The one wrinkle in this is the leaked slide you can see above, which claims Nova Lake will enter mass production in Q4, with a launch in Q1 2027. There are reasons to be skeptical of this slide, however. For starters, the slide doesn't say anything that hasn't been heavily rumored for months (sometimes even years) at this point: 52-core flagship, up to 288MB of bLLC, LGA 1954 socket, and multi-generation socket support. The strange bit is a mention of Hammer Lake at the bottom of the slide.

We've heard very little about Hammer Lake, and nothing that's passed muster for us to cover on Tom's Hardware. Even among the rumors, the launch has been pinned somewhere in the 2029/2030 range, if the lineup is even real to begin with. Regardless, Hammer Lake isn't what we'd expect to see next to Razor Lake — the generation rumored to follow Nova — and certainly not what we'd expect to see under a "Q4 2027+" badge.

That doesn't mean the slide is fake; it doesn't appear to be fake. There's some very critical context missing from it, though. It's a Chinese source, but did it come from an OEM? A distributor? A retailer? The validity of the slide changes dramatically depending on that. Further, we're only seeing maybe half of a single slide here. There's too much context missing to take this single slide and run with it as concrete truth.

At the very least, it fares poorly against prepared comments made by Intel's CEO, motherboards we've seen (and held) ourselves, and have circulated through photos online, and strong indications from Intel's motherboard partners that they'll be ready for a launch in Q4. Add on top of that the fact that Intel took 2025 completely off for new desktop launches (and its usual cadence of launching in the fall), and a Q4 rollout of Nova Lake looks far more likely.

Likely isn't the same as confirmed. We're still awaiting details on Nova Lake from Intel proper, and hopefully those will arrive soon. Given the anticipation Intel has already built around Nova Lake without a single performance claim or spec shared, we'll have a lot to talk about.

Intel won't launch a Nova Lake-S SKU with 12 Xe3P graphics cores, according to tipster Jaykihn, who originally flagged a beefed-up APU design with the Nova Lake architecture. The original SKU was said to come with 4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores, along with the 12 Xe3P cores, presumably offering an inexpensive onramp to a gaming desktop without a discrete GPU. Now, the leaker says that design is cancelled, and Intel intends to pick it back up with Razor Lake, the generation that will follow Nova Lake.

Originally, Intel's 12 Xe3P Nova Lake SKU was said to require 65W of dedicated power to drive the iGPU, necessitating the use of two VCCGT phases on the motherboard for integrated graphics. Intel's Arc B390 GPU, which is the 12 Xe3-core model available in Panther Lake and Arc G-series processors, has a thermal design that can sustain up to 80W. However, it's currently being used in Panther Lake machines and handhelds like MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ that have lower power targets.

The Xe3P architecture is slotted for use in Intel's Crescent Island AI accelerator, but it hasn't been announced for any other products yet. Xe3P supports a wide deployment of Xe cores (up to 32), a deeper XMX engine with support for low-precision data types like FP8 and FP4, an increased 512KB L1 cache per Xe core, and a new unified L2 cache (32MB on Crescent Island).

Even by desktop APU standards, an 80W iGPU is a beefy accelerator to have on the same package. In addition, Intel's Nova Lake stack is said to extend up to a 175W TDP with the rumored top-end 52-core SKU, meaning the full 12 Xe3P iGPU would likely only be possible lower down the stack (and maybe only in the 4 + 8 + 4 + 12 Xe design originally suggested).

Earlier in the year, rumors suggested Intel was working on a mobile APU to counter AMD's Strix/Gorgon Halo products, featuring a large pool of unified memory and a large iGPU, dubbed Nova Lake AX. Now, the rumor mill suggests Intel will recycle the Nova Lake CPU cores for Razor Lake AX on mobile while pushing a larger iGPU.

*Specs rumored, unconfirmed by Intel

Intel has told us that Nova Lake is one of the most important desktop CPU launches for the company ever, following on the heels of the mediocre Arrow Lake rollout. Perhaps the biggest addition to the lineup is rumored to be bLLC, or big last-level cache, which is said to show up on select SKUs to counter AMD's X3D assault among the best CPUs for gaming. The company has yet to confirm that bLLC is even possible with its current packaging capabilities, though enthusiast channel VP Robert Hallock hinted to Tom's Hardware that Intel has plans to address X3D in the next generation.

The main stack is rumored to climb up to 28 cores, with two additional dual-tile SKUs that can go as high as 52 cores. The dual-tile models look like a bid for HEDT, perhaps competing with AMD's Threadripper CPUs, though it's not clear how Intel will position its dual-tile models yet.

Earlier this month, a leaked slide gave us a glimpse into Intel's launch plans for Nova Lake. The slide suggested Intel will announce the main stack (up to 28 cores) in Q4 of this year, with the chips arriving in Q1 2027. Intel will apparently follow up later in the year with the 52-core model. This aligns with what we've heard from our sources about Intel's Nova Lake rollout.

Alongside Nova Lake, Intel will introduce the new LGA1954 socket, along with the flagship Z990 chipset. We've already seen multiple Z990 motherboards in the flesh, suggesting Intel is preparing for a Nova Lake release in short order.

For those seeking the highest performance for gaming, AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D is currently the best CPU money can buy. If you’re planning to upgrade or build a new PC, now might be a good time to pick one up, as Newegg is selling the 9850X3D for $484, around $15 less than its launch price. The deal also includes a 240mm Cooler Master AIO liquid cooler, valued at $79.99, along with a copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword worth $69.99, both included as free gifts.

• Check out the deal on Newegg

Announced at CES 2026, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is essentially a higher-binned version of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It retains the same 8-core, 16-thread configuration and 4.2 GHz base clock as its predecessor, but gets a higher 5.6 GHz boost clock. The chip comes with the same 104MB of total cache, including 96MB of 3D V-Cache, which is the key ingredient behind its strong gaming performance. It also shares the same 120W default TDP and uses the AM5 platform with DDR5 memory support, making it compatible with a wide range of existing 800- and 600-series AMD motherboards.

In our in-depth testing of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, we found that it was only 3.3% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. But a win is a win, and that performance edge puts the CPU at the top of our 16-game 1080p FPS performance geomean, beating the more expensive Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 9950X3D. Although it loses out to Intel in some productivity workloads, the less complex 8-core configuration packed into a single CCD results in lower power draw. As you can see from our results, the peak power consumption is around 170W, making it much easier to cool.

With the included 240mm AIO liquid cooler, you should be able to keep the Ryzen 7 9850X3D well under control during gaming and moderate workloads, although it may run warmer under heavy multi-core workloads. At its sale price of $484, you’re paying less than its actual launch price while getting two useful extras at no additional cost. That makes this a worthwhile deal for anyone looking to build a high-end gaming PC around AMD’s gaming-focused platform.

Architectural enhancements and significantly higher clock speeds enable Apple's A20 Pro application processor (AP), used in the company's latest iPhones, to deliver not only a substantial generation-to-generation performance boost but also to outperform leading desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel by up to a whopping 32% in the single-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, setting the record for the highest single-thread performance. While high-end PC CPUs still have more oomph for multi-threaded workloads, the tiny A20 Pro is still faster than mainstream laptop CPUs even when many threads are involved.

Fastest smartphone SoC

Apple's A20 Pro system-on-chip (SoC) delivers 4,006 points in single-thread and 11,460 points in the multi-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, which represents a 23.3% higher ST performance and 27.1% higher MT performance compared to the immediate predecessor, the Apple A19 Pro, according to an early submission (which may or may not demonstrate performance of actual A20 Pro-based products, so take the results with a grain of salt).

The new SoC delivers the highest generation-over-generation performance improvement for Apple's smartphone processors in years and is currently the highest-performing mobile AP. Furthermore, the A20 Pro beats AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D by 26% and Intel’s Core i9-14900KS by 32% in single-thread performance.

When it comes to the single-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, Apple's A20 Pro outperforms its closest rivals — Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen5 (SM8850) and Xiaomi's XRing O3 — by 31.5% - 33.7%. In fact, both SM8850 and XRing O3 perform on par with Apple's two-years-old A18 Pro. The six-core A20 Pro also beats the eight-core SM8850 by 12.2% in multi-thread workloads in Geekbench 7 and offers roughly similar multi-thread performance to the 10-core XRing O3.

Compared with other flagship smartphone processors, Apple's A20 Pro holds a commanding lead in Geekbench 7. It is 76% faster in single-thread and 48% faster in multi-thread performance than MediaTek's eight-core Dimensity 9400, while it nearly doubles the performance of Google's eight-core Tensor G5, with advantages of 99% and 96%, respectively. But the most striking gap of A20 Pro is with Huawei’s Kirin 9050 Pro: Apple's flagship is 290% faster in single-thread and 139% faster in multi-thread Geekbench 7 workloads.

A great laptop CPU

While Apple's A20 Pro continues to feature 'only' six cores like many generations before it, this time around the processor packs two 'super' desktop-class general-purpose cores running at up to 4.93 GHz, four efficiency cores running at lower clocks, and a memory interface that delivers +50% higher memory bandwidth compared to its predecessor (allegedly using a 96-bit memory I/O).

The architectural enhancements of advanced CPU cores running at nearly 5 GHz, along with a more capable memory subsystem, not only enable a massive generational performance uptick, but also allow the chip to offer unbeatable single-thread performance and massive multi-thread performance that is comparable to that of laptop CPUs, including previous-generation laptop CPUs from Apple.

Indeed, Apple's A20 Pro is 7% faster than M5, 20% faster than M4, and 43% faster than M3 in single-thread performance. Its six-core design cannot match its multi-thread performance, trailing the 10-core M5 by 39% and the 10-core M4 by 27%. Yet, it is only 5% behind the eight-core M3.

When compared to Intel's Panther Lake, the A20 Pro is 48.7% faster in single-thread performance than the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H, yet the 16-core Panther Lake processor is 63% faster in multi-thread workloads. Against lower-end Panther Lake parts, the A20 Pro is 74% – 88% faster in ST workloads and even leads the Core Ultra 5 325 and Ultra 5 332 by 3% and 64%, respectively, in multi-thread benchmarks.

The particularly striking results of Apple's A20 Pro are the 26% – 33% single-thread advantage over flagship AMD and Intel desktop CPUs, though the desktop processors remain dramatically faster in multi-thread workloads.

First 2nm smartphone SoC

When Apple transitioned to TSMC's N3B (3nm-class) process technology from N4 (4nm-class) with its A17 Pro SoC back in 2023, the new processor was barely 9.8% faster in ST and 6.8% faster than its predecessor A16 Bionic. By contrast, with its first 2nm smartphone SoC made on TSMC's N2 node, Apple offers a massive performance boost over the A19 Pro produced on N3P.

Indeed, Apple's A19 Pro packs two 'desktop-class' 'super cores' whose design is 'driven in part by increased front-end bandwidth, a new cache hierarchy, and enhanced branch prediction,' as Apple described its 'super cores' inside the M5 processor earlier this year. Such architectural enhancements obviously massively increase performance in single-thread workloads at the cost of increased die size, transistor count, and power. Apparently, N2 enabled Apple's designers to squeeze two desktop-grade CPU cores into a smartphone SoC.

Speaking of M5, it is noteworthy that A20 Pro delivers 7.1% higher single-thread performance than M5 while running at a clock speed that is 7.1% higher than that of M5, which is probably a good indicator that Apple's A19 Pro uses the same 'super cores' as M5.

While some may consider using PC-grade general-purpose CPU cores in a smartphone chip an overkill, Apple is known for using and supporting PC technologies in its mobile SoCs (NVMe, PCIe, DisplayPort-over-USB-C, hardware virtualization, etc.). Keeping in mind that Apple also uses A-series SoCs inside iPads and inexpensive laptops, it makes a great sense to have these technologies in its smartphone application processors. With desktop-grade cores inside the A20 Pro, the company greatly expands use cases of these CPUs while also solidifying their position in traditional segments that they will address in the coming quarters.

Without any doubts, Apple's transition to TSMC's N2 starts with a massive general-purpose performance increase, driven by 'fat' super cores and a memory subsystem featuring 50% more bandwidth compared to the A19 Pro. Over the next few weeks, we are also going to learn how Apple upgraded the GPU, NPU, and other aspects of the A20 Pro, and we are going to find out whether the upgrades are as impressive or incremental. In any case, so far, the A20 Pro looks very good.

AMD has officially launched the Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500, two strong contenders for the best CPUs on the market if you're on a budget. Both are hexa-core chips, with the Ryzen 5 5500F featuring AMD's Zen 3 execution cores and the Ryzen 5 7500 using the newer Zen 4 execution cores. The Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500, priced at $99 and $189, respectively, are available at U.S. retailers starting today.

The Ryzen 5 5500F, despite its similar model name to the Ryzen 5 5500, belongs to a different family in AMD's portfolio. The Ryzen 5 5500F hails from the Ryzen 5000 series (codenamed Vermeer), which uses a multi-chiplet architecture. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5500 comes from the Ryzen 5000G series (codenamed Cezanne), which uses a monolithic die design.

Therefore, it is more sound to call the Ryzen 5 5500F a lower-binned version of the Ryzen 5 5600, rather than an iGPU-less variant of the Ryzen 5 5500, which lacks integrated graphics to begin with. The distinction matters because the Ryzen 5 5500F is closer to the Ryzen 5 5600, albeit with a 500 MHz lower boost clock speed and half the L3 cache.

The Ryzen 5 5600, which launched at $199, now retails for around $159, making the new Ryzen 5 5500F approximately 38% more affordable. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5500, which debuted at $159, has lost substantial value over the years. OEM tray versions of the Ryzen 5 5500 now start at just $74, so it is still the most cost-effective entry point into the AM4 ecosystem. Compared to the Ryzen 5 5500, the Ryzen 5 5500F carries a 34% price premium. The latter justifies its higher cost with a slightly higher boost clock speed, which translates to better gaming performance, and support for PCIe 4.0, unlocking faster SSDs and graphics cards.

Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500 Specifications

When it comes to the Ryzen 5 7500, little mystery surrounds its place in AMD's product stack. True to its name, the Ryzen 5 7500 is the same processor as the Ryzen 5 7500F, which launched three years ago, but with integrated Radeon graphics. This small addition suits users who need basic display output and do not plan to spend money on a discrete graphics card. Apart from the integrated graphics, all core specifications remain identical between the two models.

As a result, the difference between the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Ryzen 5 7500 stands. The former boasts a 100 MHz higher base and boost clock, so performance is somewhat better in certain processor-intensive workloads or gaming scenarios. However, most users may not notice the difference.

The Ryzen 5 7500F hit the market at $179, but over time its retail price has dropped to about $157. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 7600 has held its value over the years, falling only slightly from its original MSRP of $229 to around $226. As a result, the Ryzen 5 7500 positions itself as a mid-point option, priced 16% lower than the Ryzen 5 7600 and 20% above the Ryzen 5 7500F.

The Ryzen 5 7500 makes sense in this market because not everyone is a gamer, so integrated graphics mean you do not have to spend a fortune on a discrete graphics card at today's ridiculous prices. However, because it runs on AMD's AM5 platform, the Ryzen 5 7500 is still bound by the sky-high cost of DDR5.

We reported on the new Apple A20 Pro system-on-a-chip (SoC) for smartphones yesterday, an integral attraction within Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, and in the iPhone 18 Pro devices. Now the first A20 Geekbench 6 benchmark results are starting to pop up online, and they’re very impressive, particularly in single-core performance. If the result spotted by Longhorn is a typical one, the 4,719 single-core and 12,677 multi-core scores mean the new A20 is around 25% faster than its predecessor. Its single-core score can also make some of the best PC CPUs look anemic.

Apple’s official performance claims are interesting, as usual, but we’re always happy to see the third-party performance indicators start to emerge ahead of independent reviews. Heralding its new 2nm silicon yesterday, Apple might have actually understated the boost the A20 can deliver, with the official line about this “desktop-class” processor being the “fastest CPU in a smartphone,” and a claim that it is ‘just’ 20% faster than the previous gen. However, Geekbench isn’t the best indicator of real-world performance, and this is just a sample of one to sprinkle salt upon.

What are numbers without relevant comparisons, though? For more perspective on Apple’s newest silicon, which might also be thrown into a new Neo laptop (or desktop) in the coming months, check out the table below.

Above, we’ve pitted the Apple A19 Pro from last year’s iPhone 17 Pro as the second comparison column entrant. Apple has worked on multiple angles to deliver improvements over last year. It says that it has both new super-cores and efficiency cores in play. Then there’s the refined 2nm process and the faster clocks, too.

For some wider context, we’ve also tabulated one of Apple’s newest M5 computer chips, a modern Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X2 laptop chip, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, for a fun desktop PC angle. Less fun is the comparison with the Asus Zephyrus G16 2024 laptop I’m using now, with an AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 chip. Its Geekbench 6 scores of roughly 2,800 / 14,500 are easily outclassed by Apple’s new smartphone processor in 1T tests, but retain a little dignity by winning by ~1,800 points in nT tests.

Apple is opening up pre-orders for its new iPhones with A20 silicon shortly, with retail release on Friday, September 18. It usually lifts review embargoes a few days before retail. We should therefore see a broader range of benchmarks and tests from good sources in the coming week.

Apple has a new top system-on-a-chip for smartphones, the A20 Pro. The new processor debuted at Apple's iPhone event today — the first event led by newly minted chief executive officer John Ternus — alongside a new in-house modem (the C2).

The A20 Pro is Apple's first 2-nanometer chip in an iPhone. (Its first-ever 2 nm chip is the M6, which the company announced in August and which will debut in the Mac Mini later this month). Like the M6, the A20 features dual neural engines, new CPU and GPU cores.

The A20 Pro will power the new foldable iPhone Duo, along with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.

The new SOC boasts a 6-core CPU with two of the company's super-cores (20% faster than last generation), and there are also four efficiency cores with neural accelerators. Apple is calling this a "desktop-class" processor and the "fastest CPU in a smartphone."

The 7-core GPU has a 40% boost gen-over-gen with increased bandwidth, along with new neural accelerators that the company says allows for twice-as-fast FP8 compute.

The two neural engines have a combined 32 total cores. There's a 50% increase in memory bandwidth on the chip, which Apple says is the widest memory interface in an iPhone.

Apple has also changed the packaging, with the silicon dies placed in a way that removes memory from the thermal path of the SOC, allowing the silicon to attach directly to the vapor chamber. That vapor chamber has a three times larger surface area over the 17 Pro, and also includes more graphite and copper along with 80% recycled stainless steel.

The company claims that this will allow for up to 40% sustained performance over the iPhone 17 Pro and 2x sustained performance over the 16 Pro.

Apple says that A20 Pro's efficiencies and new battery designs allow for better longevity. The company claims the Pro will get 36 hours of video playback, and 45 hours on Pro Max video. Using a proprietary test based on data from how people use their phones, Apple claims 24 hours per charge on the 18 Pro and 30 hours on the Pro Max.

Beyond the SOC, Apple is also using a new C2 cellular modem, replacing Qualcomm. Apple claims that C2 "delivers meaningfully faster uploads when compared to C1X while consuming 15 percent less energy," and also adds mmWave support in the United States. Both phones also feature the N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.

The iPhone 18 Pro will start at $1,199, while the Pro Max will start at $1,299. The phones will be available on September 18. The phones also feature an updated Dynamic Island and a 48-megapixel fusion camera with a variable aperture, plus customizable settings such as white balance and cinematic effects that can be added after capture.

Apple's other new silicon was the S11, a chip for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.

iPhone Duo

The iPhone Duo, Apple's long-awaited foldable phone, will also use the A20 Pro.

The foldable will be Apple's first phone with a FaceTime camera behind the display, and Apple detailed the hinge and aerospace-grade titanium construction. The Duo is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance. It comes in "star white," as well as "night sky" (a dark blue).

The OS, iOS 27, will allow for docks and controls to live on the sides of the system, putting them near your hand. When opened, it's the thinnest iPhone ever and has the largest screen on an iPhone at 7.6 inches. Later this year, Apple Pencil will be supported on the Duo on both screens.

Apple will use Touch ID for biometrics, jettisoning the Face ID from more recent slab-style phones. Apple said this is the best way to go because it's available whether open or closed, and you can enroll multiple fingers.

The phone supports multiple "poses," including partial folds, and a standby mode when used in a tent-style pose — even when it's not charging.

Apple's internal display has an anti-glare display to "minimize crease visibility," which the company also claims feels premium under your fingers, with a titanium plate supporting the panel, along with a hinge with over 100 components. Samsung also released a phone with a minimal crease in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 earlier this year, but we'll have to see how reviewers compare the two screens.

A20 Pro has a new display engine that supports both displays. Like the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, Apple is using the C2 cellular modem over Qualcomm's in the iPhone Duo.

The iPhone Duo is eSIM-only everywhere in the world, maximizing battery space. Each side of the phone has its own battery, which operates as one with software. Apple is claiming up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display and 44 hours on the outer display. Using its own model, Apple claims 24 hours when using "both screens equally."

The phone has a two-camera system. The main camera is a 48MP lens with up to 2x telephoto, while the other is an ultrawide lens. The 48MP camera is the same one on the 18 Pro, though without the variable aperture. The center-stage camera on the front is a 12MP camera. The inner display has an under-screen FaceTime camera.

The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 for 256GB, and goes up to 2TB. Pre-orders start on October 16, and the phone will launch on October 23.

Following an early access period that included over 60,000 participants, auto-overclocking tool Hypertune has released its Gaming Performance Engineering platform, which is built on top of Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) SDK and developed in partnership with Intel. The company claims the utility can boost frame rates by up to 60%, though you shouldn't expect that as the norm. The tool includes automated CPU and GPU overclocking, as well as customizable Windows features, network optimization, and game-specific optimizations.

Hypertune partnered with Intel to build the tool, which the company says "evaluates each supported system individually" before optimizing rather than relying on generalized profiles. In its press release, Hypertune says it collaborated with famed overclocker SkatterBencher (Pieter Plaisier) to refine the software. We've reached out to Plaisier to confirm their involvement.

Automated tuning programs usually don't work as well as advertised, and we haven't had the chance to test Hypertune ourselves yet. Especially on more recent hardware, expect performance gains to be minor. Hypertune shared some of its internal benchmarks to back up the claim, showcasing the actual test systems it used, the numbers it gathered, and what each step of Hypertune contributed to the performance increase.

Hypertune tested two systems: one with a Core Ultra 9 285K and an RTX 5090, and another with a Core i7-14700K and an RTX 3080. For the 285K system, the team saw an 18.9% improvement in Homeworld 3 and a 28.2% improvement in Tomb Raider. For the 14700K system, the boost was up to 9.8% in Rainbow Six Siege and 4.3% in Marvel Rivals.

Notably, these results are with Hypertune's Game Hub disabled. Game Hub automatically applies a graphics settings profile to select games, leading to massive increases in performance. Naturally, tweaking your own graphics settings in the same way leads to the same result.

In Homeworld 3, you can see how each step in the process impacted performance, with CPU tunning contributing the single biggest increase in performance. As shown by Marvel Rivals in Hypertune's data, some games will see little to no benefit from Hypertune, though select titles with certain hardware may see a significant performance increase. In this case, the Core Ultra 9 285K has plenty of room for overclocking, and Homeworld 3 is particularly sensitive to the CPU, so the uplift makes sense.

Elsewhere, the gains aren't as pronounced. In Rainbow Six Siege, you can see that Hypertune contributed about a 9.8% jump in performance, though the vast majority of the improvement comes through Game Hub, where Hypertune changes in-game settings.

In a press release, Hypertune founder Austin Copeland wrote that the team was "not trying to build a tool for overclockers," suggesting it's aimed toward users who may not know about specific settings (i.e., the Balanced power plan on dual-CCD X3D CPUs, or HAGS for DLSS Frame Generation). Copeland was previously a coach for eSports organization TSM, coaching Valorant teams under the name "Apex."

Hypertune works through Intel's XTU SDK, and the company says its optimizations are non-destructive and fully reversible. The software is mainly targeted toward competitive titles (naturally, given Copeland's background), but it can apply optimizations globally across the system. Hypertune says it's safe to use with anti-cheat software, including Riot Vanguard, Easy Anti-Cheat, and BattlEye.

Although there are plenty of free tools that claim to optimize your system, Hypertune isn't among them. It's a subscription service, available for either $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year. In addition to software, Hypertune offers its "expert tuning" service for $80, where a technician will remote into your machine and manually tune it. On the subscription front, Hypertune offers a 7-day free trial.

Hypertune looks like one of the more robust automated overclocking tools we've seen, but it's worth highlighting that, in most cases, these tools don't do anything you can't accomplish yourself. If you're looking for a starting point, make sure to read our guides on how to overclock your graphics card and how to overclock your CPU.

Intel is reportedly set to hike CPU prices by 10%, according to a new Digitimes report. Citing supply chain sources, the outlet says the increase follows two others, one in the first quarter of 2026 and another in July, among some server and client CPUs. Notably, the sources didn't say which products the price increase applies to, though presumably, the increases would come through Intel's mobile and server businesses before desktop client. Citing industry sources, DigiTimes also reports that Intel is set to launch "major annual products" in March 2027, with AMD following up with launches of its own between June and July.

The increases come on the back of Intel seeking higher gross margins for its products as the PC market shrinks. This is a story we've heard directly from Intel in the past. In its most recent earnings call in July, Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner attributed a 13% YoY increase in Intel's client revenue to higher average selling price, not a higher volume of sales.

Although the Digitimes report doesn't clarify which products will see a price increase, server and mobile seem like the most likely candidates. Intel's most recent Panther Lake calls for high-speed LPDDR5X-7467 memory as a minimum, and last-gen Lunar Lake CPUs have on-package memory. Naturally, higher memory prices put more pressure on fully built systems like laptops more so than socketed, standalone desktop processors.

On the server end, there's been an unprecedented increase in demand for server CPUs on the back of agentic AI workloads. That demand led to several consecutive records for Intel's share price, even without any major product announcements. Earlier in the year, Wall Street estimated the server CPU market would rise to around $120 billion by 2030 (currently around $30 billion). Now, those projections go up to as high as $220 billion.

According to the report, Intel is set to launch a major new annual product in March 2027, followed by AMD between June and July. Last week, a leaked Intel roadmap showed the company's next-gen Nova Lake desktop CPUs entering mass production in Q4 2026 with a release in Q1 2027, lining up with DigiTimes' report.

Although the timelines line up, the rumor mill has suggested an early Q1 launch for Nova Lake. It's worth noting that the DigiTimes report doesn't make mention of which product Intel will launch in March. This year, for instance, Intel launched its Xeon 600 CPUs for HEDT in March.

Perhaps more interesting is the AMD timeline. We already know of one major AMD product launch in the second half of 2027, which is Venice-X. Those are Zen 6 server CPUs with AMD's 3D V-Cache, packing up to 1,152 MB of L3 cache on the chip. Otherwise, that timeframe seems to point to AMD's next-gen desktop CPUs with the Zen 6 architecture, codenamed Olympic Ridge.

AMD launched its Venice server CPUs earlier this year, the first sporting the Zen 6 architecture. We haven't heard anything official about Zen 6 in the desktop yet. That's strange given AMD's last several releases. There was about a two-year gap between Zen 3 and Zen 4, as well as Zen 4 and Zen 5, on desktop. We've just crossed the two-year mark for Zen 5, so assuming AMD keeps a similar launch cadence, we'd expect to hear something sooner than June or July or next year.

That same explosive demand in server CPUs could have changed AMD's launch plans, however. Given that we haven't heard anything official about Olympic Ridge at this point, a launch in June or July isn't out of the question.

Arm is bringing its next-gen Neoverse CSS N4 platforms to the cloud, sporting up to 128 cores per die, built on TSMC’s N3P process. Arm’s Compute Subsystem, or CSS, is a semi-custom program that allows customers to design a chip based on Arm’s IP, configuring components like core count, cache size, I/O, and connectivity to fit their specific needs. It’s the same platform we’ve seen at work everywhere from CPUs at Azure and Google Cloud to DPUs at Nvidia and Intel.

Arm says Neoverse CSS N4 supports between eight and 128 Neoverse N4 cores, running up to 3.8 GHz. Presumably, the clocks drop as the core count rises; Arm didn’t clarify the maximum clocks for each possible configuration. At a system level, Neoverse CSS N4 can scale beyond 128 cores, with support for multi-chiplet and multi-socket designs, and with support for UCIe through chip-to-chip interconnects, as well as “partner-specific PNYs.”

The platform supports either DDR5 or LPDDR6, and features up to 256 MB of L3 cache per die. For local cache, Arm includes up to 2 MB of L2 per core, as well as 64 KB of L1 instruction cache and 64 KB of L1 data cache per core. For I/O, Arm supports up to 128 lanes of PCIe 7/6 and CXL 4.0.

It’s a significant upgrade over the Neoverse CSS N2 platform, which topped out at just 64 cores, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 64 MB of L3 cache, paired with either DDR5 or LPDDR5 and 64 PCIe 5.0/CXL lanes.

With 128 cores running at 3GHz and 2MB of L2 cache per core, Arm says Neoverse CSS N4 delivers twice the socket performance of Neoverse N3, 1.25x performance per watt, and 1.75x the memory bandwidth.

Arm’s N-series cores are optimized for performance per watt, while its V-series cores are targeting maximum performance. For instance, Arm used the Neoverse CSS V3 building blocks for its own AGI CPU, and Nvidia used Neoverse V2 for its last-gen Grace CPU (the Vera CPU uses a custom core). AWS has also used Neoverse V-series cores for its own Graviton chips, as does Google Cloud for Axion.

N-series cores aren’t usually deployed in high-performance CPUs. Rather, they fit into less-performant accelerators, such as Intel’s IPU Adapter E2100, which is built on Neoverse N1 cores. We’ve also seen it deployed in less-demanding, cloud-based workloads, such as through Microsoft’s Azure Cobalt 100, which is built on Neoverse N2. Cobalt 200 moved onto Neoverse V3.

We don’t know much about the Neoverse N4 cores, codenamed Dionysus. Arm’s 2024 roadmap indicated we’ll see Arm Neoverse CSS V4, as well, codenamed Vega.

Unlike a traditional announcement from Intel, AMD, or the various partners that build on Arm, we won’t see Neoverse N4 cores in the wild for a while. The announcement Arm is making is for those who are building on the CSS platform, leveraging Arm’s validated building blocks to create semi-custom silicon quickly. Arm has yet to announce any partners, though traditionally, only a few large CSS contracts are needed.

Additional Arm AGI CPU deployments

Alongside the announcement of Arm Neoverse CSS N4, the company revealed additional deployments of its own AGI chip, which is built with Neoverse V3 cores. The company revealed that Oracle and ByteDance will deploy AGI chips, alongside previously announced deployments at Meta, Lenovo, SAP, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and others.

Although Arm has talked a lot about AGI, including a deep dive into the chip’s architecture at Hot Chips, we’ve yet to see real-world performance numbers. That’s not uncommon, especially among more recent Arm-based chips. For instance, we only have gen-on-gen comparisons for Microsoft’s Azure Cobalt 200 and AWS’ Graviton5. Arm has vaguely referenced performance by saying AGI offers “more than 2x the performance per rack compared to the latest x86 systems,” though those claims are based on internal estimates, not real benchmarks.

AGI is a dual-die CPU with up to 136 Neoverse V3 cores and up to 272 MB of L3 cache that can clock up to 3.7 GHz. It has the specs to match any high-end x86 design currently on the market, built on a 3nm node and packing up to 6TB of memory capacity per chip, running at up to DDR5-8800. Perhaps the biggest difference compared to AMD and Intel was Arm’s decision to include the memory and I/O on the same die as compute, which it says leads to sub-100ns memory latency.

It’s Arm’s first attempt at its own production silicon, though it’s also been positioned so far as a vehicle for the broader applications of Arm in the data center. Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Google Cloud, and others build custom chips based on Arm IP, which still seems to be the primary goal, even with AGI in the mix.

AMD is no stranger to refreshing its older CPU families with new SKUs, especially since the consumer hardware market for new products is currently in a slump. Ryzen 7000 is a relatively new lineup for the company, but it seems like it might be the latest recipient of this strategy. Leaker Roland Quandt is reporting that a Ryzen 5 7500 non-F is coming soon with specs identical to the 7500F, but at double the price for some reason.

AMD Ryzen 5 7500 (no F, no X3D, no nothing) incoming.AM5 socket3,7 GHz, up to 5,0 GHz boost6C/12T38MB cache in total65W TDP~230 Euro

— @rquandt.bsky.social (@rquandt.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-09-05T13:08:32.503Z

As the post above clarifies, this is a bog-standard chip with no 3D V-Cache or anything extra. Actually, that's not entirely factual, as ditching the "F" moniker means the processor is gaining integrated graphics. However, given what we see on the Ryzen 5 7600, this iGPU will comprise only two small RDNA 2 CUs. That's enough for a display output and everyday tasks, but don't expect to be gaming on this thing.

The rest of the specs remain unchanged from the Ryzen 5 7500F. Its rumored non-F counterpart is also a six-core, twelve-thread CPU with a 3.7 GHz base clock and 5.0 GHz boost clock. You'll get 38MB of combined cache, likely a 32MB L3 + 6MB L2 split, along with a 65W TDP. All those match the 7500F, with the only glaring difference being the price — the Ryzen 5 7500 is supposed to somehow retail for 230 Euros, or $267 freedom units.

For context, the Ryzen 5 7500F launched at $179 three years ago but quickly came down in price and can be had for just $116 right now. Even in Germany, it costs 105 Euros at the moment, which translates to $122. Moreover, for the $250+ price rumored for the 7500 non-F, you can instead get the much more powerful Ryzen 5 9600X along with a whole B850 motherboard on Newegg as we speak. You can even find the 7600X3D for less than $250 on Amazon right now.

The only way one could try to justify this pricing is by arguing that the 7500 non-F comes with a box and cooler, unlike the 7500F, which is a tray-only package. Then again, these comparisons are based on current pricing, and we know how much of a mirage that can be during the component crisis. Price hikes for CPUs are not a rarity anymore, and since we don't have a rumored launch window for the 7500 non-F, it could coincide with one.

That's just speculation, though; take everything you just read with a grain of salt. The reason the rumored price is in Euros to begin with is that the leaker is based in Germany. We don't even know if this chip will receive a global launch.

AMD announced what it calls "the most powerful workstation in the world" at IFA 2026, dubbed the Threadripper Halo Station. The machine includes a Threadripper Pro 9995WX with 96 Zen 5 cores, dual liquid-cooled Instinct MI350P accelerators "with a path to four," 2TB of DDR5, and 288GB of HBM3E with up to 576GB supported. AMD claims the workstation is capable of running trillion-parameter models.

Taking all of the components together, the street price should come out to over $100,000 with just the core components: memory, CPU, and dual GPUs. Configured higher, and with supporting storage, power, and cooling, the workstation could very easily climb over $150,000.

It's essentially a server tray reconfigured into a tower, with an EPYC host replaced with a 96-core Threadripper. AMD didn't share many details about the machine outside of the specs, though it appears to be a system design that AMD's OEM partners will ultimately build and ship. AMD has yet to announce any partners supporting the machine.

The Threadripper Pro 9995WX at the heart of the machine is a 96-core, 192-thread Zen 5 chip that can boost up to 5.4 GHz. It ships with 384 MB of L3 cache and has a TDP of 350W. It's hard to find Threadripper Pro standalone chips in general, but the 9995WX clocks in at around $11,000 to $12,000.

The MI350P accelerators come with 128 CDNA 4 compute units built on TSMC N3. Each accelerator packs 144GB of HBM3E memory, giving the system 288GB of HBM3E. AMD says there's a "path to four," opening up the possibility of two more accelerators bringing 576GB of HBM3E to the system. You'll need plenty of power to feed the GPUs, as each accelerator is rated for up to 600W.

Although AMD says it can support up to four accelerators, the workstation shown off at IFA only has room for two, both of which are liquid-cooled, alongside the Threadripper host. AMD doesn't sell MI350P accelerators on their own in traditional consumer channels, but the estimated price is somewhere around $20,000 per accelerator.

At a system level, the Threadripper Halo Station includes 2TB of DDR5 memory, which is the maximum capacity supported across the eight-channel memory configuration of the Threadripper Pro 9995WX. AMD supports up to DDR5-6400 on the Threadripper, though it made no mention of speed during its IFA presentation. Regardless of speed, 2TB of DDR5 costs about $50,000 right now.

AMD has yet to set a price or release date for the Threadripper Halo Station, though we'll likely hear more about the design from AMD's partners in the near future. An extremely expensive workstation isn't out of the question. The Lenovo ThinkStation P8, for instance, which uses Threadripper Pro CPUs as a host, clocks in at $334,463 right now, maxed out with 2TB of DDR5 and dual Blackwell accelerators.

Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 400-series 'Nova Lake-S' CPU platform promises to be the company's biggest desktop launch in years, with range-topping processor offering up to 52 cores and gaming processors featuring up to 288 MB of bLLC cache, at least according to the rumor mill. Intel is reportedly on track to start mass production of its Nova Lake-S CPUs in the fourth quarter of 2026, according to a slide published by @wxnod. However, only the 28-core version will launch in the first quarter of 2027, with the 52-core model arriving later in the year, as we covered out of this year's Computex.

When initial leaks and roadmap disclosures about Intel's Nova Lake-S surfaced across 2025, the projected production schedule placed mass production in Q4 2026, so the new slide confirms that plan. Meanwhile, the actual CPU roll-out will be somewhat different to what Intel is used to as the company only intends to release unlocked 28-core SKU (or SKUs) in Q1 2027 and push the release of flagship models allegedly using two compute tiles featuring up to 52 cores to sometimes later in 2027. Some rumors pointing to a timeframe between late May and September, 2027. Normally, Intel launches flagship and unlocked models first. However, reports suggest the 52-core model will fit in a different class above a typical flagship, primarily targeting the HEDT crowd.

The slide revealed by the blogger does not look like an official Intel roadmap or an Intel presentation slide. A more plausible explanation is that the slide comes from a motherboard maker's presentation (or one of Intel's OEM partners), which compiled information the manufacturer got from Intel, which means that while it is most likely accurate, it is not final.

Intel's Core Ultra 400-series 'Nova Lake-S' CPUs will reportedly use up to 16 all-new high-performance Coyote Cove cores with 16MB of L2 cache, up to 32 energy-efficient Arctic Wolf cores, and up to four low-power Arctic Wolf cores, according to various leaks and the slide published by @wxnod. Even though each pair of Coyote Cove cores will reportedly share a 2 MB L2 cache, which will inevitably affect single-thread performance, Intel has an ace up its sleeve in the form of bLLC (big Last Level Cache), which will apparently scale to 288 MB to offer unbeatable performance in memory bandwidth-hungry applications, if media reports are correct. bLCC is apparently Intel's plan to fight back against AMD's X3D CPUs, which top the charts among the best CPUs for gaming.

The highest-end Core Ultra 9 400-series processors are expected to pack up to 52 cores using two compute tiles, whereas Core Ultra 7 400-series models are projected to feature up to 44 cores using two compute tiles, though exact configurations are currently unknown. Meanwhile, CPUs with two compute chiplets will reportedly consume up to 474W of power and will require motherboards featuring three 12V EPS power plugs.

On the I/O side of matters Intel's Nova Lake processors will reportedly feature a dual-channel DDR5 memory subsystem supporting up to DDR5-8000 modules as well as provide up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes directly from the CPU, including 16 lanes for graphics that can be split into two x8 or four x4 connections, plus two x4 links for SSDs.

Intel's new Core Ultra 400-series 'Nova Lake-S' processors for desktops will require Intel's new 900-series chipsets as well as will use an LGA1954 socket, according to leaks. Intel reportedly intends to keep LGA1954 around for a longer time than it usually does with its sockets, ensuring an upgrade path for years to come. We've already seen Z990 motherboards sporting the LGA1954 socket in the flesh.

Speaking of years to come, the slide lists Razor Lake and Hammer Lake processors that will succeed Nova Lake-S sometime after the fourth quarter of 2027. The slide does not provide technical details about either family, and we can only wonder whether Razor Lake corresponds to Core Ultra 500-series and Hammer Lake belongs to the Core Ultra 600-series, or both will be a part of one CPU family.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword closes out an incredible year for Capcom, following hot on the heels of both Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata earlier in the year. Like those titles, the game is built on Capcom’s proprietary RE Engine, which has proven to be a remarkably scalable engine that can accommodate a wide range of hardware. We put some of the best CPUs for gaming through the game’s free benchmark to see how it scales on the CPU.

RE Engine is heavier on the GPU than the CPU, but still, we saw scaling across the 31 CPUs we tested, ranging from new releases like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, reaching back to relics of the past decade like the Ryzen 7 2700X. Largely, performance falls as you’d expect, but there were a few odd results that showed up in our testing, namely for AMD’s newer 12-core Ryzen 9 models, which struggle to keep pace in this game.

Regardless, the game runs well on a wide range of hardware. Even with the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition we tested with the Ryzen 7 2700X, completely binding performance to the CPU, we neared 90 FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings and no ray tracing.

This is a cursory look at Onimusha: Way of the Sword using the in-game benchmark available (we’ll go over how we tested a bit later). As usual, performance will vary from scene to scene, and we’ve yet to reach the latest areas of the game, which may have an adverse impact on performance (though we don’t expect one). We are looking at how CPUs scale in the game more so than the raw frame rate of any individual chip.

CPU scaling in Onimusha: Way of the Sword

The Onimusha: Way of the Sword benchmark is about five minutes long, primarily consisting of two in-engine cutscenes rendered in real time. The back half of the benchmark features gameplay, which shows considerably lower performance and taxes the CPU far more than the cutscenes. We chose to benchmark during the gameplay section, naturally.

We tested with the Ultra preset without ray tracing enabled. We didn’t use DLSS or FSR, either. As usual, we tested at 1080p with the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition to isolate CPU performance as much as possible. We’ll go deeper into the specific system configuration for each platform later in this article if you’re interested. For each CPU, we ran the benchmark three times and took the median result, discarding and rerunning any outliers.

Out of the 31 CPUs we tested, the obvious ones to call out first are AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 offerings, because they perform poorly in this game. The Ryzen 9 7900X is actually 3% slower than the Ryzen 5 7600X, and similarly, the Ryzen 9 9900X is 1% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X. There’s clearly some issue with the 12-core parts, specifically, that doesn’t show up in the single-CCD Ryzen CPUs, nor the full, 16-core, dual-CCD models.

Great evidence of that is the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, which I only chose to run to see if 3D V-Cache would be able to overcome the 12-core penalty. It wasn’t able to. Every other X3D chip we tested sits at the top of the charts, while the Ryzen 9 7900X3D ended up in lockstep with the Ryzen 7 7700X. It’s possible this is a performance issue that either Capcom will address through a patch, or AMD through a firmware update. Regardless, the 12-core Ryzen 9 performance in this game is rough right now.

Elsewhere, things are great. X3D chips top the charts, though with less of a margin than we see in other titles, and virtually no margin in comparison to one another. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D is 7.2% ahead of the Core i9-14900K, Intel’s strongest CPU in this game, while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D extends that lead up to 11.3%. We didn’t have time to benchmark the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, though based on the negligible performance gap between the 7700X3D and 7800X3D, don’t expect any miracles.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn’t reach the heights of its DDR5-equipped siblings, falling 13.4% behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It still puts on an excellent showing considering its peers, sitting among the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 9 9950X. Even four years down the road, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D delivers performance on the level of current-gen flagships, at least in this title.

In Intel’s camp, the Core i9-14900K remains the fastest chip in Onimusha, at least when equipped with DDR5 (read our DDR4 vs DDR5 Raptor Lake comparison to see the difference in performance). Unfortunately for Team Blue, even the Core i7-14700K is 2.9% faster than Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 270K Plus in this game. Intel doesn’t have support for Onimusha with iBOT, nor any RE Engine titles, suggesting that the performance you see here is the cap for Arrow Lake Refresh. Hopefully that changes with Intel’s impending Nova Lake.

Although Arrow Lake and AL Refresh don’t scale as high as the 14th-Gen offerings, performance is still solid competitively. The Core Ultra 5 245K is in lockstep with the Ryzen 5 9600X, as expected, while the lowly Core Ultra 5 225 is nipping at the heels of the Ryzen 5 7600X.

Flipping over to power, X3D chips remain well under 100W, short of the dual-CCD, dual-cache Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. Intel’s Raptor Lake Refresh chips unsurprisingly had the highest power usage out of our test pool, with the Core i7-14700K actually drawing a bit more power than the Core i9-14900K. Although we ran the test multiple times, we took the median result for average frame rate, which can sometimes push neighboring figures out of sorts when looking at other metrics. We don’t want to mix power results from one run and performance from another.

Looking directly at efficiency, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D was the most efficient chip in our testing, offering up just over 3.5 frames per watt consumed. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D barely offered a performance benefit over the 7700X3D, so its efficiency suffers as a result. Even the Ryzen 7 9800X3D falls below the 3-frames-per-watt mark.

Finally, clock speed doesn’t offer a lot of surprises. The more efficient CPUs like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D ran right up against their maximum boost clock on average, while flagships that push single-core speed to the limit like the Ryzen 9 9950X and Core i9-14900K fall below their maximum boosts. Clocks don’t translate into performance here, though looking at this chart combined with our averages provides some insight into how threaded Onimusha is.

It’s lightly threaded, like the vast majority of games, though there’s a clear bump in performance beyond four cores. Combined with lower maximum boost clocks on high-core-count flagships, all-core clocks are certainly more relevant here than single-core boosts. Then again, clock speed isn’t a major factor here, regardless.

How we tested Onimusha: Way of the Sword

We used our normal test bench used for CPU reviews, as well as our CPU benchmark hierarchy testing. The hardware doesn’t change, short of the CPU and, when necessary, the motherboard and memory. We also use a frozen OS image, meaning we’re running the same versions of the same software with all the same dependencies for each test pass.

The GPU we used is the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition, as our goal when looking at CPU scaling is to isolate the CPU’s performance as much as reasonably possible. Naturally, running a game at a low resolution like 720p and turning down all of the graphics options will put even more pressure on the CPU, but that pushes beyond isolating the performance of one component in a relatively realistic testing environment.

Intel LGA 1851 (Arrow Lake and Refresh)

Although the hardware is consistent, there are BIOS tweaks we make depending on the platform. As a broad rule, anything we enable that improves performance is covered under warranty. If performance-enhancing features void the warranty, we leave them disabled. That includes AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive and Intel’s Extreme power profile. We also don’t enable any motherboard-specific performance enhancements, such as tweaked XMP/EXPO profiles or X3D enhancements.

For this test pool, there are some features still covered by the warranty that improve performance. In Intel’s camp, we tested with Core Ultra 200S Boost enabled on all supported Arrow Lake CPUs (the 225 doesn’t support the feature). Similarly, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X run at a 65W TDP out of the box, but an optional, warrantied 105W TDP mode is available. We tested with that mode enabled.

We also disabled Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), as it can adversely affect gaming performance.