Intel is expected to push the boundaries on power draw with its upcoming Nova Lake series processors, which will rival the best CPUs. According to newly leaked information, the flagship 52-core desktop variant is expected to feature a dual-compute tile architecture with a massive PL2 limit of 474W. The information was shared by LC Tech Leaks and confirmed by Jaykihn, who has a pretty solid track record with Intel hardware.

PL2, or Power Limit 2, represents the maximum power a CPU can draw during short boost periods. That said, a PL2 target of 474W remains quite demanding, although a previous rumor suggests Intel may also have a PL4 emergency power limit over 700W. It is important to note that these power limits may only apply to the top-end models with the dual-tile architecture.

Additionally, the leak also sheds light on the upcoming platform, including the previously rumored LGA1954 socket. We already know that Nova Lake-S will require a new generation of motherboards. Motherboard vendors are expected to classify their boards by sustained PL1 power levels, with configurations for 35W, 65W, 125W, and 175W CPUs. Enthusiast-grade motherboards, likely the Z990 series, are also rumored to feature three EPS 8-pin CPU power connectors instead of the traditional two. While vendors will have the option to include a third connector, its primary purpose would be to support extreme overclocking and would not affect the CPU's rated performance profile.

The upcoming Nova Lake-S lineup is expected to carry the ‘Core Ultra 400S’ moniker and will be Intel's biggest desktop CPU overhaul in years. We’ve previously reported leaked specifications indicating configurations ranging from 6 to 52 cores, with support for DDR5-8000 memory. The flagship 52-core model is expected to feature 16 performance cores, 32 efficiency cores, and a new Big Last Level Cache (bLLC) design to take on AMD's 3D V-Cache gaming dominance. The company is also rumored to introduce integrated Xe3 graphics, Thunderbolt 5, PCIe 5.0 connectivity, and an upgraded NPU for AI workloads.

While these specifications are unconfirmed, it is clear that Intel is targeting substantial gains in gaming, multi-threaded performance, and overall platform capabilities with its next-gen processors.

Solidigm is arguably one of the most mysterious storage companies in the industry today. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of SK hynix, yet unlike its parent company, which produces charge-trap flash memory, it uses floating-gate 3D NAND memory that it develops and manufactures internally at a dedicated fab in Dalian, China.

Solidigm originates from Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), the company's NAND and SSD business unit, which used to have a unique technology strategy that differed from that of other flash and drive producers. To that end, it is not surprising that Solidigm also has a unique positioning as it only offers data center drives, most of which are based on floating-gate memory and proprietary in-house designed controllers. Furthermore, Solidigm is a fully vertically integrated company.

At Computex 2026, we sat down with Avi Shetty, who is vice president of AI ecosystem, Solutions & Market Enablement at Solidigm. Before his current position at Solidigm, he spent 14.5 years at Intel's storage division, so he has deep knowledge both about technology and the market. During our conversation, we discussed how Solidigm keeps evolving, including floating-gate NAND memory, advanced packaging technologies, next-generation SSDs, liquid-cooled SSDs, and more.

Anton Shilov: Could you introduce yourself to our readers and describe what do you do at Solidigm?

Avi Shetty: My name is Avi Shetty. I work at Solidigm, where I help lead AI solutions and ecosystem initiatives. My team works with global platform providers, software ISVs, and ODMs to ensure Solidigm solutions are validated, benchmarked, and included in reference designs at both the device and cluster levels, enabling customers to fully utilize our products.

A part of SK hynix that acts independently

Anton Shilov: You were previously a part of Intel. How is the integration going? Are you now fully integrated part of SK hynix, or do you operate independently?

Avi Shetty: Let me provide some background. While Solidigm was established in December 2021, our history goes back decades. Many of us came from Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), which developed Intel’s NAND SSDs for both client and data center markets.

In 2021, SK hynix acquired Intel’s NAND and SSD business and established Solidigm. Since December 2021, we have operated as a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of SK hynix, headquartered in Rancho Cordova, California.

Anton Shilov: So, you are part of SK hynix, but still maintain a degree of independence?

Avi Shetty: Absolutely. We operate as an independent subsidiary of SK hynix. Our strategy is focused entirely on enterprise SSDs. Every bit of [floating gate] NAND [at our fab in Dalian, China] we produce goes into enterprise storage solutions.

This is one of the ways we differentiate ourselves from competitors such as Samsung and Micron, which also serve mobile and client markets. We made a deliberate decision to focus exclusively on enterprise storage and AI.

We are also fully vertically integrated. We manufacture our own NAND, develop our own controllers, write our own firmware, and design our own SSDs. While we work with manufacturing partners to build products, we control the entire technology stack.

I also believe we are the only company with access to two different NAND architectures. Through SK hynix we have access to charge trap flash (CTF) technology, and we continue to develop floating gate NAND technology for our high-density QLC SSD products.

Anton Shilov: What is Solidigm's current share of the enterprise SSD market?

Avi Shetty: Approximately 24%. That is enterprise SSDs only. We do not participate in any other NAND markets. As of the first quarter of 2025, plus or minus a few percentage points, our measured enterprise SSD market share is approximately 24%. We evaluate market-share data quarterly and semiannually, and that is the latest figure we’ve publicly discussed.

Anton Shilov: How much of your business today is concentrated in high-capacity SSDs versus higher-performance products?

Avi Shetty: High-density SSDs now represent a significant portion of our business. Because Solidigm is privately held, we do not publicly disclose that breakdown. We report our financial metrics through our parent company, SK hynix.

What I can tell you is that both our 61TB-class and 122TB-class products became customer favorites almost immediately after launch. Demand for high-density storage has been extremely strong.

Anton Shilov: I assume you also work directly with hyperscalers?

Avi Shetty: We work with a broad range of customers globally. That includes U.S. cloud service providers, Chinese cloud service providers, OEMs around the world, NeoCloud providers, software ISVs, and channel partners. We maintain customer support, engineering, and sales organizations globally. Our business spans the Americas, EMEA, China, and the rest of Asia-Pacific.

Anton Shilov: Which customer segment represents the largest opportunity for growth right now? Traditional cloud providers or something else?

Avi Shetty: We intentionally maintain a diversified customer base.

What is interesting is how quickly new segments emerge. For example, the NeoCloud market has existed for some time, but AI-focused infrastructure providers such as CoreWeave, Lambda, Crusoe, and Nebius have become much more important over the last two years.

Before the AI boom, these companies represented only a small portion of demand. Today, they are becoming a meaningful part of the market.

As AI infrastructure continues to expand, Solidigm is adapting both its customer strategy and product portfolio to support these emerging deployments while continuing to serve our traditional customers.

Floating gate NAND in 2026

CTF NAND used by major memory makers has approached 276 - 286 active layers, whereas Solidigm's floating gate flash is still at 192 layers, meaning that the company is somewhat behind some of its rivals in terms of active layers as of mid-2026. It is set to catch up with its next generation that will have over 200 layers, but only in the second half of this year. However, floating gate NAND memory still has a number of advantages over CTF, particularly for applications that Solidigm targets.

Floating gate uses a conductive polysilicon island to store charge, which provides excellent cell isolation — charge stays well-contained and is less likely to spread to or interfere with neighboring cells — and this is particularly important for 3D QLC NAND with very high layer counts. In addition, Solidigm claims that floating gate gives a strong voltage threshold window and better cell isolation, which enables the company to keep scaling QLC more while maintaining good reliability.

Anton Shilov: Are you still producing floating gate NAND, and do you intend to continue?

Avi Shetty: Absolutely. We introduced our first QLC foating gate NAND product in 2018, and today we are on our fourth generation of QLC NAND.

Our flagship high-capacity product currently ships with 192-layer floating gate NAND technology and powers our 122TB SSD.

Anton Shilov: Haven't you also announced a larger drive?

Avi Shetty: We have announced a higher-capacity product and expect it to become available later this year.

Anton Shilov: The 256TB-class drive?

Avi Shetty: Correct. Approximately 245TB usable capacity.

Anton Shilov: So you are going to have a roughly 245TB SSD available this year?

Avi Shetty: Correct.

Anton Shilov: What advantages does Floating-Gate NAND provide?

Avi Shetty: Floating gate NAND gives us scalability. We have consistently been first in the industry to push storage density in standard form factors. We were the first to introduce a 30TB SSD, then a 60TB SSD, and later a 122TB SSD.

We have been shipping the 122TB drive for nearly five quarters. We launched it in the fourth quarter of 2024, and it has since become our flagship product. It is probably our most popular product of 2025.

The reason customers like the 122TB drive is efficiency. When you look at AI data centers, customers want low power consumption, scalability, and performance. While this particular product is a PCIe Gen4 solution, our roadmap continues to increase both density and bandwidth. You will see future products based on PCIe Gen5 and PCIe Gen6.

The real attraction of the 122TB SSD is scale. In a 1U server, you can install 24 of these drives and get nearly 3PB of storage in a single rack unit.

If you look at the AI data pipeline — from training to archiving — the first and last stages require massive datasets. That is where these high-capacity SSDs are being deployed today.

Now we are also seeing growing demand from inference deployments. Inference can run in core data centers or in edge and back-office environments. Those deployments require storage that can efficiently feed GPUs and support workloads such as context storage and KV cache management. High-density SSDs help provide the capacity required for those applications.

Next-generation SSDs: PCIe Gen6 drives with liquid cooling

Anton Shilov: You mentioned PCIe Gen5 and Gen6 [next-generation drives]. I assume you are referring both to next PCIe generations and future NAND generations?

Avi Shetty: Both.

We maintain separate technology and product roadmaps. Earlier, I mentioned that our current QLC NAND is our 4^th Generation technology based on 192 layers. We will continue investing in future NAND generations as well.

On the product side, we are talking about PCIe generations. We currently ship both PCIe Gen4 and PCIe Gen5 SSDs. All of our TLC products are PCIe Gen5 today, while our QLC lineup currently remains PCIe Gen4.

Future QLC products will move to PCIe Gen5, and eventually, we will introduce PCIe Gen6 SSDs as platform vendors such as AMD, Intel, and Nvidia adopt PCIe Gen6 in their systems.

Anton Shilov: You mentioned PCIe Gen6 SSDs. You have not shipped one yet, correct?

Avi Shetty: Correct. PCIe Gen6 products are part of our future roadmap.

Anton Shilov: How close are they?

Avi Shetty: We are not making product announcements at Computex, but you will hear more from us soon.

Anton Shilov: At the moment there is really only one platform that can take advantage of them anyway. Well, two, if you consider Nvidia Vera.

Avi Shetty: That is part of the equation. When we evaluate our roadmap, we consider demand, platform readiness, and overall value to customers.

For example, we have what we call a refresh philosophy. We may introduce a PCIe Gen4 refresh or a PCIe Gen5 refresh that lowers cost or improves efficiency rather than immediately moving to a new PCIe generation.

The question is whether customers gain more value from Gen6 today or from a more mature, lower-cost Gen5 product. Those are the kinds of decisions our planning teams evaluate.

What I can say is that Solidigm maintains a full roadmap covering PCIe Gen4, Gen5, and future Gen6 SSDs across all major form factors, including U.2, E1.S, E3.S, and other EDSFF variants. Our portfolio spans capacities from 2TB all the way to 122TB.

Anton Shilov: Launching an all-new product early still gives you time to validate products with platform vendors.

Avi Shetty: Absolutely. We already work closely with platform providers to validate prototypes long before products are launched. Our engineering teams participate in interoperability events and PCI-SIG workshops to ensure products are ready when platforms become available.

Anton Shilov: That is actually interesting because PCIe Gen6 interoperability workshops have been delayed multiple times. Back in 2024, people expected the ecosystem to move much faster and interoperability workshops to start in 2024, with the list of compatible products emerging in 2025.

Avi Shetty: That is true. A lot depends on platform readiness and ecosystem scaling. PCIe Gen6 by itself is not enough. This is my personal opinion, but to fully benefit from Gen6 storage performance, the industry must also address cooling. That is one reason we invested heavily in liquid-cooled storage.

Last year, we introduced what we believe was the world's first liquid-cooled storage solution for Nvidia environments. It used E1.S PCIe Gen5 SSDs with direct liquid cooling. Historically, liquid cooling was focused on CPUs and GPUs. We extended it to storage by allowing coolant to flow through a cold plate attached to the SSD. The cold plate removes heat directly from the drive. To fully exploit PCIe Gen6 performance, the ecosystem must develop those kinds of technologies as well.

Anton Shilov: So you believe PCIe Gen6 SSDs will require liquid cooling?

Avi Shetty: At least in high-performance AI environments, particularly Nvidia-based deployments, we believe liquid cooling will be necessary.

Next-generation SSDs: PLC NAND

Anton Shilov: Will future NAND generations include both TLC and QLC? And what about PLC?

Avi Shetty: Never say never. We demonstrated PLC technology using floating gate NAND at the Flash Memory Summit several years ago. However, this business requires factory optimization and maintaining a manageable number of SKUs to maximize utilization and profitability.

That said, there absolutely will be opportunities for PLC. We have not announced any specific products or timelines, but there is active PLC development underway inside Solidigm.

Anton Shilov: That is interesting. However, PLC by itself only increases capacity by about 20% compared to QLC and at the same time requires significantly more sophisticated controllers and error correction.

Avi Shetty: That is true. However, those same concerns existed during every previous transition: from SLC to MLC, MLC to TLC, and TLC to QLC.

We were the first company to commercialize QLC NAND. Initially, many competitors questioned its value. Today, the industry increasingly recognizes the total-cost-of-ownership advantages that QLC provides, and multiple vendors now offer QLC products. I think the same process will occur with PLC.

It is also important to consider the broader market. Roughly 80% of storage capacity worldwide is still deployed on hard drives. PLC does not necessarily need to replace QLC on a one-to-one basis. Instead, it can create new opportunities where the advantages of solid-state storage — lower power consumption, higher density, smaller physical footprint, and lower total cost of ownership — become compelling.

You will likely see future solution development involving software partners that help address some of the limitations you are describing.

Anton Shilov: Do you expect retention characteristics to become a major challenge with PLC NAND?

Avi Shetty: Of course. PLC is a new technology, and retention characteristics will differ from what we see with QLC today.

The same is true across all NAND types. SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC, and eventually PLC all have different retention characteristics based on the underlying technology. The existence of those challenges does not mean we stop exploring future solutions. We will continue investing in that area.

Advanced packaging for NAND

Anton Shilov: As I mentioned, PLC only increases capacity by about 20%. Advanced packaging may ultimately have a much larger impact on SSD capacity. Could you discuss where packaging technology stands today and where it is headed?

Avi Shetty: Absolutely. Let me use our current products as an example. The 122TB SSD represents a significant packaging achievement. It is a U.2 drive with 48 NAND packages. Each package contains a 22-die stack. Each die is a 1.33Tb QLC device. Those 22-die stacks are what enable us to reach 122TB in a standard form factor.

Packaging technology remains one of our core investments. We continue developing technologies that allow us to place more dies into each package and deliver higher capacities to customers.

Anton Shilov: What about increasing the number of dies per package?

Avi Shetty: That is one of the primary ways to increase density. You can either increase die capacity or increase the number of dies per package. We intend to pursue both approaches.

Anton Shilov: How many dies per package do you think remain practical?

Avi Shetty: Today we are at 22. Future products will go beyond that, although I cannot discuss specific numbers.

Anton Shilov: What did previous generations use?

Avi Shetty: Depending on capacity requirements, previous products used 4-, 8-, or 16-die stacks. Of course, we are talking about a single NAND package in each case.

Storage-Class Memory, Optane, and Nvidia's Storage Next

Anton Shilov: What about storage-class memory?

Avi Shetty: Like Optane?

Anton Shilov: Not necessarily Optane itself, but something similar — something faster than NAND flash, yet capable of offering significantly higher density than DRAM at a lower cost.

Avi Shetty: Understood. Let me frame it from the perspective of the problem we are trying to solve. If you are asking whether Solidigm is developing a storage-class memory technology similar to Optane, then the answer today is no.

What we are focused on is addressing the requirements emerging from Nvidia's Storage Next initiative. The fundamental challenge is bandwidth. HBM is extremely fast, but it is also expensive and difficult to scale economically. As AI systems continue to grow, the industry needs additional memory and storage tiers that provide greater capacity at lower cost. That creates demand for NAND-based solutions that remain non-volatile while delivering improved latency and bandwidth characteristics.

We have not made any public announcements regarding storage-class memory technologies, but we continuously evaluate future technologies and architectural approaches.

Anton Shilov: So you are exploring concepts that could potentially bridge the gap between traditional NAND and memory?

Avi Shetty: We are evaluating a wide range of technologies that could help us continue delivering leadership products to our customers. When and if we have something to announce, we will do so publicly. At this point, however, we have nothing to disclose.

Anton Shilov: So storage-class memory is not currently a product category that Solidigm is actively pursuing?

Avi Shetty: If you are specifically referring to something similar to Optane, then no.

Optane was based on a fundamentally different technology. It was not NAND. It relied on a phase-change-memory-derived architecture and represented a completely different storage medium. We are not pursuing that type of technology today. What we are investing in is future NAND technology.

Anton Shilov: You think that future NAND technologies could eventually move closer to that space?

Avi Shetty: Exactly. Future NAND innovations could help narrow the gap between HBM, DRAM, and the next storage tier. That’s certainly one of the directions the industry is evaluating as AI systems continue to demand larger memory pools and greater bandwidth.

AMD has brought back its gaming champion from four years ago. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has been revived in 2026 to breathe new life into the AM4 platform. The Zen 3-based CPU was the best CPU for gaming of its time, thanks to the first-generation 3D V-Cache technology. Since then, however, the competition in our CPU benchmark hierarchy has become more fierce.

Today's competition is Intel’s Core i7-14700K, based on the Raptor Lake Refresh architecture. At the time the Ryzen 7 5800X3D released, Intel’s 12th-gen Alder Lake CPUs were its main competition. Here, we revisit the comparison with Intel’s newer Core i7-14700K, which is available around the same price of $350.

The focus of this faceoff is to determine which CPU is the superior all-around chip. We will put the two CPUs through a series of tests spanning different categories to ultimately determine which CPU you should buy for your system.

This faceoff breaks down how two CPUs compare to each other in a head-to-head battle. If you'd like to read more about either processor, as well as see our full suite of tests, make sure to read our AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D re-review and Core i7-14700K faceoff.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was first launched in April 2022 as a part of the Vermeer desktop CPU family. It is based on the Zen 3 architecture and built on TSMC’s 7nm production process. The CPU features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a TDP of 105W and a PPT of 142W. It has a base clock of 3.4 GHz and can boost up to 4.5 GHz.

The 5800X3D only supports DDR4 memory at a rated speed of 3200 MT/s over a dual-channel interface. It is compatible with the AM4 socket, with support for 300-series, 400-series, and 500-series AMD chipsets (though check support with your specific motherboard). It also supports 20 lanes of PCIe Gen 4. However, the 5800X3D does not have integrated graphics.

On a more positive note, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D was the first CPU to employ the new 3D V-Cache technology. As a result of stacking the cache vertically on the die, the 5800X3D has a total L3 cache of 96 MB. Of this pool, 64 MB is part of the 3D V-Cache stack. Core overclocking is disabled on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D due to its 3D V-Cache layout; DRAM overclocking still remains available.

Its competitor, Intel’s Core i7-14700K, uses a vastly different layout. It features the Raptor Lake Refresh architecture, which is a refined version of the 13th-generation Raptor Lake base architecture. The Core i7-14700K was launched in October 2023 and was built on a 10nm production process (Intel 7).

Intel’s 14th-generation CPUs use a hybrid core layout with performance-focused “P-cores” and more efficient “E-cores.” The 14700K also follows this structure, featuring 8 P-cores and 12 E-cores, for a total of 20 cores. In the 14700K, Hyper-Threading is only available on the P-cores, so the CPU has a total of 28 threads. The chip can boost the P-cores up to 5.6 GHz, while the E-core boost clock is 4.3 GHz.

Interestingly, the Core i7-14700K supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory at 3200 MT/s and 5600 MT/s, respectively. The CPU is compatible with the LGA 1700 socket featured in the 600-series and 700-series Intel motherboards. There is also support for 16 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 4 PCIe Gen 4 lanes.

The Core i7-14700K has a TDP of 125W, with a higher PL2 limit of 253W. Integrated graphics are also offered in the 14700K in the form of UHD Graphics 770. There is 33MB of shared L3 cache on the chip. Perhaps more importantly, the Core i7-14700K is fully unlocked for overclocking, which is a big advantage over its competitor for today, though that requires a Z-series motherboard.

Zooming out a bit, it is clear that the Core i7-14700K is vastly superior to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D on paper. It is a newer CPU, so it has a better feature set, including PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 support. It offers more cores, a higher boost clock, integrated graphics, and an unlocked multiplier for overclocking.

⭐Winner: Intel Core i7-14700K

Nothing is decided on paper alone, but the Core i7-14700K offers much better specs, newer features, and even has overclocking support. It takes this round quite easily.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

AMD claims to have “re-engineered” the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for its 2026 re-release, so we have tested it again, along with a whole bunch of worthy competitors, including the 14700K. We chose the 1080p resolution for our 16-game test suite in order to maximize the performance differences between the various CPUs. The graphics card used was the GeForce RTX 5090 to keep potential GPU bottlenecks to a minimum. Let’s get into the results.

Starting off with our 16-game FPS geomean at 1080p, the Core i7-14700K dominates the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with an average result of 166.7 FPS across our tested games, compared to the 145.6 FPS result of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. That is a 14.5% difference in favor of the 14700K in our performance geomean. In 1% lows, the 14700K leads the Ryzen 7 5800X3D by 20% on average, putting out 114 FPS against the Ryzen’s 95.

However, there is another side to this benchmark table. The Core i7-14700K supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, so we tested it in both configurations. With DDR4-3200 memory, the 14700K’s advantage vanishes, and instead the Ryzen 7 5800X3D leads by 1.04%, or just 1.5 FPS. The 1% lows are in favor of 14700K by only 3 FPS (3.15%), which is astonishingly close.

When the Intel CPU is paired with DDR5 memory, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s cache advantage seems to be struggling against the Core i7-14700K’s raw core count and higher boost clock (along with far faster memory speeds). Looking at individual titles, we see a similar pattern with the Core i7-14700K holding a consistent lead over the 5800X3D.

In 007 First Light, the 14700K paired with DDR5 memory has a 25.7% lead on average over the 5800X3D. That lead shrinks to 21.5% in Crimson Desert, and the difference is 13.7% in favor of the 14700K in Cyberpunk 2077. Interestingly, the Core i7-14700K leads the entire pack in Flight Simulator 24, establishing a 26.6% lead over the 5800X3D in this title. The DDR5-equipped 14700K also leads the 5800X3D in Spider-Man 2, Starfield, The Last of Us Part One, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Counter-Strike 2.

However, when the Core i7-14700K is paired with DDR4-3200 memory, the picture changes completely. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D leads the i7-14700K with DDR4 memory in Baldur’s Gate 3 by 11.7%. In Crimson Desert, the lead is 3.2% for the 5800X3D, and 2.6% in Cyberpunk 2077. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D sits between the DDR5 and DDR4 versions of the 14700K in a few other titles, including Counter-Strike 2 and DOOM: The Dark Ages.

There are also some titles in which the Ryzen 7 5800X3D leads both the DDR4 and DDR5-equipped versions of the Core i7-14700K. In F1 2024, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D leads the DDR5 14700K by 5.6%, and the DDR4 14700K by 13.7% on average. The same pattern can be seen in Final Fantasy XIV, with a 6.6% lead over the 14700K using DDR5 memory, and in Minecraft RT, with a 18.5% lead over the 14700K using DDR4 memory.

It is certainly all over the place when you put both configurations of the 14700K into the mix, but the two behave more like separate CPUs. The long and short of it is that the 14700K with DDR5 memory provides the best gaming performance on average, followed by the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The DDR4-equipped 14700K is ever-so-slightly slower than the 5800X3D, but it really just depends on the game you’re playing.

During our testing, the Core i7-14700K averaged 4.93 GHz with DDR5 memory and 4.88 GHz with DDR4 memory. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D could only manage 4.34 GHz, but it sipped only 77.5 watts during our gaming tests. The 14700K DDR5 averaged 132.4 watts, while the DDR4-equipped 14700K averaged a whopping 155.1 watts during gaming. This is why the 14700K with DDR4 reached an average temperature of 80 °C, compared to 62 °C for the 14700K with DDR5 and 59 °C for the 5800X3D.

In addition to running the coolest, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is also the most efficient CPU of the bunch. The 5800X3D had an FPS-per-watt output of 1.88, compared to 1.26 for the Core i7-14700K with DDR5 memory, and just 0.93 for the DDR4 version. It is amazing how much the Core i7-14700K suffers when paired with DDR4 memory.

Lower overall performance also hurts the value proposition of the DDR4-equipped 14700K, as it puts out just 0.39 FPS-per-dollar, compared to the 0.45 of the DDR5-equipped 14700K. Astonishingly, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D falls between the two 14700K versions, delivering 0.42 FPS per dollar. This makes the Core i7-14700K the value king, but only if you pair it with DDR5 memory. I suspect that will be tricky in the current market.

⭐Winner: Tie

While the Ryzen 7 5800X3D does slightly pull away from the DDR4-equipped 14700K, both of these setups get demolished by the 14700K when it is paired with DDR5 memory. We're calling this round a tie considering the massive price disparity between DDR4 and DDR5 memory right now.

Productivity Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

Productivity performance spans single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads, so we tested the CPUs across a range of benchmarks covering both categories. Just like in our gaming tests, we tested the 14700K with both DDR5 and DDR4 memory, since it does impact the performance significantly.

Intel’s hybrid architecture has historically been quite strong at multi-threaded workloads due to E-cores, and that pattern appears here too. In our multi-threaded performance ranking geomean, the Core i7-14700K scores 492 points, a massive lead of 116.7% over the Ryzen 7 5800X3D that could only manage 227 points on average. Even when the Core i7-14700K is paired with DDR4 memory, it has a 105% higher average score than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

The superior core count of the 14700K is proving to be the difference maker in this category. In the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test, the 14700K with DDR5 memory is a whopping 126.6% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Even the DDR4-equipped 14700K secures a 107% lead over the 5800X3D in Cinebench. The lead for the 14700K is about 137% in POV-Ray, and it shrinks to 135% when using DDR4 memory.

Blender tests were also favorable for the 14700K, but we didn’t see a big difference between DDR4 and DDR5 systems in these benchmarks. In Junkshop, the DDR5-equipped 14700K leads the 5800X3D by 116.4%; in Monster, by 116.6%; and in Classroom, by 118.3%. The DDR4 variant follows closely behind, by 1 or 2 percentage points.

The memory generation again comes into play when we look at HandBrake x265 10-bit encoding, with the DDR5-14700K leading the 5800X3D by 90.5%, while the DDR4-14700K manages a 82% lead. The gap is even larger in x264 encoding, with the DDR5 variant gaining a 105% lead over the 5800X3D, while the DDR4 variant can only manage a 63% lead.

That still makes the Core i7-14700K far better than the 5800X3D in productivity workloads, regardless of the memory generation. However, we still have single-threaded results to look at. Our single-threaded performance ranking geomean puts the Core i7-14700K 36.6% faster on average than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Interestingly, there is no difference in single-threaded performance between the DDR5 and DDR4 variants of the 14700K.

The same trend is seen in individual benchmarks as well. The 14700K is about 25% faster than the 5800X3D in Lame’s audio encoding test, and the DDR4 variant is in the same ballpark as well. Curiously, the DDR4-equipped 14700K is slightly faster than the DDR5-14700K in Cinebench 2024 and also outperforms the 5800X3D by 36.6%. Safe to say, the RAM difference doesn’t really come into play in these tests.

Overall, though, the winner is quite clear. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a gaming-oriented chip with only 8 cores and 16 threads, so it is no match for the 20-core 14700K in productivity workloads. Whether you go for DDR4 or DDR5 is your decision, but the productivity champion of this faceoff is the Core i7-14700K.

⭐Winner: Intel Core i7-14700K

With an average lead of 116% over the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in multi-threaded tasks, the Core i7-14700K sweeps the productivity round quite easily.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

Overclocking has never been a strong suit of AMD Ryzen processors; however, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn’t support core overclocking at all. AMD cited the 3D V-Cache technology as the reason the 5800X3D can’t be overclocked, and they were right to assume so.

Due to the vertically-stacked cache, heat transfer from the CPU die to the heatspreader was a real issue. An overclocked 5800X3D would have sipped more power and produced more heat. Therefore, an efficient heat-transfer system was needed but could not be developed in time for the first-generation V-Cache product.

AMD has since reinstated overclocking support for Ryzen 9000 series X3D CPUs by flipping the cache layout, so it no longer hinders heat transfer. However, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s core multiplier still remains locked, but you can still tune the DRAM and Infinity Fabric clocks.

The Core i7-14700K, on the other hand, is tailor-made for overclocking. Being a K-series SKU, the 14700K comes with an unlocked multiplier and all the Intel bells and whistles for overclocking. It can reach 6.1 - 6.2 GHz on individual cores with proper cooling, and users can expect a 5.6 - 5.8 GHz all-core overclock on most setups.

Its overclocking toolkit features traditional multiplier adjustments, voltage controls, and established BIOS interfaces that most enthusiasts are already familiar with. The Core i7-14700K also has a significant amount of power headroom to play with, although temperatures become a concern as soon as the power consumption ramps up.

By all overclocking metrics, the Core i7-14700K is the superior CPU for tinkerers. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D can’t be manually tuned, at least not in the traditional sense, and therefore doesn’t really stand a chance in this round.

⭐Winner: Intel Core i7-14700K

The 14700K is the real deal when it comes to overclocking support. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is locked and therefore can’t be overclocked, so Intel sweeps this round.

Power Consumption and Efficiency: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has a base TDP of 105W and a PPT of 142W. Intel’s is much higher, with the 14700K clocking in at 125W TDP and a PL2 limit of 253 watts. However, TDP numbers don’t give us a good idea of real-world power consumption, so we ran our own detailed tests.

First, at idle, the 5800X3D consumed only 5 watts, while the 14700K consumed 27 watts. In an active-idle situation, such as YouTube playback, the Core i7-14700K consumed 28 watts with DDR5 memory and a concerning 39 watts with DDR4 memory. The 5800X3D, on the other hand, sipped only 9 watts, making it anywhere from 67% - 76% more efficient than the 14700K.

Moving on to all-core workloads, in our y-cruncher multi-threaded AVX power test, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D consumes 119 watts, while the Core i7-14700K clocks in at a staggering 335 watts, a 181.5% higher figure. Even the Core i7-14700K with DDR4 memory consumed 307 watts, which is still a 158% increase over the 5800X3D’s power consumption.

In Linpack, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is again more reserved, with the 14700K consuming 168.6% more power than the Ryzen. The DDR4 setup was not much better, with a 137.2% higher power consumption than the 5800X3D in this test. The gap widens even more in Cinebench 2024’s multi-core render and our Blender tests, which show the 14700K consuming anywhere from 250% to 285% higher power than the 5800X3D.

In our encoding tests, the situation remains pretty much the same. In Handbrake x264, the DDR5-14700K consumed 242% more power than the 5800X3D, while the DDR4-14700K consumed nearly 200% more. Similar numbers were seen in Handbrake x265 and SVT_AV1 encoding, with the 5800X3D being the clear winner.

We even looked at single-threaded workloads to determine the power consumption of those tasks. In y-cruncher’s single-threaded AVX power test, we saw the 14700K consume 157% more power when paired with DDR5 memory, and 132% more when using DDR4 memory. Safe to say, the Intel CPU does not fare any better in these workloads either.

To determine the efficiency, we calculated the watts-per-FPS number in Handbrake x265. The 5800X3D was 43.4% more efficient than the 14700K with DDR5 RAM, and about 41% more efficient in this task than the 14700K with DDR4 memory. The pattern can again be seen in Cinebench 2024’s efficiency test, where we look at points-per-watt. The 5700X3D is anywhere from 62% to 68% more efficient than the 14700K in this task.

We can also visualize the efficiency differences using our handy scatter plots. In the Linkpack power efficiency plot, the 5800X3D is towards the bottom left of the chart, while the 14700K is more towards the top. This means that the 14700K uses substantially more energy to deliver marginally higher performance than the 5800X3D. Ideally, you want to be towards the bottom right of this graph.

So, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D consumes much less power in both single-threaded and multi-threaded productivity workloads, and as we saw in our gaming tests, it runs cooler as well. The Core i7-14700K has a distinct performance advantage in all-core workloads, but the power consumption ramps up quickly once it gets going. Still, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the clear winner in this round.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D consumes between 150% and 300% less power than the Core i7-14700K in all-core workloads, making it the definitive winner in this round.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

The pricing situation is a bit of a wildcard in this comparison, since these are not exactly “new” CPUs. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was recently re-released at $350, which is $100 lower than its 2022 price tag. The Core i7-14700K is currently priced at $370 at the time of writing, which makes the 5800X3D $20 cheaper in a direct comparison.

However, comparing the two CPUs is more than just comparing their sticker price. We must also look at the platform costs of the two CPUs. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D uses the fan-favorite AM4 socket, which has a whole heap of chipsets in all price brackets. You can pair the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with a mid-range B550 or a high-end X570 motherboard, but older 400-series motherboards are also compatible, depending on the board.

As far as the price goes, B550 motherboards can be purchased for $80 - $180, while higher-end X570 motherboards range from $150 - $300. Some premium models can even go beyond $400, but those are not really needed for our CPU since it doesn’t support overclocking. A nice mid-tier B550 or X570 motherboard will be more than enough for our needs.

Memory is where the price difference really grows. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D only supports DDR4 memory, so it is relatively safe from the ongoing DRAM crisis. A nice 32GB DDR4-3200 kit can run you about $140 - $160, which is definitely higher than DDR4 prices of the past, but nothing compared to current DDR5 rates. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D also needs an aftermarket cooler since it doesn’t come with one, and that can cost you about $100 - $150 too.

For the Core i7-14700K, you have the option of either a DDR4 or a DDR5 motherboard. Even then, you still have to choose between a 600-series or a 700-series chipset. For the sake of this comparison, let’s go with a Z790 motherboard since the 14700K is unlocked and we want those overclocking capabilities. A basic Z790 motherboard can be found around the $150 mark, but we would want to go with something that has decent VRMs. That can cost around $200-$250 at current prices.

Of course, as evidenced in our benchmarks, DDR5 memory is the best way to maximize the 14700K's performance. Due to the RAMpocalypse, DDR5 memory is ridiculously expensive, and a 32GB DDR5-6000 kit can cost between $390 - $550 at the time of writing. Going with DDR4 would require a motherboard swap, but it would save you between $300 and $350 on the system based on these two components alone.

For cooling, the 14700K requires special consideration, as we have the option to overclock. Even a stock 14700K sips more power and produces more heat than a 5800X3D, but if you plan to overclock, the thermals can get out of hand pretty quick. You’ll ideally use a solid 360mm AiO liquid cooler for the 14700K, which can add about $100 - $150 to the cost of your build.

Another factor to consider when determining the value of a CPU is the longevity of its platform. AMD’s AM4 platform has been going strong for a decade, and AMD has continued to support it through updates and releases such as the 5800X3D. However, it would be hard to see AMD releasing more CPUs for the AM4 platform going forward.

On the other hand, Intel’s LGA 1700 socket was already semi-retired, but new reports suggest that Intel will bring this platform back in early 2027. New “Raptor Lake Next” CPUs will reportedly be available on the same socket and the same motherboards, so there is certainly a better upgrade path on Intel’s side.

When we put everything together, the Core i7-14700K is a bit hard to recommend from a value perspective. The motherboards for the 14700K are more expensive on average, and if you want to maximize its performance, you will have to take a massive hit to your wallet with DDR5 memory. Moreover, it is more expensive to cool, too. Its platform looks more future-proof in light of recent rumors, but that can’t guarantee it a win in this round.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

The 5800X3D is cheaper to get up and running, since you only need an affordable B550 motherboard and some DDR4 memory to get started. The 14700K can be cheap, but that requires you to leave serious performance on the table and go with a DDR4 setup.

Bottom Line: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K

After a grueling 6-round back-and-forth, we finally have our winner. The Intel Core i7-14700K is the superior CPU of the two. Now, it is not as black-and-white as the 4-3 score might suggest, but the 14700K is still the winner of this faceoff.

The Core i7-14700K delivers better gaming performance on average than the 5800X3D. Sure, there are some titles that favor AMD’s 3D V-Cache, but those wins were not as frequent. However, AMD’s 5800X3D has a better chance if the 14700K is limited by DDR4 memory.

Intel’s 14700K is also vastly superior in productivity and has support for manual overclocking. AMD’s main selling point for the 5800X3D in 2026 is its low price, both upfront and in terms of platform costs. It is also an easier CPU to maintain since it runs cooler and consumes less power.

Interestingly, the choice also depends heavily on your memory generation of choice. It is better to save a few bucks and go with a 5800X3D if you plan to stay on DDR4 for now. However, if you are willing to make the (difficult) jump to DDR5, the 14700K is the clear choice.

Potential buyers who want to stick to gaming should still prioritize a Ryzen 7 5800X3D over a Core i7-14700K with DDR5 memory. On the other hand, if you regularly run any type of productivity workload, the 14700K blows the Ryzen out of the water.

⭐ Winner: Intel Core i7-14700K

Nonetheless, the overall winner of our faceoff is Intel’s Core i7-14700K.

Check Out More CPU Faceoffs

• Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Intel Core i7-14700K vs Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Servers running x86 processors from AMD and Intel used to rule the market, both unit and money-wise, less than a decade ago, but fast forward to today, Arm-based machines command well over 45% of the server market, according to data released by IDC. While technically x86 machines still control 52% of the market in terms of revenue, the real winner is a different category altogether: GPU- and ASIC/FPGA-accelerated systems, which generated over 70% of the global server revenue in the first quarter of 2026.

Server market reaches $122.6 billion in a single quarter, Dell leads the game

IDC estimates that the global server market generated a record $122.6 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, up 30.4% year-over-year, as spending on AI infrastructure remained particularly strong.

Sales of ODM Direct servers — custom machines ordered by hyperscalers that run merchant or custom silicon — accounted for 50.2% of the revenue (down from 64.1% in Q1 2025) and reached $61.53 billion, up modest 2.1% year-over-year*. By contrast, sales of standard servers from well-known brands grew at a much higher pace, which suggests that branded vendors such as Dell, HPE, Supermicro, and others won a larger portion of AI infrastructure deployments than they did a year earlier. That was probably made possible by accelerating enterprise AI deployment and sovereign AI projects, which tend to buy machines from branded vendors, as well as hyperscalers increasingly turning to well-known suppliers for AI hardware.

When it comes to vendor rankings, Dell remained the largest server supplier by revenue with a 16.5% share of the market after its revenue surged 244.1% year-over-year to $20.3 billion, which was driven by exceptionally strong AI server demand. Supermicro remained in second place with $9.3 billion in revenue and a growth of 128.9%.

Lenovo ranked third with $5.6 billion and 36.5% growth, while IEIT Systems (which is a part of the sanctioned Inspur Group) dropped to fourth after revenue declined 7.0% to $4.0 billion. HPE was No.5 with $3.7 billion in revenue, up 17.2%. Other vendors — from Asus to Atos and from ASRock Rack to Gigabyte — commanded 14.8% of the market with $18.11 billion in revenue, up from 13% and $12.21 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

Arm-based machines rapidly gain revenue share

As AI servers dominated the market in Q1 2026, systems with various types of accelerators accounted for over 70% of the revenue. However, the rise of Arm-powered machines is the elephant in the room that is hard to miss, as it represents a tectonic shift in the whole market, both to the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA) in general and custom-built Arm CPUs designed by hyperscalers.

Non-x86 platforms generated $58.7 billion in revenue, a 107.6% increase year-over-year, which lifted their share of the market to 47.9%. Most of the non-x86 systems are Arm-based AI machines (think Nvidia's NVL72) as well as systems running custom CPUs, AWS, Google, and Microsoft, just to name a few. Still, also keep in mind IBM Z mainframes and IBM Power Systems (including storage) that use CPUs featuring proprietary non-x86 and non-Arm ISAs and which still generate $1 billion or more in revenue. IDC claims that Arm-based machines accounted for more than 95% of non-x86 revenue, so it is safe to say that Arm-based machines commanded over 45% of server revenues in Q1 2026.

One of the reasons why Arm-based machines now command a huge chunk of the server market is because they are used inside such systems as Nvidia's NVL72 'Blackwell' that sell for up to $6.5 million per unit. Each NVL72 rack-scale solution carries 36 compute trays with two Blackwell GPUs and one Grace CPU per unit, so while unit-wise each we are only talking about 36 processors, dollar-wise one NVL72 machine is as expensive as 928 entry-level 1P server (for $7,000) for cloud or edge applications or 433 higher-end 2P servers (for $15,000) for cloud or virtualization applications.

Given the fact that Nvidia will continue bundling its own Arm-based Vera CPUs with NVL72 'Vera Rubin' machines that will be more expensive than their Blackwell ancestors, we will not be surprised that Arm-based machines will account for well over 50% of the server market revenue in the second half of this year or in 2027. Also, keep in mind that Nvidia plans to sell server racks featuring only Vera CPUs for agentic AI applications, which will further drive sales of Arm-based machines.

Accelerated servers: The real winner

Since AI servers dominate server sales, it is not surprising that sales of accelerated servers are increasing. Systems equipped with GPUs produced $68.9 billion in revenue during the quarter (up 24.8% compared to the same period a year earlier) and accounted for 56.2% of all server sales. Servers based on other accelerator types, including custom ASICs and FPGAs, expanded to $17.7 billion, up 122.1% YoY. As a result, accelerated servers earned $86.6 billion in Q1 2026, which is around 70.6% of all server revenue.

X86 servers remain unit volume champions, but suffer from shortages

In contrast, x86 server revenue declined 2.9% to $63.9 billion, though IDC attributes this weakness to supply limitations rather than deteriorating demand. The market research firm claims that the industry's primary constraint is no longer customer appetite for general-purpose servers, but rather the availability of key components, including CPUs, DRAM, NAND memory, and hard drives.

Without any doubt, x86 servers remain working horses for the industry. In fact, many of them use accelerators, including ASICs, FPGAs, and GPUs, as they are used for a wide range of workloads, including AI, supercomputing, simulations, encryption, video transcoding, and many more.

AMD and Intel shipped nearly 20 million EPYC and Xeon SP processors for data center systems in 2025, according to Dean McCarron, the head and principal analyst at Mercury Research. He believes Nvidia is on track to ship four million Grace and Vera CPUs this year, which is considerably lower compared to shipments of AMD and Intel. It is hard to estimate how many custom Arm-based CPUs are deployed by AWS, Alibaba, Google, and Microsoft, but it is safe to say that we are talking millions of CPUs here; otherwise, the companies would not be able to justify development and production of custom silicon.

From a volume perspective, x86 servers remain the most popular machines, and it will probably take some time before ARM can challenge x86 in mainstream general-purpose servers. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that Arm-based data center CPUs are catching up with x86 parts in terms of volumes.

Summary

The global server market hit a record $122.6 billion in the first quarter of 2026 as AI infrastructure spending continued. Accelerated systems powered by GPUs, custom ASICs, and FPGAs generated more than 70% of server revenue, while Arm-based platforms — including Nvidia's Grace Blackwell as well as custom CPUs from Arm, Google, and Microsoft — captured nearly half of the market.

Although x86 servers based on AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors remain dominant in shipment volumes, supply shortages of CPUs, memory, and storage components constrained revenue growth, which further enabled Arm-powered AI-optimized systems to gain share. But while at 20 million data center processors per year, x86 volumes are untouchable for Arm today, things may change in the coming years. Nvidia is on track to ship 4 million CPUs in 2026, and other developers of custom Arm-based CPUs are certainly not standing still.

*There is one significant difference with IDC's 'ODM Direct' classification. IDC classifies revenue according to which company invoices the customer, not necessarily who manufactures the hardware. As a result, while many AI servers are built by ODMs like Compal, Foxconn, or Quanta, they are sold under brands like Dell or HPE. As a result, while the latter get more business from enterprises or sovereign AI deployments, this does not mean that big ODMs are losing business; they are actually gaining it, as the appetites of hyperscalers like AWS, Google, Meta, or Microsoft are not going anywhere, just demand from new entrants emerges.

Intel has appointed Seok-Hee Lee, the former chief executive of memory maker SK hynix and battery maker SK On, as executive vice president of Intel Foundry, handing the semiconductor veteran control of advanced packaging, system integration, and all back-end technology development and manufacturing. Lee reports directly to CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and his arrival comes with a structural change at the foundry: Intel is splitting advanced packaging out as a dedicated business, with Naga Chandrasekaran narrowing his focus to front-end work on the Intel 18A and 14A nodes. Longtime executive Navid Shahriari is retiring after 37 years, the company announced.

Lee spent roughly a decade at Intel earlier in his career before holding leadership roles across the Korean chip industry, including the top job at SK hynix, one of the world's two largest suppliers of high-bandwidth memory. Tan credited Lee with "deep expertise in leading complex, high-scale technology and manufacturing organizations," and said the hire would help Intel "tightly couple leading-edge logic, memory, networking, and other components" for foundry customers.

Putting a former memory chief over packaging aligns with where Intel's back-end ambitions are. HBM stacks sit alongside logic dies inside the same package on every modern AI accelerator, and it’s joining those two components together that Lee now oversees. Last month, it was reported that SK hynix was testing Intel's EMIB packaging for HBM integration, sending both companies' shares higher.

Tan named EMIB-T and HBI as the technologies Intel intends to ramp to high volume under Lee. EMIB-T adds through-silicon vias to Intel's embedded bridge for higher power delivery and HBM4-class bandwidth, and is rolling out in production fabs this year. Intel has positioned the EMIB family against TSMC's CoWoS, whose lines have been oversubscribed for more than two years, and is reportedly in talks with Google and Amazon to package their custom AI chips.

It goes without saying, then, that the stakes for the unit Lee’s inheriting are huge. Intel Foundry lost $10.3 billion on $17.8 billion of revenue in 2025, and CFO David Zinsner has said packaging revenue could exceed $1 billion at gross margins near 40%, with prepaid hyperscaler commitments reaching into the billions. Korean trade press, including the Seoul Economic Daily, has spun Lee's appointment around Intel's difficulty securing yields on its proprietary back-end processes, the kind of high-volume manufacturing problem he managed for decades in memory.

The hire follows Intel's April recruitment of Samsung foundry veteran Shawn Han. Lee resigned from SK On on May 28th, citing health reasons, according to Korean outlets, only to return to the industry three weeks later.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Apple has agreed to work with Intel to “design and build” chips in the United States, posting the claim to Truth Social before either company confirmed any arrangement. Apple and Intel didn’t respond to initial requests for comment from Reuters, and neither has issued a statement acknowledging a finalized deal.

Trump says the deal is part of his administration’s push to reshore semiconductor manufacturing, writing that the U.S. needs to build its chips domestically and that he "decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America.” He credited earlier government intervention for drawing Nvidia and Elon Musk's TeraFab project to Intel's foundry.

Apple already designs its own silicon and has done so since it dropped Intel processors from its products in 2020. Any arrangement here would purely be a foundry deal, with Intel acting as a contract manufacturer for chips Apple designs in-house. It wouldn’t return Apple to Intel-designed processors, and it certainly wouldn’t displace TSMC from Apple's flagship products.

The logic behind any such deal for Apple would be simple supply diversification; the company remains dependent on TSMC, whose leading-edge capacity is being absorbed by AI customers, including Nvidia and AMD. Placing a lower-volume part on a second source reduces single-foundry exposure without touching the iPhone and high-end M-series lines that rely on TSMC's most advanced nodes.

We’ve known about much of this for a little while now. Reporters caught wind of a preliminary deal last month, following discussions that ran for more than a year. Before that, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and GF Securities outlined the likely scope: Apple's M7 SoC built on Intel's 18A-P process, powering the MacBook Air and entry-level iPad Pro, with mass production targeted for late 2027.

Those two product tiers accounted for roughly 20 million units in 2025, with annual shipments expected to settle between 15 million and 20 million — significant for a new foundry customer, but small enough to leave TSMC's revenue mix intact. Reporting has also suggested that Apple's A21 iPhone chips will move to Intel's 14A node around 2028, but none of this has been confirmed by Apple or Intel.

Trump's announcement comes just two days after Intel said its 18A-P process had entered risk production, announced at the VLSI Symposium in Honolulu. The node is the first performance-enhanced version of 18A, and Intel claims it delivers 9% higher performance at the same power, or 18% lower power at the same performance, while staying design-rule compatible with 18A so customers can reuse existing IP. CEO Lip-Bu Tan told investors last month that he expects multiple foundry commitments to close in the second half of 2026.

Intel has yet to confirm a single leading-edge customer for 18A, and any commitment from Apple would be a best-case scenario in terms of securing the validation the company both desperately wants and needs. The U.S. government holds a 10% stake in Intel, and its shares rose as much as 9% in premarket trading on the news, extending a run that has lifted the stock 464% over the past 12 months to a market cap of $608.7 billion.

This roadmap provides an in-depth analysis of Intel's current plans for its chip production capacity. In the space of 12 months, Intel has gone from canceling fabs to running short of them. In July last year, the company scrapped a planned €30 billion megafab in Magdeburg, Germany, and a $4.6 billion assembly and test plant near Wroclaw, Poland, citing a lack of committed demand. Then, in April this year, it paid Apollo $14.2 billion to repurchase the 49% stake in its Ireland fab that it had sold for $11.2 billion in 2024. Three weeks later, CFO David Zinsner described "unprecedented demand for silicon" alongside Q1 results that sent the stock up 24% in a single session, its best day since October 1987.

The next round of capacity development now hinges on two key deadlines: CEO Lip-Bu Tan told investors in January that prospective 14A customers will begin to make firm supplier decisions "starting in the second half of this year and extending into the first half of 2027." Separately, the enhanced 35% advanced manufacturing investment credit signed into law last July applies only to fab construction that begins before December 31st, 2026; projects that break ground in 2027 get nothing.

Both clocks run out within months of each other, and both bear on the same construction projects.

Arizona

Fab 52 at the Ocotillo campus in Chandler is the production foundation for everything on Intel's 2026 to 2028 product roadmap. The facility became fully operational in October last year as the first high-volume home of Intel 18A, building Panther Lake compute tiles and, later this year, Clearwater Forest. Naga Chandrasekaran, Intel's chief technology and operations officer, told CNBC in December that the fab is "capable of more than 10,000 18A wafer starts per week," which works out to roughly 40,000 wafer starts per month at full ramp and makes it larger than TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 and phase 2 combined.

That’s named capacity, however, not current output; Intel has indicated that 18A yields will reach industry-standard levels in early 2027, and until then, the company is capping CPU output on the node, leaving part of Fab 52's capacity idle. Tan said in May that 18A yields are improving by 7% to 8% per month.

Fab 62, the second from Intel's $20 billion 2021 Arizona expansion, is expected to be ready around 2028. Intel hasn’t officially assigned it a node, leaving it open as a stopgap for 14A if Ohio isn't ready, or as additional 18A capacity if external demand comes sooner. Brookfield Infrastructure put up to $15 billion into the two Chandler fabs in 2022 for a 49% share of the joint venture, and unlike the Apollo arrangement, Intel has made no move to buy that stake back, so every wafer out of Fab 52 and Fab 62 will have revenue share commitments attached to it.

Oregon

As the home of 14A, D1X complex at Gordon Moore Park in Hillsboro — a low-volume fab and development site — is currently the only place Intel develops leading-edge process technology, with Chandrasekaran telling CNBC the node will be developed first in Oregon, with a goal of risk production in 2028 and high-volume manufacturing in 2029.

Hillsboro houses Intel's High-NA EUV machines, including the first ASML Twinscan EXE:5200B system delivered anywhere, and 14A is the first Intel node designed around it. Oregon also carried early 18A production while Arizona ramped up. Intel began permitting work in February 2024 for a multibillion-dollar expansion of the campus following the approval of an air quality permit, though no construction start has been announced to date.

Ohio One

Ohio is Intel’s most problematic fab project on paper. It broke ground in New Albany way back in 2022 on a $28 billion first phase, originally targeting 2025 production. In February 2025, however, Chandrasekaran reset its schedule, targeting 2030 for the completion of Mod 1 with operations between 2030 and 2031, and Mod 2 in 2031 with operations in 2032. In a memo setting out this new schedule, Chandrasekaran said Intel preserves “the flexibility to accelerate work and the start of operations if customer demand warrants.”

Spanning nearly 1,000 acres, the site is designated for 14A and future nodes, and has room for up to eight fabs. Intel has spent roughly $5 billion there to date as of March 2025, including $1.4 billion in total for that year. Bechtel, the lead contractor, posted a wave of new construction job listings in January, the same month Tan declared Intel is “going big time into 14A.”

Still, customers (or a lack thereof) remain the gating factor for 14A production. Intel told investors in January that it’s got two prospective customers evaluating 14A test chips, and its SEC filings still warn that without a significant external customer, it “may pause or discontinue” 14A, successor nodes, and various manufacturing expansion projects.

Elon Musk said in April that his planned TeraFab project — the first named taker for the node — will use 14A process technology to make AI chips, though test production is expected to be years out. This also isn’t such a big win in terms of the volume commitment Intel’s filings say it needs for 14A to be viable. At the time of writing, 14A’s next and arguably most critical milestone is the 14A v0.9 PDK, which Tan says will reach external customers in October.

"The Holy Grail is v0.9 PDK. Right now, we are looking at October to [hand it to] the outside customer. Internal customer will be earlier, so that we make sure that we really clean the pipe, make sure that we are doing right, make sure that we can sell with good quality."

Ireland and canceled projects

Launched in 2023, Fab 34 in Leixlip is Intel's only EUV-class site in Europe, producing Intel 4 and Intel 3 silicon for Core Ultra and Xeon 6 parts. In 2024, Apollo-managed funds paid $11.2 billion for a 49% interest in the joint venture entitled to the fab's output, a deal that gave Intel a much-needed cash injection at the time.

In April this year, Intel bought that stake back for $14.2 billion — at a premium of roughly 27% — funded from cash and about $6.5 billion in new debt issuance. Apollo walked away with around $3 billion in return for two years of exposure, and Intel paid a nine-figure annual cost of capital to reclaim needed wafer revenue.

“Flexibility and alignment are core to how we approach relationships as a long-term, solutions-oriented capital partner, and we are pleased to facilitate this transaction in support of Intel's evolving strategic and operational priorities,” said Apollo Partner Jamshid Ehsani at the time.

Magdeburg, once pitched as a €30 billion home for 14A-era production with roughly €10 billion in German subsidies attached, was postponed to 2029-2030 in November 2024. This prompted the German government to reallocate those subsidies to the federal budget and, following a $3.2 billion operating loss with Q2 2025 financial results, Intel killed the project, the subsidies dying with it.

Wroclaw's $4.6 billion assembly and test plant was canceled the same day, and Costa Rica's assembly and test operations were consolidated into Vietnam and Malaysia. Fab 38 in Kiryat Gat, Israel, the planned $25 billion expansion announced in 2023 with $3.5 billion in Israeli government backing, has been paused for the last two years, with no restart announced. Every leading-edge wafer Intel produces for the foreseeable future will come therefore come from three U.S. states and one campus in Ireland.

Packaging and test

Fab 9 in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, a $3.5 billion conversion that opened in January 2024, is the only high-volume Foveros 3D stacking site in the United States. Foveros is the packaging behind every tiled Intel design since Meteor Lake, bonding compute, graphics, and I/O dies vertically rather than laying them side by side, and it is integral to the stacked Clearwater Forest parts now ramping on 18A.

Intel runs it alongside the neighboring Fab 11x as a single co-located operation, which EVP Keyvan Esfarjani called “the only U.S. factory producing the world's most advanced packaging solutions at scale.” The buildout created hundreds of Intel jobs and more than 3,000 construction roles, and the campus later drew a further $500 million in CHIPS funding for modernization.

The $7 billion Penang complex in Malaysia, placed on indefinite hold in early 2025, has been revived: the buildout is now 99% complete, and first-phase assembly and test operations are due to begin later this year, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, following an earlier briefing with Tan. Intel has also outsourced EMIB production to Amkor's Songdo facility in South Korea, and its next-generation EMIB-T packaging rolls out across production fabs this year.

With Magdeburg and the Penang delay having stripped packaging options elsewhere, Rio Rancho is now the load-bearing U.S. node for the back-end work that makes Intel's entire chip roadmap possible.

Two deadlines and three things to watch

Intel’s 14A commitment window and the cutoff for tax credits both converge in the second half of this year. Tan’s stated expectation is that customers make firm supplier decisions between the second half of 2026 and the first half of 2027, with results from the upcoming October PDK potentially being the trigger for those decisions.

On June 8th, Cadence announced a multi-year agreement with Intel Foundry to co-optimize designs for 14A and deliver production-ready process design kits. This is exactly the EDA groundwork that needs to be in place before any fabless customer can commit volume, and a committed volume customer will be what unlocks acceleration at Ohio and gives Fab 62 a job. The alternative, per Intel, is to cancel 14A altogether.

Unlike the customer deadline set by Intel, the tax deadline can’t slip. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act raised the Section 48D advanced manufacturing investment credit from 25% to 35% in July last year, but the law's termination clause is unchanged: the credit doesn't apply to “property the construction of which begins after December 31, 2026.”

Treasury rules let a physical-work test or a 5% spend safe harbor establish a construction start, so Intel has roughly six months to break ground on any new shells, in Ohio, Arizona, or Oregon, that it wants the U.S. government to part-fund. The government, of course, has been a shareholder since August, when $5.7 billion in unpaid CHIPS grants from Intel's $7.86 billion award and $3.2 billion in Secure Enclave funds were converted into a 9.9% equity stake.

Ultimately, we’re going to be watching for three things before January: a named 14A customer with a volume commitment; a construction-start announcement timed to beat the credit deadline; and 18A yield milestones that free up the Arizona capacity Intel’s currently sitting on.

We learned a lot about Intel’s upcoming plans for desktop CPUs at Computex 2026. In classic Intel fashion, we’ve already heard a lot about the company’s next-gen CPUs, codenamed Nova Lake, even while the recent Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs are still warm from the oven. But on the ground in Taipei, we heard not only more about Nova Lake and the Z990 platform it’s arriving on, but also how Intel intends to handle the rollout and how it will fill the gaps in its lineup with “Raptor Lake Next,” which is supposedly slated to launch next year.

Trade shows are the best opportunity to learn details about unreleased products before they show up in a press deck, and simultaneously the worst venue to do so. With jet-lagged representatives and reporters, thousands of people whizzing past, and the threat of Jensen Huang showing up to sign components and shut down a floor on a moment’s notice, it’s easy for things to get lost in the shuffle. So, we’re going to work through everything we learned about Intel’s upcoming plans in stages, starting with details that are confirmed, and working toward more speculative murmurs.

Intel has a fairly aggressive consumer roadmap, which the company itself would tell you – and the company told us as much at Computex, as a matter of fact. Both Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of client product management, and the recently joined Alex Katouzian, executive VP and GM of client, played up Intel’s roadmap to Tom’s Hardware, and for good reason.

Chronologically, Intel’s plans look something like this: We’ll see the first Nova Lake SKUs roll out at CES 2027. A few months later, we’ll see a refresh on the LGA 1700 socket with “Raptor Lake Next” CPUs, and come Computex next year, Intel will launch a 52-core flagship Nova Lake SKU. None of that is confirmed by Intel, and we have varying degrees of confidence in each step of the roadmap, so take it as speculation for now. We’ll dig more into the details we have and what’s simply rumored below.

What about AMD?

Before Intel, we should at least look at why we’re not talking about AMD’s next-gen desktop plans. Basically, we don’t have a ton of information on Zen 6 CPUs yet, and even less information about Olympic Ridge, the desktop consumer lineup of Zen 6 chips. Computex didn’t change that fact.

At Computex, AMD revealed the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, relaunched the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and brought the RX 9070 GRE to the rest of the world. Unlike previous years, AMD didn’t hold a keynote, where we might’ve seen a more concrete tease of Olympic Ridge; AMD has already teased Zen 6 broadly several times. Bigger Zen 6 news is likely at the company’s Advancing AI event next month.

Although AMD hasn’t said when Olympic Ridge will launch, we originally expected it in late 2026. Now, 2027 is very likely. AMD has shifted the Zen 6 conversation toward its EPYC Venice chips, and confirmed production ramp on Venice in May. Although AMD traditionally leads with a consumer launch at the turn of a new microarchitecture, it’s unlikely that Olympic Ridge will launch before Venice. Demand for CPUs is spiking in the data center for agentic AI workloads, after all, and AMD is adjusting accordingly.

Olympic Ridge probably isn’t top of mind right now, from both AMD itself and its partners. AMD laid the groundwork for a unified CPU architecture generations back, and Intel’s approach has been a bit more disparate across client and data center (although that’s been changing with releases like Xeon 6 and Xeon 6+). We don’t know when Olympic Ridge news will arrive, but it almost certainly follows far greater detail about Zen 6 in the context of Venice.

What’s confirmed

Let’s start with the concrete details about Intel’s future CPU plans. These are things we have direct evidence for, be it photos, our own hands-on time, or sources we’re extremely confident in. At least two Z990 motherboards were at Computex, a third is rumored, and we saw (and held) what looked to be a near-production model in a closed-door meeting. And from that, we can already tell a lot about Nova Lake.

First, the LGA 1954 socket, which has now been pictured (we were told not to take pictures, but someone else did the dirty work, it seems). It’s the same size as the LGA 1851 socket, measuring 45 mm x 37.5 mm, and it retains compatibility with existing coolers, which we were able to confirm at Computex. It features more pins, as the name reveals, and uses the 2L-ILM, or two-lever Independent Loading Mechanism. The picture of the socket circulating matches what we saw at Computex.

The motherboard we saw featured dual 8-pin EPS connectors, along with an 8-pin PCIe connector near the bottom of the board, which is said to provide auxiliary power to the CPU. We’ve seen a leaked photo of the Z990 PCH now, which is said to draw more power due to broader PCIe 5.0 support. The Z990 board we saw, at least, had three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, along with three PCIe 5.0 expansion slots. Short of perhaps specialized designs with extra M.2 slots, we expect Z990 to support PCIe 5.0 across the board.

As for the chips themselves, all that is confirmed from Z990 motherboards is that Nova Lake can scale up to a high-end power design. We’ll speculate more on specific numbers later, but we’ve seen auxiliary power beyond two 8-pin EPS connectors on two Z990 motherboards now, and the motherboard we held had an extremely high-end VRM design; we can’t say more than that at this point.

An important caveat here is that we’re dealing with high-end motherboards and discussing how high the platform can scale, not how it will scale. Plenty of ink has been spilled about Nova Lake’s supposedly high power draw, but we really don’t have details about the chips themselves, rather just the tippy-top of the platform that will support them.

Outside of Z990 boards, Intel has confirmed that Nova Lake is “coming at the end of 2026.” That’s what CEO Lip-Bu Tan said at the company’s full-year 2025 earnings call back in January. What we were told by multiple vendors at Computex is Q1 2027, with a portion of those vendors specifically pointing to CES 2027. Similarly, with Z990 motherboards, some vendors said Q1 2027 while others said Q4 2026 (one even hinted at Q3). Believe it or not, these timelines actually all match up.

What’s lost in translation here is when the sale is happening. Before Nova Lake launches publicly, Intel and motherboard vendors will need to sell products into the channel, which, a few months later, will be available for sale at retailers for you to buy. What we’re likely looking at is sales into the channel in Q4, a public launch of Nova Lake at CES 2027, and retail sales in Q1. When Tan says Nova Lake is coming at the end of 2026 to a group of investors, he’s likely referring to selling into the channel, not the final retail sale.

What’s likely

Now, we’re getting into a bit more speculation. These are some of the details we heard about at Computex, or confirmations of previous rumors that we don’t have any concrete evidence for. Given the conversations we had at Computex, and a healthy dose of critical thinking, these are the details that are likely but not confirmed. There’s always a chance we’re just blind men touching an elephant on some of these points.

First, Nova Lake. For nearly a year now, it’s been rumored that the highest-end Nova Lake SKU will scale up to 52 cores. That’s the number we heard at Computex, as well, but not as a typical flagship. Rather, we heard that Intel plans to lead Nova Lake with a 28-core flagship, which will launch at CES 2027, and introduce a high-end 52-core model later in the year. The timeframe we heard was Computex 2027, but if anything is subject to change, it’s a release date that’s a year away. For now, let’s call it later in 2027.

The 52-core SKU will apparently come with 16 Coyote Cove P-cores, 32 Arctic Wolf E-cores, and a cluster of 4 LP-E cores; we didn’t hear that at Computex, nor anything to the contrary, but that’s what has been previously rumored. That model will reportedly come with two compute tiles, so the 28-core model with a single compute tile will likely look like an 8 + 16 + 4 split. That’s pure extrapolation at this point, however.

As for the 52-core model, we were told it comes with a PL1 of 175W and a PL4 of up to 700W. The PL1 number is what’s important here. Although that is a sizable increase over the 125W PL1 of both the 285K and 14900K, 52-core Nova Lake doesn’t sound like a direct replacement for those parts. Given the timing and extra power demands, it looks more like a spiritual successor to Intel Extreme Edition chips, targeting enthusiasts with deep pockets and the HEDT crowd.

Nova Lake is treaded ground at this point, however. Something new we learned about from Computex is “Raptor Lake Next.” After hearing the name, we asked Intel, which declined to comment on Raptor Lake Next at this time. Apparently, however, it will be the third refresh of Raptor Lake CPUs on the LGA 1700 socket, particularly targeting budget-conscious builders while Nova Lake satiates the enthusiast crowd.

There are some pieces of circumstantial evidence that point to a reintroduction of LGA 1700 CPUs. First, this has been previously rumored. In April, prolific leaker Jaykihn hinted at another Raptor Lake refresh coming in 2027. We’ve now heard that the range is called Raptor Lake Next from multiple sources, and it’s specifically coming in the first half of 2027, some months after the initial Nova Lake launch.

Additionally, multiple motherboard vendors told us that they’re ramping production of LGA 1700 motherboards, including DDR4 boards, though they didn’t say it was in relation to any new CPU releases. Intel itself has dropped a few hints, as well. Earlier in the year, Intel’s Robert Hallock said that Raptor Lake will be “abundantly available” in the market, and at Computex, Intel’s Nish Neelalojanan told Tom’s Hardware that Intel “will continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies.”

It would certainly make sense for Intel to refresh Raptor Lake a third time. Although data center demand is offsetting it, the decline in desktop sales from high memory prices hits Intel and AMD on the balance sheet as well. Just about everyone we spoke with at Computex talked about the state of memory prices, and Intel has a DDR4 platform that it’s still actively selling on the market. AMD, with a hard switch to DDR5 with Zen 4, has to reach back further to revitalize DDR4 options, but Intel already has a small ecosystem of DDR4 motherboards and CPUs available now, which it could easily bolster. We’ve heard that bolster is coming in the opening months of next year.

What that range looks like remains a mystery, however. It could be a proper refresh, or it could simply be an infusion of 14th-gen stock (and LGA 1700 motherboards) into the market along with new price points; both Raptor Lake generations have slowly crept up in price since the end of last year. The important thing here is that it seems Intel is targeting LGA 1700 for the lower end of the market, as Arrow Lake, with its underperformance and high price due to exclusively using DDR5, won’t provide the last-gen value bridge that previous generations have.

After Tom's Hardware originally broke the news about Raptor Lake Next, we followed up with Jaykihn, who provided a few specs.

*Naming unconfirmed by Intel, specifications rumored

The specs we've heard about are for the four SKUs above, which would comprise the main lineup of chips with integrated graphics enabled; apparently, Raptor Lake Next will include options with the iGPU disabled, as well as mobile chips. The final branding is unconfirmed, but we've heard that Intel intends to launch under the Core Ultra 200 name.

Out of the four SKUs, the 16-core Core 5 looks like Intel's breadwinner. Throughout 12th- to 14th-Gen, Intel topped out Core i5 models at 6 P-cores. You'd have to step up to a Core i7 for 8 P-cores. If these specs are correct, Intel is stepping down to an 8 P-core configuration a tier in branding, which will hopefully come with a cut to price.

What’s still up in the air

Some of the finer details of Nova Lake are still up in the air. That is, we don’t have any direct evidence for them, nor any corroboration from Computex. That’s not to say that the details here are false. Rather, we just need more information to say, for sure, that some of these details are a part of the Nova Lake lineup.

First and most obvious is bLLC, or big Last Level Cache. This is one of the earliest Nova Lake rumors that is still circulating, and for good reason. Intel hasn’t found an effective counter to AMD’s 3D V-Cache CPUs in more than four years. We’re closing in on half a decade where AMD has entirely owned the high-end of PC gaming, which has continually eaten away at Intel’s market share. bLCC is, apparently, Intel’s counter to 3D V-Cache, using its own Foveros 3D hybrid bonding to stack additional last-level cache.

Tom’s Hardware asked Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and a panel of executives at the company how it plans to address X3D CPUs, and Alex Katouzian, a 20-year Qualcomm veteran who recently joined Intel in a leadership role over the client group, said the following: “When I first came in and started reviewing road maps for the team, I was very pleasantly surprised. So, stay tuned, a very strong roadmap [is] coming, and we will be gunning for that section of the market as well. And so, please stay tuned.”

Context is important, but Katouzian is really only saying that Intel is gunning for high-end gamers with its roadmap, which, of course, it is. Otherwise, bLLC has entirely been a topic of the rumor mill. Intel has indirectly teased it with PR hits about its packaging capabilities, but that extends far beyond bLLC. Hybrid bonding, especially from a foundry perspective, has far greater legs in the data center.

Although Intel has the packaging and bonding capabilities, the scale of them for a mass-market product like Nova Lake is questionable. Intel would need to bond the SRAM to the logic tile with Forveros and package the chip with EMIB, creating the “EMIB 3.5D” combination that Intel has talked about previously. We first saw EMIB 3.5D on the Ponte Vecchio data center GPU, but most recently and relevantly on Clearwater Forest, Intel’s first foray into putting 18A in the data center. The capability is there, but if Intel can scale that up to a consumer range with more limited die space and higher per-core performance remains to be seen.

One advantage of Intel’s hybrid bonding and advanced packaging is that it can package dies from other foundries, not just those from Intel foundries. That brings us to the second finer point about Nova Lake, which is the node. Originally, the assumption was that Intel would use 18A for Nova Lake. We have 18A on mobile with Panther Lake, in the data center with Xeon 6+, but not on the desktop. Further, Intel has previously commented about reshoring its manufacturing for consumer chips after a brief stint with TSMC for logic tiles in both Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake.

Around this point last year, however, rumors started circulating that Intel is using TSMC’s N2 for Nova Lake. The source of the rumor is flimsy, however. Well-known reporter Charlie Demerjian of SemiAccurate reported in July 2025 that Intel taped out a major product. The report didn’t mention what product, what foundry, or even include “TSMC” anywhere on the page. Still, other outlets took the story, claiming that not only was Demerjian talking about Nova Lake, but also that he was talking about TSMC N2.

There are reasons Intel could use TSMC for the logic die. The company has reiterated that it’s shifting wafer capacity toward the data center, so if TSMC can fill additional capacity on the desktop, we could see TSMC on the main logic die. It’s also possible that TSMC is manufacturing other tiles on Nova Lake. Intel has consistently blended nodes in recent generations, so even if Intel were to confirm that it’s tapping TSMC for Nova Lake, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Taiwanese giant is manufacturing logic.

And, just as easily, Intel could absolutely be using TSMC for logic. That’s the point here; we really don’t know at this point, outside of vague reporting, getting swept up in the rumor mill, and taking on a life of its own. The Cinderella story for Intel would be Nova Lake on 18A, but given the struggles on 18A yields, it wouldn’t be surprising to see TSMC at the helm for Nova Lake once again.

Hurry up and wait

Intel needs a much more aggressive roadmap on the desktop than AMD, frankly, and that roadmap is starting to take shape. Although AMD and Intel compete on the finer points of performance, Team Red has almost exclusively taken market share away from Intel, quarter over quarter, for the past decade. There are only a handful of quarters in that time when AMD has lost market share, which it has always rebounded from in the quarter that follows.

Even if Intel still represents the majority of the desktop market — and it does based on the latest market research — the trend is abundantly clear. Add on top of that clear fumbles like Arrow Lake, and it’s obvious that AMD doesn’t need to move the needle much to continue swiping customers. Intel needs to make big moves to recover.

We should have more official details about those plans soon. Intel mostly sat Computex out on the consumer front, short of the Arc G3 range that, although exciting for gaming handhelds, is destined to be a niche product given the high prices of the devices those chips are going in.

For the past four years, Intel has held its Tech Tour event in the fall, taking the place of its previous Architecture Day, which took place in the late summer (most of those details have shifted to the Hot Chips conference in August). Intel has already told us that Hot Chips will have more details about Diamond Rapids, Intel’s next-gen P-core Xeons. That leaves Tech Tour for when we’ll likely get a full architectural deep dive on Nova Lake. Intel has yet to confirm Tech Tour 2026, but we have no reason to believe the company will sit out the rest of the year at this point. It also lines up with what we’re hearing about Nova Lake’s release — architectural details in the fall, a launch at CES 2027, and availability in Q1.

Regardless of when the exact dates fall, Computex made it clear that Intel is readying Nova Lake for a release soon. Multiple motherboard vendors brought Z990 motherboards to Computex and actively showed them to the press; I can’t imagine that was sanctioned by Intel.

As for Raptor Lake Next, Computex is the first quasi-confirmation we’ve heard of the range. That name apparently appears on Intel’s roadmap at some point in the first half of next year. With Nova Lake at the high-end and Raptor Lake Next in the midrange, Intel might have a one-two punch strategy to earn back some spots in the market, especially as AMD turns its Zen 6 focus toward the data center and prioritizes older architectures on desktop, given high DDR5 prices. Now, we just need to wait and see how those internal plans materialize as the rest of the year goes on.

We managed to grab pics of the newest upcoming server sockets from both AMD and Intel at Computex 2026. Both AMD and Intel are preparing to launch their next-generation server platforms that use all-new sockets, which enable new levels of performance, functionality, and power delivery.

AMD is a bit ahead with its SP7 platform in 2026, while Intel’s gargantuan 9324-pin socket will be used for Xeon ‘Diamond Rapids’ in 2027. While the platforms are entirely different, what makes them similar is the massive dimensions of CPU sockets and coolers.

AMD’s SP7 is the company’s next-generation socket that will support AMD’s 6^th Generation EPYC ‘Venice’ processors with up to 256 cores. The socket is huge and is rumored to support 16 DDR6 memory channels using 12.8 GT/s MRDIMMs as well as up to 96 PCIe 6.0 lanes (with the CXL protocol on top, though this is a processor, not a socket feature).

Based on information from Auras, the SP7 socket will be able to handle CPUs with a peak power consumption of up to 1,400W, so Auras and other companies are prepping liquid cooling solutions for these parts. In person, the socket is strikingly large, occupying most of my palm and overshadowing today’s server CPU packages.

Given the fact that the socket must support so many memory channels and PCIe lanes, it is not surprising that it is that large. Despite its enormous dimensions, the socket is still compact enough to enable dual-socket server designs, so AMD’s partners will be able to offer systems with up to 512 x86 cores as soon as its next-generation EPYC processors arrive later this year.

Meanwhile, for those systems that do not need so many cores and memory channels, AMD is prepping the SP8 platform that is set to offer fewer cores and DDR5 channels. Interestingly, Auras is working on water blocks for SP8 sockets as well, which means that the platform will still be quite mighty in terms of power consumption.

But while AMD’s SP7 is huge, Intel’s 9324-pin socket easily dwarfs it, as it is noticeably longer than the palm of my hand. The socket will work with Intel’s Xeon ‘Diamond Rapids’ processors with up to 192 cores, a 16-channel DDR5 memory subsystem supporting MRDIMMs, and PCIe Gen6 lanes.

Intel is yet to announce the processor base power of Diamond Rapids processors, though, since Auras is prepping water blocks for these CPUs, we're talking about circa 300W – 500W PBP and over 1 kW peak power consumption. Meanwhile, given that the socket is so massive, we would not be surprised if Intel’s 9324-pin socket will also support the Coral Rapids processors, presumably due in 2028 – 2029.

A Reddit user has demonstrated that SteamOS, Valve's Arch-based gaming operating system built around AMD silicon, can boot and run on an Intel Arc B580 discrete graphics card. Posting in the r/SteamOS subreddit as SaperPL, they documented the feat this week, pairing the Arc B580 with a Ryzen 5 5600 processor and getting Valve's full gaming-mode interface running on the card. The catch is that reaching that point took a Radeon card, a workaround for a broken installer, and a motherboard setting that nearly sank performance along the way.

The opening exists because recent SteamOS beta builds quietly widened hardware coverage. Valve's changelog for the beta cites improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms, language clearly aimed at the wave of Intel-powered handhelds rather than desktop Arc cards. However, because the underlying Linux graphics driver is shared, the same Mesa stack that targets Intel handheld chips also recognizes a desktop Arc GPU. SaperPL's system reported the card as Mesa Intel Arc B580 Graphics (BMG G21) on Mesa 26.1.2, running SteamOS 3.9.

Getting there was not exactly plug-and-play. According to the post, newer SteamOS images that supposedly already include Intel Arc support failed during setup. These images did not boot into the older live desktop-style installer with install, update, and recovery options. Instead, they started installing directly to the drive, then failed when the system tried to connect to the network and pull its first update. SaperPL says the same problem occurred even when testing with a Radeon RX 9060 XT, suggesting the issue was not limited to the Arc B580 itself.

The workaround was suitably PC-gaming messy. SaperPL installed an older “repair-main” SteamOS build using the Radeon card, pulled the required updates, and then swapped in the Intel Arc B580. After that, SteamOS booted on the Intel GPU and ran from the Main channel. The poster also noted that users without a spare Radeon card may be able to follow a Steam Community workaround to bypass the installer’s update failure directly, although that still leaves the process firmly in enthusiast territory.

The first performance results were mixed. SaperPL tested 14 games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Helldivers 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Toxic Commando, Hades, Rocket League, and others shown in the SteamOS library screenshot. The interface itself appeared to behave well, with the poster saying the Steam library and store navigation worked smoothly, even while downloads continued in the background. Gamescope also reportedly worked similarly to Radeon, apart from a VRR bug on FreeSync displays with HDR that caused occasional flickering.

Frame rates were another story. Indiana Jones and Toxic Commando were initially barely above 20 FPS at 1080p on the lowest settings, while Helldivers 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Spider-Man: Miles Morales fell far below comparable Windows benchmark videos. The poster’s monitoring suggested the CPU was not the main problem, with the GPU often sitting around 80% to 90% usage while the Ryzen 5 5600 hovered between roughly 30% and 50%.

The biggest culprit turned out to be a familiar one for Intel Arc users: Resizable BAR. SaperPL later updated the post to say that ReBAR had been disabled on the Asus B450 Strix motherboard after a CPU change. Once enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 and Spider-Man appeared to perform as expected, while Indiana Jones and Toxic Commando improved significantly, though still not fully matching Windows reference results.

That detail matters because Intel Arc GPUs are unusually sensitive to Resizable BAR. Without it, the CPU cannot efficiently access the GPU’s full memory space, which can lead to severe performance drops. In this case, it made the difference between “SteamOS on Arc is broken” and “SteamOS on Arc is early, but actually running.” Even on Windows, leaving ReBAR off will severely impact Arc performance.

Commenters also pointed to another likely limitation: kernel support. Intel’s Arc drivers on Linux have improved considerably, but the newest performance work often depends on recent kernel and Mesa versions. If SteamOS’ Main channel is still behind the very latest Linux graphics stack, Arc performance may remain below what the same card can do under Windows or faster-moving Linux distributions.

For now, this is more proof of concept than a consumer-ready feature. Valve has not turned SteamOS into a general desktop gaming OS with clean support for every GPU, and the install path shown here is still too awkward for normal users. But the result is interesting. SteamOS running on an Intel Arc B580 suggests Valve's hardware net is widening, whether intentionally for desktop GPUs or indirectly through work on Intel-powered handhelds.

That could matter for future SteamOS machines. AMD remains the obvious fit for Valve’s gaming hardware today, but Intel has been pushing harder on Linux graphics support, and low-profile Arc cards could become attractive for small living-room builds if the driver stack matures.

Yesterday, we broke news of a third Raptor Lake refresh in the works from Intel, dubbed "Raptor Lake Next." Following that, new leaks have emerged from reliable tipster Jaykihn confirming the codename and detailing the upcoming family. Raptor Lake Next is slated for early 2027 and will land on the LGA 1700 socket as reported previously, but some outlets say it will also retain the existing Core 200 branding.

According to the rumors, Raptor Lake Next doesn't use Bartlett Lake silicon, which is Intel's special lineup for edge and embedded devices with only P-cores. That means a 12 P-core SKU has been ruled out for now, and that Raptor Lake Next will stick to the usual hybrid config. It's expected to scale across mobile and desktop with up to 125W parts and HX models as well, but it won't bring any new notable features.

Essentially, we're looking at rebranded 14th Gen CPUs that are likely being re-released because of their high yields. Intel spent a considerable amount of time and effort fixing the stability issues with 13th and 14th Gen families, so it makes sense the company wants to maximize its returns here. The Core-i9 14900K is still the most performant gaming CPU Intel has ever released, so calling this leftover silicon doesn't feel right either.

Jaykihn also provided further specs for the Raptor Lake Next, claiming it will only spread across Core 3, Core 5, and Core 7; no Core 9 SKUs in sight at the moment. At the top sits a Core 7 part with 8 P-cores and 12 E-cores, totaling out to 20 cores rated at 65W, same as the Core i7-14700. Then there's a 16-core 125W processor, which is identical to the Core i7-13700K, but it's counted as "Core 5" for Raptor Lake Next.

There's a special 10-core 65W part with 24MB of L3 cache because the previous 10-core silicon only had 20MB. It looks like the cache from disabled core clusters will still be accessible in certain Raptor Lake Next SKUs, and this might become a trend going forward. Lastly, we have a Core 3 CPU with 4 P-cores and no E-cores, running at 65W as well. Since all these chips are based on Raptor Lake silicon, they use Raptor Cove P-cores and Gracemont E-cores.

Keep in mind that RTL and RTL-R both came with Intel HD 700 series integrated graphics; the new Arc Xe architecture debuted with Arrow Lake on desktop. Nonetheless, Raptor Lake Next will work with DDR4 memory because it uses the LGA 1700 platform. That could help alleviate at least some of the burden of building a PC today as DDR5 RAM doesn't seem to be getting cheaper anytime soon.

Raptor Lake Next is apparently going into production in January 2027 so it could be available in Q1 2027, coexisting with Nova Lake as perhaps the value-focused option from the Blue Team. All rumors point toward Nova Lake being delayed to next year, but officially we still expect an announcement later this year. Regardless, the two families sure look like they'll overlap, which is why the Core 200 vs Core 400 distinction would be important for consumers.

Google has placed an order for Intel to build more than 3 million of its TPUs in 2028 after months of testing Intel's advanced packaging, according to The Information, citing four people familiar with the matter. They claim that Nvidia is evaluating Intel to build a future processor that fuses four GPU dies into one unit, tied to its Feynman architecture due in 2028, and that SK hynix is testing whether its high-bandwidth memory works reliably with Intel's packaging.

Specifically, SK hynix needs to know whether Intel can run packaging to the standard that AI accelerators demand. TSMC’s CoWoS is the industry-standard process for it and has been oversubscribed for more than two years. Intel’s embedded multi-die interconnect bridge, or EMIB, is the only alternative AI chip makers can realistically qualify at volume before the end of the decade.

This isn’t a first for Intel: Google and Amazon were reported to be in active discussions for their custom AI processors back in April, but the remarks from these sources move those “discussions” to a solid unit figure and production timeline, adding in SK hynix qualification that would ultimately determine whether any of it reaches Nvidia accelerators.

CoWoS bottlenecked

TSMC's leading-edge wafer lines and its CoWoS packaging are both at capacity. At the company's annual shareholders' meeting in Hsinchu on June 4th, CEO C.C. Wei said, "It will be a long time before we can meet customer demand," telling shareholders that the company simply can’t satisfy American customer demand for years, even as it builds out U.S. capacity. He had already told the Semiconductor Industry Association last November that TSMC's advanced-node capacity falls "about three times short" of demand.

The queue for CoWoS is concentrated across a handful of buyers. Nvidia is naturally expected to account for the majority of global CoWoS demand — about 60% this year — with Broadcom and AMD absorbing another 26% between them, leaving custom-ASIC designers and smaller AI-chip makers waiting behind the largest GPU order book in the industry. But the industry can’t wait, and both these smaller players and hyperscalers alike with multimillion-unit roadmaps need to qualify a second packaging solution rather than wait for capacity that TSMC says will be short for years.

As for EMIB vs. CoWoS, they solve the same problem in opposite ways. CoWoS mounts every die on a large silicon interposer that all signals and power must cross, and the interposer scales with package size, so reticle-class designs waste silicon at the edges. EMIB, meanwhile, embeds small silicon bridges in the organic substrate only where two dies need to connect, with no interposer at all. Intel cites package utilization near 90% EMIB against roughly 60% for interposer-class packaging, because small bridges tile efficiently while large interposers don’t.

Bernstein analysts estimate EMIB packaging costs a few hundred dollars per chip against $900 to $1,000 for CoWoS on a Rubin-class processor, though the firm flags the fact that there’s a “lack of an external production track record” in that estimate. As always, there’s a trade-off: standard EMIB routes power around the bridge through the substrate in long, resistive paths. That might have been acceptable for Sapphire Rapids and Ponte Vecchio, but not for HBM4-class accelerators that draw more current.

EMIB-T closes that gap by adding through-silicon vias to the bridge die for vertical power delivery, and it’s set to enter production fab rollout this year. Intel has said EMIB-T supports HBM3, HBM3E, HBM4, and future HBM5 stacks and scales to a 120mm x 180mm package carrying more than 38 bridges and over 12 reticle-sized dies. Jaguar Shores, the successor to the canceled Falcon Shores accelerator, is the likely first product to use it.

Gated by SK?

Working with SK hynix could be a huge boon for Intel, with the qualification of its packaging by the South Korean memory giant potentially deciding whether it reaches flagship AI silicon or not. SK held a 57% share of HBM revenue in Q4 2025 per Counterpoint Research, and UBS expects it to take roughly 70% of the HBM4 supplied for Nvidia's Rubin platform this year.

HBM stacks are themselves a packaging problem: multiple memory dies bonded vertically through TSVs, then mounted next to a host processor with tight tolerances on power and thermal behavior. Validating those stacks on EMIB rather than a CoWoS interposer is the test of whether Intel can package memory to the standard Nvidia and Google require.

An official thumbs-up from SK, or an HBM-4-on-EMIB-T production result, would convert Intel’s packaging from “tested” to “trusted.” But, until (or if) that happens, the split between accelerator types will remain: ASIC designers running lower memory bandwidth, including Google and Meta, can adopt EMIB sooner, while bandwidth-bound GPUs stay on CoWoS longer.

Intel still needs to prove EMIB

No named external AI customer is in EMIB or Foveros volume production today. Intel runs EMIB in its own server CPUs, including the 18A Clearwater Forest part whose 17-tile package uses 12 bridges, but every specifically named outside engagement so far, including Google’s order, points at 2027 or 2028 products or remains an evaluation.

Intel Foundry lost $10.3 billion on $17.8 billion of revenue in 2025, and in Q1 2026, the division posted $5.4 billion in revenue against a $2.4 billion operating loss, with external customers accounting for just $174 million of the total. CFO David Zinsner told the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in March that the foundry is close to closing deals worth "billions per year in terms of revenue" on advanced packaging alone, against a pipeline he had earlier measured in the hundreds of millions.

Another unknown is process yields: Intel uses 18A, its first node with gate-all-around transistors and backside power, for Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest, an internal proving ground before courting outside logic customers. However, Intel's most recent guidance is that yields are improving 7 to 8 percent each month, accelerated by enhanced cooperation with external partners.

Intel is broadening support for its Binary Optimization Tool, or iBOT, with seven new games. Across the newly-supported titles, Intel claims an average performance jump of 12%, and increases as high as 27%. To unlock support for the new games, you'll need the latest Intel Platform Performance Package. Then, you'll be able to select the games under the Advanced tab in the Intel Application Optimization GUI.

We originally saw iBOT roll out with Arrow Lake Refresh chips like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, but the feature works on Panther Lake chips, as well as Intel's latest HX mobile chips, Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. Older Intel CPUs can't use iBOT due to hardware registers Intel must tap into for optimization. However, Intel says it plans on supporting the feature on future CPUs.

Intel initially rolled out iBOT with support for 12 games, which has now expanded to 19 titles. In our iBOT testing, we found that the feature offered an 8% average performance improvement, with the feature climbing as high as an 18% improvement in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Here are the games Intel added with the latest update:

• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• The Callisto Protocol
• Homeworld 3
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Little Nightmares III
• Warframe
• Hollow Knight: Silksong

Across the seven new games, Intel claims an average performance improvement of 12% with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. Intel tested at 1080p with High settings, and it used 32GB of DDR5-7200 memory and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090.

At the higher-end of the spectrum, Intel saw a 27% jump in Hollow Knight: Silksong and 16% improvement in Warframe. On the other end, Metro Exodus showed just a 2% uplift, while The Callisto Protocol jumped by 8%.

Intel's approach with iBOT might seem a bit scattershot, with 19 games now supported and no clear pattern between them. There are some popular and widely-played titles, such as Warframe and Cyberpunk 2077, but also less-demanding games like Silksong and older titles that don't see much play these games, like The Callisto Protocol. Even as the list expands, this strange mix is likely to stick around.

That's due to how iBOT works. It's essentially a translation layer, not dissimilar from Microsoft Prism. However, Intel isn't translating instructions from one ISA to another. Instead, it's optimizing x86 applications to ensure they're using the latest, most efficient instructions. Intel does this optimization with Hardware Profile-Guided Optimizations, or HWPGO, tapping into the silicon to see what's going on while code is executing. Once Intel has its optimizations, it packages them into a profile and ships.

Although iBOT is a unique feature, it's not universally applicable. Some games (and applications, as iBOT works outside of games) are already optimized enough that iBOT provides no benefit. We've also seen performance differences between chips, even between the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. It would be interesting to see how the feature works on more constrained chips, such as Panther Lake.

Probably the most important processor in PC history was introduced on this day 48 years ago. June 8, 1978, marked the birth of the x86 architecture with the arrival of the 16-bit Intel 8086 CPU. This lineage continues to the majority of PCs today, almost half a century later. Ironically, this chip and its x86 architecture, the result of 18 months of R&D, was meant only as a stopgap because Intel’s complex, clean-sheet 32-bit iAPX 432 project was delayed.

The Intel 8086 was designed by a team of four engineers and 12 layout people led by Stephen P. Morse. Reports indicate that the impetus behind this project was to provide a practical, timely alternative to upcoming 16-bit Motorola and Zilog CPU designs. The fabled 8086 processor was only meant as a stopgap, as Intel had bitten off a bit more than it could chew with the iAPX 432 project, begun a year prior. As a side note, the 432 finally shipped in 1981 and was deemed too expensive, too complex, and fatally too slow when it arrived.

The 8086, the founding CPU in the x86 lineage, was marketed as Intel’s first 16-bit processor. It benefited from a degree of backwards compatibility with prior Intel 8-bit designs like the 8008, 8080, and 8085. Notable advancements over its predecessors included microcode for multiply and divide assembly language instructions.

Looking closer at the hardware tech specs, the Intel 8086 had around 20,000 transistors (29,277 including ROM and PLA) and was manufactured using Intel’s HMOS (High performance MOS) manufacturing process, originally developed for manufacturing fast static RAM products. The resulting 40-pin chip measured 33mm², and the minimum feature size was 3.2μm. Over its lifetime, it was released in clock speeds ranging from 5 to 10 MHz.

While the Intel 8086 founded the x86 architecture, the subsequent 8088 design (1979) would become the beating heart of the first IBM PC (1981) and that particular storied lineage.

Direct 8086 successors like the 80286, 80386, and 80486 would spearhead the Wintel alliance and establish the PC compatible as the default choice for productivity, home computing, and computer gaming enthusiasts until being sidelined by the Pentium CPU (also x86) from the mid-90s onwards.

Intel released its Core i7-8086K 40th anniversary chip in 2018. What next?

To celebrate 40 years since the original 8086, Intel launched the Core i7-8086K 40^th anniversary chip in 2018. It looks like a pretty safe bet that we should get another tribute in 2028, marking the half-century anniversary. What will we get for the 50^th? Something that embodies the fun and enthusiastic side of PCs, we hope.

Also, it will be interesting to see if Arm processors begin to impinge upon the dominant x86 designs from the likes of Intel and AMD in the Windows PC market in the next couple of years. We’ve had Windows-on-Arm efforts from Qualcomm and Mediatek try to usurp x86 with muted success.

At the recent Computex 2026 there was a lot of buzz about Nvidia’s RTX Spark Superchip, a powerful new Arm platform designed to transform Windows 11 into an agentic AI operating system. Looking back two years from now, will Nvidia and its partners have started to turn the tide against x86?

Intel just launched its Core 300 series of mobile CPUs, also known as Wildcat Lake, for the budget segment a couple of months ago. But rumors for a next-gen refresh are already surfacing, with the latest one claiming that it will be a noticeable upgrade. Reliable tipster Jaykihn has just suggested that the Wildcat Lake refresh due next year will move to an 8-core config, up from the 6-cores that Wildcat Lake has right now.

The post you can expand above says "4+0+4," in reference to a rumored Wildcat Lake Refresh chip with 4 P-cores, 0 E-cores, and 4 LP-E cores, totaling out to 8 cores. Wildcat Lake today also has 4 LP-E cores but only 2 P-cores, so we're looking at a doubling in this aspect, and that should translate to real-world performance improvements. Keep in mind that these are Cougar Cove P-cores along with Darkmont-based LP-E cores, borrowed from Panther Lake silicon.

After all, Wildcat Lake is essentially just a cost-efficient and downsized version of Panther Lake that has an infused, monolithic CPU+GPU tile instead of separate chiplets bonded together — both are manufactured using Intel's 18A process. Wildcat Lake is, therefore, branded as the "Core 300" series, with the "Ultra" moniker removed to specify its lower-end capabilities.

Just two days ago, a leak from the same insider claimed that a 6-core Nova Lake mobile part was cancelled because that slot would be better filled by the Wildcat Lake refresh instead. Intel likely didn't want the two to overlap, and now that we know about a potential 8-core config, it makes even more sense. Jaykihn also replied, saying that Wildcat Lake refresh will still have 2 Xe3 cores for integrated graphics.

In the replies to the post attached above, Videocardz separately claims the Wildcat Lake refresh would be part of the Core 400 series, but only for the Core 5 and Core 7 SKUs. The lowest-end Core 3 SKUs would still be branded as the Core 300 series, as they will not be getting refreshed. This could mean Intel is trying to target a more upscale audience with its Wildcat Lake refresh, while the cheapest parts remain unchanged.

Intel has published specifications for the Xeon 6377P, a 12-core server processor that pairs enterprise-grade features with clock speeds more commonly associated with high-end desktop CPUs. According to Intel's product database, the chip, based on Bartlett Lake silicon, has a recommended price of $1,045 and is scheduled to launch in Q2 2026. The 6377P is also notable as the first P-core-only processor Intel has placed in its enterprise Xeon lineup.

The Xeon 6377P appears to be an unusual addition to Intel's server lineup. While modern Xeon processors typically emphasize high core counts, large memory capacities, and extensive I/O connectivity, the new chip instead prioritizes frequency, boosting up to 5.7 GHz while maintaining a relatively modest 95W TDP.

Based on the specifications, the chip looks quite different from what most buyers expect from an Xeon. Dual-channel memory, a 128 GB capacity ceiling, 20 PCIe 5.0 lanes, and single-socket-only support are all constraints that would be unremarkable on a workstation processor but stand out on a $1,045 server part.

Intel's Xeon 6 lineup normally spans the high-core-count Granite Rapids P-core parts and the 288-E-core Clearwater Forest and Sierra Forest parts. Dropping a 12-core Bartlett Lake die — basically a desktop CPU with ECC support and a server product code — into this family appears to be a deliberate choice to address single-socket, entry-level server deployments where raw core count matters less than per-core performance and platform familiarity.

One standout number is the 5.7 GHz maximum turbo — unusually high for server silicon, where power efficiency and core density typically dominate the conversation. The 95W TDP — genuinely low for a $1,045 server chip — makes that figure even more impressive.

Now, not every enterprise workload needs dozens of cores. Electronic design automation, CAD, software compilation, financial modeling, and certain industrial control workloads are often bottlenecked by single-threaded or lightly threaded performance. For those use cases, a 5.7 GHz Xeon with ECC memory, PCIe 5.0, platform validation, and guaranteed long-term availability is a more targeted fit than a 64-core EPYC with slower per-core clocks.

On the other hand, the competitive picture is less flattering. AMD's EPYC 4005 series, built on Zen 5, targets the same single-socket entry-level segment at lower price points and with a newer architecture. The earlier EPYC 4004 series topped out at 16 cores on AM5 — more cores than the 6377P at a lower RCP. Intel's counter-argument may be per-core performance and the existing LGA1700 platform ecosystem. However, the chip's AVX2-only instruction set, with no AVX-512 support, may give pause to workloads that can use wider vector operations — a notable omission at this price.

So, why would a buyer choose the 6377P over a Core i9 running on a high-end desktop board? The answer probably lies in what consumer platforms don't offer: certified ECC support, validated system configurations, and the multi-year product lifecycle commitments that enterprise procurement often requires.

Intel has not indicated whether the 6377P will be compatible with existing consumer LGA1700 motherboards, and given its Server/Enterprise use designation, OEM system availability is the more likely path to market.

Intel launched its Xeon 6+ "Clearwater Forest" processors at Computex 2026 in Taipei, and on Monday, two of the individuals responsible for the product sat down with the press to answer questions. Kira Boyko, Product Line Director for E-Core Xeon Products in Intel's Data Center Group, led the session, which was joined partway through by Tim Wilson, Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Data Center Silicon Engineering group.

Across roughly half an hour, the two addressed why Intel stripped hyper-threading out of its E-core server parts and the technical case for bringing it back, the agentic AI demand surge that has left expensive GPU fleets idling while they wait on CPUs, the deliberate decision to ship Clearwater Forest with only AVX2, and 18A supply so tight that allocating chips between customers is "daily, in some cases."

Diamond Rapids, Intel's next P-core Xeon, drew repeated questions, but Intel deferred any detail, with Evangelista pointing reporters to fuller commentary roughly two months out. That timing lines up with Hot Chips, where Intel is expected to share more on Diamond Rapids.

Clearwater Forest spec changes

Clearwater Forest tops out at 288 Darkmont E-cores per socket and 576MB of L3 cache, and is Intel's first data center CPU built on its 18A process.

Kira Boyko: It's our most performant Xeon on the market today, specifically for scale-out workloads, so it's not just a per-watt angle of fossil performance.

Jake Roach, Tom's Hardware: Was that the driving force behind the big spec changes compared to Sierra Forest? Obviously, it's double the core count, but I think there's over five times the amount of L3, and a huge increase in TDP.

Kira Boyko: The TDP is mostly that it is socket-compatible with the version of platform design that we had for Granite [Rapids]-AP before, and that is a higher-TDP product. Our initial E-core part was lower TDP, and this one has roughly the same range as the Granite version, so that's part of the platform-design alignment. But in general, we found that our customers were mostly targeting higher-TDP spaces anyway for the core density they were after, so it ended up working quite well. We already had a design that served those spaces.

Jake Roach: And the L3, was that another workload type?

Kira Boyko: You're right, a little over 5x increase, from the hundreds up to 576-ish [MB].

Jake Roach: If you have the flagship, that's quite a lot of L3.

Diamond Rapids and hyper-threading

On its recent earnings calls, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has said that moving away from simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) "put us at a competitive disadvantage" and that the company will reintroduce it with the Coral Rapids generation, the P-core Xeon that follows Diamond Rapids. Intel's current shipping E-core Xeons, Sierra Forest and Clearwater Forest, run a single thread per core.

Jake Roach: I appreciate that we can't comment on future products, but there was a tease in the press deck for Diamond Rapids. It's a very anticipated product. I want to ask about hyper-threading. During the last two earnings calls, Lip-Bu Tan has referenced that hyper-threading will return with Coral Rapids. We don't currently have a Xeon P-core product without hyper-threading shipping. Does that mean Diamond Rapids does not have hyper-threading?

Andrew Evangelista: We'll comment more on Diamond Rapids [later].

Kira Boyko: I will say that E-core is single-threaded. It has the core density for the workloads it's servicing, and we are not expecting it to be replaced by Diamond Rapids. We're expecting the workloads that need more of the high-performance aspect of a P-core to go from Granite to Diamond, whereas the more scalar workloads for E-core will stick on Clearwater Forest, continue to be serviced through this next generation, and then pick up with the generation after that.

Andrew Evangelista: I think it was your question that prompted us to talk about Diamond Rapids in general. More to come.

Kira Boyko: The only thing I can really say from a Diamond perspective is AET, the new feature we're introducing on Clearwater Forest. That is expected to roll out across all of our Xeons going forward, so you can expect to see it on Diamond and future ones as well. What the roadmap looks like from a feature perspective gen to gen, I don't have any level of detail for today. But it is definitely being introduced in Clearwater. We have a number of customers deploying it on Clearwater, and others who are more classic P-core customers, with different workloads, running proof-of-concepts on Clearwater so they can hit the ground running with Diamond.

Jake Roach: I had to ask.

Kira Boyko: You're like, "That's not what I wanted, I wanted way more detail."

Jake Roach: There are a lot of articles that have been written saying it's confirmed Diamond does not have hyper-threading, and I haven't been able to find that confirmation anywhere.

Kira Boyko: There's a lot out there on Diamond that is all over the place. There are statements about [unclear] variants, and just a lot of rumors.

Andrew Evangelista: We'll have more official commentary to come, and that's what folks are anticipating. We understand there's excitement, and we'll share more [in two months].

Agentic AI and CPU demand

Journalist 2: What are customers telling you about this agentic AI wave, how they're dealing with it, and how Intel plays into that going forward?

Kira Boyko: Customers are just starting to understand their own AI deployment models, and a lot of them still aren't quite there yet. Many started by investing in GPUs and are now realizing they don't have the CPU counterparts to actually keep those GPUs going. So they made this huge investment, and they're running at something like 20% to 30%, something quite low. They're understanding that there's this space where certain workloads can be offloaded to more efficient CPUs, and that's exciting from a Xeon 6+ standpoint. Others are still going to be partnering with their providers, looking at industry white papers to understand how to best use their AI strategy.

Journalist 2: Just as an outside observer, it seemed like CPU demand was going, and then November and December happened, and everything got sold out instantly. What percent of current demand is agentic-AI-driven versus prior? I'm trying to get a sense of what it is now, and what it's going to be like six to nine months from now. It seems like a paradigm shift happened, and we're going to be riding this trend for several quarters at least.

Kira Boyko: I think we are. I think we're also going to see quite a bit of data center modernization and consolidation, looking at what workloads are already out there that can be consolidated onto CPUs. Some maybe are designed for agentic, maybe aren't, but are more storage-oriented, or workloads that can be serviced just fine on something that isn't super intense. So you can get a little more performance and energy back, and then use that to service some of their AI workloads as well.

Application Energy Telemetry

AET, or Application Energy Telemetry, is a Clearwater Forest feature that gives operators application-level visibility into energy use, which Intel says can be used both to tune workloads and to bill customers on measured rather than estimated consumption.

Jake Roach: You mentioned AET, and I know that's a really big thing with this launch. Is there any connective tissue with what we saw with Arrow Lake Refresh on the consumer front? AET is taking information from actual registers in the silicon. There's hardware on the chips doing it. Similarly, with iBot on Arrow Lake Refresh, it was hardware-enabled, where you could get these readouts running workloads and see where they could optimize. Is there any connective tissue there, or are these completely separate?

Kira Boyko: We can get back to you on whether there's some collaboration. Usually our teams are very separate, but it's very possible there is some, so we'll find out. My understanding is that this is highly customer-driven. Sometimes we leverage existing technologies.

Jake Roach: This is more to satiate my own curiosity.

Andrew Evangelista: Let me grab Tim for a second to answer that, because that's a silicon-engineering-level question. He's worked on both client and enterprise.

Jake Roach: Yeah, just because you're using Darkmont, there's at least a capability there.

Kira Boyko: Touché. Moving on to the next generation, which is not an E-core, it'll still be there as well. So even if there was some synergy, it would be moving forward to a different core base.

Andrew Evangelista: Circling back on two questions. One was similarities related to Arrow Lake.

Jake Roach: Basically, the hooks in Arrow Lake Refresh for iBot to optimize that translation. Are those hardware hooks something you're looking at? Is there any connective tissue there today?

Tim Wilson: I haven't looked at Arrow Lake in quite a while. To first order, I'd say fundamentally no, they're different use cases. Are we leveraging some of the same telemetry capability built into the hardware? It wouldn't surprise me.

SMT removal and its return

Intel split its Xeon 6 line into P-core parts with hyper-threading, such as Granite Rapids, and E-core parts without it, beginning with Sierra Forest.

Andrew Evangelista: The question on the decision for SMT and hyper-threading.

Journalist 2: Just why it was taken out, what the thinking behind that was. Was it a security thing?

Tim Wilson: I have a lot of my own personal thoughts. If you step back to the data center a couple of years ago, the thesis was that what matters is maximum core performance and then core density in the socket. So if I can deliver maximum core performance and increase the number of cores in the socket, do I really need [SMT]? One or two physical cores are always better than two virtual cores built on one physical core. I fully expect we will see use cases and workloads where that decision is incredibly useful and valuable and gives real-world value, and we've heard from some customers that, for what they're doing, single-threaded is the right answer. Having said that, there's a big portion of work that is still very much multi-threaded, especially in the virtualized space, so completely eliminating it is a problem, because we cut off some not-insignificant portion of workloads, especially when you're in a virtualized, licensed environment where licensing is based on cores and threads. So there was a technical reason for why you'd want [SMT], and that technical reason probably still holds. [...]

Journalist 2: Like a VMware thing, with a big price on cores. How are you going to market versus your main rivals, like AMD, and now Nvidia? What's the messaging going forward? From 18A to what's next, you'll be much better on the node side.

Tim Wilson: Our intention is to have leadership products with every generation, and we fully intend to do that going forward. Our go-to-market strategy is to sit down with customers and ask what they value, then go build leadership that meets those needs. With all our data center customers, we have deep discussions around the personality of the platform they want to build, beyond just cores and feeds and speeds. What is the system balance, the memory-to-compute ratio? How are they viewing multi-socket versus single-socket? What's the right number of cores for their workloads, for both private and public workloads, enterprise versus cloud? It's really sitting down in each of those and asking what the markets and customers buying our parts value, and how we optimize our products to meet their needs.

Journalist 2: Is that changing now with this agentic AI demand explosion? Are we going to see CPU racks with agentic AI as the primary use?

Tim Wilson: I'm sure you will, just like we've always built CPU racks. There are principles around CPU design that have always been true and will continue to be true. You want the highest-performance core you can build. Power efficiency is always going to matter as long as we're constrained by the amount of power you can bring inside a building's walls and the heat you can extract from them. Your memory-to-CPU harmonics, how much memory each workload takes, how much you allocate to each core, those are key. We've always designed for those parameters, and the end markets evolve over time.

Agentic AI is now exploding, but what's driving that explosion is not a new type of CPU. It's that the new AI workloads are not one call, one inference, one response. They're complex, execution-driven, multi-task queries that involve tens or hundreds of agents, and suddenly you need a control plane and an orchestrator, tasks the CPU is historically good at. How do I take a complex task and decompose it into subcomponents, figure out which can be parallelized and which depend on each other and need to be serialized, and pass those off to the GPU? I have to map memory to each of those subcomponents, and not all of them want the same memory, and I have to make calls to I/O, and in some cases to the OS or APIs.

Those are all things the control plane and orchestrator, the CPU, does really well. As you move away from a chatbot answer to "go do this analysis and give me a report on the actions I should take," that's a much different query, and the CPU plays a much bigger role. Data centers that have built on GPUs for the last three years are suddenly finding they're bottlenecked by the CPU. They have a massive GPU fleet that costs billions of dollars sitting idle, waiting for the CPU to respond. So do I see a future with agentic AI and CPU racks? Yes, but with characteristics very similar to the sorts of things we've always built into CPU racks. It's exploding because the things the CPU has always done well are the things in demand now.

Journalist 2: It seems like the whole storage infrastructure has to change, too.

Tim Wilson: That comes along with it. There's demand for storage, which drives I/O advancements and connectivity.

18A yield and wafer allocation

Clearwater Forest is a multi-process design: the compute tiles are built on Intel's 18A node, with base tiles on Intel 3 and I/O tiles on Intel 7.

Journalist 2: Questions you probably want to ask but won't answer. 18A yield volume for Xeon 6+, progressing?

Kira Boyko: We're ramping well. We have strong demand throughout the lifetime of the product, and we're working from a capacity standpoint across all of our products to hit customers at the point in time they need most. Compute is 18A, but we also have base on Intel 3 and I/O on Intel 7, so it's a multi-process product. We're mapping demand against all of our other products to figure out where we need to build.

Journalist 2: How do you choose who gets the product in this compute-supply-constrained world? Is it whoever orders first? You're sold out right now.

Tim Wilson: We give as many CPUs to as many people as we can. It tends to be more business decisions than engineering decisions, so it's a combination of long-term deals and customer relationships. The biggest problem is not demand in any way, shape, or form. The biggest problem is how we satisfy demand across every single product. If I have people demanding Xeon 6 and Xeon 6+, and still Xeon 5, how do I balance all of those and match where the supply constraints are in the industry? In some cases, customers are struggling with mismatches. They can get the GPU but not the memory to pair with it, or the memory but not the CPU. There's a lot of matching going on in the industry.

Journalist 2: On the client side, people are demanding even older products because they've already verified them.

Kira Boyko: I've seen that on the data center side, too. They've verified and tested a product, so they want that product. In such a supply-constrained environment, people will buy whatever’s on the table. And 6+ has the benefit of some backward-compatibility elements, the socket compatibility, and again, using processes that are hardened on previous products, so we can mix and match in some cases. We have customers looking for multiple products on multiple processes, and it's working with them to understand exactly what they critically need, when, and how we best service that across all their orders.

Jake Roach: If I'm remembering correctly, it was the earnings call before the most recent one, where we talked about wafer allocation split between client and data center, with a greater emphasis on wafers going toward the data center. Is that still the plan?

Tim Wilson: That's definitely the plan, and we're always having those conversations. That's more of a foundry conversation than a product conversation. [...] The whole ecosystem is sucking up all the wafers and memory, whether it's client, automotive, or any of the other industries. AI data center tends to take the supply because they're willing to pay the most, and the rest of the industries can't pay the price until supply balances out. We saw a similar effect during COVID, though that was supply-chain-driven rather than demand-driven. Those trade-offs, Gen 5 versus Gen 6 versus Gen 7, are a weekly conversation.

Kira Boyko: Daily, in some cases, on CPU allocations. [...] Given the dynamic space, our customers are modifying on a regular basis. Can we shift? What do they really need, and when? If you're asking long-term whether we'll stay in these constraints, we do see a space where things will lighten up. It's not in the immediate timeframe.

Journalist 2: Dave talked about multi-year hyperscaler contracts. What's the latest on that? Are deals getting signed, and are you getting more requests for those kinds of contracts?

Tim Wilson: I doubt either of us is the right person, by the way. They don't trust us with a lot of that information.

Journalist 2: You're not talking with data center customers on the purchase side?

Kira Boyko: We're not in the contract negotiation.

Tim Wilson: There's a principle here. If you mix commercial negotiations in with the technical discussions, it doesn't work out well, so you generally try to separate them. You let the finance people argue over pricing and contracts, and let the engineers figure out the best products to build together. When you're talking with product-side engineers, we don't have a lot of that information, and even if we did, we probably couldn't tell you.

Journalist 2: What percentage of Intel's data center revenue is hyperscaler?

Tim Wilson: You can go look at our earnings.

[Session ends]

Intel’s Arc G3 chips are gunning for the AMD-dominated, high-tier integrated graphics market that has become such an important enabler of the modern handheld PC gaming experience. But as high-memory prices push up the costs of even entry-level discrete GPUs, there could be much more of a place for powerful onboard graphics in the PC gaming landscape in the years to come.

We sat down with Intel’s Senior Director of Product Management, Nish Neelalojanan, in Taipei, Taiwan, at Computex 2026 to talk more about the G3’s development and how it fits into Intel’s lineup. Here, we're presenting the full transcript of our conversation.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jake Roach, Tom's Hardware: So what was the idea behind the G3, because you guys have tried before, right? I believe it was with MSI? And now you’re putting a bigger emphasis behind it with a whole new branding.

Nish Neelalojanan, Director of Product Management, Intel: It was a combination of two things. So first of all, we started trying already with Meteor Lake, and yes, we were experimenting. This was all standard off-the-shelf parts, and we learned a lot as we came into Lunar Lake. The power management for handheld needed to be more customized, so we started tweaking further, and as we got into Panther Lake, the architecture lent itself to lower power gaming. We moved the E-Cores onto the performance cluster, so you have E-Cores both on your efficiency island and your performance cluster, that means your E-Cores have access to L3 cache, so E-Cores are now performant enough to run games.

A lot of the time, in a low-power scenario, you are more GPU-bound than CPU-bound because the GPU is power starved, so if you can reduce the power on CPU and dump it on the GPU, you'll get much better performance. So, with that architecture change with Panther Lake, now is the perfect time. All the goodness we've learned, we can capitalize on it. We have a silicon architecture, we can lend itself to low power, and we have big enough graphics now…

Jake Roach: A really impressive iGPU.

Nish Neelalojanan: So, that is what had the impetus on, hey, what if we did a CPU line, which is graphics first, or leading with a very big graphics, but small enough CPU that doesn't grab enough power, but good enough to run all your handheld games. It's great for handheld gaming or non-PC form factor, running low-power gaming. So we wanted to start a line of products, which would be integrated graphics forward, with the right CPU.

Jake Roach: And these are wholly unique entries, right? If I remember correctly, there's no 14-core Panther Lake.

Nish Neelalojanan: These are completely unique chips. So they are based off the same die, but we've optimized it with, like I said, core count, so that taking two P-Cores off, because most of the games are going to run on the E-Cores on the performance cluster, you also cut down on different I/Os, so you don't need as many ports on a handheld as you would need on a laptop, right, so you cut down, so it's cutting down all the things you don't need.

Jake Roach: Really focusing it on that form factor.

Nish Neelalojanan: Yeah, that will be on the hardware, and then software-wise, we have a lot of other software optimization. So, now in order to have them pinned onto the E-Core, we have a BIOS control optimizer, so extra ways to have your thread director direct your game threads onto your E-Cores.

It's basically making sure we are directing the game threads onto the E-Core. [We also have the] ability to do power gating, so that we have features like endurance gaming, which we had on the laptops. Now, for handheld, we've added some features, so you can go with different presets. You can say, I want 60 frames per second, and then it will optimize your profile accordingly, or I want 30 frames per second. So you have a frame cap, and then your SOC resourcing is optimized, so that you will increase your battery life 2, 3, 4, hours.

Jake Roach: Battery life is so important for a handheld, right? I was playing a little Forza Horizon 6 on the plane coming over, and one way that I'm doing that right now on Linux is with Lossless Scaling, with frame generation in any game. As you're saying, apply that 30 fps cap frame generation to the mix, and you can get really good perceived performance.

Right now, you guys have multi-frame generation through XeSS 3 through specific games, but there's no driver. Is that something you're looking into, given how important that can be for the local gaming experience?

Nish Neelalojanan: So, 100 plus games have already enabled MFG, but you could imagine, as you said, it's important. So we're exploring, but as we get closer, we'll talk more about when and where it intercepts.

Jake Roach: The other thing I did want to ask about was form factors, which is something you kind of hinted at. Right now, with component prices being so high on just a typical DIY PC, we're seeing a really big push for budget laptops for people that maybe don't need as big of graphics and handhelds for people that really care about gaming as a laptop replacement. I'm just curious, kind of broadly, what you think about the dynamics between these form factors? Is this something that is just a temporary market connection, given that prices are so expensive, and are you planning around that, or is it something more long-term? Where do you think these are going to be the preferred form factors?

Nish Neelalojanan: I think, from a budget-conscious perspective of value buyers, our core 300 series, I think probably this is the first time in a long time the mainstream is getting some of the new ideas, right? So, today if you take a value-conscious segment in the past, it was always, hey, you have the big innovation, which we launched, it gets waterfall down. But as the innovation started getting expensive more and more, that waterfall did not happen, it was basically take the old chip, do some minor updates. So we wanted to take all these new like battery life performance uplifts, and you know, having the new AI updates, all of that, but to be able to be affordable, that's what is Wildcat Lake, or Core 300 series. So that's kind of for the budget-conscious buyer, we wanted to make sure we put some new IPs out there, because I don't think anyone is putting that out.

So that's part A. Part B of your question is handheld as a form factor. I think handheld as a form factor is interesting. Different people are trying to do multipurpose use, so would it ever go from companion to main? TBD. But can it expand its use cases from, hey, can I have a handheld, can I have a docked experience? I think long-term, yes. Currently, the software interfaces and a lot of the, let's say, ecosystem around it needs to evolve for it to be meaningful, but there's a lot of experimentation around dock experiences and stuff, which we are working with partners to experiment, but as it stands, I think handheld alone as it's gaming first.

A lot of our partners are experimenting; they're having all those capabilities available. How can you dock, how can you connect keyboard and mouse directly, and then be able to do it, because, like you said, costs are going up. If someone buys this, they want to be maximizing it.

Arrow Lake refresh's positioning

Jake Roach You touched on Wildcat Lake in the mobile segment, and recently we had Arrow Lake refresh, which was a really big readjustment in pricing. In particular, I'm just kind of curious to get more color on that, because when I reviewed those chips, I the expectations, I was briefed on them, and I was like, I know what to expect, but it was a very different Intel than I was used to working with on the desktop run.

Nish Neelalojanan: Short answer would be, we wanted to make sure we are putting out things which gamers would care about and show that we care about gamers, so this was an attempt or step one in getting to that expectation, right? And then obviously same thing with handhelds, making sure we are putting something which the gamers would want, so that's the highest level.

Jake Roach: I mean, again, seeing the results, we've essentially made the original Arrow Lake line outside of a few chips, irrelevant with these two chips. The 270K Plus scales above 285k and 250K can go toe to toe with either the Core Seven or Five.

Nish Neelalojanan: That’s a good thing, right?

Jake Roach: That is a good thing, but it's a good thing for us. It is not a good thing for Intel, right? Like, internally, that undermines your own product. And so I'm curious about the decision there, because at some point you had to have had pushback on, hey, this $300 Core 7 is going to undermine our $600 Core 9 flagship.

Nish Neelalojanan: It was just a decision made with end users in mind, and we want to make sure we are providing value as we come out, and if at all we need to start somewhere, right? And in terms of desktop, that was an effort to let's go with value focus first, and that will help us then gain confidence. From an enthusiast perspective, we needed to build back our reputation. I am sure you would agree with that, and this was, we’re making sure we are providing value to the gamers, and we start with Arrow Lake Refresh, and we have a very strong roadmap to come, so we want to continue.

Jake Roach: It did seem like an appetizer, almost, given you know everything that happened with Arrow Lake, and yeah, I appreciate you wearing that a little bit, because those were again, they were very interesting parts for a number of reasons.

Nish Neelalojanan: Savior [Kim, Intel Director of Client Communications] can correct me if I said something I shouldn't, but that was kind of highest level.

Leaving Hyper-threading behind

Jake Roach: Another question I had; This is more on the mobile side of things, or SoC side of things, is around hyper threading. So I have this question for the Xeon folks that I'm meeting with later today, because there have been comments in the financial reports, comments about returning hyper threading to the data center, whole lot of stuff around that on the consumer side of things. You guys left hyper threading behind with Arrow Lake. I'm wondering now that we have a desktop generation, a mobile generation under your belt. What do you see with that move to get rid of hyper-threading? And is there any consideration for maybe going back to some form of SMT in the future?

Nish Neelalojanan: Highest level, our decisions are always are we getting the right level of performance. The best way to achieve that performance is what we want to go with. Like you said before, with Arrow Lake Refresh, you're not only getting the right game performance at the right price point, but you're also getting almost 2x multi-threaded performance compared to competition, right? So, if you can deliver that without SMT, though the end user, it doesn't matter to the end user. In fact, you're actually getting even better multi-threaded performance because they're actual physical codes versus virtual threads, right? So that's where I would leave it at. We always reevaluate, but it's the best way to give that level of performance in that given price band or that given SKU. So we continue to keep re-evaluating, and different segments may need different things.

Jake Roach: Right now it sounds like it's working out well?

Nish Neelalojanan: Yeah, and like in terms of all the different agentic AI workloads, you need CPU as an orchestrator, having nth number of threads, cleaning up data, lining up a memory, a lot of threads help. So, like I said, when there is utility, and when there is a need, we will constantly evaluate it's, it's rigid to say, oh, it's behind us, or it's rigid to say, oh, we are going to run towards it: If it makes sense, it makes sense, yes. That’s where the data center decision is. They talk more about the growing workload, there is a need.

Jake Roach: It has been interesting. We're coming up at Tom's Hardware on 30 years, and we did a retrospective on CPUs, so I went back to the very first Pentium Two review on Tom's Hardware, and seeing the hyper-threading, and how it was used over decades, it was really fascinating to look at.

Nish Neelalojanan: A lot of the low-power segments, like now, handheld, yes? Those eight E-Cores on that performance cluster are significantly helping with all the low-power gaming, right? So, a lot of these decisions are paying off as it stands. As the workload evolves, as we evolve into different architectures, we will have to evaluate based on at that time what would be the right decision. Okay.

Jake Roach: For years now, Intel Foundry has laid out a really aggressive foundry roadmap. We saw 18A first and now we finally have 18A in data center with Xeon Six Plus. Is that the kind of the cadence we should expect going forward for Intel's cutting-edge hooks to see them debut first on the consumer front?

Nish Neelalojanan: It's the same answer I said before wherever it makes sense first. So we've got especially a lot of our consumer client CPUs, we pick the right process node, which made sense for the right tile, especially now we have multi-chip solution. It gives us the flexibility to pick and choose the right process node for cost, readiness, optimizing for R&D, because sometimes you won't have that IP on a different process, so it's easier to just reuse it, based on availability. Sometimes it's costing some bigger tiles, you can put it on latest and get it to get performance. Some of the tiles where you don't need to push frequency as much, you put it on an older node. And now with all the supply in and around the industry, picking the right process nodes, which is more available, is also going to be important. So we always go through all of these considerations and pick and choose, so there is no settling on client will start data center will follow, vice versa. It's we pick the right process choice based on that architecture, for that side.

Reacting to Nvidia's RTX Spark

Jake Roach: I want to get your reaction to [Nvidia’s RTX Spark]. If you need any better reminder that Twitter is not real life, there's a lot of talk on Twitter that Nvidia entering this market completely decimates and it rules everything. I don't think that's true, but I want to see your reaction to Nvidia getting into that space.

Nish Neelalojanan: I mean, Nvidia puts out great products, and they know how to do gaming. They know how to do all these different things. So we always take everything with a healthy dose of paranoia, but we are also very, very confident with our products, in the sense that X86… Let me put it this way, when we entered this discrete graphics business, our graphics business, it took a painful few years for us to work through all the drivers, all the compatibility issues, and everything ironed out, same thing goes on when an ARM CPU enters a market that's going to be tons of compatibility DRM issues, backward compatibility As a result, we are very confident that we have the right CPU, GPU mix for clients, both for gaming and when it comes to what you call AI inference workloads.

That said, Nvidia is a great partner. We will continue to work with them. You saw some of our announcements. We have some longer-term commitments with them, so both of us have different parts of the roadmap that we will expand together, where there'll be a roadmap where we will be partnering, and where there might be places where we will be competing, but I think it's great for the industry that there is different choices.

Jake Roach: I know, it's a weird situation, especially for Intel, because you guys, you guys do work with Nvidia. Yeah, when I pose similar questions to the other guys, they, they're a little bit more fiery in their responses.

Nish Neelalojanan: Compatibility is going to be a key thing there. x86 on the CPU side is going to have a lot of advantages. We talked about some of the new instruction sets, which got announced by the x86 Consortium, a lot of those lend itself as much to gaming as much as AI, and you'll see a lot of that being talked about more.

A lot of it were agentic AI examples and stuff, because you have to say AI three times before you can talk about anything else, but they also help with gaming significantly, so yeah, it doubles the amount of registers, which you would execute one instruction, so it's based off of AVX, but there’s a few others which came out with it.

The health of the consumer PC market

Jake Roach: Finally I want your reaction more broadly to the PC market right now, because we have all the rising component prices, we have very expensive laptops. On the desktop, it's really, really hard to build a PC right now. I think motherboard sales are down some 30-40% I know you're releasing products to address that market between Wildcat Lake and Arrow Lake pretty refresh, but I kind of want to see your reaction to how that pans out over the next maybe three to five years. Is it a continual area of focus, or is it something that hopefully we're just dealing with over the next few years, where we're really focusing on the budget segment?

Nish Neelalojanan: Large memory is completely overshadowing any CPU prices, right? Memory and storage. The CPU is not anymore determining your system price point, and when you're paying that amount, people will obviously start upgrading. Now, that said, there are still Panther Lake systems you can get below $1,500 out there, right? It's going to be dependent on OEM. It's going to be dependent on markets, and even the Wildcat Lake, they'll announce a $599 starting price point. Yeah, so there are definitely designs which are coming at comparatively reasonable price points, which are available, and longer term, I think something has to give right. The over inflation, we will have to keep an eye, but if I could predict the memory market, I would be rich in stock!

Jake Roach: Let me phrase the question a little bit better, because are you making plans for a longer term, a longer term squeeze on the consumer front, because surely you're going to have to make those plans if you see the headwinds going that way.

Nish Neelalojanan: We do have products with support for DDR4 both on desktop and mobile, so Raptor Lake, you're not end of life in any of them, they're there. We'll continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies if they're available and cheap. Second thing is, we are making sure we are validating lower configs as well. Wildcat Lake starts at 8GB, Wildcat Lake is a single channel product, so there are products which can leverage with low memory and give reasonably good performance, so we are doing everything we can from our perspective to be able to help in any small way. But like I said, when CPU becomes the least relevant from an overall BOM (Bill of Materials) perspective, because it's so expensive. Then we also have CPUs you can buy out into that.

Jake Roach: Speaking of memory, I don't know if you had any involvement with half ranked? Is that what they call them, half ranked DIMMs from ASRock? It was with ASRock and Intel.

Nish Neelalojanan: I am not familiar with that, but we are working with a lot of indigenous memory suppliers to validate them, so we’re doing everything we can in terms of it's not just one, two, or three. If there are some local specific memory vendors, but like in PRC, and now Indonesia is even bringing up a couple of them. We're trying to validate as much as we can, so there's enough choice that people can get pockets of relief. Right? We are looking at UFS for a longer-term horizon, so that every little thing helps, right?

Jake Roach: Absolutely. I appreciate you taking the time and talking over everything. I'm very excited to see the G3 chips in action. I saw them yesterday at the Acer showcase, and I played a little bit of Forza Horizon 6, and these are pretty good.

Nish Neelalojanan: With G3 at least we're putting out some latest and greatest stuff, and in terms of a lot of these, it's not necessarily exclusive. We're broadly available, the 12 Xe on the PC side, and on the handheld, it's not like limited to one OEM. Unlike some people who hold it back, just only give it to one OEM.

Jake Roach: So all these handhelds, I believe all the ones that announced are all Windows-based handhelds. Is there consideration for Linux? How much consideration or weight do you put on that, given things like Steam OS proper?

Nish Neelalojanan: So highest level stuff we announced now is Windows based, but you can take those devices and install… and I'm sure you would imagine we would continuously want to make sure that those experiences are reasonable for end users, and we are, we would talk more about as we get closer to something, but we are exploring beyond Windows, and as we get closer, we'll talk more about.

[Session ends]

Intel recognizes the memory squeeze that’s been a plague on the PC market for the past several months. While highlighting options like Wildcat Lake and older Raptor Lake options, Intel’s Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of product management for Intel’s Client Computing Group, sat down with Tom’s Hardware at Computex 2026 to discuss the company’s outlook on the computing market, ranging from Nvidia’s recent RTX Spark announcement to ongoing memory shortages, saying “something has to give” with the latter.

“Longer term, I think something has to give, right? The over-inflation, we will have to keep an eye out,” Neelalojanan told me. “But if I could predict the memory market, I would be rich in stock.”

I asked Neelalojanan more specifically if Intel was planning around memory shortages and making any adjustments to its strategy going forward. And the answer, surprisingly, is yes, though not in the way you might expect. Neelalojanan pointed to Raptor Lake and Wildcat Lake as products that address memory shortages currently, and said that the company will continue to support products on older memory standards as long as it makes sense.

“We do have products that support DDR4 on both desktop and mobile. Raptor Lake, we’re not end-of-life-ing any of them; they’re there. We’ll continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies if they’re available and cheap,” Neelalojanan told me. “Second thing is, we are making sure we are validating lower configs [for Wildcat Lake] as well. Wildcat Lake starts at 8GB. Wildcat Lake is a single-channel product, so there are products which can leverage low memory and give reasonably good performance.”

Wildcat Lake, and entry-level laptop designs more broadly, have been a big focus of Computex. Presumably in response to the MacBook Neo, Intel, of course, has its Wildcat Lake options, but Qualcomm is targeting that market, as well, with its new Snapdragon C chips. AMD doesn’t have a product targeting this market of sub-$600 laptops quite yet, but we plan on asking the company about its plans this week at Computex.

We’ve seen a shift toward cheaper options on the desktop, as well. AMD just reintroduced the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and launched the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, two CPUs that use older architectures. Under normal circumstances, they’d be unamusing at best. Under current circumstances, they’re putting components into a market that’s begging for them.

“Large memory is completely overshadowing any CPU prices, right, memory and storage… CPU is not any more determining your system price point,” Neelalojanan said. “We are working with a lot of indigenous memory suppliers and validating them, so we’re doing everything we can… it’s not just one, two or three. If there are local-specific memory vendors, like in [China] and now Indonesia is even bringing up a couple of them. We’re trying to validate as much as we can so there’s enough choice that people can get pockets of relief.”

Intel didn’t, however, say that it’s reintroducing any products along the lines of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition. At the moment, it seems Intel is focused more on supporting DDR4-based options and keeping them on the market, at least until the memory squeeze loosens its grip.

It is day three of Computex here in Taipei! With most of the big-name keynotes out of the way, we're traversing the show floor non-stop to bring you the latest, greatest, and weirdest from all your favorite hardware vendors.

Computex 2026: Headlines so far

• Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra weilds Nvidia's RTX Spark superchip with 128GB of RAM
• Nvidia lays out RTX Spark roadmap for laptops and desktop PCs at Computex 2026
• Nvidia unveils RTX Spark Superchip for laptops and desktop PCs at Computex 2026
• Intel details long-awaited Crescent Island AI GPU at Computex, boasts up to 480 GB of LPDDR5X
• Intel Xeon 7 ‘Diamond Rapids’ CPUs officially launching in 2027 on Intel 18A-P
• Intel Xeon 6+ ‘Clearwater Forest’ puts 18A in the data center with up to 288 cores
• AMD’s formerly China-exclusive Radeon RX 9070 GRE goes global for $549 on June 2
• AMD confirms AM5 support through 2029
• AMD brings back Ryzen 7 5800X3D, launches Ryzen 7 7700X3D
• Dell XPS 13 targets MacBook Neo with Intel's Wildcat Lake
• Alienware debuts 39, 34-inch OLED gaming monitors

Computex 2026: Live updates

Well, good morning, and a very (very) warm (and humid) welcome to our Computex 2026 live blog. Stephen from the UK here to see you through the first few hours of Monday. As mentioned, it has already been a jam-packed first day!

There's really nothing like Taipei during Computex:

Nvidia enters the laptop and desktop market

If you're just joining us, then welcome. It is evening in Taiwan and there's a lot happening. Headlines from the first day of Computex include Nvidia's incursion into the desktop PC and laptop market by way of its new RTX Spark Superchip. RTX Spark is a Windows on Arm platform for laptops, which Nvidia claims is the most efficient every built. Top-spec chips offer 20 Arm CPU cores, a Blackwell GPU with 6144 CUDA cores, 128GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 300 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

• Nvidia unveils RTX Spark Superchip for laptops and desktop PCs at Computex 2026

Surface Laptop Ultra

One of the first companies to get behind Nvidia's new RTX Spark, understandably, is Microsoft. The company has unveiled a new Surface Laptop Ultra, effectively its own version of the MacBook Pro. It features a 20-core CPU, Blackwell GPU, 128GB of unified RAM, and more. That's housed in a 15-inch chassis with a mini-LED display, replete with HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, and an SD card reader.

• Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra weilds Nvidia's RTX Spark superchip with 128GB of RAM, 20 Arm CPU cores, and a Blackwell GPU

Intel Crescent Island

Somewhat overshadowed by Nvidia, Intel has unveiled its new Crescent Island AI GPU, featuring up to 480GB of LPDDR5X memory. The data center GPU is "built for agentic AI," is built on Intel's Xe3P architecture, but details about raw specs are scant at this stage.

• Intel details long-awaited Crescent Island AI GPU at Computex, boasts up to 480 GB of LPDDR5X to combat memory shortages

Radeon RX 9070 GRE

AMD's China-exclusive Radeon RX 9070 GRE is going global, with a $549 price tag when it launches on June 2. This GPU sits right between the 9060 XT and the RX 9070, and you'll be able to catch benchmarks on Tom's Hardware very soon.

• AMD’s formerly China-exclusive Radeon RX 9070 GRE goes global for $549 on June 2

Jake is hungry!

"You ever get to the end of the day and realize you haven't eaten a thing." A quick look behind the scenes at Tom's Hardware, where CPU analyst Jake Roach has just realised that he hasn't eaten anything today. It's 8pm.

AM5 lives on

After previously only committing to supporting its AM5 platform through 2027, the company this week confirmed that it is actually going to support AM5 through 2029, with both Zen 4 and Zen 5 likely to see two further generations of CPU release. It's unclear if this is 2029 will mark the end of the line for AM5.

• AMD confirms AM5 support through 2029

The return of a legend

AMD has announced it will bring back its legendary Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and is also launching a Ryzen 7 7700X3D to fight the rising price of PC building. The latter is a downclocked version of the 7800X3D for AM5 platforms, but the real headline is the 5800X3D, which supports DDR4 RAM and, in theory, should give users a more affordable way to build a potent gaming PC on AM4.

• AMD brings back Ryzen 7 5800X3D, launches Ryzen 7 7700X3D to combat rising component prices

Dell comes after the MacBook Neo

This $699 XPS 13 laptop built around Intel's Wildcat Lake platform is the company's answer to the popular MacBook Neo. Featuring between 8-32GB of RAM, a 13.4-inch display, and up to 1TB of storage, it comes with either the Intel Core 5 320 or an upcoming Intel Core Ultra 7 355 variant.

• Dell XPS 13 targets MacBook Neo with Intel's Wildcat Lake — $699 starting price, $599 for students

DLSS 4.5

Nvidia has confirmed that DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, an advanced denoiser for better ray-tracing and path-tracing image quality when it releases later this year. Nvidia says it can process 35% more input data and uses 20% more paramaters using the same compute budget as the previous-generation.

• DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction update arrives in August for better ray tracing visuals — broader training data set and second-gen transformer architecture combine for improved image quality

Qualcomm hands on

Qualcomm's new $300 and up ARM laptops come with a mystery eight-core CPU and active cooling. Rocking the new Snapdragon C chip, our very own Paul Alcorn made a discovery that perplexed even the Qualcomm representative on the floor...

• We went hands-on with Qualcomm's new '$300 and up' ARM laptop platform with mystery eight-core CPU — active-cooled Snapdragon C laptop surfaces in Acer Aspire Go 15

A big EXPO boost

AMD is launching a new automatic memory overclocking feature. EXPO Ultra Low Latency promises a 13% uplift in performance compared to standard DDR5 JEDEC speeds, and a 4% uplift over existing EXPO.

• AMD promises 13% uplift with new EXPO ‘Ultra Low Latency’ overclocking on DDR5 DIMMs — automatic memory overclocking delivers 4% improvement over standard EXPO, says AMD

Intel not resting on its laurels

Speaking to Tom's Hardware in response to news about Nvidia's RTX Spark, Intel says it treats all such developments with "a healthy does of paranoia," but touted the virtues of x86, warning of compatibility, DRM, and other issues that inevitably follow Arm CPUs entering the market.

• Intel warns it has 'a healthy dose of paranoia' over Nvidia entrance into PC market — company says RTX Spark is 'great for the market' while touting the virtues of x86

Supermicro makes an appearance

Computex isn't all about consumer hardware, with plenty of B2B and industrial hardware on display too. We got a look at Supermicro's new Vera Rubin NVL72 rack, replete with a new type of cooling that the company says offers 1,000 times higher electrical impedance than standard.

• Supermicro shows off Vera Rubin NVL72 rack with all-new type of coolant — company claims coolant offers 1,000 times higher electrical impedance over standard cooling

A staggering 5090 from Asus

To celebrate 20 years of its ROG brand, Asus has unveiled a monster new ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20, which includes a wraparound AMOLED display. There's also a 3,000W power supply, a new NUC, a PC case, peripherals, a gaming chair, and more.

• Asus' monstrous ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 includes expansive curved AMOLED display — also debuts 3,000W power supply and striking PC case

See what happened at the show before the show

Computex starts before the show floor opens. While it's nighttime in Taipei, you can still take a look at everything we saw early with our Day Zero Wrap Up.

You'll learn more about chips from Intel and AMD, monitors from Acer and Alienware, and, of course, learn a ton about Nvidia's RTX Spark system on a chip.

That should hold you over until the show floor doors open and we get into even more of the nitty-gritty.

Read: Computex 2026 Day Zero Wrap-Up: Nvidia launches RTX Spark Superchip assault on laptop and desktop markets, Intel readies Xeon 6+

Vincent van Gogh, on a laptop

MSI is taking its Prestige 14 Flip AI+ and putting some prestige art on it. The company says the laptops are "inspired by The Starry Night and Starry Night Over the Rhône". That language makes it unclear if they're exact duplicates of the paintings, but either way, they don't look like anything else we've seen lately.

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 finally brings an OLED screen

Among the many twentieth-anniversary branded Asus ROG gadgets the brand is releasing is a new version of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

The ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle includes an updated version of the handheld, with a clear shell, OLED display, TMR joysticks, and a transforming D-Pad with four and eight-way movement. It still has the same AMD Z2 Extreme processor as its predecessor.

ROG XREAL R1 Edition 20 Gaming AR Glasses, with a 171-inch, 240 Hz virtual display at 4 meters.

No pricing information is available just yet.

Who ISN'T having a milestone anniversary?

Lots of companies and brands at Computex seem to have started in years that end with 6.

• Asus ROG has a 20th anniversary product line
• MSI is celebrating 40 years, marked by the Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Draco Epic laptop (pictured above).
• Gigabyte marked 40 years at the end of May, and is celebrating with its Infinity Design lanauage, including a GPU with rounded edges.

So consider this your reminder to at least get a card for your or a loved one's anniversary. Clearly everyone is celebrating.

How Intel is reacting to RTX Spark

With Nvidia's RTX Spark announced, CPU manufacturers are sizing up the field.

When we sat down with Tom’s sat down with Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of product management for Intel’s Client Computing Group, he told us how Intel is reacting:

“Nvidia puts out great products, right? And they know how to do gaming, they know how to do all these different things. So we always take everything with a healthy dose of paranoia, but we are also very, very confident with our products." He also pointed out Arm chips for Windows have typically had compatibility issues.

Read more: Intel warns it has 'a healthy dose of paranoia' over Nvidia entrance into PC market — company says RTX Spark is 'great for the market' while touting the virtues of x86

An 18-inch laptop for the rest of us

Usually, an 18-inch laptop is a massive workstation or gaming rig. But at Computex, Acer has an 18-inch system, the Aspire 18 AI designed for everyday use. Above, it's pictured next to a 16-inch PC.

That 18-inch screen has just a 1920 x 1200 resolution, but for people who turn up the font size to read (no shame in it!), it may still help. The refresh rate tops out at 165 Hz.

Specs include a CPU up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H, up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, up to 2TB of SSD storage, and Wi-Fi 7 support. Acer claims 22 hours of battery life. And hey, there's room, so you get a number pad.

Like much of what we're seeing at Computex, we don't have a price. But if you've been jonesing for a big screen without a discrete GPU, it is on the way.

AMD had to reengineer the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for a rerelease

AMD's David McAfee shared the story behind the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and why it took so long to come to market. Apparently, AMD had plans to bring back the chip earlier, but the silicon bonding process TSMC had previously used was no longer available, McAfee says. That led to some additional development time in order to get the CPU into shape, which happened to line up with the 10th anniversary of the AM4 socket. - Jake Roach

Get ready for Intel's Computex keynote

Intel's CEO Lip-Bu Tan is set to take the stage at Computex in just under an hour, and we expect about a 45-minute keynote from the executive, followed by a Q&A session that Tom's Hardware is attending. Although we've already seen most of Intel's announcements, ranging from the G3 Extreme Range to a Diamond Rapids tease, it's possible Tan could drop some hints about next-gen Nova Lake chips during the keynote. - Jake Roach

• Watch Intel's Computex 2026 keynote here — CEO Lip-Bu Tan takes the stage in Taipei at 10:30pm PT on June 1

Intel's 3D V-Cache competitor?

Tom's Hardware attended a Q&A session with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, as well as a panel of executives, including Alex Katouzian, a Qualcomm veteran who recently joined Intel's ranks. We asked Intel about its supposed 3D V-Cache competitor, rumored to be called bLCC or Big Last Level Cache, and Katouzian shared the following:

"When I first came in and started reviewing road maps for the team, I was very pleasantly surprised. So, stay tuned, a very strong roadmap coming, and we will be gunning for that section of the market as well. And so, please stay tuned," Katouzian told Tom's Hardware.

Phison has demoed its future PCIe 6.0 SSD controller in the past, but the earlier displays last year merely showed the chip on a large development. Development of the new X3 controller has obviously moved forward well, as the company had two reference SSDs on display in its booth here at Computex.

Phison says these new SSDs deliver up to 28 GB/s of sequential read/write throughput and an incredible 6.8 million IOPS, easily beating anything available on the market. Stay tuned for our full write up.

Stephen checking in

Well a very good morning from day 2 of Computex! Stephen here to see you through the next few hours.

Timing is everything!

Computex is just like comedy, timing is very important! Coordinating a team around the globe is pretty hectic, so here's some insight into how tricky it can be. It's 10:24am in the UK, but our team on the ground in Taipei have already been at it all day, where it's currently 5:24pm. Of course, our U.S. readership and staff are just waking up. Lots of companies are still working in Eastern or even Pacific time too. A lot of plates in the air.

Snapdragon makes an appearance

We haven't heard too much from Qualcomm this week, with Nvidia dominating the headlines thanks to RTX Spark. However, this Asus Ascent QN10 is a nifty new Mini PC with Snapdragon X2 Elite, which QC claims is the world's first to deliver 80 TOPS through its NPU.

Noctua's latest cooling efforts

For those who want to squeeze every last drop of power and temperature optimization from their CPU, Noctua has announced new thermal pads for AMD chips. Made in partnership with Carbice, these pads are for AM4 and AM5 Ryzen CPUs and are made from carbon nanotubes to improve thermal conductivity.

• Noctua announces new thermal pad for AMD chips in partnership with Carbice — product will work with processors in AM5 and AM4 sockets

Gigabyte's latest and greatest monitors

Gigabyte has unveiled a new series of Aorus Elite gaming monitors. Ranging in size from 27 to 32 inches, three of them feature fourth-generation Tandem WOLED technology for improved color and brightness. The fourth is a mini-LED monitor.

• Gigabyte debuts fourth-gen Tandem WOLED and multi-mode Mini LED gaming monitors — 27 to 32 inches, up to 480 Hz, and up to 5K resolution

Asus’ ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 hands on

Asus is going big to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Republic of Gamers brand. Alongside a monster RTX 5090 and a 3,000W PSU, there are new peripherals including this Asus ROG HArpe II Edition 20 gaming mouse. It features a gold logo and scroll wheel, as well as gold accents. A little garish for some tastes, it'll cost an eye-watering $259.99.

• Hands-on with Asus’ ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 gaming mouse – 24K gold and a 65K sensor

Relive Intel's keynote

Intel held its Computex keynote overnight, with CEO Lip-Bu Tan taking to the stage. You can relive the keynote below!

The latest in cooling from Frore

Frore has been showing off its latest in solid-state cooling tech. Its AirJet Mini is out here cooling Intel's Wildcat Lake laptop reference design. With 15W of sustained power and just 11.3 mm in total thickness, could it give the MacBook Neo a run for its money?

• Frore System’s solid-state AirJet Mini cools Intel’s Wildcat Lake laptop reference design – 15W of sustained, fanless cooling helps MacBook Neo competitor reach a svelte 11.3 mm, remain silent

Take our quiz!

'The single most important tool of humanity'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the company wants to 'reinvent the single most important tool of humanity' with its new RTX Spark. The company unveiled its new chip for desktops and laptops at the start of this week.

• Jensen Huang says Nvidia wants to 'reinvent the single most important tool of humanity' with RTX Spark — Nvidia CEO touts support of 'literally every computer maker in the world' for its agentic AI PC platform

Favorite Computex announcement so far?

Cooler Master's MasterDimm

Unveiled ahead of Computex, this Cooler Master MasterDimm is a collaboration with G.SKILL that brings active cooling to DDR5 RAM. No word on just how big those sticks are yet...

New from Gigabyte

Gigabyte is another vendor celebrating a major anniversary at Computex, specifically 40 years in the game. There's new motherboards, GPUs, and a monster 1,600W power supply.

• Gigabyte showcases new Infinity products for its 40th anniversary — X870 Infinity Next halo motherboard boasts metal 3D-printed elements, Aero Wood goes dark, MicroATX Stealth boards, Infinity-style GPUs extend down the product stack

Phison shows off its new controller

Down at Phison, we took a look at its new PCIe 6.0 SSD controller, the X3. The company touts sequential speeds of up to 28 GB/s and 6.8 million IOPS in random read/write workloads. There were also benchmarks on display for a new DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Get the details here:

• Phison shows PCIe 6.0 X3 SSD controller with 28 GB/s of bandwidth and 6.8 million IOPS, supports 2 petabytes per drive— also new power-sipping E37T SSDs for PCIe 5.0 systems consume a mere 4.5W

You don't know the HAF of it

More from Cooler Master, where we took a look at the company's new cases, fans, and coolers. The new HAF500 case supports up to E-ATX motherboards, dual-GPU setups, and plenty of cooling.

Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro Edition 20 gets decked out in black and gold

Asus just launched the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro Edition 20, the 20th-anniversary edition of its existing ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro. The overall design of the new router is identical, but the stealth black look is now accentuated with gold trimmings. You can even see gold plating beneath the clear plastic window on top of the router, along with a 20th anniversary badge finished in gold.

While you can expect the same blazing performance as the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro, the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro Edition 20 also includes an exclusive Signature Edition 20 web interface for configuring the router.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ joins the growing number of handheld gaming PCs

There's a new competitor to take on the likes of the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Legion Go 2. The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is a fresh entry using a 14-core Intel Arc G3 Extreme CPU and an Arc B390 GPU. The handheld can also be decked out with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.

The design looks somewhat unorthodox, with the 8-inch 1080p IPS display jutting well below the flanking controllers. The display is spec'd for a 120 Hz refresh rate and maxes out at 500 nits. Rounding out the main features is an 80 WHr battery inside the 1.3-pound package.

Best Buy already has a product page for the Claw 8 EX AI+ on its website, listing the 32GB/1TB configuration at $1,699.99. However, the handheld is only shown as "coming soon" rather than being available for preorder.

Asus ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro will be among the first Wi-Fi 8 routers on the market

If you want to be on the bleeding edge in wireless networking, you won't have to wait much longer for Wi-Fi 8 routers. The first Wi-Fi 8 router coming from Asus will be the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro, which is a gaming router aimed at the high end of the market.

We must caution that Wi-Fi 8 routers won't result in another huge leap in theoretical performance over existing Wi-Fi 7 routers. Instead, optimizations with the standard will make it so that real world performance and range will far exceed what's possible with current hardware. We should also see even longer range for IoT devices, epecially those sitting at the far reaches of the coverage for your home router.

The ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro will also include a wide range of LAN/WAN ports, including two 10 GbE ports and four 2.5 GbE ports.

• Asus unveils its first Wi-Fi 8 router — ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro offers up to 2x real-world throughput uplift over Wi-Fi 7

We go hands-on with the Acer Predator Atlas 8 Arc G3 gaming handheld

Last week, we brought you news that Acer was working on a Predator Atlas 8 gaming handheld. Well, we got a chance to get a hands-on with the device at Computex, and it's quite impressive.

The Predator Atlas 8 uses Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme processors paired with an Arc B370 or B390 iGPU. Systems come with an 8-inch 1200p 120 Hz variable-refresh-rate display rated for up to 500 nits of brightness. An 80 WHr battery should help extend your gaming runtime, and Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 are included in the mix.

At 1.79 pounds, the Predator Atlas 8 slots in between the Legion Go and the Steam Deck OLED in weight.

Intel's Xeon 6+ in the flesh

We stopped by Intel's demo suite, and the company had a Xeon 6+ chip, along with a wafer, hanging on the wall. This is Intel's first time using 18A in the data center, with Xeon 6+ now sporting up to 288 Darkmont E-cores. You can learn more about it in our Xeon 6+ write-up and go behind the scenes with our Xeon 6+ interview transcript on Tom's Hardware Premium.

Day 3

Good morning and welcome to day three of Computex! I say day 3, but as we've explained before timing is tricky here. In Taiwan day three is almost over, but for our global audiences in places like the UK and U.S., it's just beginning! - Stephen Warwick

Some highlights from Acer

We dropped by Acer to see what the company has to offer at Computex this year. We saw the new Acer Swift Spin 14 AI tablet, the new Predator Atlas 8, and more!

Jensen will sign anything

Everyone knows that if you see Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at Computex, chances are he'll sign something for you. How about this epic Nvidia GTX 1080Ti Founders Edition?

Noctua's AIO in all its glory

We've been hearing a lot about Noctua's entry into the AIO market for some time. The company is back at Computex 2026 and has finally revealed specs, pricing, and release date. Coming on June 16, pricing should be around $250 (It is listed at 220 euros), with more expensive 360mm and 420mm options available. The NL-LC1 features Asetek's Emma V2 pump and NF-A12/14 fans.

• Noctua's first-ever AIO features a silenced Asetek Emma V2 pump and NF-A12/14 fans — 240mm NL-LC1 starts at around $250, could cost $325 for 420mm cooler

The first 8K ultra-wideband gaming keyboard

Cherry's gaming branch Cherry XTRFY has unveiled the first 8K ultra-wideband gaming keyboard at Computex. With a 70% layout, the technology should be more reliable than 2.4GHz wireless. That means a more stable connection that is less vulnerable to interference from other wireless devices.

• Cherry XTRFY launches first 8K ultra-wideband gaming keyboard — featuring more compact 70-percent layout

Corsair's new mouse feat. Stream Deck

New from Corsair is this Nightsword v2 Wireless SD Stream Deck gaming mouse. Striking name aside, you can map its buttons to Stream Deck features, eight in all, so that you can control streaming functions without taking your hand off the mouse. It's a similar philisophy to the Scimitar Elite Wireless SE. However, the Nightsword also comes with a unique dedicated Stream Deck Launch button.

• Corsair shows off gaming mouse with dedicated Stream Deck launch button — wireless mouse also gets almost 50 hours of 8K battery life

New from NZXT

We stopped by NZXT to see what's news. The company showed off new RGB fans, cases, and more.

Counterfeit DRAM

Tom's Hardware spoke to G.Skill and V-Color at Computex. The latter confirmed to us that it has seen an influx of counterfeit DRAM hitting markets in China, to the extent that it is negatively impacting sales.

• Counterfeit G.Skill and V-Color DDR5 modules hit Chinese marketplaces, impacting company sales — cheap contraband memory using identical PCBs and heat spreaders almost impossible to spot

A long day for Jensen

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is one of the main attractions at Computex, and is often mobbed wherever he goes, shutting down booths or even entire floors here in Taipei. Here he is enjoying some brief respite at the Gigabyte booth with a beer and some barbecue.

Taipei drone show

The evening skies in Taipei lit up with a drone show to celebrate Computex, check it out!

Lian Li's new Edge PSUs

Take a look at Lian Li's new Edge Platinum V2 PSUs, equipped with LED dust indicator, magnetic filter, snap-on fan, and a USB header hub. There's also the trademark 90-degree power connector.

The claaaaaaw

The new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is an 8-inch handheld that features a 120 Hz display and new ergonomic grips. Bathed in a striking 'Void Purple' finish, our immediate hands-on yielded some impressive performance.

• MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ brings Intel Arc G3 Extreme to handhelds — 8-inch, 120 Hz display and new ergonomic grips

AMD reacts to Nvidia RTX Spark

AMD is acting confident in the face of Nvidia's new RTX Spark announcements.

"I’m really excited that Nvidia has joined the game. You know, we were the only game in town for almost two years now, and the large local memory is becoming super critical in the agentic AI [workloads],” said AMD’s Rahul Tikoo, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s client business. at Computex “I'm actually happy to see Nvidia join the race for these great products.

Comparing the specs, he suggested that "Gorgon Halo, which is coming out in Q3, is going to be a better product.”

We'll see how these platforms shake out later this year.

Read more: AMD executives react to Nvidia’s RTX Spark — ‘you’re just wrong if you don’t get a Strix Halo notebook’

Sizing up the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Neo

Which of these systems is thicker? Trick question: both are half an inch thick. At Computex, our own Jake Roach saw the two together at Dell's booth.

The Neo's bottom is thicker, while Dell's is a bit more equal. And the XPS has a slightly rounded bottom, making it appear slightly thinner than Apple's blockier design style. But both list the exact same height, and the spec sheets are identical.

The XPS, however, is lighter than the MacBook Neo, at 2.2 pounds, compared the Apple's 2.7 pounds.

See all of the photos in the gallery above.

MSI adds an internal SSD slot to its flagship Wi-Fi 7 router

Wi-Fi 8 is just around the corner, but there’s still plenty of life left in the Wi-Fi 7 standard. MSI is proving that with a new flagship Wi-Fi 7 router called the RadiX BE19000. At first glance, the RadiX BE19000 looks like any other high-end gaming router, complete with eight antennas that give it an arachnid-like appearance.

However, the RadiX BE19000 hides a secret within — it features a PCIe SSD slot, making the router what MSI calls “NAS Lite.” You can add your own M.2 SSD to enable PC backups or simply to share files across your network.

You still get all the usual trimmings, like tri-band Wi-Fi, dual 10 GbE ports, and four 2.5 GbE ports. In addition, MSI says that the RadiX BE19000 is compatible with its proprietary mesh standard, allowing you to expand your network with compatible routers and access points.

Read more: MSI unveils latest set of WiFi 7 gaming routers touting ultra-fast speeds — flagship RadiX BE19000 model comes with a built-in SSD slot for 'NAS Lite' experience and wireless speeds up to 19 Gbps

Do your science homework

We talked a bit about Noctua's new AIO cooler in this live blog, but one thing we didn't mention: just how much homework they show. The company is ready to defend its doctoral thesis.

If you're ever at Computex, need to rest and do some not-so-light reading to explain what a thermosiphon or a flooded condenser is, Noctua has your back. You can see some of it in the gallery above, and believe me, that is just some of it.

Here ends Computex

Good morning folks, Stephen here to announce that we are signing off our Computex coverage for 2026. At least, our live correspondence from the floor. There's still plenty of news and insight to come from our conversations, but we'll be winding up this live blog soon. It'll remain on the site so you can look back and trawl through any announcements you may have missed, but thank you for joining us for another great year!

Intel has confirmed several details about its next-generation Xeon 7 CPUs, codenamed Diamond Rapids, which are now officially slated to launch in 2027. Announcing its E-core-only Xeon 6+ chips at Computex, Intel teased that Diamond Rapids will support PCIe 6.0, pack 50% more cores than Xeon 6, and double the memory bandwidth. Intel is building Diamond Rapids chips on the Intel 18A-P node, which is a refined version of 18A that Intel demoed just last month.

Although Intel never formally announced a release window for Xeon 7, we originally expected to see the chips this year – a timeframe that became increasingly unlikely as news about Diamond Rapids dried up. Now, Intel has officially confirmed Diamond Rapids is arriving next year, meaning AMD will have a head start with its next-gen EPYC Venice CPUs built on the Zen 6 architecture, which are still (at the moment) slated for release this year.

Like Venice, Intel has confirmed Diamond Rapids will support PCIe 6.0, as well as double the memory bandwidth of Granite Rapids. Last year, Intel confirmed it canceled an 8-channel memory variant of Diamond Rapids to focus exclusively on the 16-channel design. Granite Rapids-AP (12-channel) topped out at 614 GB/s of memory bandwidth, while Granite Rapids-SP (8-channel) topped out at 409 GB/s. Depending on the comparison point — Intel didn’t clarify — you’re looking at topline memory bandwidth of at least 1.2 TB/s or 818 GB/s, respectively. Second-generation MRDIMM support, however, means that bandwidth could climb to upwards of 1.6 TB/s.

We can do similar math with core counts, looking at the top-end 6980P from Granite Rapid-AP at 128 cores. A 50% increase in core count brings us to 192 cores. Diamond Rapids has been rumored to climb up to 256 cores, with a 512-core dense version planned later. Intel is suggesting those rumors are false, though no hard specifications are confirmed yet.

The big question is what microarchitecture those cores will use, and if they’ll support Hyper-Threading. Intel removed Hyper-Threading from the Lion Cove P-cores in Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, and kept it out of the Cougar Cove P-cores in Panther Lake. Naturally, if Xeon 7 uses either of those P-core microarchitectures, we’d also expect the chips to lack Hyper-Threading. Adding to the speculation were some comments Intel made in its January earnings call, where it said that it “will also reintroduce multi-threading back into our data center road map.”

Recently, however, Intel documents have suggested Diamond Rapids will use Panther Cove, an as-of-yet unreleased microarchitecture. We should know for sure what’s going on under the hood of Diamond Rapids soon. "We expect to share more on Diamond Rapids in the late summer at Hot Chips, so stay tuned there,” an Intel spokesperson shared in a Q&A with Tom’s Hardware.

Perhaps the most significant reveal in this tease is that Diamond Rapids is using Intel 18A-P. We’ve known for a while that the first 18A CPUs in the data center would be Xeon 6+, which Intel has now officially launched. 18A-P is a revision of 18A, but Intel has already demonstrated that it’s quite a significant revision.

Intel claims 18A-P delivers 9% higher performance at the same power as 18A, or an 18% power reduction at the same performance level. Intel says it also improved reliability and tweaked voltage behavior, making 18A-P a much more mature revision of 18A, likely in a bid to attract external customers for Intel Foundry.

Intel is facing off against AMD’s Zen 6 Venice CPUs, which we expect to learn more about at AMD’s Advancing AI event in July. So far, AMD has confirmed that Venice will launch with up to 256 cores, 1.6 TB/s of memory bandwidth per socket, and a 70% jump in gen-on-gen performance. There’s still a lot we don’t know about Venice and Diamond Rapids, but from the initial teases, Team Red is looking like the leader.

That would make sense. Although Diamond Rapids is a significant release for Intel, the company has continually reiterated the importance of Coral Rapids, the generation that will follow Xeon 7 on Intel’s road map. We expect to see Coral Rapids in 2028, featuring SMT, and Intel has said that it’s looking into ways to accelerate the Coral Rapids rollout.

Intel is returning to the data center with Xeon 6+, now harnessing the power of Intel 18A. After revealing Xeon 600 chips for workstations earlier in the year, Intel is turning back to the data center with Xeon 6+, an E-core-only design previously known as Clearwater Forest. The flagship Xeon 6990E+ is designed for compute density, packing in 288 Darkmont cores with 576 MB of L3 cache, with support for dual-socket systems, taking the core count up to 576. Intel claims the 6990E+ delivers an average 30% performance per thread improvement compared to AMD’s 192-core Epyc 9965, as well as up to 30% better power efficiency.

We’ve heard a lot about Clearwater Forest leading up to this launch, including a full architectural deep dive from Intel last year. As a refresher, Xeon 6+ is the culmination of Intel’s disaggregated approach to processor design over the past several generations, using a mixture of nodes and packaging techniques to achieve such high core density. On top of the silicon stack are 12 CPU chiplets built on Intel 18A, each packing 24 Darkmont E-cores without Hyper-Threading. They sit on three base tiles that hold the L3 cache and memory, which are built using Intel 3. Sandwiching this stack are two I/O chiplets built on Intel 7. Bringing the chiplets together are 12 EMIB 2.5D tiles, which are silicon bridges built directly into the substrate.

Outside of the chips, Xeon 6+ chips work with existing Xeon 6 platforms on the LGA 7529 socket (the same as Granite Rapids-AP). Intel supports both single and dual-socket systems, and with support for up to 12 channels of DDR5, running at up to 8000MT/s and 96 lanes of PCIe 5.0 (64 lanes of CXL). Those platform specs are for a single-socket system.

The chips come with a range of acronym-adorned hardware accelerators, including Intel QAT (QuickAssist Technology), DLB (Dynamic Load Balancer), DSA (Data Streaming Accelerator), and IAA (In-memory Analytics Accelerator). The flagship 6990E+ comes with 16 total accelerators, four for each type included in the architecture. Intel also expanded the chips with instructions to accelerate the SHA-512, SM3, and SM4 cryptographic algorithms, along with more robust confidential computing capabilities through Intel SGX for application isolation and Intel TDX for VM isolation.

New for Xeon 6+ CPUs is Intel Application Energy Telemetry, or AET. It’s a hardware-based telemetry tool that Intel says can provide insight on energy usage for “workloads, microservices, containers, VMS, applications and even on an individual software thread-level when desired.” Xeon 6+ CPUs are the first to support AET, and Intel says it will be available on Xeon processors going forward, specifically targeting data center providers.

Although there was some hope we’d see Intel’s long-awaited AVX10.2 with Xeon 6+, that isn’t the case. The CPUs don’t support any form of AVX10, or even AVX-512. They top out at AVX2, an Intel spokesperson confirmed to Tom’s Hardware.

Intel Xeon 6+ ‘Clearwater Forest’ specs

Intel has four Xeon 6+ designs and six SKUs total, with the top two models in the stack coming in power-limited configurations with lower base and all-core turbo speeds, but otherwise identical specs.

Before getting into the individual processors, there are some specs shared across the entire range:

• 12-channel memory at up to DDR5-8000
• Single- or dual-socket compatibility
• 96 PCIe 5.0 lanes, 64 CXL 2.0 lanes, and 6 UPI 2.0 lanes
• 1024 Intel TDX keys per CPU
• Up to 16 accelerators (four each for Intel QAT, DLB, DSA, and IAA)
• Intel AET

Compared to last-gen Sierra Forest chips, the spec that immediately stands out is TDP. With Sierra Forest, Intel topped out at 330W on the Xeon 6780E and went down as low as 205W on the 6710E. Now, 300W is the floor and 450W is the ceiling, bringing it into closer alignment with top-end TDPs from AMD’s EPYC range. As usual, however, TDP only hints at real-world power consumption, which can vary widely depending on numerous factors.

Core counts have jumped massively, as expected, but so has the amount of L3 cache. The 6990E+ has more than five times the amount of L3 cache as the 6780E. Even the 6960E+, which has 144 cores like the 6780E, has four times as much L3 cache. L2 cache remains unchanged, however. Intel is using 4MB of L2 cache per cluster of four cores. That cache is technically shared among those cores in a cluster, but you can think of it as 1MB of L2 cache per core.

Intel Xeon 6+ ‘Clearwater Forest’ performance and benchmark claims

Intel shared a variety of benchmarks for Xeon 6+, comparing the new flagship Xeon 6990E+ to last-gen Intel chips, as well as AMD’s current EPYC offerings. Overall, Intel claims a generational improvement of 2.26x compared to the Xeon 6780E, as well as 30% higher performance per thread compared to AMD’s EPYC 9965.

Starting with the generational improvement, it’s no surprise to see such a massive uplift in performance. After all, Intel is comparing the Xeon 6990E+ to a CPU that has half the threads and a 120W haircut on TDP. The Xeon 6780E that Intel is comparing its latest Xeon 6+ chip to is the flagship from the last-gen Sierra Forest range, however. On average, Intel claims a 2.26x uplift, and as you can see from Intel’s internal benchmarks, the Xeon 6990E+ offered more than double the performance of the Xeon 6780E across every workload Intel tested.

The more important metric here is performance per watt, however. The Xeon 6990E+ has a much higher TDP and denser compute, but Intel still claims an average efficiency improvement of 55%, ranging from a 30% uplift in the Stream Triad memory bandwidth benchmark up to a 79% improvement in Linpack. For these benchmarks, Intel used a mixture of dual-socket and single-socket systems, matching the configuration for the specific test (i.e. using two dual-socket or two single-socket systems rather than mixing and matching). You can see the exact configuration details in the full slide deck at the end of this article.

Given Team Red’s inroads into the data center over the last several generations, the competitive performance is perhaps more important. Intel says that the Xeon 6990E+ delivers 30% higher performance per thread, on average, compared to the EPYC 9965, as well as 30% higher average performance per thread per watt. Per-thread performance is important, absolutely, but Intel doesn’t have any data comparing average performance across the entire die to AMD’s offerings.

That’s likely due to overall thread count. Although Intel packs 288 cores in the Xeon 6990E+ compared to the EPYC 9965’s 192, AMD uses simultaneous multithreading, while Intel doesn’t. A per-thread advantage usually doesn’t directly translate to an overall performance advantage. It’s just one metric that could be important depending on the workloads you’re running. According to Intel’s benchmarks, Xeon 6+ holds around a 30% advantage in integer and floating-point throughput, and around a 38% improvement in efficiency.

Although Intel restricted hard numbers to the performance-per-thread metric, it provided a small glimpse at overall efficiency compared to the competition. At 40% CPU utilization, Intel claims the 6990E+ is up to 30% more efficient than the EPYC 9965. Assuming this chart is accurate and not some skewed visualization (that’s possible), you can see efficiency get much tighter as utilization increases.

Intel doesn’t have benchmarks comparing Xeon 6+ to designs based on the ARM instruction set, which is becoming an important comparison point. Just recently, we saw the first benchmarks of Nvidia’s Vera CPU break cover. The company, however, says that it thinks “[Xeon 6+] compares very favorably" to ARM-based options.

Full Intel Computex 2026 Xeon 6+ presentation

Intel is reportedly planning to introduce a third revision of the ATX12VO (Advanced Technology eXtended 12-Volt Only) power delivery standard for PCs. According to leaked Intel presentation slides shared by @momomo_us on X, the new ATX12VO may soon be introduced, offering improved power efficiency, new connectors, and improved communication between the power supply and the motherboard.

The ATX12VO standard was first introduced in 2020, with a focus on simplifying power circuitry design and reducing component production costs. This was achieved by removing the 3.3V and 5V rails, meaning that the power supply would only provide 12V to the system components, leaving the rest to the motherboard. It also replaced the standard 24-pin with a smaller 10-pin connector. In 2022, Intel introduced the ATX12VO V2 revision alongside the ATX 3.0, adding support for next-generation PCIe 5.0 graphics cards and improving power delivery monitoring. Notably, ATX12VO power supplies are widely used in OEM pre-built desktops and in business and institutional PCs.

The upcoming ATX12VO V3 standard is expected to remove the standby rail, with the main 12V rail remaining active at all times. Intel claims this change can simplify power supply design while improving efficiency, particularly during idle and low-power workloads. It also introduces new Low Power and High Power modes to improve safety and efficiency. According to Intel’s internal testing,, a conventional multi-rail design consumed around 1.29X more power at idle and 1.12X more power during benchmark workloads than the ATX12VO V3 reference platform.

The slides also highlight a change in the motherboard power connector. The current ATX12VO implementation uses the 10-pin motherboard power connector; however, the upcoming version appears to go even smaller. It will now use an 8-pin 3 mm connector, which Intel claims reduces overall connector size by up to 83% compared to the 24-pin connector. The CPU power connector will also be reduced to 3 mm, delivering up to 51% in size reduction. Intel says that these smaller connectors save motherboard space and reduce material costs. These changes should also make system layouts easier to optimize, particularly in compact desktops and OEM systems.

Another major addition is support for PMBus (Power Management Bus), a communication standard commonly used in servers. The new 8-pin main power connector will include four optional PMBus pins. PMBus can be used to monitor voltage, current, temperature, and power delivery data, providing users with more detailed insights into the power supply’s behavior.

The new standard will also support the I_PSU% signal, allowing the power supply to communicate real-time power utilization data directly to the system, enabling the CPU and motherboard to detect when the power supply is approaching or exceeding its rated capacity. This can help prevent sudden system shutdowns while also allowing system builders to accurately choose power supply sizes.

While Intel has yet to officially confirm a launch date for the revised ATX12VO standard, an announcement may occur during the upcoming Computex 2026 expo.

After teasing the range earlier this year, Intel has officially revealed its Arc G3 range of chips designed for the best handheld gaming PCs. The Arc G3 range includes two SKUs, the Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme, that are built on Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3, or Panther Lake, silicon, and packing either the Arc B390 or Arc B370 integrated GPU, which are still the only two graphics processors on the market with Intel’s Xe3 architecture.

Intel has previously tried breaking into the handheld market with partner MSI, but it’s a space that’s been dominated by AMD’s Ryzen Z-series processors. Valve launched the Steam Deck with a custom AMD SoC, which was refined in the Steam Deck OLED, and both the ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go S have stuck with Team Red. Intel’s G3 series looks like an attempt to establish Intel as a name in PC gaming handhelds, rather than just throwing laptop SKUs in the unique form factor as we’ve seen with devices like the MSI Claw.

Both chips use a 14-core CPU with 2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores. The main difference between them is the integrated GPU. The Arc B390 comes with 12 Xe3 cores while the Arc B370 comes with 10. Intel has yet to confirm clock speeds and power draw for the new range.

It has provided some other details, however. For starters, the G3 Extreme series will feature Intel Precompiled Shaders. AMD has recently partnered with Microsoft to provide something similar on desktop with Advanced Shader Delivery. The idea is that you download a precompiled set of shaders rather than compiling them at runtime, vastly reducing the time it takes to get into a game.

We’ve yet to see a true head-to-head battle between the Arc G3 and Ryzen Z ranges, but our testing of the B390 shows that it’s one impressive iGPU. Using high settings at 1080p with XeSS set to Balanced, we were able to achieve above 80 fps in Cyberpunk 2077. Mind you, that performance was inside a 16-inch Lenovo reference laptop. Expect lower performance inside a thermally-constrained handheld.

As with all recent Intel Arc graphics, Arc G3 chips come with full support for XeSS 3, including multi-frame generation, AI upscaling, and latency reduction. You’ll only be able to access those features in supported games, however. Unlike AMD, Intel doesn’t currently offer driver-level frame generation along the line of AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF).

Intel says the chips will also arrive with Wi-Fi 7 R2, dual Bluetooth 6, and Thunderbolt 4. Partner systems from Acer, MSI, and OneXPlayer will start rolling out "in the coming months." Intel will be showing off several handhelds with the new Arc G3 range at Computex, and Tom's Hardware will have folks on the ground in Taipei to check them out in the flesh.

Acer and Intel are hoping to shake up the mobile handheld market with the Predator Atlas 8, a portable gaming device that takes on AMD’s dominance in the space with the new Intel Arc G3 and G3 Extreme processors, packing Arc B370 or B390 iGPUs. Acer is also promising up to 10% better AeroBlade cooling compared to the company’s previous systems, thanks to a dual-fan setup with what the company says is the first metal fan in a gaming handheld.

Other key features include an 8-inch 1920 x 1200 (16x10) touchscreen with 500 nits of peak brightness and a 120 Hz variable refresh rate. Acer lists the “IPS-level” screen as delivering 100% of the sRGB spectrum and 77.68% of the Adobe color space. The battery is listed as “up to 80 Wh,” with a 60Wh option that will likely be paired with the lesser, non-Extreme, chip.

That’s a fairly large battery for a handheld (80 Wh matches the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X), but it’s unclear at this point how the power consumption of Intel’s new chips will compare to the (mostly aging) AMD silicon in existing handhelds, like the Ryzen Z2 series. And the screen, while not OLED, sounds like it could suck down its share of power as well. But of course, as with all mobile gaming devices, battery life will vary widely depending on the kind of game you're playing and the settings.

You’ll also get the main features of Intel’s modern graphics, including ray tracing support and XeSS 3 upscaling. And Intel’s Endurance Gaming software is on board to balance frame rate and unplugged longevity. An XBOX Game Pass subscription is also included with this Windows 11 handheld; Acer says you’ll get two months of Game Pass Premium and three months of PC Game Pass.

Interestingly, the trigger switches are dual-mode, using both a micro switch and Hall effect, letting you switch between the former for speed in FPS titles and the latter for games that require an analog touch. Acer is also tossing in its PredatorSense software (for the first time on handhelds), providing system monitoring, performance mode switching, and access to game settings via a dedicated PredatorSense button.

Port selection and connectivity are about what we’d expect in a modern gaming handheld (especially one with Intel-based internals). You get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a UHS-II microSD slot for expanding storage, and Wi-Fi 7 / Bluetooth 5.4.

At 810 grams (1.79 pounds) for the 80 Wh model, the Predator Atlas 8 will weigh less than Lenovo’s Legion Go (854 g), but more than the Steam Deck OLED (640 g). In the couple of photos that Acer has shared thus far, this doesn’t look like the sveltest handheld on the market, and we’re curious to get some hands-on time with it once we hit the ground for Computex 2026 in Taiwan.

Acer says the Predator Atlas 8 will be offered in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia in October (sorry, Asia). We’re still waiting on pricing, but given the volatility of the RAM and SSD markets, we likely won’t know that until we’re a lot closer to launch.

Ahead of its hotly anticipated IPO, Elon Musk's SpaceX has admitted in its Form S-1 document that to fully scale its orbital AI ambitions, it needs more AI hardware than it can currently obtain. Furthermore, while the company says that the ambitious Terafab project may address chip constraints, it also noted that the project may not be successful and that current partners Tesla and Intel have no obligation to stick with the project long-term.

As with all IPOs, the SEC requires that the company list all risk factors, both large and small, and these often even include 'Acts of God,' such as potential weather events, so the comments must be taken with the proper perspective. However, they do illustrate some of the roadblocks the company could perceive as genuine challenges to its business model.

"Our ability to achieve orbital AI at scale depends on our ability to access a sufficient number of AI chips, significantly more than are currently available to us," the filing SpaceX reads. "Manufacturing and supply of servers and network equipment for our technical infrastructure, particularly for GPUs and other specialized components, is limited to a small number of qualified suppliers. We do not have any long-term or other material contractual arrangements with our direct chip suppliers; instead procuring all of our GPUs on a purchase-order basis."

The current business arrangements with GPU suppliers — such as AMD, Nvidia, or manufacturing partners TSMC and Samsung Foundry — leave SpaceX and its xAI division exposed to 'fab capacity shortages, raw material constraints, geopolitical disruptions, and natural disasters affecting semiconductor manufacturing regions.'

TSMC, the world's largest foundry and the world's largest maker of advanced logic chips, can barely meet demand for AI processors, and industry insiders warn that they are supply-constrained. For example, Nvidia increased its total supply, inclusive of inventory, purchase commitments, and prepaids, to $145 billion to ensure the supply of chips and other components. Other companies tend to do the same.

To at least partly reduce its risks, Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI intend to build TeraFab, a dedicated semiconductor production facility that will exclusively produce chips for these three companies. For now, all we know about TeraFab is that it plans to operate a fab that will be located in a SpaceX campus in Texas and use Intel's 14A process technology to make chips. Elon Musk intends to invest tens of billions in TeraFab, but this does not guarantee that it will be a success, the S-1 warns.

"While we expect to construct Terafab to address such supply constraints, Terafab may not be successful, in which case we may not have other sources of sufficient AI chips to meet our orbital AI compute demands," another claim by SpaceX reads. "While Terafab is intended to expand our internal chip manufacturing capabilities and alleviate potential future AI chip shortages at SpaceX, particularly as we pursue orbital AI at scale, we expect to continue sourcing a significant portion of our compute hardware from third-party suppliers, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to achieve our objectives with respect to Terafab within the expected timeframes, or at all."

Interestingly, Intel and Tesla may leave the project, leaving TeraFab without a significant customer and process technology developer, which might ruin the whole project. "While we have a framework agreement with Tesla, neither Tesla nor Intel are obligated to remain a part of the project, and we may not enter into any such definitive agreements," the Form S-1 reads.

Some say Intel robbed consumers of the Core Series 2 processor with P-cores (codenamed Bartlett Lake), and that the chips could have competed against the best CPUs for gaming. However, German publication PC Games Hardware (PCGH) recently put the flagship of the Bartlett Lake series, the Core 9 273PQE, through a series of benchmarks and discovered that it couldn’t even outperform the Core i9-13900K released four years ago.

Some Intel enthusiasts have been vocal about their desire for Intel to release a processor lineup that features only P-cores. Bartlett Lake is Intel’s answer to these demands. Essentially, Bartlett Lake is just Raptor Lake stripped of its E-cores. Speculation and leaks about Bartlett Lake have circulated for a couple of years now, but it wasn't until recently that Intel unleashed it.

Bartlett Lake comes four years after the introduction of the 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors and three years after the refresh of the 14th Generation Raptor Lake lineup. Needless to say, many enthusiasts were happy to finally see Bartlett Lake until Intel dropped the bomb that the new series would be exclusive to OEMs and embedded applications, locking out mainstream consumers from the lineup. Bartlett Lake still runs on the LGA1700 platform, so there are mods to run it on conventional Intel 700-series motherboards.

Intel Core 9 273PQE Specifications

The Core 9 273PQE is the processor that purists have been dreaming about for years: a Raptor Lake chip built exclusively with 12 Raptor Cove P-cores. Impressively, the Core 9 273PQE boasts 50% more P-cores than either the Core i9-13900K or Core i9-14900K. When it comes to clock speeds, the Core 9 273PQE outpaces the Core i9-13900K and comes within just 5% of the Core i9-14900K's P-core boost clock frequency.

PCGH used the ASRock IMB-X1714 motherboard with the W680 chipset to host the Core 9 273PQE. For memory, the news outlet selected DDR5-5600 C46 modules to complement the 12-core processor. Only two specific memory kits are on the Qualified Vendor List (QVL). This motherboard comes with a chipset made for Bartlett Lake, unlike the mods we've seen to get the chips running on consumer chipsets.

The publication compared the Core 9 273PQE to a plethora of contemporary and previous-generation processors, though for conciseness, we’ve picked a small subset of the outlet’s results. To ensure an apples-to-apples comparison with the Core i9-13900K, PCGH also ran it on the ASRock IMB-X1714 with the DDR5-5600 C46 memory (the publication usually runs DDR5-6000 C28 memory with LGA1700 chips).

Intel Core 9 273PQE Benchmarks

Despite featuring 12 P-cores, the Core 9 273PQE delivered gaming performance comparable to the Ryzen 7 9700X and Core i5-14600K. With DDR5-5600 C46 memory, it was only slightly faster than the Core i9-13900K. However, when using high-performance DDR5-6000 C28 memory, the Core i9-13900K outperformed the Core 9 273PQE by up to 8.5%. That goes to show the impact of memory performance in gaming, as the switch from DDR5-5600 C46 to DDR5-6000 C28 increased the Core i9-13900K’s gaming performance index by 9.66%.

In application performance, the Core 9 273PQE outperformed the Core i5-14600K and Ryzen 7 9700X by 2.61% and 8.06%, respectively. However, the performance gap widened considerably when compared to the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900K (W680), with those models being up to 42.73% and 23.09% faster, respectively.

There is good reason to believe that the Core 9 273PQE didn't quite live up to its full potential, and several factors contributed to it. One of the primary limitations is that Intel has restricted the Bartlett Lake to commercial clients. There is little to no flexibility for fine-tuning or pairing the processor with faster memory, which has proven to improve gaming performance. Additionally, the lack of optimization for mainstream applications further hampers the chip’s performance. Then again, many games do not scale performance beyond eight cores, so the additional cores in the Core 9 273PQE offer diminishing returns in gaming scenarios.

Bartlett Lake is fine where it is, and we should leave it alone. Our attention is better directed toward Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 400S (codenamed Nova Lake) chips, which are scheduled to launch later this year.

Mozilla has successfully addressed a critical bug related to Firefox that caused the web browser to crash on desktop systems powered by Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs. With the latest stable release of Firefox version 151.01, the company has managed to patch the issue that has been under investigation for more than a year.

Mozilla engineers initially zeroed in on failures in a zlib-rs compression routine where certain dist values appeared incorrect, resulting in index out-of-bounds crashes. However, the root cause was tied to Intel’s Raptor Lake CPU instructions, specifically RPL050 and RPL060, which sometimes caused the CPU cores to read incorrect or outdated data.

Senior Staff Engineer Gabriele Svelto first flagged the issue last year, blaming Intel for its CPU instabilities and highlighting mass browser crash reports coming from systems powered by Intel Raptor Lake, specifically in locations suffering from heat waves.

“If you have an Intel Raptor Lake system and you’re in the northern hemisphere, chances are that your machine is crashing more often because of the summer heat. I know because I can literally see which EU countries have been affected by heat waves by looking at the locales of Firefox crash reports coming from Raptor Lake systems,” said Svelto on Mastodon.

He also noted that while Intel’s newer 0x12c microcode update significantly reduced the number of crashes, the bugs came back with the release of version 0x12F.

Intel’s Raptor Lake CPU instability issues first began surfacing in late 2022 before exploding the following year with users reporting widespread game crashes, browser instability, and system failures on 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors. Intel eventually confirmed after several months that the root cause was tied to a physical degradation issue caused by prolonged exposure to excessive voltage and heat. While the company rolled out several microcode patches, including 0x125, 0x129, 0x12B, and, more recently, 0x12F, these updates were only designed to mitigate the conditions triggering the degradation rather than reverse existing damage. Eventually, Intel announced an extended warranty for customers facing the issue from three to five years.

If you have been facing Firefox crashes on your desktop PC running Intel’s 13th-gen or 14th-gen Raptor Lake CPUs, it is recommended to update the browser to its latest stable version by heading to the official page here.

Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive of Intel, this week confirmed that the company had already begun to work on its 10A and 7A fabrication technologies that will succeed Intel's current-generation 18A and next-generation 14A production nodes sometime in the next decade. Both 10A and 7A processes will presumably be able to use ASML's EUV lithography tools with high numerical aperture optics (High-NA), which will first be used for 14A.

"Now I am starting to work 10A, 7A, the roadmap," said Lip-Bu Tan at JP Morgan's Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. "People do not [simply] go to you, they are looking for the roadmap for the future. So we want to build a long-term business. […]."

Tan emphasized a long-known business practice that ambitious roadmaps that are properly executed are as important as competitive products or fabrication technologies, as many companies do not just buy products, but roadmaps, as they prefer to work with suppliers for years to come. That said, Intel must offer its partners long-term roadmap visibility, so it has to work on technologies that are years from commercialization.

When it comes to Intel's 14A, its development is proceeding as planned, with version 0.5 of the process design kit (PDK) already available and version 0.9 of the PDK due in October.

"Clearly, the 14A, and we announced in Q1, we have v0.5 PDK so that they can do the test chip to look at our yield and see whether they can, over time, to really design their product and fabricate with us," Tan said. "The Holy Grail is v0.9 PDK. Right now, we are looking at October to [hand it to] the outside customer. Internal customer will be earlier, so that we make sure that we really clean the pipe, make sure that we are doing right, make sure that we can sell with good quality."

Tan says multiple customers have expressed interest in 14A, though Intel has not yet disclosed them.

"We have multiple customers engaged with us [with 14A], and to really define what product, what foundry location wants to be, what kind of capacity we need," Tan said. "I do not disclose the customer. If the customer wants to disclose, we will support that."

As for Intel's 14A timeline, Intel expects risk production in 2028 and then volume production in 2029, which is about the time when TSMC begins to volume produce chips on its A14 fabrication technology.

Three things must be kept in mind here. Firstly, TSMC's A14 is not a direct rival for Intel's 14A as the latter features backside power delivery and is better suitable for high-end data center-grade processors. Secondly, TSMC is said to start making chips using A14 in late 2028, and the company tends to initiate high volume manufacturing (HVM) with very high yields and volumes. By contrast, Intel initiates volume production at development fabs, and it takes the company some time to reach comparable yields and volumes. Thirdly, Intel's 14A will be one of the first nodes to be compatible with High-NA EUV lithography systems (for select layers) and will be the first production node to have the capability to use such scanners for high-volume manufacturing.

Insertion of all-new High-NA EUV tools — along with new photoresists, new photomasks, new pellicles, new metrology tools, new design rules, new computational lithography flows, and a lot of other innovations — is not going to be easy for Intel, so the company is hard at work working with both ASML and partners to ensure that the new ecosystem is ready for prime time. Coincidentally, Christophe Fouquet, the head of ASML, reportedly said that the first test chips made using these High-NA EUV tools will emerge in the coming months, though he did not specify at which vendor or facility.

When Lip-Bu Tan became the CEO of Intel last year, it was clear that a lot was going to change at the company. Now, details of these changes are beginning to emerge. We already know that Lip-Bu Tan personally assesses and approves chip designs before tape outs, but as it turns out, he also wants designs to be bug-free and ready for mass production already with the A0 revision, something that the company's products have failed to do.

"One thing about timetable, I have a culture right now I have just implemented. It has to be A0 to production," said Lip-Bu Tan at JP Morgan's Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. "A0 is when you tape out, first time pass. Intel does not have that culture, so I tell that, first time pass A0. B0, you keep your job. Anything above that, you are fired."

"So that culture people initially thought that I'm just joking, and now I started to implement, they started to say that, 'Okay, Lip-Bu, you are very serious, you really look into all the design, all the bugs that we've tried to fix, and then all the IP that we use. You make sure that we certify and make sure we do that before we go to tape-out,' and so those are kind of the culture we need to have," Tan said.

A0 is the very first manufactured version of a chip produced after the initial tape out and before any silicon fixes are implemented. First-pass success means that the chip boots, functions correctly, meets major specifications, no major redesign is needed, and the silicon is close to production quality (or of production quality). Achieving A0 success with a complex CPU design on an advanced node is extremely difficult, more so than with other types of processors with simpler designs and redundant features.

While Nvidia and some other companies indeed begin to mass produce A0 chips after the initial tape out and bring up, it often takes Intel more revisions to get rid of bugs and maximize performance and yield. For example, Intel's Xeon 'Sapphire Rapids' processor contained as many as 500 bugs, and it took Intel a dozen revisions to get rid of erratas and reach planned performance and decent yields. At the time, that chip had seen A0, A1, B0, C0, C1, C2, D0, E0, E2, E3, E4 and E5 steppings to fix the egregious number of bugs.

Tan's comments are a bit unusual for a CEO of a company of Intel's size, as he essentially says that Intel's prior engineering culture was lax, so he is improving internal execution discipline. Ultimately, Tan wants fewer respins, faster validation, and shorter development cycles.

Whether or not A0 success can be achieved by all of Intel's products remains to be seen. For example, Nvidia is known for incorporating various yield-boosting techniques into its complex GPUs (e.g., redundant logic and caches) to avoid stepping failures and costly respins. However, Intel's design approaches are different.

One of the ways to reduce risks is to use industry-standard silicon-proven IP blocks and heavily verify designs before taping them out. In addition, Intel engineers might have to make less risky design decisions to achieve first-time success. Such an approach may make Intel's produces less ambitious in general, but at least the company's business performance will be more predictable.

Intel is pressuring notebook and PC manufacturers in the U.S., China, and Taiwan to build more systems around its 18A-based processors, according to a Nikkei Asia report published today. The company has effectively frozen additional supply of older Intel 7-based CPUs for the consumer market, multiple industry sources told the publication, leaving OEMs with the choice of designing around 18A or going without.

The push covers Intel's Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3) and Wildcat Lake (Core Series 3) families, both manufactured on 18A. Intel told partners that the supply of those chips is healthier than for its older Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, and Arrow Lake products.

Intel has also reportedly redirected its constrained Intel 7 capacity toward server and industrial customers, where margins are significantly higher. One consumer PC executive said that industrial-use CPU margins run roughly 20% above consumer equivalents, and that obtaining further Intel 7 allocations has become effectively impossible.

Intel 7 still underpins a large portion of Intel’s product line, from consumer notebook and desktop CPUs like Raptor Lake to Xeon 6 “Granite Rapids” server processors. As AI-driven demand for data center CPUs surged through 2025, Intel deliberately shifted Intel 7 wafer starts toward its Data Center and AI group, where Xeon parts can bring higher ASPs and better margins.

CFO David Zinsner confirmed as much during Intel’s Q3 earnings call last October, when he said capacity constraints on Intel 7 and 10 had limited the company’s ability to meet demand across both data center and client products. Intel currently has no plans to expand Intel 7 capacity.

Another exec described placing an order for 100 Intel 7 processors and receiving just 30, with 10 of those being unrequested 18A-based chips. “We were told if we don't take the 18A CPUs, they would be given to other PC makers.” Intel, in a statement to Nikkei Asia, described its Core Series 3 processors as “integral” to its client strategy but didn’t confirm whether it is actively steering clients toward 18A adoption.

Many PC makers had originally built only a handful of 18A-based models to support Intel's launch rather than in response to consumer demand, the report claims. "Frankly speaking, PC makers designed a few models based on 18A last year mainly as a favor to Intel, as the chip is expensive and the market demand is relatively small because it is too premium," another source reportedly said.

According to this report, that’s now changed, however, as OEMs that want CPU allocation are effectively being forced to redesign more of their lineups around the newer, pricier silicon. These designs, per one executive, will take “at least three months” to complete and verify, and the shift to premium CPUs also forces upgrades to displays, sensors, and other components to justify the price tag. Wildcat Lake launched barely a month ago, meaning Intel is asking OEMs to commit volume to a product family with almost no commercial track record.

Beyond managing the shortage, Zinsner said during the same earnings call that 18A yields are adequate for supply but not yet sufficient to deliver healthy margins, with industry yields not expected until 2027. Pushing more OEM volume through 18A gives Intel the high-volume production data it needs to bring those costs down faster.

S.Y. Hsu, co-CEO of AsusTek, confirmed during a recent earnings call that the company is prioritizing shipments of higher-end models in response to CPU and memory chip supply pressure.

Counterpoint Research analyst Brady Wang said that demand continues to outpace supply, and that some of that pressure may be offset by weakening PC demand overall. Some in the industry expect a year-on-year decline of more than 15% as component costs rise.

Intel canned the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus from the Arrow Lake refresh lineup announced a few months ago, despite a swirling of leaks and rumors confirming its existence. The chip ultimately never came out, but a Chinese reviewer just got their hands on an engineering sample and put it through the wringer — the underwhelming results in games and professional apps show why Intel likely chose to keep it in the archives.

As a reminder, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus would be based on the existing 285K, so it'd share the same 24-core config (8P+8E) but with slightly tuned clock speeds, DDR5-7200 support, and newer features such as Intel's binary optimization tool. That tool is actually one of the ways to confirm this 290K Plus was legit since it only supports Arrow Lake refresh silicon at the moment, and the BIOS recognized the CPU correctly.

Jumping to the tests, multi-core results in synthetic benchmarks were more impressive than the single-core numbers. The biggest win was seen in CPU-Z, where the 290K Plus was 2.84% faster than the 270K Plus. In Cinebench R24, the 290K Plus managed only a 0.69% higher score in the single-core test. On average across all synthetic workloads, the 290K Plus beat its lower-tier counterpart by only 1.5%.

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus Benchmarks

In more intensive tasks such as compression, real-time rendering, and compiling, AMD's new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 won in all but one test: Ansys Fluent Simulation. Here, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was 9.3% faster than AMD's offering and about 4.6% faster than the 270K Plus. Averaging out all the results, the 290K Plus was 6.3% faster than the 270K Plus but about 8.3% behind the 9950X3D2.

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus Gaming Benchmarks

At 1080p, the average FPS improvement over the 270K Plus is about 2% across six titles. The biggest difference was in Delta Force, where the 290K Plus achieved 8.3% higher FPS and 3.33% better 1% lows. Both Black Myth: Wukong and Resident Evil 9 actually saw it lose to the 270K Plus by around 1%. The 9950X3D2, as you'd expect, bested either Intel offering with ease thanks to its massive cache pool.

Moving to 1440p gaming, the difference shrinks even more since the games become more GPU-reliant as you scale the resolution ladder. Delta Force once again exhibits the largest gap, about 6.8% ahead of the 270K Plus, and a surprising 14% ahead in 1% lows. The 290K Plus still falls 1% behind in Black Myth: Wukong while matching the 270K Plus in Resident Evil 9. On average, the unreleased flagship is 1.5% faster than the actual top-end Arrow Lake refresh CPU.

If we put all the numbers together, we get roughly 2% gains in gaming and almost 4% in productivity tasks, compared to the Core Ultra 270K Plus. Those slim margins would make it hard to justify a much higher price tag for a Core Ultra 9 SKU, which explains why Intel likely never released it. The chips that did come out are excellent value, so that a flagship offering might've thrown the whole lineup off-balance, especially in terms of optics.

Intel has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with F1's legendary McLaren Racing team. The chipmaker is now the Official Compute Partner of the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team, Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team, and McLaren F1 Sim Racing Team, according to a press release today. Interestingly, this announcement again pits Intel against its PC chip industry nemesis, AMD. The Red Team has already been working in partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team for six years.

Intel's PR blurb says F1 racing is "one of the world’s most technologically demanding sports." Thus, Intel engineers will be tasked with delivering advanced computing for AI and high-performance architectures that are required to keep McLaren competitive.

The new agreement means that systems using Intel Xeon and Core Ultra chips will be leveraged to support McLaren's quest for the ultimate performance on the track. Specific calculations that F1 engineers spend their days optimizing for include "performance-critical workloads, including computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamic analysis, vehicle-dynamics simulation, [and] race strategy analytics." As well as real-time data, F1 support computers are used to sift through massive volumes of post-race data. Computers used to optimize F1 racing cars are also increasingly using AI tools, plus low-latency edge computing solutions, and diverse software platforms.

"Formula 1 racing and IndyCar are some of the ultimate proving grounds for high-performance computing. Intel is proud to be McLaren Racing’s compute partner, and to be part of a team that thrives on precision, speed, and innovation," said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO. "Together, Intel and McLaren will push the boundaries of what’s possible, transforming data into competitive advantage at every turn."

A statement by Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing, confirmed Intel hardware had already been an important part of the F1 team's tech ecosystem. It will be interesting to see if the new, closer relationship will produce noticeable results on the circuits around the globe, burning rubber at speeds pushing beyond 230 mph.

As we mentioned in the intro, AMD has already been working closely with a major F1 team for years. The firm has a page dedicated to how AMD Epyc and Threadripper processors are a competitive edge for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One team. Similar to Intel's announcement today, the AMD/Mercedes partnership uses advanced compute for "aerodynamic simulation and faster data analysis."

AMD's partnership with Mercedes-AMG was forged back in 2020, which might explain why there's no mention of artificial intelligence in the linked PR blurb, yet.

All three leading-edge foundries — Intel Foundry, Samsung Foundry, and TSMC — have initiated mass production of chips using 2nm-class process technology. Samsung was the first one to start production using its SF2 node (though it could be argued that this is a rebadged SF3P) around mid-2025, Intel followed suit with its 18A node in November (albeit at development lines in Oregon, not production lines in Arizona), and TSMC initiated high-volume manufacturing using its N2 process at two volume fabs in Taiwan in December. We outline what's next for these three leading-edge foundries.

The current state of the market

The amount of capital, expertise, and experience required to develop leading-edge process technologies and build high-volume fabs supporting advanced nodes is so high that only three companies in the world are currently capable of producing them. Companies like Rapidus have yet to prove they are a viable leading-edge chipmaker. Meanwhile, all three leading foundries are transitioning from traditional node scaling to a more segmented, architecture- and product-driven approach, but are doing so with different priorities.

TSMC is focused on predictable scaling, combined with aggressive specialization, which is why its roadmap is split into high-performance computing-oriented technologies with backside power delivery network (BSPDN) and cost/density-optimized nodes without it.

Samsung has a wide range of node variants, though it is currently more focused on yield improvement, rather than on scaling, which is why its roadmap appears more iterative than breakthrough-focused. This is perhaps why it is behind competitors with its BSPDN implementation.

Intel seems to be pursuing the most aggressive technological roadmap with a conjoined implementation of gate-all-around (GAA) RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia BSPDN, rapid iteration, and the aggressive pursuit of High-NA EUV lithography in 2027 – 2028, years before its rivals.

Intel Foundry: The most ambitious chipmaker

Being a new player in the foundry market and a large integrated design manufacturer (IDM), Intel is pursuing a multi-faceted strategy aimed at addressing the needs of its own products, as well as attempting to land customers that do not necessarily require leading-edge process technologies.

Intel's roadmap is the most ambitious, but arguably the most volatile one, when compared to the plans of other leading foundries. On the one hand, Intel needs the best fabrication technologies to differentiate its own consumer and data center products. To that end, with its 18A and subsequent process technologies, Intel bet on the simultaneous implementation of GAA transistors and a BSPDN to maximize performance, power efficiency, and transistor density. On the other hand, since Intel has zero customers from the automotive and smartphone sectors, it does not have any technologies tailored specifically for these applications.

Intel's 18A is probably the most important technology for the company in years, as it will return production of the company's consumer CPUs back to its own fabs, something that promises to greatly improve margins. Although the company is in the process of improving yields on 18A and current 18A volumes are not significant, Intel is already preparing follow-on refinements such as 18A-P (with enhanced performance and improved power efficiency) and 18A-PT (which supports through silicon vias (TSVs) and can be used for 3D-integrated systems-in-package).

Beyond that, Intel is targeting 14A and 14A-E for 2027 ~ 2028 production readiness and an early ramp. The nodes will introduce Intel's 2^nd Generation RibbonFET GAA transistors, revamped PowerDirect backside power delivery, and Turbo Cells to improve the performance of critical data paths.

These will be the company's first nodes to use High-NA EUV lithography, at least for some 14A and 14A-E variants, which will be another attempt to introduce a technology that will differentiate Intel compared to competing nodes. Intel has said that the interest in 14A from external customers is significant. Musk's Terafab project is set to make use of Intel's 14A, as a licensee, but not as a customer.

At the same time, Intel is heavily relying on node variants to address different use cases, including performance enhancements (P), feature enhancements (E), and through-silicon via support (T). These process technologies are required to enable Intel to build custom multi-chiplet products for consumer and data center applications, which directly support its strategy to produce most of its products at in-house fabs.

Intel's roadmap also includes continued investment in mature nodes such as Intel 16 and UMC 12 as the company pursues a strategy to capture demand outside leading-edge applications, to ensure steady revenue streams.

While Intel's plans are aggressive and ambitious, the abrupt cancellation of 20A in late 2024 highlights the execution risks associated with such a roadmap.

Samsung Foundry: When yields matter more than nodes

Samsung was the first company to adopt GAA transistors with its SF3E technology in 2022, three years before Intel and TSMC. However, low and unpredictable yields have limited the adoption of this technology to niche applications like cryptocurrency mining ASICs. While SF3 was more mature, it was still adopted by select applications, mostly internally. As a result, the highest-performing chips made by Samsung are produced using FinFET-based SF4P and SF4X, which puts the company behind its rivals.

For now, reducing defect density, increasing yields, and ensuring stable yields are the top priorities for Samsung. Last year, it began making mobile system-on-chips (SoCs) using its SF2 node (which it calls the 1^st Generation 2nm GAA process), but among the major goals for the company for this year is to ramp up '2^nd Generation 2nm [SF2P] and prepare performance and power-optimized 4nm process,' which suggests limited adoption of SF2. The fact that the low-power 4nm-class node will be a major workhorse for the company. The company's roadmap also indicates SF2X (HPC-oriented) in 2026 as well as SF2A (for automotive applications) and SF2Z (SF2X with BSPDN) in 2027, though we can only wonder whether these nodes will be widely adopted.

Nonetheless, Samsung's iterative approach to the evolution of its SF2 nodes (SF2=>SF2P=>SF2X=>SF2X with backside power) is evident, which gives us hope that the company's yields will gradually improve.

Samsung's next major node will be SF1.4, a 1.4nm-class process technology optimized for consumer and smartphone applications, which won't feature backside power delivery. Samsung's slides put SF1.4 above the SF3 and SF2 families, which may suggest that this manufacturing process will feature some major enhancements, such as a new GAA transistor design or other major refinements. Samsung expects to mass-produce chips on its SF1.4 technology in 2027, so it can formally leave Intel and TSMC behind with its 1.4nm node.

A big question lingers, and that's whether Samsung plans to finally start using pellicles with its EUV lithography tools starting with SF1.4, or later. A lack of pellicles greatly increases the number of potentially yield-killing stochastic mask-borne defects, which are increasingly dominant at the 2nm and are getting much worse at thinner nodes.

TSMC: New technologies like clockwork

TSMC's roadmap remains the most structured and execution-focused among the three. The world's largest contract chipmaker initiated mass production of chips using its N2 process technology — its first node with GAA nanosheet transistors — at two fabs simultaneously late last year in a bid to meet demand from a wide range of applications, starting from Apple's smartphones and all the way to AMD's server-bound EPYC 'Venice' CPUs. Initiating volume production at two fabs simultaneously is something that rarely happens in the industry, though it looks like structural changes caused by demand from the AI segment are changing many things in the industry.

TSMC is on track to start making chips using performance-enhanced N2P with traditional frontside power delivery and A16 technology that adds backside power delivery on top, a split which highlights TSMC's increasingly segment-specific approach to leading-edge technologies.

Going forward, the company is set to continue offering advanced technologies with and without BSPDN, as this feature may be too expensive for consumer and smartphone applications, but is clearly valuable for heavy-duty data center processors. For example, A14 will emerge as a smartphone-oriented node in 2028, but then will re-emerge as a data center-oriented node once it gets BSPDN in 2029.

In addition, the company will continue to offer mainstream nodes like N4C, N3C, and eventually N2C for applications that are more sensitive to costs. Automotive-specific nodes (N7A, N5A, N3A) will lag leading-edge nodes by one to two generations, as they prioritize reliability and longevity over performance and transistor density.

TSMC's segmentation and yearly cadence for advanced manufacturing nodes enable the foundry to address the most demanding clients like Apple, AMD, Intel, Nvidia, or Qualcomm with competitive process technologies. Ultimately, such cadence and a wide range of nodes reinforce TSMC's position as the most predictable and commercially disciplined foundry.

Fractured futures

To sum things up, TSMC continues to bet on execution discipline and segmentation as it ramps its 2nm-class node at two fabs to meet overwhelming demand from a variety of applications, starting from humble cell phones all the way to heavy-duty servers.

Intel leads in architectural ambitions, as currently it is the only company that uses a process technology that features both gate-all-around transistors and backside power delivery. However, the company admits that its yields will only get to world-class level by 2027, which likely makes Intel's 18A node significantly less attractive to demanding customers.

Samsung sits somewhere in the middle, offering a wide variety of process technologies for different applications, but the company's yields with GAA-based nodes have been a challenge, which is why the firm is now focused on yield increases rather than on breakthroughs, so it does not attempt to leapfrog its competitors.

The first quarter of 2026 was quite favorable for AMD as the company managed to increase its unit share on the market of client systems and skyrocketed its share in servers past 33%, according to Mercury Research. In addition, the company's revenue shares set records across client and server market segments, so AMD now controls 38.1% of all x86 CPU market value and 46.2% of all x86 server CPU revenue share. Perhaps an alarming sign is that the company's desktop PC unit and revenue shares declined sequentially, though they are up year-over-year (YoY).

Consumer CPUs: AMD gains ground, but only modestly

In the consumer PC segment, AMD continued to gain ground in the first quarter of 2026 as its client CPU unit share rose to 29.6%, up slightly from 29.2% in Q4 2025 and up sharply from 24.1% the same quarter a year ago, according to data by Mercury Research.

The quarter, however, showed a split between desktops and notebooks as Intel has managed to claw back 3.2% of the desktop PC market. Also, Intel remained the dominant supplier of client CPUs with a 70.4% share, though its position weakened from 75.9% in Q1 2025 as AMD did rather well in notebooks.

However, when it comes to the revenue side of things, AMD's position remained particularly strong. The company's client CPU revenue share reached 31.4%, slightly above the previous quarter and substantially higher than a year ago (26.6%), which perhaps reflects the company's continued strength in premium client processors. Nonetheless, Intel still controlled nearly 69% of client CPU revenue, which is a big deal. How things will unfold in the second half of the year — when Intel launches its Nova Lake processors for client systems that it pins a lot of hopes on — is something that remains to be seen.

Desktop CPUs: Market share comes, market share goes

In the desktop PC segment, AMD gave back a portion of the massive gains it made during the exceptionally strong holiday quarter, but still maintained a historically high position, so the decline can be considered as a correction, rather than a new trend.

AMD's desktop CPU unit share stood at 33.2% in Q1 2026, down from the record 36.4% in Q4 2025, but well above the 28% recorded in the quarter a year earlier. Intel regained some ground sequentially and increased its desktop share to 66.8%, but remained far below its year-ago level of 72% as AMD continued to hold a much stronger position than it did in recent years.

On the revenue side, AMD remained strong despite the sequential share drip: the company's desktop CPU revenue share was 37.6%, down from the record quarter before, but still notable 3.2% higher than a year earlier. Intel continued to generate most desktop CPU revenue overall, but AMD's ability to maintain a high revenue share relative to its unit share shows the continued strength of premium Ryzen CPUs.

Mobile CPUs: Another record quarter

In the mobile PC segment, AMD delivered its strongest result ever as it managed to once again increase its share and set its highest share in laptops ever.

AMD's mobile CPU unit share climbed to 28.3% in Q1 2026, up from 26% in Q4 2025 and from 22.5% a year earlier, the best quarter ever for the company's mobile processors. For obvious reasons, Intel commanded the lion's share of the market — 71.7% — though its lead narrowed further as AMD increased its share by improving availability and expanding its footprint in segments (e.g., business and commercial notebooks) traditionally dominated by Intel.

As for revenue share, AMD's progress was even more impressive. The company’s mobile CPU revenue share rose to 28.9%, an increase from 24.9% in Q4 2025 and from 22.2% in Q1 2025, which reflects stronger sales of higher-value notebook processors. Intel continued to control the majority of notebook CPU revenue overall (71.7%, down from 77.5% in Q1 2025), but AMD's ability to approach 28.9% revenue share clearly indicates its increasing competitiveness in higher-margin premium laptops that historically favored Intel almost exclusively.

Server CPUs: Another breakthrough quarter

While the first quarter was good for AMD's mobile processors, it was exceptional for AMD's EPYC CPUs for servers. The company not only set a record in terms of unit share, but it has also managed to skyrocket its revenue share by 5% in a single quarter.

AMD's server processor unit share climbed to 33.2%, up from 28.8% in Q4 2025 and 27.2% a year earlier, the data by Mercury Research shows. Intel still shipped the majority of server processors with a 66.8% share, but its position weakened both sequentially and year-over-year as EPYC adoption continued to expand across hyperscale cloud providers, enterprise deployments, and AI/HPC infrastructure.

On the revenue side, AMD's performance was even more striking: the company's server CPU revenue share reached a record 46.2%, which means that AMD now commands nearly half of all x86 server CPU revenue while shipping roughly one-third of units. This gap between unit share and revenue share reflects significantly higher average selling prices of AMD's processors in general and the popularity of the company's high-core-count premium configurations. While Intel generated more server CPU revenue than AMD, ASPs of its Xeon products were lower compared to those of EPYCs, which is in line with market performance in prior quarters.

Summary

AMD started 2026 on a strong note: it expanded its share in both client and server CPUs and set new records for overall x86 CPU revenue share, according to Mercury Research.

The company posted particularly strong gains in notebooks and servers, where EPYC adoption pushed AMD’s server revenue share close to half of the entire x86 server market. While AMD's desktop CPU share declined sequentially after an exceptionally strong holiday quarter, it remained well above year-ago levels, so the strong momentum for the company continues.

In general, AMD continues to strengthen its positions in the most profitable parts of the x86 CPU market, while Intel retains shipment leadership but loses further ground in revenue share and premium segments.

Chipmakers are taking to social media to confirm their partnerships with Google on its newly announced Googlebook laptop lineup.

In a post shared on X, Intel said it is collaborating on the lineup. Meanwhile, over on Instagram, Qualcomm made its own confirmation. Both used similar wording, saying that the laptops will be "powerful" and "premium" "devices designed for Intelligence." (Qualcomm used "built" instead of designed."

The announcements came shortly after Google gave a preview of its upcoming platform at the Android Show: I/O Edition, and confirmed that it is working with various PC manufacturers, including HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo.

During the showcase, Google refrained from discussing the core hardware and instead focused entirely on its brand-new operating system, which combines elements of Android and ChromeOS with deep Gemini Intelligence integration. It was initially assumed that the new Googlebook lineup would be based on Arm SoCs, since many aspects of the platform resemble an Android smartphone or tablet experience. However, with Intel now officially involved, there is a possibility that Google’s new AI-focused OS could also support x86 hardware, unless Intel has an Arm-based chip up its sleeve.

In an exclusive interview with Chrome Unboxed, Google VP John Maletis further confirmed Intel’s involvement in the Googlebook project, revealing that the upcoming notebooks will ship with processors from Intel, Qualcomm, and MediaTek. According to Maletis, the Googlebook is an entirely new category of premium AI-first laptops that deeply integrate Gemini into the core experience rather than treating AI as an add-on. He also noted that Google is establishing strict hardware standards across memory, storage, keyboards, and overall build quality to ensure every Googlebook delivers a consistent premium experience.

The interview also shed more light on what users can expect when Googlebook devices officially launch later this fall. According to Maletis, the first wave of laptops will focus heavily on premium hardware from its partners, while also bringing back the iconic Glow Bar LED lighting seen on older Chromebook Pixel devices. He additionally confirmed that Googlebook laptops will run native Android applications without emulation, promising significantly better app performance alongside tighter Android smartphone integration and Gemini-powered features such as the new Magic Pointer interface.

Interestingly, the Googlebook partnership comes just a month after Intel and Google announced a separate multi-year agreement focused on next-generation AI cloud infrastructure. Under the deal, Google Cloud will deploy Intel Xeon processors alongside custom IPUs for large-scale AI workloads, suggesting that the relationship between the two companies now extends from cloud AI infrastructure all the way down to consumer AI-focused devices.

Updated May 13, 3:18 PM ET with further confirmation from Qualcomm on its partnership with Google

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When Arm introduced its first 'physical' AGI processors in late March, the company expressed optimism about their adoption by select customers. In less than two months, the company attained around $2 billion in commitments for its AGI CPU over the next several years, smashing the company's expectations two-fold. But despite this heightened interest, Arm's market share will remain in the low single digits even if it manages to ship $2 billion worth of CPUs in two years, Mercury Research told Tom's Hardware.

"Customer response to the Arm AGI CPU is already strong, with more than $2 billion of customer demand across FYE27 and FYE28 – more than double what was stated at Arm Everywhere," Arm declared in its earnings press release.

Arm officially introduced its AGI CPU on March 24, 2026, and referred to it as 'production silicon,' meaning the design of the processor itself is final. Actual production of the CPU is expected to begin in the second half of 2026, with initial customer shipments expected in Q4 2026. Arm expects to ship $90 to $100 million worth of AGI CPUs in Q4 2026 alone.

Given the rising interest in the new chip, the company expects to generate $15B in AGI CPU sales and $10B in IP revenue by FY 2031 (ending on March 31, 2031), which will drive its total revenue to $25B per year, up from $2.61B in FY 2026.

Generating $15 billion in data center CPU sales in a single year is a big deal; Intel earned $16.8B selling server processors last year, after all. Given the rising demand for CPUs, particularly for agentic AI workloads, Arm's revenue may indeed increase by almost a factor of 10, with actual CPUs accounting for 60% of that total figure.

Single-digit percent of the server market

While $100M worth of AGI CPUs in Q4 2026 and over $2B of demand for the next two fiscal years looks like a lot of money (especially given the fact that Arm's current annual revenue is $2.61B), Arm's presence in the server and data center CPU market (silicon CPUs, not IP) will be negligible (yet still quite hard to achieve) if compared to share of merchant CPUs.

AMD and Intel sold just under 20 million data center-oriented EPYC and Xeon SP processors worth tens of billions of dollars in 2025, according to Dean McCarron, president and principal analyst at Mercury Research, a leading CPU market research firm. If we consider only 2025 data center CPU shipments, Arm would need around 4% unit share of the current server CPU market to achieve its $2 billion revenue target.

"In round numbers for 2025, AMD's EPYC average selling price was about $1,325," Dean McCarron told Tom's Hardware Premium. "For Intel, the 2025 ASP for Xeon SP* is about $1,125. What Arm gets of course might be different, and prices are rising, but something like $1,250 probably is not a bad starting place."

At this point, it is hard to estimate the actual ASP of Arm's AGI since while the company advertises processors with up to 136 cores, we can only wonder how many SKUs there will be and how many cores entry-level models will have. If Arm behaves like a typical CPU maker — balancing recovery of development and manufacturing costs against maximizing margins — then AGI's ASP will be comparable to that of EPYC or Xeon.

"So, $2 billion would take roughly 1.6 million CPUs, if that is done over the course of a couple years — eight quarters — that is an average of 200,000 units per quarter," McCarron explained. "For comparison, in 2025, the combined EPYC and Xeon SP markets averaged just under 5 million units per quarter, and of course, that is going to be growing rapidly in 2026 and beyond. So, Arm's $2 billion in server CPU revenue requires them to sell just 4% of the total units right now, and this would be an even smaller percentage of the total in a couple years."

Since Meta is a co-designer partner and lead customer for Arm's AGI CPU, it might get a considerably lower price, which means that Arm will have to supply more units to meet its revenue target, which will mean a higher market share at the cost of lower profits.

"While those [ASP] figures span entry-level to the largest cores, the volumes (and ASPs) are dominated by the hyperscalers," explained McCarron. "When you buy hundreds of thousands of units at a single time, there are some volume discounts, which is why the ASPs are in the low thousands and not $10,000+."

*Other Intel server products were excluded from the comparison as they are not direct competitors to Arm-based data center CPUs.

But can Arm supply?

Given the widespread shortages of everything from wafers at TSMC to memory and from storage devices to advanced chip packaging capacity, we can only wonder whether Arm can increase its output of its AGI CPUs in the next two years by a factor of two. The company has not given a positive answer straight away, but it claims that it is working on it.

"How quickly can we get units?" Rene Haas asked rhetorically. "The number that we talked about end of March was supply in place to support $1 billion of demand, and that includes memory, that includes wafers, that includes packaging, that includes access to test equipment. For the $2 billion, we are now in the process of securing supply to support that. The teams are working around the clock to make sure we can find the right answers for our customers."

Strategic positioning

Strategically, Arm positions its AGI CPUs not as traditional off-the-shelf processors competing directly with merchant CPU vendors and/or custom silicon designed by (or for) leading hyperscale cloud service providers, but as scalable compute platforms and subsystems that hyperscalers and OEMs can use for specific workloads and vertically integrated AI stacks.

The first-gen Arm AGI processor was co-developed with Meta, which will be the first and lead customer for the CPU. Nonetheless, Cerebras, Cloudflare, F5, OpenAI, Positron, Rebellions, SAP, and SK Telecom plan to deploy the Arm AGI CPU for a variety of use cases that include agentic AI CPU workloads. These include accelerator management and control plane processing, as well as other CPU workloads that support AI agent infrastructure or typical cloud workloads.

While the AGI processors will not be available on demand like server CPUs from AMD and Intel, interested parties will be able to get AGI-based rack-scale solutions from such OEMs and ODMs as ASRock Rack, Lenovo, Quanta Computer (which is the leading supplier to Meta), and Supermicro.

On the hardware side, Arm claims that its AGI processor is the world's most efficient agentic CPU. In particular, Arm claims that its AGI CPU was purpose-built as a new class of processor for sustained parallel performance at rack scale, delivering high 'per-task performance' without throttling across thousands of cores and retaining modern data center power and cooling limits.

Arm's 1^st Generation AGI is a data center-bound processor that features up to 136 high-performance Neoverse V3 cores at up to 3.70 GHz, based on the Armv9.2 instruction set architecture, equipped with dual 128-bit SVE2 (Scalable Vector Extension 2) units per core, as well as 2MB of L2 cache per core.

The CPU features a 12-channel DDR5 memory subsystem supporting up to 6 TB of 8800 MT/s memory, providing up to 6 GB/s of bandwidth per core, and has an I/O that supports 96 PCIe Gen6 lanes with CXL 3.0 on top for caching and memory expansion. The CPU is comprised of two identical chiplets (with their own memory interfaces and I/O) made using a 3nm-class process technology and has a thermal design power of 300W.

Arm has a roadmap for its own AGI processors that spans years. While the company does not disclose it to the public, its management implies a consistent and significant core count increase, and believes that agentic AI workloads will call for racks full of CPUs rather than racks that pack a few CPUs and tens of AI accelerators. When it comes to agentic AI workloads, they will not call for more CPUs, but rather for more CPU cores; hence, the rapid core count increase seems to be a logical evolution for Arm's own AGI processors.

"The way I think they think about it is that while the ratios may not go to more CPUs than GPUs from a chip standpoint, they probably will from a core count standpoint," said Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm, during the recent earnings call. " CPUs today, the Arm AGI CPU, for example, has 136 CPU cores. [Nvidia's] Vera, that is 88. As I mentioned earlier, could I see those core counts doubling or quadrupling over the next number of years? Absolutely. […] Will you see many more CPUs inside a data hall, dedicated racks of CPUs that are doing agentic orchestration and scheduling and management? 100%."

With up to 136 highly high-performance cores optimized for agentic AI and data center workloads and available starting from Q4 2026, Arm's AGI CPU is poised to be in high demand from those who need high-end CPUs to run their AI agent infrastructure and whose software stack is already optimized for Arm.

Arm braces for AGI influx

Orders for Arm's 136-core AGI CPUs have doubled to over $2 billion since their announcement on March 24. The development is a result of the skyrocketing growth of demand for CPUs for agentic AI infrastructure and reflects similar occurrences at AMD and Intel. The company now expects to generate $15 billion in AGI CPU sales and $10 billion in IP revenue in fiscal 2031 (which ends on March 31, 2031), increasing its revenue by 9.5X in five years.

However, while $2 billion by FY2028 and $15 billion in FY2031 look like a huge amount of money, Arm will remain a strong contender, rather than a major supplier of data center CPUs, as AMD and Intel earn tens of billions per year selling their EPYC and Xeon parts and are projected to earn hundreds of billions in the 2030s.

Mercury Research believes that Arm could ship roughly 1.6 million of AGI CPUs over the next two fiscal years, which looks pale compared to nearly 20 million of EPYC and Xeon processors sold in 2025. Still, it should be noted that Arm does not plan to compete directly with merchant CPUs as its AGI processors will be available to select hyperscale CSPs and through OEMs and ODMs that will offer rack-scale solutions based on AGI CPUs.

Share prices of both Intel and SK hynix have surged following a ZDNet Korea report claiming that SK is conducting R&D with Intel on 2.5D packaging using Intel's Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology, with the intention of integrating high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and logic semiconductors. Citing unnamed industry sources, ZDNet Korea reports that the company is also evaluating the materials and components required for production.

SK hynix shares have hit an all-time intraday high of $1,320 (1,946,000 Korean Won) on the Korea Exchange, climbing as much as 14.5% and pushing the company's market cap past $900 billion. Likewise, Intel's share price is up nearly 14% at the time of publication, marking a rise of 229% in the last six months, and 91% in the last month alone.

EMIB connects multiple semiconductor dies using small silicon bridges embedded directly in the package substrate, rather than relying on the large silicon interposer that underpins TSMC's Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) platform. The approach is less expensive per package and avoids some of CoWoS's thermal complexity, though the two technologies target different segments of the market.

Intel Foundry has been actively marketing EMIB and its next-gen variant, EMIB-T, to external customers. Intel CFO Dave Zinsner told the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in March that the foundry division is "close to closing some deals that are in the billions per year in terms of revenue" on advanced packaging alone. EMIB-T, which adds through-silicon vias to the bridge for HBM4 compatibility and higher bandwidth, is expected to enter production fab rollout this year.

TSMC's CoWoS lines, meanwhile, have been massively oversubscribed for more than two years. Nvidia alone is expected to account for roughly 60% of global CoWoS demand this year, with Broadcom and AMD absorbing another 26%. That leaves limited capacity for custom ASIC vendors and smaller AI chip developers, creating an opening for alternative packaging providers.

Intel has already confirmed that some customer designs originally scoped for CoWoS have been ported to EMIB or Foveros, with reports last month that Google and Amazon are among the hyperscalers showing interest in Intel Foundry's advanced packaging capabilities, no doubt at least driven in part by limited access to CoWoS.

SK hynix is already building its own 2.5D packaging facilities independently of Intel. The company recently broke ground on a $3.87 billion advanced packaging plant in West Lafayette, Indiana, which is expected to begin operations in 2028, and approved a ₩19 trillion ($12.9 billion) packaging and test facility in Cheongju, South Korea, in January. If the Intel EMIB partnership materializes, it would give SK hynix an additional packaging pathway alongside its own in-house facilities and its longstanding reliance on TSMC's CoWoS.

Neither SK nor Intel has confirmed the rumors.

Gaming laptops can be pricey, and in the past few years, they have only gotten more expensive. The components inside laptops have gotten more expensive, the market below $1,000 has effectively been decimated, and finding a good deal is harder than ever. But we're still testing, and while the goal posts of what defines a budget gaming laptop may be a bit more expensive than they used to be, there are still ways to save.

At Tom's Hardware, we test many gaming laptops every year at a range of prices with different features and parts, so we know what to expect at every price point, no matter what your budget. While even the budget gaming laptops may not be cheap, we can still point out where you get the most for your money. We thoroughly benchmark all of the best budget gaming laptops in numerous games, extensively measuring gaming performance under a wide range of graphical conditions to suss out the best cheap laptops on the market.

Most gaming laptops under $1,500 will use Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5050 and RTX 5060 graphics cards. Many of them will use the latest Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen mobile processors, though sometimes you'll still find last-gen options. Above $1,500 (which, unfortunately, is still on the low end with all-new components these days), you should have the latest. That being said, don't cut corners so far that you settle for 8GB of RAM or just 256GB of storage. Those are outdated specs for gaming laptops.

With a budget gaming laptop, you'll be able to play most games — even graphically intensive ones — on medium or high settings, if not better. If you're playing lighter games, like esports, you should still be able to achieve high frame rates.

Prime Day Exceptional Budget Gaming Laptop deal

Here is a few standout deal from the Prime Day event, which is currently taking place. Our list of best overall picks continues below.

Best Budget Gaming Laptops You Can Buy

Best budget gaming laptop overall

The Acer Nitro V 16S AI is, as of this writing, typically selling around $1,500. This laptop is great for those who are willing to trade off some gaming performance for a bright and colorful screen and a ton of ports, including a microSD card slot.

Those ports, paired with a speedy storage drive in our tests, make the Nivro V 16S AI a solid productivity machine alongside one that can play most games. Acer is using an RTX 5060 with an 85W graphics card, so it's not the most performant system out there, but it's well-balanced if you're going to use just one laptop for gaming, work, or school.

The 16-inch, 1920 x 1200 IPS screen goes up to 180 Hz, allowing for smooth gameplay for esports and indie games. Our system came with a 1TB storage drive, which should hold a few games, and there's room to add another inside. It also came with 32GB of RAM, which should be a bit future-proof.

There is a bunch of bloatware that you'll probably want to uninstall, and the webcam is just 720p.

Read: Acer Nitro V 16S AI review

Best budget gaming laptop for work and play

We had previously seen this laptop as high as $1,800, but lately it's been on sale closer to $1,500. The machine is another good mix of productivity and gaming. Like many other budget systems, it's using an 85W GPU (in this case, an RTX 5070), which means you won't get the most powerful gaming performance.What it does allow for, however, is strong battery life, lasting 9 hours and 13 minutes on our test. We also found the keyboard and touchpad to be quite comfortable.

The Ryzen AI 7 350 is a recent chip, and one that offers strong productivity performance, should you be using this system for work other than just gaming.It would have been nice to see Wi-Fi 7 at this system's full price, though on sale, Wi-Fi 6E is more forgivable. That being said, the display and audio are both middling, so this may be best if you use a monitor or speakers to bump up your experience.

Read: Gigabyte Aero X16 review

Best for battery life

If you want something a bit more minimalist, the Alienware 16 Aurora, the gaming brand's stripped-down machine, may work for you. This one has been consistently available.

The Aurora has an attractive chassis that mixes its plastic body with an alumium lid. The indigo color seems almost black, but has a navy shimmer in the right light.

The biggest benefits we saw were in the 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 IPS display, which goes up to 120 Hz. That screen was brighter and far more vivid (112% of sRGB color volume, 312.2 nits) in our measurements compared to other budget machines.

We also appreciated the Aurora's 96 WHr battery, which helped the system last for 9 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test.

The 80W RTX 5060 is fairly low-power, which might help with the longevity, but means you'l have to set your expectations while gaming. Additionally, the storage could be faster, though you could consider swapping that out down the line.

Read: Alienware 16 Aurora review

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What to Expect From the Best Budget Laptops for Gaming

Sources close to both Apple and Intel have said that the two companies have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture processors for Apple. According to The Wall Street Journal, the two parties have been in talks for over a year, and they’ve been finalizing a formal deal over the past few months. Apple is reportedly looking for alternative fabs to TSMC, as it wants to diversify its supply chain in the midst of ongoing chip shortages, and it seems that this latest development is a confirmation of this report.

It’s currently unclear which chips the U.S. semiconductor company will be making for the largest consumer electronics firm in the world, but it previously made the x86 processors used in Macs and MacBooks from 2006 to 2023. Intel also had the chance to build the A-series chips that Apple used for the iPhone and iPad, but it fumbled the opportunity — with Tim Cook complaining to TSMC founder Morris Chang, “Intel just does not know how to be a foundry.”

Intel apparently learned its lesson, though, as Apple was reportedly considering Intel’s 18A process for its entry-level M-series chips as early as November of last year. Even before this, the two companies were already in discussions about a potential investment into the chip maker, something that President Donald Trump alluded to in early 2026. Aside from Apple, Intel has also received a $5-billion investment from Nvidia and that the two are partnering to develop an x86 RTX SoC for PCs. Elon Musk also tapped Intel for his TeraFab project, which will use the company’s 14A process to make AI chips.

These developments are excellent news for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who has been working hard to put the company back on track after former CEO Pat Gelsinger announced disastrous results in July 2024. It has also caused the company’s stock price to skyrocket, hitting a record high of $126.23 at the time of writing and beating its former peak during the dot-com boom of 2000. But we'll have to wait for confirmation from the two companies — as neither has officially commented on this news yet — to learn the details of this groundbreaking deal.

It’s easy to write off Intel’s original Arrow Lake range, especially now that we’ve seen Arrow Lake Refresh chips in action, both of which have earned spots among the best CPUs for gaming. Although the main range of Arrow Lake CPUs got a lot of attention — for worse more than better — one chip slipped through the cracks: Intel’s budget-oriented Core Ultra 5 225.

Typically, this is an important class of CPU for Intel. Although the lower-specced Core Ultra 5 ranks lower in our CPU benchmark hierarchy for any given generation, this class has traditionally represented the best bang-for-your-buck when it comes to gaming performance. The Core i5-12400 was our go-to recommendation for the best budget CPU, as were the Core i5-13400 and 14400, which offer largely similar performance. The Core Ultra 5 225, on the other hand, never fit that mold.

It’s fallen even more out of favor in the face of Arrow Lake Refresh, as well. At the time of writing, the Core Ultra 5 225 will run you about $180. For around $220, you can pick up the new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, which is leaps and bounds faster in both application and gaming performance. With a price cut, however, the Core Ultra 5 225 could be a compelling CPU, especially considering the current state of budget offerings.

There aren’t a ton of options in the $100 to $150 price bracket right now. AMD has the Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 5 8400F, and Intel has the Core i5-12400F and Core i3-14100F. The long-rumored Core Ultra 3 205 never managed to make its way to the market, and it’s looking increasingly likely that it never will. There’s a gap here, and a gap that the Core Ultra 5 225 would fit wonderfully if only it were a bit cheaper.

As it stands now, the Core Ultra 5 225 competes well against AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X and 7600X in applications, but it’s about a generation behind in gaming performance. The elephant in the room is the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, however, which offers a much better value on both fronts.

We’re still going to look at the Core Ultra 5 225’s performance across our full test suite, including application, gaming, and power testing. Hopefully, we’ll see a price cut on the Core Ultra 5 225 so it can occupy a space in the market that’s largely been ignored by AMD and Intel over the past couple of years.

Intel Core Ultra 5 225 specifications and pricing

The Core Ultra 5 225 is the lowest-specced chip in Intel’s Arrow Lake range that you can actually buy. There have been rumors (and even one full review) of the Core Ultra 3 205, but it’s never actually been available for sale outside of a few retailer placeholder listings. The 225 shares DNA with the other Core Ultra 5 CPUs in the stack, sporting the same six Lion Cove P-cores as the 245K and 250K Plus, but a cut down to just four Skymont E-cores.

It also comes with a severe cut to clock speeds, with a 3.3 GHz base clock, a maximum 4.9 GHz boost, and a cut to power, with just a 65W TDP. The Core Ultra 5 225 would likely be able to climb toward that 245K level of performance with boosted clocks and unlocked power limits, but unfortunately, you can’t overclock the chip. Intel doesn’t offer a K-series version of the 225, instead just offering an F-series variant without integrated graphics for about $15 to $20 less.

As with all Arrow Lake CPUs, the Core Ultra 5 225 doesn’t support Hyperthreading, so the 10 cores give you access to a total of 10 threads. Each Arrow Lake CPU has 3 MB of L2 cache per P-core, as well as 4 MB of cache shared for each E-core cluster, which comprises four cores. The Core Ultra 5 225 is hit on both fronts for cache, not only sporting less L2 due to having fewer cores, but also only 20 MB of L3, compared to 24 MB on the 245K and 30 MB on the 250K Plus.

Although the Core Ultra 5 225 has lower cache than its Arrow Lake counterparts, it’s still a big boost over the Raptor Lake chips it replaces. The Core i5-14400, for instance, comes with just 29.5 MB of total cache, with the same 20 MB of L3 but only 9.5 MB for L2 on the cores, despite sporting the same 6 + 4 core layout. It’s closer to something like the Ryzen 5 9600X, though with a fairly even split between L2 and L3; AMD heavily favors a large L3 over more L2 on the cores.

Outside of the hardware, the Core Ultra 5 225 can leverage Intel’s Application Optimization, but not the new iBOT feature available to Arrow Lake Refresh chips. More importantly, it can’t leverage Core Ultra 200S Boost. Arrow Lake Refresh saw a sizable performance improvement from die-to-die frequency boosts, which are available through 200S Boost for other unlocked Arrow Lake offerings. Unfortunately, here, you don’t have that option.

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Although Intel made some strides with Arrow Lake Refresh, this previous generation of CPUs has been a bit of a dud on the gaming front. Given that the Core Ultra 5 225 is the lowest-specced SKU of an already disappointing gaming generation, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that gaming performance is lackluster overall. At around $180 where the Core Ultra 5 225 lives, there are several better options.

All of our gaming tests are run with an RTX 5090 at 1080p with a mixture of High and Ultra settings depending on the title. The RTX 5090 helps isolate CPU performance as much as possible by giving us plenty of GPU headroom. Most games have ray tracing disabled, short of F1 2024 and Doom: The Dark Ages, and we don’t use any upscaling or frame generation features.

Compared to its main competition, the Ryzen 5 9600X, the Core Ultra 5 225 is 14% behind in our 17-game geomean. Worse, it’s also 7% behind the Ryzen 5 7600X, as well as the Core Ultra 5 245K. Spending an extra $40 for the 250K Plus will net you nearly a 19% boost in performance. And if gaming is your only focus, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D delivers 31% higher average frame rates for $20 to $50 more, depending on where you buy it.

The gen-on-gen comparisons are still solid, however. Intel is able to outclass the Core i5-14400 by 8% with the Core Ultra 5 225, and the 12400F by 13.6%. As we’ll return to multiple times throughout this review, the 225 would look much more attractive with a sub-$150 price. The options are few and far between below $150, and compared to what’s currently available in that price bracket, the Core Ultra 5 225 is compelling.

Unfortunately, the chip is still priced at around $180. The Ryzen 5 7600X delivers slightly better gaming performance for less money, while the Ryzen 5 9600X is much better in games at around the same price. The proximity to $200 is what really sets the Core Ultra 5 225 back, however. An extra $20 or $30 will rarely make or break a PC build, but in the case of the Core Ultra 5 225, that extra money makes all the difference.

Although performance is lackluster overall, the Core Ultra 5 225 scores well in other metrics. Looking at efficiency, it’s able to match the Ryzen 5 7600X3D, which is a feat considering just how efficient Zen 4 CPUs with 3D V-Cache are in games. The Core Ultra 5 225 drew just 50.2W on average throughout gaming tests, 10W less than the Core i5-14400, and a full 36W less than the Ryzen 5 9600X.

Temperatures averaged just 46 degrees Celsius on a 360mm AIO (more on the test benches later in the review). You could keep the Core Ultra 5 225 cool with just about anything. We’re seeing just above idle temperatures under load here.

Outside of average performance, however, the most important geomean we have is value, which we calculate by dividing the average frame rate by price, giving us frames per dollar spent. On the value side of things, the 225 is surprisingly decent. AMD still offers a better value with its two Ryzen 5 offerings, but the Core Ultra 5 225 narrowly beats out the Core Ultra 5 245K.

This brings us back to that $150 price point that’s so important for the 225. At current prices, you’re getting about 0.75 frames per dollar, but at $150, that jumps up to 0.9 frames per dollar, outclassing the Ryzen 5 9600X. Of course, you can make any CPU look better simply by slashing the price, but the Core Ultra 5 225 is uniquely positioned for a price decrease. We’ve seen Intel become much more aggressive on pricing with Arrow Lake Refresh, and prices on Ryzen 5 chips from the last two generations have continually slipped. The Core Ultra 5 225 needs a readjustment to fit in the current market.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks

2023 game of the year winner Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most important benchmarks in our suite. Here, the Core Ultra 5 225 just narrowly misses the performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X while falling 9.3% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X. The Core Ultra 5 225 manages a 10.2% lead over the Core i5-14400. However, AMD is clearly ahead in this title, and even more so when an X3D CPU is brought into the mix.

Borderlands 4 Benchmarks

Borderlands 4 tends to favor Intel CPUs, particularly at the low-end, where we don’t become bound by the GPU. Even with a buff for Team Bluie, the Core Ultra 5 225 just managed to muster the average performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X, falling a few frames behind the Ryzen 5 9600X.

Crimson Desert Benchmarks

Crimson Desert is the newest game in our test suite, and it scales well on the CPU, even up to high-end chips. Although Intel’s Raptor Lake chips hold up well compared to X3D chips in this game, the Core Ultra 5 225 places poorly. It’s only marginally faster than the Core i5-14400, falling behind the Ryzen 5 7600X.

Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks

Counter-Strike 2 is a latency-sensitive game, so it benefits greatly from AMD’s homogenous architecture. The Core Ultra 5 225 gets hit on two points here, not only due to its relatively tame peak clocks, but also its SoC-like architecture that introduces die-to-die latency. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus overcomes those issues with better die-to-die frequencies, but you can’t manually tweak the frequencies of the Core Ultra 5 225.

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks

The lower-tier Core i5 chips don’t do particularly well in Cyberpunk 2077, and the Core Ultra 5 225 carries on the lineage, even falling a frame behind the Core i5-12600K on average. The Ryzen 5 7600X is 7.1% faster, while the Ryzen 5 9600X is 11% ahead.

Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks

Doom: The Dark Ages is the only game in our test suite that uses the Vulkan API, and it features always-on ray tracing. The Core Ultra 5 225 holds up well in this title, finally claiming a lead over the Ryzen 5 7600X. Still, the 225 is 6.5% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X and 13.3% behind the Core Ultra 5 245K.

F1 24 Benchmarks

AMD CPUs perform well in F1 2024, so it’s no surprise to see the Core Ultra 5 225 so behind here. What is surprising is how close the Core Ultra 5 225 is to the Core i5-14400 (and even lower-specced CPUs in our test pool, for that matter). Arrow Lake chips are already weak in this title, and the Core Ultra 5 225 only exaggerates that.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks

Far Cry 6 also favors AMD CPUs, but not as dramatically as F1 2024. And, the Core Ultra 5 225 offers a decent gen-on-gen improvement, outclassing the Core i5-14400 by 6.4%. Still, the Ryzen 5 9600X is in a completely different performance category in this title.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks

Final Fantasy XIV sees some issues with Intel’s hybrid architecture, with the P-core-only Core i3 models outclassing their heterogeneous Core i5 counterparts. The Core Ultra 5 225 doesn’t run into the same issues as the Core i5-14400 and Core i5-13400F, but it’s still only marginally faster and leagues behind AMD.

Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks

The scales are more balanced in Flight Simulator 24, with the Core Ultra 5 225 claiming a small lead over the Ryzen 5 7600X and falling behind the Ryzen 5 9600X by 10.4%.

Hitman 3 Benchmarks

The Core Ultra 5 225 manages a 9.5% lead over the Core i5-14400 in Hitman 3, nearly matching the Ryzen 5 7600X and falling behind the Ryzen 5 9600X by 8%. This game greatly benefits from 3D V-Cache, however, with the Ryzen 5 7600X3D offering a large 30% jump over the Core Ultra 5 225.

Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks

Marvel Rivals Benchmarks

The Unreal Engine 5-based Marvel Rivals is one of the most popular shooters around right now, and while it’s normally bound by the GPU, we can see clear scaling at the lower end of CPUs. That doesn’t benefit the Core Ultra 5 225, which still manages to come in marginally behind the Ryzen 5 7600X.

Minecraft RTX Benchmarks

Minecraft is one of the more demanding benchmarks in our suite due to using a 96 render chunk distance. Intel chips struggle in this game, especially at the low end, and our data makes that clear. Particularly with the Core i3s and lower-tier Core i5s, our first run would see much better performance, but subsequent runs would cut performance down by about a third. As usual, we do between three and five test passes of each title and pick the median result specifically to spot these kinds of performance issues that don’t show up immediately.

Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks

The CPU-intensive Spider-Man 2 is the only game we tested where the Core Ultra 5 225 managed a lead over the Ryzen 5 9600X. This is probably how Intel likes to think about the 225 given its price, marginally outclassing or matching the 9600X. Unfortunately, that narrative is only true here, not in the other titles we tested.

Starfield Benchmarks

The Last of Us Part One Benchmarks

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As the lowest-end offering in Intel’s Arrow Lake range — short of the elusive Core Ultra 3 205 — the Core Ultra 5 225 is fairly weak on the productivity front. Despite having access to 10 cores, it’s really the six P-cores that are the main performance driver. Intel is often just a touch behind the Ryzen 5 9600X in multithreaded performance, though Arrow Lake’s impressive single-threaded performance still shines through.

All of our application testing is done with an RTX 2080 FE, though it functions solely as a display output. All compute is running on the CPU. Our single- and multithreaded performance rankings are calculated with a subset of the application tests we run, comprising workloads that are either heavily-threaded or single-threaded. Many workloads fall somewhere in between, so make sure to use the albums below if you’re interested in seeing a particular result.

In our multithreaded rankings, the Core Ultra 5 225 ends up 3.8% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X when they’re both using a 65W TDP. AMD’s chip comes with an optional 105W TDP, which grows the gap to 8.4% between the two chips. Compared to the Core i5-14400 that the 225 replaces, Intel is offering a 16.8% boost, which is a respectable generational leap; a leap that the unlocked Arrow Lake range couldn’t manage, in fact.

Unfortunately, the Core Ultra 5 225 still can’t overcome the stack of LGA 1700 chips from the main Core i5 range. It’s even a few points behind the Core i5-12600K, as well as 24% behind the Core i5-13600K and 29% behind the Core i5-14600K. The 225 is getting hit on two fronts here, not only losing out on the four extra E-cores that these chips all use, but also having a severely limited thermal design.

The elephant in our multithreaded rankings is clearly the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, however, offering a staggering 86% boost over the 225. At current prices, about $30 to $40 is all that separates these two CPUs, showcasing how much the Core Ultra 5 225 needs a price cut. It’s surprising we haven’t seen the price drop more after the release of the 250K Plus, frankly.

A price cut to around $150 suddenly makes the Core Ultra 5 225 a lot more attractive in multithreaded performance. But given the limited availability of the Core i5-14400, its price has shot up. Around $150, we have chips like the Ryzen 5 7600X and Core i5-12400F, and the Core Ultra 5 225 offers a 21.9% and 53.3% uplift, respectively, compared to those two CPUs.

Although the Core Ultra 5 225 is lackluster in multithreaded performance, the single-threaded prowess of Arrow Lake still comes through, despite limited clock speeds and power. The 225 is able to outclass the Core i5 stack from Alder Lake to Raptor Lake Refresh, and it offers a 15.7% jump over the Core i5-14400. Compared to the Ryzen 5 7600X, the 225 is 22% ahead, though Intel is 1.6% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X in both its 65W and 105W TDPs.

The higher-end Arrow Lake SKUs still come out on top, with the base Core Ultra 5 245K offering a 5.7% jump, and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus pushing up to a 7.4% lead. The gap in price between these two chips and the Core Ultra 5 225 is a bit easier to justify when looking at single-threaded performance.

Rendering Benchmarks

Most rendering is heavily-threaded, though we have several rendering benchmarks that focus on a single thread, as well. Starting with the tried-and-true Cinebench 2024, the Core Ultra 5 225 is able to just marginally outclass the Ryzen 5 9600X, though AMD’s chip leapfrogs into a narrow lead with its 105W mode. The 14-core chips unsurprisingly top the charts, with the 18-core Core Ultra 5 250K Plus sitting in first place. The disappointing performance here is against the Core i5-12600K, which comes with the same 6 + 4 configuration as the Core Ultra 5 225, but with the addition of Hyperthreading on the P-cores.

In our single-core Cinebench 2024 rankings, the Ryzen 5 9600X slips into the lead, matching the Core Ultra 5 245K. The Core Ultra 5 225 is marginally behind, though it still managed to outclass the rest of our test pool. Cinebench 2026 offers a near-identical performance picture, with the exception of the 250K Plus in a multi-core render, where that CPU is particularly strong.

Blender is heavily threaded, and it shows a real-world translation of what we can see in the Cinebench multi-core results. The Core Ultra 5 225 is around 5% ahead of the Core i5-14400, depending on the scene, though it falls just shy of the Core i5-12600K and Ryzen 5 9600X.

Intel is able to claim a lead over the 9600X in POV-Ray’s multi-core test, but you can see the results for this benchmark are skewed toward Intel chips, anyway. The 225 leads the 9600X in its 105W mode by 22% in this test, and it beats out the Core i5-14400 by a 26% margin. The 225 also does well in the single-core test from POV-Ray, falling only behind its more expensive siblings in the Arrow Lake stack.

The Core Ultra 5 225 is slightly behind the Core i5-14400 in Corona, only managing to keep pace with the last-gen Ryzen 5 7600X. V-Ray offers another mirror of our Cinebench results, while in C-Ray, we can see the 225 climb into the lead over the 9600X by 27%, coming in just shy of the Core i5-14600K.

Encoding Benchmarks

Like rendering, encoding benchmarks factor heavily into our geomean. Most encoders are heavily-threaded, though some, such as the LAME audio encoder, are exclusively single-threaded.

For video, Handbrake is a go-to encoder that slams the CPU, utilizing as many threads as possible. Starting with HEVC, the Core Ultra 5 225 is 10.9% behind the 9600X in its 105W mode and 5.7% behind with like-for-like TDP. There’s a similar situation with x264. Using the newer AV1 codec, the scaling is a bit more dramatic. The 225 is 21.5% behind the 9600X, even when both are running with a 65W TDP. The 225 is 14.6% ahead of the Core i5-1440, though it falls behind by 22.4% and 27.9% compared to the 13600K and 14600K, respectively.

Using Intel’s Scalable Video Technology (SVT) library, the 225 understandably holds up better with video encoding. It offers a 50% jump over the 9600X with the same 65W TDP, though it still isn’t able to outclass the Core i5-13600K and Core i5-14600K. For decoding, the 225 holds up better with AV1 through DAV1D, outpacing the 9600X with its default 65W TDP, though falling behind compared to the 105W mode.

In the single-threaded LAME audio encoder, the 225 is 5.8% slower than the 9600X, though 8.7% ahead of the Core i5-14400. We usually see performance level off with an extended LAME run, though the results are largely similar with this test pool.

Creator App Benchmarks

In the Adobe suite, the Core Ultra 5 225 holds up, but it doesn’t claim any clear leads over the Ryzen 5 9600X, nor the Core i5-13600K or Core i5-14600K. Starting in Photoshop, Zen 5 chips dominate in this benchmark, so it’s no surprise to see the 9600X about 30% ahead of the 225 here. Intel is still up gen-on-gen compared to the Core i5-14400, though by a smaller 10% margin.

The scales are more balanced in Premiere Pro. The scaling in Premiere is less dramatic overall, but the 225 also manages to gain an edge over the base Ryzen 5 9600X, falling just 1.4% behind when that chip is cranked to 105W. PugetBench looks at both encoding and decoding, though encoding is GPU-accelerated in Premiere Pro.

Another popular multitrack video editor, DaVinci Resolve, shows Intel falling back behind the Ryzen 5 9600X, though without the clear slant toward Zen 5 that we can see in Photoshop. The Core Ultra 5 225 is 4.4% ahead of the Core i5-14400, but I had expected a better placement given the representation of Arrow Lake chips at the top of the stack. There’s a good chance that more power for the 225 would do it well here.

In After Effects, the 225 looks better, offering an 18.7% improvement over the Core i5-14400 and a 23.4% jump over the Ryzen 5 7600X. However, Intel is still behind the 9600X by about 8%, and behind the Core Ultra 5 245K by 12%.

Web and Office Benchmarks

The Core Ultra 5 225 is better suited for lighter productivity applications. Starting in your browser, WebXPRT 4 shows the 225 7.5% behind the 9600X, though beating both the Core i5-14600K and Core i5-13600K and offering an 18.8% jump over the Core i5-14400. The AI subscore is definitely pulling up the Core Ultra 5 225 in the overall ranking, however, as we can see Intel matching the 9600X when looking at the AI score.

The 225 claims a lead over the 9600X in two apps in the Microsoft Office suite: Outlook and Powerpoint. Excel is the most demanding application here when it comes to raw CPU horsepower, however. The 225 is 7.7% behind the 9600X (at 105W) in Excel, though it offers a large 30% jump over the Core i5-14400, closing in on the higher-end Arrow Lake SKUs.

Chess Engines, Compilation, Compression, AVX, and Other Benchmarks

Outside of our main benchmark suite, we have a variety of other, more specialized workloads we look at. Many of these workloads are focused more on workstations, and the Core Ultra 5 225 is categorically not a workstation chip. We’ll cover some of the highlights here, mostly skipping over workstation-focused tasks like scientific computing.

In an all-out workload like code compilation, the Core Ultra 5 225 does surprisingly well, matching the 9600X in its 105W mode and offering a sizable 14.7% jump over the Core i5-14400 when building the LLVM stack from source. In chess engines, the Core Ultra 5 225 does poorly in Stockfish 9 and its Assembly port, asmFish, falling behind the 9600X and the stack of unlocked Core i5 chips. In Leela Chess Zero, the 225 does better, even managing to outclass the 9600X running at 105W.

Looking at compression and decompression workloads, the Core Ultra 5 225 is able to keep pace with the Ryzen 5 9600X in 7-Zip compression, though it takes a distant backseat in decompression work. This is an odd trend we see with all Arrow Lake CPUs, in fact. Most chips see higher decompression scores, but with Arrow Lake, it’s the opposite.

In the album above, you’ll also find our results for Geekbench 6 and CPU-Z. These two benchmarks don’t factor into our overall geomean, as they don’t always produce results that are representative of real-world workloads. They are popular benchmarks, however, so we still run them.

SPEC Workstation 4 Benchmarks

Finally, we have our SPEC Workstation 4 results. These tests are focused solely on workstations, and we already run many of the benchmarks included in the suite. You can browse the results in the album above, but we’re not putting too much weight on the results here for the budget-focused Core Ultra 5 225.

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After the power creep of Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh, Intel refocused on efficiency with Arrow Lake, and the Core Ultra 5 225 benefited a lot from that labor. This chip comes with just a 65W TDP, so lower power consumption in real-world applications is expected. However, I didn’t expect to see such excellent efficiency, with the Core Ultra 5 225 punching above its weight class in performance-per-watt.

Starting with power, the Core Ultra 5 225 ends up around 70W to 75W in all-out, multi-core workloads like Cinebench and Handbrake, peaking as high as 84W in Blender when rendering the Monster scene. Despite carrying the same 65W TDP as the base Ryzen 5 9600X, you can see that AMD’s chip demands more power in these workloads. In Y-Cruncher, the 9600X consumed 28% more power, and in Cinebench 2024, that grew to 29%.

The 225 also shows significant power decreases compared to last-gen’s Core i5-14400 in both single- and multithreaded workloads. Looking at Y-Cruncher with our single-threaded test, the Core Ultra 5 225 drew just 35W, which is 23.9% less than the Core i5-14400 and 31.3% less than the Ryzen 5 9600X.

In idle scenarios, the Core Ultra 5 225 doesn’t top the charts, but it still only passes a moderate level of power draw. In true idle, the Core Ultra 5 225 and Ryzen 5 9600X are in lockstep, as they are in an active idle (YouTube playback) scenario. Interestingly, the Core i5-14400 posted better idle results in both tests compared to the Core Ultra 5 225.

Lower power consumption means lower performance, but the Core Ultra 5 225 still manages excellent efficiency. It tops the charts in all of our efficiency tests, delivering more performance for each watt consumed compared to every other chip in our test pool. Cinebench is a particular standout, with the 225 offering 30% better efficiency than the Ryzen 5 9600X and 48.9% better efficiency than the Core i5-14400.

Another way to visualize efficiency is through a scatterplot, where we plot performance against power consumption. With these charts, the bottom-right corner is the best performance for the lowest power, while the top-left corner is the worst performance for the highest power.

Test Setup

Our test beds are identical to ensure accurate data while testing. We use the same hardware and software configuration, short of the motherboard and CPU. Our frozen OS image is based on Windows 11 24H2, and we use the same version of the same apps to get comparable data.

We use the RTX 2080 FE for application testing, but it doesn’t do anything other than provide a display output for our application testing. Critically, it uses the same driver as the RTX 5090, which is what we use for game testing. With these two GPUs, we don’t need to worry about cleaning the driver off the system between our test passes.

We make a few tweaks in the BIOS to optimize performance while keeping the CPU’s warranty in mind. We enable XMP/EXPO alongside Resizeable BAR. We disable Windows Virtualization-Based Security, as well as manually disable any automatic boosting features that aren’t covered by warranty, including AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive and Intel’s Extreme power profile.

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The Core Ultra 5 225 shouldn’t be as disappointing as it is. Since Alder Lake, we’ve seen lower-specced Core i5s as a solid value alternative for folks with around $100 to $150 to spend. AMD has largely ignored this market, at least with its latest microarchitecture, poking the main range to create APUs or rereleasing older chips under new names. The Core Ultra 5 225 is priced to compete with AMD’s main Ryzen 5 offerings at this point, but it performs more like a value-focused alternative.

The pricing situation is made worse by the fact that the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus exists. Arrow Lake Refresh felt like a pricing reset for Intel, as it recognized the underdog position it had slipped into in the face of AMD’s X3D offerings. But, that reset has only applied to the Refresh CPUs; we’ve only seen small price cuts on the main Arrow Lake range, including the Core Ultra 5 225.

The Core Ultra 5 225 is a perfect demonstration of why price is so important when evaluating a CPU. Any performance is justified given the right price. You can see this narrow spot in the market where the Core Ultra 5 225 slots in perfectly, beating out the sub-$150 chips from the last several generations that are increasingly difficult to find in stock, while still not managing to creep into that $200 performance class. It slots into that position in the market as far as performance goes, just not as far as price goes.

That gap is most clear in games. Your cheapest entry point without sacrificing a lot of performance is around $170 with the Ryzen 5 7600X, but to get to that next performance tier, you need to jump up to around $220 with the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus or Ryzen 5 7600X3D. Below $150, you quickly start making some big performance trade-offs for only a small decrease in price.

In games, the Core Ultra 5 225 just doesn’t justify its current price. If there’s any Arrow Lake CPU that should cost $180, it’s the 245K, which would marginally outclass the Ryzen 5 7600X for marginally more money at that price. Once again, at $150, the Core Ultra 5 225 would transform into a completely different CPU.

Application performance is less important at this price, but that’s where the Core Ultra 5 225’s price is most justified. It’s in the same ballpark as the Ryzen 5 9600X in multithreaded performance, and it’s extremely efficient. Still, that proximity to $200 stings for the Core Ultra 5 225 when the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus offers nearly twice the multithreaded performance for only $40 more.

The Core Ultra 5 225 earns back some stripes with its solid single-threaded performance, nearly keeping pace with the rest of the Arrow Lake stack and outpacing previous-gen options by wide margins. With access to a bit more power and clock speed, the Core Ultra 5 225 would likely close the gap with other Arrow Lake chips, but unfortunately, that’s not an option on this SKU.

There’s not a situation where the Core Ultra 5 225 makes sense with its current $180 price. The Ryzen 5 9600X is universally faster for $5 more, and spending an extra $20 to $40 on the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus or Ryzen 5 7600X3D will offer worlds-faster productivity or gaming performance, respectively. Even if you had a strict $200 budget to spend on a CPU, the Core Ultra 5 225 doesn’t make sense against AMD.

We’re rating the Core Ultra 5 225 in accordance with its current pricing, but hopefully, we’ll see price cuts. The chip starts to enter the conversation at under $150. Above that price, it doesn’t hold up.

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Global semiconductor revenue reached $298.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up a whopping 25% from the previous quarter, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The SIA believes that the industry is on track to top $1 trillion in sales this year.

That nearly $300 billion of total revenue accounts for sales of logic, memory, analog, mixed signal and other types of chips. In March 2026, monthly revenue stood at $99.5 billion, which represents a 79.2% increase from $55.5 billion recorded in March 2025 and 11.5% higher from February 2026 levels. These monthly figures are calculated as a rolling three-month average by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics.

The Semiconductor Industry Association represents 99% of semiconductor revenue generated by U.S.-based companies and nearly two-thirds of chip firms headquartered outside the U.S., which means that actual sales of chips by various makers was higher than $300 billion in Q1 2026.

Unfortunately, the actual total revenue of semiconductor makers across the world is hard to estimate accurately, as privately owned companies do not share their financial results with the public.

Some companies are partially integrated and sales of their semiconductors cannot be accurately estimated (e.g, Apple, Bosch, Huawei, Sony, and Tesla). Numerous companies from China tend to fly under the U.S. radar and are therefore reluctant to share sales data with the SIA.

On a regional basis, March 2026 sales compared to the same month a year earlier increased by 108.5% in Asia Pacific, 83.1% in the Americas, 74.8% in China, 46.5% in Europe, and 7.4% in Japan. Sequentially, March sales also grew across all key markets, including 13.3% in Americas, 12.7% in China, 9.8% in APAC, 8.4% in Europe, and 7.1% in Japan.

"Global chip sales remain on track to reach $1 trillion in 2026, with Q1 sales significantly exceeding sales in Q4 2025," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Strong sales across the Asia Pacific region, the Americas, and China drove global semiconductor market growth, highlighting broad and robust demand for semiconductors and the countless tech products they enable."

Given the current AI-driven semiconductor supercycle and predictions of years-long shortages of critical chip types, total revenues across the industry seem sure to continue their sharp rise, and manufacturers of chips of all types will likely be able to continue cashing in on the AI bonanza with every chip they can make.

Apple is reportedly talking with Intel and Samsung to produce processors for the company as it’s grappling with a shortage of chips for its latest products. According to Bloomberg, Cupertino has had multiple early-stage discussions with Team Blue, while some key Apple executives have also visited a Samsung plant that’s still in development — likely its Taylor, Texas, fab, which is set to start risk production this year.

None of the talks have resulted in any orders, so far, the report states. There have been concerns about using non-TSMC tech in Apple products, especially as it has been producing chips for the iPhone since the A8 used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. However, the AI infrastructure build-out is negatively affecting the company, with Apple CEO Tim Cook conceding that it’s constrained by TSMC’s supply of advanced chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that his company has dethroned the consumer electronics giant as TSMC’s number one customer, and even alluded that Apple might have to pay more for its chips. But even before this, Cupertino has reportedly been considering using Intel’s 18A process to build future M-series chips, especially as global geopolitical events are threatening the stability of the global supply chain.

If we look at Apple’s history, both Samsung and Intel have closely worked with the company for years. The first iPhone, all the way to the iPhone 5S, was powered by Samsung chips, while Macs and MacBooks used x86 Intel processors from 2006 until they were replaced by Apple silicon in 2023. If successful, these talks would resume Apple’s partnership with one (or both) of the companies.

This would be a win for Intel as it’s looking to land a major customer for its foundry business — something that it fumbled in 2011 when Cupertino first approached it for its custom chip needs. A move like this could also help bolster Samsung’s foundry business, as it sits at a distant second place when compared to TSMC. At the same time, it would reduce Apple’s risk of relying on a single supplier for the majority of its advanced chip supply. Even though TSMC’s Arizona plant is ramping up production and it’s estimated that it will deliver 100 million chips for Cupertino this year, it is just a fraction of Apple’s demands, with the majority of its advanced SoCs still expected to come from Taiwan.

Tim Cook has been well aware of the situation with TSMC for years now. He even said in a 2022 all-hands company meeting, “Regardless of what you may feel or think, 60% coming out of anywhere is probably not a strategic position.” This was likely highlighted with the AI-driven chip shortage. “The primary constraint is the availability of the advanced nodes our SoCs are produced on, not memory,” the Apple CEO said during the company’s latest earnings call. “I believe it will take several months to reach supply-demand balance.”

But even if Apple were to strike a deal with both Intel and Samsung today, it will take some time for production to ramp up, and consumers won’t feel its effect for several months, if not a couple of years.

Bartlett Lake is one of Intel's most unique CPU lineups to date, featuring a P-core-only design based on Raptor Cove. But what caught everyone's attention was the flagship's 12 P-core configuration, featuring four more P-cores than any hybrid Intel CPU Intel has made so far. Discovered by PCGamesHardware, a German YouTuber put the flagship Core 9 273PQE Bartlett Lake chip to the test in a four-hour livestream and found it outperforms the Core i9-14900K in several games by up to 9%.

The YouTuber tested several games, including Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter Wilds, Rainbow Six Siege, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Counter-Strike 2, all at 720p, and Outcast 1.1 at 4K. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the 273PQE was 5% faster than the 14900K. In Monster Hunter Wilds, the 273PQE was 6% faster than the 14900K, and in Rainbow Six Siege the 273PQE was on par with the 14900K in performance. In Outcast, the 273PQE was 9% faster than the 14900K. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider the 273PQE was 9% faster than the 14900K, and in Counter-Strike 2, performance was on-par between the two chips.

The YouTuber's results reveal that Intel's latest embedded flagship could potentially be Intel's fastest gaming CPU to date. Technically, Intel has an even quicker Core i9-14900KS, but based on our Core i9-14900KS review, the halo part is not 10% faster than the 14900K. We would need to test the Core 9 273PQE ourselves to verify if Bartlett Lake truly has Intel's best CPU for gaming, but the YouTuber's benchmarks provide enough evidence to suggest it is possible.

Intel's tile-based approach for the Arrow Lake architecture in the Core Ultra 200S series failed to improve gaming performance over its Raptor Lake predecessors in gaming. Intel was able to partially rectify this issue with the Core Ultra 200 Plus series by overclocking the chip's internal fabric, but even the new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is slightly behind the 14900K in our gaming CPU benchmark hierarchy.

Bartlett Lake, the codename for the Core 9 273PQE, is based on Intel's older Raptor Cove microarchitecture, which is also found in Intel's 13th and 14th-gen Raptor Lake CPUs. The chip comes with 12 P-cores, 24 threads, a 5.9GHz peak boost clock, and 36MB each of L2 and L3 cache. Bartlett Lake is an embedded solution aimed at mission-critical deployments, so sadly, it is not officially compatible with desktop LGA 1700 socket motherboards. That said, modders have gotten the 273PQE to work in a consumer LGA 1700 motherboard through BIOS mods.

Intel has announced a pair of high-profile leadership appointments as it doubles down on its AI ambitions. According to an official press release today, the company is bringing in industry veteran Alex Katouzian to lead its client computing and emerging “physical AI” efforts, while Pushkar Ranade is coming in as Chief Technology Officer to steer the company’s long-term innovation strategy. The appointments clearly signal Intel's intent to more tightly align its core computing business with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, particularly at the edge and in real-world systems.

Alex Katouzian is joining as executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing and Physical AI Group, a role Intel says will align its traditional PC-focused business with emerging AI-driven systems spanning robotics, autonomous machines, and edge devices.

Katouzian is bringing 25 years of industry experience from Qualcomm, spanning from when he joined as a senior engineer in 2002 to his last very senior role as executive vice president and group general manager of mobile, compute, and extended reality (XR).

He is widely regarded as a key figure in scaling Qualcomm’s mobile and compute platforms globally and is responsible for significant contributions to the industry, including the expansion of Snapdragon mobile platforms and Qualcomm’s push into PC and XR computing. Intel believes this experience will prove invaluable as the company moves to expand beyond traditional PCs into AI-enabled, connected, and edge-based computing ecosystems.

Speaking on the appointment, which officially kicks off this month, Katouzian expressed excitement about joining Intel at what he described as a pivotal moment for AI-driven transformation across computing platforms.

“Intel is creating the foundation for AI-driven transformation, from leading in AI PCs, to scaling AI inference at the edge, and accelerating the future of physical AI systems,” wrote Katouzian. “I’m excited to join Lip-Bu and the Intel team at this critical moment to help scale innovation and deliver the next generation of computing experiences.” Katouzian announced his departure from Qualcomm on LinkedIn.

The second appointment sees Pushkar Ranade transition to permanent Chief Technology Officer after serving in the role on an interim basis for several months. Ranade is not a new face at Intel and has been with the company for over 10 years.

According to Intel, his role will involve leading the company’s technology strategy, overseeing special technology initiatives, and driving development across emerging areas such as quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, photonics, and advanced materials. He will also serve as chief of staff to the company’s CEO.

Both appointments continue an existing trend as more tech companies pivot to a stronger AI focus. Microsoft, for instance, created a dedicated AI division led by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, alongside a series of follow-on hires to strengthen its AI leadership. Google has also brought in senior robotics leadership to push AI into physical systems.

A tech channel that uses rather unconventional means to delid CPUs and expose the underlying silicon has caused a blip on our radar. In the episode below, you can witness the Hackinator delid an Intel Xeon Silver 4110 processor, remove the die, and etch away what remains to expose the beautiful shimmering silicon patterns. We’ve seen similar dies before, but the Hackinator’s special sauce is going through this process in a devil-may-care manner with tools like a butcher knife and a blowtorch.

The helpless Xeon was placed on a wood chopping block at the start of the video. Then the process begins with washers around the screw heads driven into the wood, clamping the chip into place, making it impossible to escape.

Now the torture begins, with a hot air soldering gun brought into frame, held on a tripod. This will have eased the solder/glue bond that keeps the integrated heat spreader (IHS) in place. Now we see why the Hackinator is called the Hackinator, as they get busy with a Gerber hunting knife and a flat-edged screwdriver. The prying is pretty rough, as this isn’t a delid done for direct die cooling. At the end of this process, this Xeon isn’t going to do any calculating.

With the IHS discarded, the Hackinator adds a metal frame and reapplies grip screws to the substrate before more heating and prying ensues. Eventually, we see the silicon sliver exposed, but it isn’t freed until after a blowtorch is used to decimate the substrate.

With the scorched die liberated, the next step is to clean soot and other residue away with a spray and a toothbrush. With this done, the Hackinator prepares some fine etching paste. This was applied and brushed onto the silicon die. It appears to have removed a protective and obfuscating layer protecting the underlying silicon chip structure.

Previous die shots we’ve seen are the product of far more clinical, precise, and measured machinations, with a meticulous and considered lapping stage ahead of the finished die shots. However, zooming in on this seemingly rough work using a powerful microscope does indeed reveal some intricate details of the Xeon Silver silicon die. Admittedly, there is evidence of some material that wasn’t removed cleanly, but the Hackinator’s results are probably far better than may have been expected for the brutal methodology applied.

Intel is ramping up production of its CPUs on its 18A (1.8nm-class) process technology with promising results, but at the same time, the work on its enhanced version called 18A-P is well underway with production readiness looming in the coming quarters. The company's 18A-P introduces two new types of transistors, tighter process variability control, and improved thermals to enable higher performance and lower power consumption. This is perhaps why Apple and other fabless chip designers are rumored to be considering using 18A-P.

When compared to Intel's baseline 18A, 18A-P fabrication process promises to enable chip developers to either increase the performance of their designs by 9% (at the same power) or lower their power consumption by 18% (at the same performance and complexity), according to a paper Intel released at the VLSI 2026 conference. To achieve these improvements, Intel introduced new types of gate-all-around RibbonFET transistors, including high-performance devices with enhanced contacts as well as new low-power devices. Designers can now push higher frequencies on critical paths and reduce power consumption in less demanding regions, which greatly improves overall performance efficiency.

Meanwhile, 18A-P retains contacted poly pitch (50nm) and library heights (180nm and 160nm) of 18A as well as design compatibility with the base process, meaning that a chip originally designed for 18A can be ported to 18A-P and benefit from certain process-level improvements (which do not rely on new transistor types), though to fully realize performance and efficiency gains requires design re-optimization.

Another major improvement of 18A-P over 18A is -30% skew corner tightening, which also reduces variability and improves yield efficiency. The enhancement narrows the spread between fast and slow silicon and makes it closer to 'typical' silicon as well as center-to-edge variation across the wafer. Also, the production node adds extra threshold voltage (VT) options (over 5+ pairs of logic VTs compared to 4 pairs in 18A) to enable finer-grained binning and more consistent chip behavior, which increases the proportion of dies that meet target specifications. This improves parametric yield and enables chip designers to get more higher-end silicon from a single wafer. Meanwhile, tightening of process corners does not affect defect density as existing challenges with line-edge roughness (LER) and stochastic variability remain intact.

While Intel's 18A-P retains the contacted pitch of the base node, the company still tweaked the resistance and capacitance of its metal stack, which impacts signal speed, power consumption, and timing. Yet, Intel does not characterize the changes.

Last but not least, 18A-P introduces enhancements in thermals, reliability, and voltage behavior that are critical for an advanced process technology aimed at both client and data center applications. Intel says it improved thermal conductivity by 50%. Lower thermal resistance helps manage higher power densities associated with GAA transistors, which is important for client applications. Improved logic negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) enhances long-term device stability under high-voltage stress, which is critical for data center processors. Finally, 18A-P better aligns logic and SRAM minimum operating voltage (Vmin) to improve low-voltage operation and stability.

Intel's 18A-P is a heavily optimized version of 18A-P that not only promises higher performance efficiency but also addresses things like parametric yields, thermals, and reliability. Altogether, these enhancements make 18A-P a more mature and attractive version of 18A, not only for Intel, but also for potential external customers like Apple.

One of the highlights of Intel's first-quarter earnings report last week was improved sales of its client and data center processors as a result of improved output and yield, as well as high demand. Last week, industry analyst Ben Bajarin said the company was now selling what would normally be 'scrap' or 'low-expectation' CPUs, which helped boost margins. We followed up with industry veteran Dan Hutcheson for more details, and he notes that some of the company's recent yield gains are less about breakthrough inventions and more about disciplined execution improvements under its new manufacturing leadership.

Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told Tom's Hardware that while techniques like binning and statistical process control (SPC) have been standard practice at Intel for about 40 years, recently — starting from around late 2024 when Naga Chandrasekaran, the current head of Intel Foundry, joined the company — Intel focused on tightening yield distribution across the wafer by reducing edge-related variability.

Specifically, Intel now runs a continuous process improvement (CPI) program after a node enters high-volume manufacturing, so by now it has implemented certain edge-specific process correction methods in a bid to reduce quality variability from the center to the edge of a wafer to get more sellable silicon from a single wafer.

"When it comes to manufacturing, it takes a year or two to make these kind of dramatic changes," Hutcheson told Tom's Hardware. "There’s just nothing new here. Intel has binned lots since the 1980s. Yield distributions are always heteroscedastic from the center to the edge of the wafer. Actually, one of the things Naga Chandrasekaran's yield management efforts have changed is to narrow the spread to the edge of the wafer. Hence, they are getting more revenue-per-wafer for little cost. The beauty of it is that the improvements are node independent."

As a result, Intel can now extract more high-quality dies from a single wafer and, perhaps even more importantly, more sellable dies from a single wafer, which improves output and productivity. Essentially, chips that previously might have been scrapped or too marginal to sell are now binned into lower-tier SKUs and sold because the demand is strong, according to Ben Bajarin, chief executive and principal analyst at Creative Strategies.

"Got some clarity from Intel IR on additional lift to margins," Bajarin wrote in an X post. "Intel got an unexpected margin lift from better yield salvage. Chips that would normally have been lower-value edge-die on the wafer were binned down and still sold into usable SKUs, turning what may have been scrap or low-expectation output into incremental revenue. Customers did not care, just said 'I will take it all.' That is the demand environment we are in for CPUs."

This can be interpreted in different ways, but it is feasible that the yield distribution improvements have made lower-quality chips now viable products, or that the company created even lower-tier SKUs to harvest even more chips.

More importantly, the aforementioned tightening yield distribution improvements are said to be largely node-independent, which means they benefit multiple process technologies rather than the existing nodes, such as Intel 7/4/3. Indeed, there are many ways to reduce edge-related variability, and many of them are node independent, which means some of the methods developed at Intel should be applicable to 18A (though that isn't confirmed). In fact, one of the comments Intel made during its earnings call is that the yield curve of 18A progresses at a pace that is higher than expected.

"Lip-Bu had a [18A yield] target as we came into this year for the end of this year, and we are probably going to hit that probably the middle of this year," said David Zinsner, chief financial officer of Intel. "So, you know, he has done a very good job working the team to drive a better response there."

Security researchers have uncovered a cyber-sabotage platform that predates Stuxnet by at least half a decade. Sentinel Labs has published a blog on their fast16 revelations, discussing the scope of this state-level tool, which targets select high-precision calculation software, slyly introducing inaccuracies. Investigations suggest that fast16 was used to make key calculations in software used for projects involving nuclear reactors, dam design, and broader physics simulations, subtly but reproducibly erroneous.

“*** Nothing to see here – carry on ***”

Before looking more closely at fast16, it is interesting to ponder who may be behind it and the origin of the name. Sentinel Labs notes that the name ‘fast16’ can be found referenced in an infamous NSA ‘territorial dispute’ file leak. Specifically, it was mentioned in the strongest terms in a do-not-disturb list provided to operators. The line “fast16 *** Nothing to see here – carry on ***” singles out fast16 as being one of - if not the - most important NSA hack tools.

The security researchers, including Vitaly Kamluk & Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade, found fast16 based on an architectural hunch. As a number of high-tier threats in this category were built on an embedded Lua virtual machine, they decided to see if there were traces of earlier Lua VM tools.

A file called svcmgmt.exe, which was uploaded to VirusTotal nearly a decade ago, would be a key link. This ‘unremarkable’ file was a 2005 file that was indeed a “Lua-powered service binary.” However, “it still receives almost no detections: one engine classifies it as generally malicious, and even that with limited confidence,” note the security researchers.

How fast16 was delivered

The aforementioned svcmgmt.exe acts as a carrier worm for delivering the fast16.sys kernel driver. It is surprisingly stealthy for a tool of its age. For example, it would check the machine registry for signs of malware monitoring tools from companies like Symantec, TrendMicro, McAfee, etc., to decide whether to abort or to deploy.

Spreading of fast16 would occur via wormlets propagating through Windows service control and file-sharing APIs. This version of fast16 targeted Windows 2000 and Windows XP environments and preyed on default and weak admin passwords on file shares.

The prime targets of fast16

Fast16 was designed to corrupt floating-point calculations in a subtle, predictable, reproducible way. It would seek out executable files, and in particular, EXEs that had been compiled with the Intel C/C++ compiler.

The corruption of output from targeted executables was controlled in such a way that fast16 would introduce “small but systematic errors into physical‑world calculations.” In effect, engineering projects based on these calculations may degrade more quickly than expected “or even contribute to catastrophic damage,” note the researchers.

In the Sentinel Labs blog, three era-appropriate software packages were specifically named as targets of fast16.

LS‑DYNA 970 (crash/explosion simulations; typically used in nuclear-related modeling)

PKPM (Chinese structural engineering suite, used to design expansive infrastructure projects)

MOHID (Portuguese hydrodynamic environmental modeling software)

Other infected machines using the same software, doing the same calculations, would get the same subtly erroneous results.

What else is out there?

Fast16 is a rather momentous discovery that indicates state-grade cyber sabotage existed in the mid-noughties, predating the discovery of Stuxnet by at least five years.

The lineage of fast16 may be much longer and deeper in history, though. Some strings in the malware files have fingerprints from Cold War-era Unix systems. These are basically fossilized traces of software revision control systems dating back to the 1970s and 80s.