Articles by Jake Roach, Senior Analyst, CPUs

Jake Roach has been bending pins and busting solder joints since the mid-2000s. From trying to run scratched CDs of Delta Force and Unreal Tournament to spitting out virtual machines on a Threadripper, Jake has been on the hunt for the latest hardware and highest performance for decades. That eventually spun up a career, with Jake serving as Lead Reporter at Digital Trends, as well as contributing to outlets like XDA, PC Invasion, Business Insider, and WIRED. At Tom’s Hardware, Jake is focused on consumer and workstation CPUs. Outside working hours, you’ll find him knee-deep in the latest roguelite taking over Steam, spending way too much money on Magic: The Gathering, or forcing his lazy corgi onto walks.

Articles by: Jake Roach

AMD ROCm CES 2026 press Q&A roundtable transcript — 'ROCm from 2023 is completely unrecognizable to ROCm today' company details, as it seeks to break down barriers to AI development

By Zak Killian published 22 January 26

Premium We had the opportunity to sit down with AMD at CES 2026 for a press roundtable discussion, where we discussed ROCm and other AMD software, as captured in this transcript of AMD's Q&A session.

AMD FSR Redstone press roundtable CES 2026 transcript — company speaks out on why AI 400 lacks RDNA 4 GPU

By Zak Killian published 16 January 26

Premium We attend a roundtable interview with AMD to discuss their graphics technologies like FSR Redstone, and more at CES 2026.

Examining DDR4 PC build options in 2026 — With high DDR5 prices, a PC build with DDR4 is worth considering, especially if you have RAM you can carry over from a previous build

By Joe Shields, Jake Roach published 15 January 26

Just because they aren’t cutting edge, doesn’t mean you can’t get great gaming and productivity performance with one of these builds.

Intel showed up for consumers at the 'Consumer Electronics Show;' AMD didn’t

By Jake Roach published 9 January 26

AI everywhere is starting to feel like it comes at a cost.

Intel Panther Lake press Q&A transcript — EVO is still alive, and the company ditches prior-generation naming scheme

By Sayem Ahmed published 9 January 26

Premium We sat down at CES 2026 with a panel of Intel staff to ask questions about Core Ultra Series 3.

AMD teases heavily-rumored Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, continues to leak despite CES no-show — Alienware Area 51 may not be a beneficiary after all (Updated)

By Hassam Nasir last updated 8 January 26

Along with a British system integrator who's putting it inside a workstation.

AMD is unfazed by Panther Lake's big integrated GPU — 'It's not even a fair fight' to compare the Arc B390 to Strix Halo, AMD exec claims

By Aaron Klotz published 8 January 26

AMD's Rahul Tikoo claims that the company has a better selection of products compared to Panther Lake that are better suited to the needs of graphics-intensive customers and mainstream consumers.

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G in socket AM4 motherboard

Senior AMD executive suggests consumers buy cheap CPUs to combat memory pricing squeeze — says ‘consumers have a wide assortment of choice available for all kinds of price points’

By Jowi Morales published 7 January 26

An AMD executive says that they're not too concerned about the memory shortage, points out that AMD has a wide range of CPUs available "for all kinds of price points."

Intel Panther Lake pre-release testing delivers over 80 fps in Cyberpunk, 100 fps in F1 — Arc B390 offers playable 1080p frame rates with XeSS quirks in our hands-on tests

By Jake Roach published 7 January 26

Panther Lake’s 12 Xe3 cores can deliver some serious gaming horsepower, but the software still needs work

Lenovo brings handheld-favorite SteamOS to the flagship Legion Go 2 — the AMD Z2 Extreme gets official SteamOS support for the first time

By Jake Roach published 7 January 26

Lenovo is bringing official SteamOS support to AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor for the first time with an updated Legion Go 2.

AMD hints at officially open-sourcing FSR 4 upscaling and frame generation technology in the wake of accidental release — accidental release may have forced the company's hand

By Bruno Ferreira published 6 January 26

AMD hints at officially open-sourcing FSR 4

AMD Ryzen chief teases return of older Zen 3 chips to fight soaring RAM prices — 'That's something we're actively working on right now'

By Bruno Ferreira published 6 January 26

AMD interview suggests it might restart production of DDR4-based AM4 Ryzen desktop processors

Asus unveils the ROG Cronox, its first panoramic PC case with a 9.2" screen and rotating fan bracket — chassis supports up to 14x 120mm fans & dual 360mm radiators

By Hassam Nasir published 6 January 26

The company's most ambitious case yet.

Asus launches two new ROG Zephyrus laptops at CES — 14 and 16-inch models come with latest AMD and Intel CPUs, and up to RTX 5090 GPU

By Jowi Morales published 6 January 26

Two new ROG Zephyrus laptops, available with a 14-inch or 16-inch display, come with either an Intel Core Ultra 300 or AMD Ryzen AI CPU, plus up to an RTX 5090 GPU.

The Asus ROG NeoCore Wi-Fi 8 concept router showcased at CES 2026

Asus debuts ROG NeoCore Wi-Fi 8 router concept at CES — promising better range and lower latency for gamers and smart homes

By Kunal Khullar published 6 January 26

The Wi-Fi 8 concept router emphasizes stable performance, smarter bandwidth use, and improved mesh networking all wrapped up in a D20 looking 'dice'.

AMD's CES 2026 Keynote Liveblog: Gorgon Point, Helios racks, and AI

By Jake Roach, Andrew E. Freedman last updated 6 January 26

AMD CEO Lisa Su will take to the stage at 6:30 p.m. PT to outline the company's latest advances at CES 2026.

Alienware brings OLED to its gaming laptops for the first time in years — anti-glare OLED display boasts 240Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms response time

By Jake Roach published 6 January 26

Alienware is bringing its 16-inch laptops up to speed with other high-end offerings, introducing a 240Hz OLED panel for the first time ever across its Area-51 and Aurora designs.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D promises 7% uplift over Ryzen 7 9800X3D – AMD fights itself with ‘new fastest gaming processor’

By Jake Roach published 6 January 26

The long-rumored Ryzen 7 9850X3D is official, but AMD’s own benchmarks paint an underwhelming picture for performance gains.

AMD's Ryzen AI 400 series includes the first Copilot+ desktop CPU — Team Red refreshes Zen 5 APUs and Strix Halo

By Jake Roach published 6 January 26

AMD’s new Ryzen AI 400 ‘Gorgon Point’ APUs are primarily driven by a clock speed bump, featuring similar silicon as the previous generation otherwise.

Asus ROG G1000 gaming PC is covered in holograms — this RTX 5090, 9950X3D rig is 'built to be seen'

By Andrew E. Freedman published 6 January 26

There are also new gaming laptops.

Intel CES 2026 keynote live blog: Panther Lake debuts in Core Ultra Series 3 laptop CPUs, Arc B390 IGP announced

By Jake Roach, Brandon Hill last updated 5 January 26

Jim Johnson, Intel’s Senior VP and GM of the Client Computing Division, will come on stage at 3:00 p.m. PT to talk about the Core Ultra Series 3 processors.

Intel doubles down on gaming with Panther Lake, claims 76% faster gaming performance — new X-series chips can match discrete RTX 4050

By Jake Roach published 5 January 26

Intel finally unveiled the specs and speeds of its Panther Lake processors at CES, with the headline addition being a new lineup of X-series chips that sport a bigger GPU.

Samsung's new 'Odyssey 3D' 6K monitor takes center stage at CES 2026, features solid eye-tracking — 1,000 Hz dual-mode panel also on display, alongside new G6 & G8 OLED monitors

By Hassam Nasir, Jake Roach published 5 January 26

Samsung's got something for everyone.

Qualcomm expands Snapdragon on Windows with X2 Plus – 10-core ARM CPU boasts 35% single-core jump

By Jake Roach published 5 January 26

Qualcomm is expanding its second generation of Windows chips with the X2 Plus lineup, which claims a 35% jump in single-core and a 17% increase in multi-threaded performance.

Unlucky RTX 5080 buyer who received rocks made whole after month-long investigation — Reddit user shows off new tattoo to commemorate

By Jake Roach published 30 December 25

After nearly a month and with most options exhausted, one unlucky RTX 5080 buyer finally got their card.

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