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.

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.

Intel's next-gen Nova Lake family is expected to land on a new socket, but it will also bring forth a bunch of new chipsets with it. We've already covered them before, but new details have surfaced about the flagship offerings: Z970 and Z990. Both of these will allegedly feature the same PCH that's 22% smaller but more power-hungry than the current-gen Z890 platform, consuming up to 14W at the top-end when fully saturated.

Before we discuss that, a low-resolution picture of the Z990 PCH has also been leaked, with Jaykhin claiming it measures out to 25 x 24mm for the package, while featuring an 11.15 x 6.5mm die. That comes out to 72.5mm² for the die area, while we're looking at 600mm² for the package area. For comparison, Z890's package area was 658mm², and the die area would work out to 92.9mm², constituting a 22% shrinkage for the die and an 8.8% smaller overall package.

This is despite the higher power draw suggested for Z990, which is 14W. However, the platform will only hit that upper limit when running multiple PCIe 5.0 devices simultaneously; otherwise, the base power for the Z990 PCH is just 7.9W — still 1.9W more than the 6W base power of Z890. Even the cut-down Z970 apparently features a 6.4W base power draw. Both chipsets have the same maximum operating temperature of 113°C, 5 degrees higher than Z890.

When you have just a single GPU slotted in the motherboard, it's wired up directly to the CPU and doesn't use any of the downstream PCIe lanes stemming from the chipset. The same goes for a single PCIe 5.0 drive for Z970 and up to two PCIe 5.0 SSDs for Z990. But the moment you add more PCIe 5.0 devices, they're routed through the chipset, which makes it consume more power to maintain signal integrity.

We haven't officially seen any LGA 1954 motherboard yet, but there were some early prototypes at Computex, which is where the leaked PCH image could've come from. Anyhow, Nova Lake is expected to carry up to 52 cores at the top-end, so it makes sense such powerful motherboards are required to handle the silicon. Previous rumors have pointed toward an insane 700W PL4 for the flagship NVL-S part with dual compute tiles.

Following Panther Lake, Intel's upcoming Nova Lake family is set to be a true next-gen leap as well. While Panther Lake is mobile-only, Nova Lake is desktop-first but also has mobile parts, just like the current Arrow Lake (refresh) lineup. Prior leaks have indicated that NVL scales from 6 cores all the way up to 52 cores at the top-end, but a new rumor from tipster Jaykihn says the 6-core mobile SKU has been shelved.

As you'd expect, the 6-core part in question would've been the lowest-end offering from Nova Lake, targeted entirely at the budget segment. The issue is, Intel already launched a product for this market, and it's called Wildcat Lake — the successor to Twin Lake. The lineup was announced in April and is meant exclusively for low-end laptops, mini-PCs, and edge. It shares an architectural foundation with Panther Lake and is limited to 6 cores.

The 6-core Nova Lake SKU would have reportedly featured 2 P-cores and 4 LP-E cores, which is the same as Wildcat Lake's current maxed-out configuration. The difference would lie in the architecture since Nova Lake is expected to switch to Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores/LP-E cores, while Wildcat Lake (and Panther Lake) right now use Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores/LP-E cores.

Therefore, a Nova Lake CPU featuring 6 cores would overlap with Wildcat Lake, or more specifically, whatever the Wildcat Lake refresh will be. Either product could end up cannibalizing the other, but since Wildcat Lake already exists with unneeded I/O stripped out to save costs, it makes sense to leave the entry-level Nova Lake silicon behind. After all, demand for Wildcat Lake is exceeding Intel's own expectations.

With the advent of Apple's MacBook Neo, there's a rejuvenated interest in capturing this segment of the market since the Neo is so competitive. At Computex 2026, we've seen a few promising options that should challenge the Neo with perhaps even better specs, all powered by Wildcat Lake. Putting a costlier Nova Lake chip in one of these laptops next year just wouldn't allow for aggressive pricing.

As we get closer to the expected launch of Intel's upcoming desktop CPU family, Nova Lake, rumors and leaks about the next-gen lineup are only intensifying. The latest report comes from reliable tipster Jaykihn, who's claiming that a special 16-core Nova Lake-S SKU is in the works featuring an iGPU rocking 12 Xe3P cores. The chip will purportedly require two VccGT VRM phases, pinning it as powerful, high-performance silicon on the graphics front.

The leaker says this SKU will feature 4x Coyote Cove P-cores, 8x Arctic Wolf E-cores, and 4x Arctic Wolf low-power E-cores, totaling out to 16 cores and 16 threads. That means we're looking at a single-tile NVL-S variant, likely without any bLLC (Big Last Level Cache). The iGPU is the focus here, with the touted 12 Xe3P cores being significantly higher than the 2 Xe3 cores rumored for every other Nova Lake desktop CPU.

With 12 Xe3P cores, this rumored SKU would compete with AMD's Ryzen G-series APUs instead of the mainline Ryzen family, and would mark Intel going beyond basic display functionality, giving budget-conscious gamers an affordable entry point to run modern titles. Of course, DDR5 RAM is still overpriced, and integrated graphics are entirely reliant on system memory, so not needing a discrete GPU may not turn out to be as much of a relief.

Panther Lake already debuted Xe3 graphics, showing a truly generational leap in performance. Naturally, Intel will be looking to build on its performance with Xe3P. Nova Lake has been rumored to use a combination of Xe3 and Xe3P so far, reserving the Xe3 architecture for the iGPU while delegating Xe3P to the display engine. Some mobile variants are reported to use Xe3P across both.

Therefore, having 12 Xe3P cores on an NVL-S desktop CPU would be a big deal. It's a rumor reminiscent of the reportedly cancelled Nova Lake-AX lineup that was supposed to pack a whopping 48 Xe3 cores and 28 CPU cores. Perhaps, Intel still wants to explore the high-performance APU segment, but with a more controlled approach that specifically targets the budget market — someone buying a flagship CPU is likely going to pair it with a discrete GPU anyway.

Lastly, prior leaks have teased that Intel is putting bLLC on some of its higher-end Nova Lake SKUs. Since the lineup tops out at 52 cores with dual-tile variants, this 16-core SKU is purely midrange, making it unlikely to carry any extra cache. That being said, bLLC will help extract even more performance out of those integrated graphics. AMD hasn't created an X3D chip with a Ryzen G-series-level iGPU either, so Intel could be the first to leverage this formula.

All of this is speculation, as even Jaykihn calls the leaked specs "preliminary," which means they're subject to change. The uncertainty is only exacerbated by the current global climate. But we know that the Xe3 architecture is impressive; in some cases, it beats the Radeon 890M (inside Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) with 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs. In contrast, AMD has only used a Radeon 860M with 8 CUs for its desktop Ryzen AI 400 APU lineup, so Nova Lake-S has a clear gap waiting for it.

The Core Ultra 200K Plus (codenamed Arrow Lake Refresh) series reestablished Intel’s place in the processor market, but that's just the start. With its next-generation Core Ultra 400S (Nova Lake) chips, Intel intends to leave no doubt about who makes the best CPUs for gaming on the market. According to the latest VideoCardz leak, Nova Lake could deliver a knockout blow to AMD's upcoming Zen 6 chips with beefy rumored specifications.

Poised to be one of Intel’s most compelling processor launches in recent years, Nova Lake has generated relentless buzz across the hardware world. Now, VideoCardz reports having seen internal documents that allegedly include a comprehensive SKU list, which Intel has shared with its partners.

Intel is preparing to launch its highly anticipated Nova Lake chips under the Core Ultra Series 4 banner. It's a logical move, since Core Ultra Series 3 is already taken by Panther Lake. The next-generation desktop chips will reportedly adopt the Core Ultra 400S branding. Nova Lake will harness the power of Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores, rumored to deliver a remarkable 20% IPC improvement over the already impressive Lion Cove and Skymont cores.

Yet, perhaps the most groundbreaking feature of Nova Lake is the rumored introduction of a massive Big Last Level Cache (bLLC), designed to go head-to-head with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. If there is any credence to the early rumors, the L3 cache capacity inside Nova Lake could range from 144 MB to 288 MB, a feature that would dramatically boost gaming and productivity performance by reducing memory latency and improving data access speeds.

Intel Core Ultra 400S Designs*

*Specifications are unconfirmed by Intel.

Intel is reportedly developing an ambitious lineup of five desktop die packages for its upcoming Nova Lake platform, targeting a wide range of users and workloads. The leaked information reveals that the core configurations will range from eight-core models to an industry-leading 52-core powerhouse.

The octa-core and 16-core chips seemingly use a single compute-die architecture, featuring four high-performance P-cores and either four or eight space-efficient E-cores. The approach aims to deliver a balanced blend of performance and efficiency for mainstream users.

Stepping up, the 28-core variant will reportedly come in both single-die and dual-die formats, maintaining a configuration of eight P-cores and 16 E-cores. The dual-die version, however, stands out by incorporating Intel’s bLLC. At the top of the stack is the flagship Nova Lake chip that's rumored to have a jaw-dropping 52 cores. This high-end SKU will supposedly employ a dual-die layout, packing a total of 16 P-cores and 32 E-cores, and doubling the bLLC capacity of the 28-core version.

Regardless of the design, all Nova Lake chips have Hub dies integrated with four Arctic Wolf LPE cores, an NPU 6 unit, dual-channel DDR5 support, 24 high-speed PCIe 5.0 lanes, two Thunderbolt 5 ports, and an integrated graphics engine with two Xe3 cores — this is all familiar territory for Intel's more recent CPU releases. The leak also claims DDR5-8000 support as well as ECC, CUDIMM, and CSODIMM memory modules. In terms of PCIe configurations, Nova Lake supports a discrete graphics card via a PCIe 5.0 x16 expansion slot. There was also mention of processor bifurcation in a 4x4 arrangement and up to three PCIe x4 links from the 900-series chipset. Nova Lake could support up to eight SSDs across the PCIe 5.0, PCIe 4.0, and Thunderbolt 5 connections.

Intel Core Ultra 400S Specifications*

*Specifications are unconfirmed by Intel.

Intel may pull all the stops on its Nova Lake launch and flood the market with up to 13 SKUs, ranging from the accessible Core Ultra 3 to the elite Core Ultra 9. However, it's still uncertain how Intel will market the 44- and 52-core SKUs, but these may be the rumored Core X series for the HEDT market, a segment that Intel has abandoned for a while. Additionally, Intel doesn't usually launch a full stack of CPUs at once. We'll most likely see a lineup of three to four chips out of the gate if Intel's previous releases are any indication.

With their unprecedented core counts, the Nova Lake 44- and 52-core chips are set to push thermal and power boundaries to new heights. Intel’s Product Base Power (PBP) for these powerhouse CPUs will reportedly reach up to 175W, a significant 40% increase over the current Core Ultra 9 285K flagship. The incredible jump in processing capability justifies this leap in power consumption, as these chips are expected to offer more than double the core count of Intel's current offerings.

Examining the leaked Nova Lake SKU list reveals that, at first glance, the upcoming processors largely mirror the Arrow Lake models they are set to replace in both core counts and product positioning. However, Nova Lake includes the LPE cores, adding an extra four cores across the range for improved multitasking and background task handling.

While the headline-grabbing 44- and 52-core chips feature much higher PBP figures, the rest of the lineup maintains familiar power profiles, with unlocked models operating at 125W. Intel will continue to offer 65W and 35W power-optimized variants, catering to a broad range of system builds. Notably, this generation reportedly marks the return of a Core Ultra 3 SKU, filling a gap left by Arrow Lake and broadening access to Nova Lake’s advances for more budget-conscious consumers.

Nova Lake will launch on Intel’s brand-new LGA1954 socket, marking a significant step forward for the company’s desktop platform. According to materials reviewed by VideoCardz, Intel is placing a strong emphasis on the Socket V solution’s reusability and forward compatibility. Socket longevity is important for consumers and system builders alike. By designing the LGA1954 socket to be compatible with multiple generations of processors, Intel is addressing a long-standing criticism regarding the short-lived nature of its recent sockets, such as the LGA1851, which saw limited generational support.

Intel has confirmed that Nova Lake will arrive in late 2026. However, due to the current climate, many believe early 2027 is a more rational time, but we'll have to wait and see.

Intel's upcoming Nova Lake-S lineup of desktop CPUs has a lot to live up to, given the rumor mill surrounding the next-gen family. The latest leak in the cycle comes from Videocardz, which is claiming that some high-end motherboards for Nova Lake will feature a two-lever retention mechanism in the LGA 1954 socket. The mechanism will be aptly named "2L-ILM" and live alongside a more conventional single-lever design on cheaper boards.

The reason for including two levers to clamp down on the processor is to achieve better cooling. IHS refers to the integrated heat spreader, the thin sheet of metal that encases the CPU and serves as its lid (that's why it's called delidding when removed). It's responsible for ensuring optimal thermal contact between the die underneath and the heatsink on the other side.

Therefore, it's important that the surface area of the IHS remains as flat and even as possible, or there will be hotspots in contact pressure. In worst-case scenarios, the CPU might physically bend inside the socket, leading to worse thermals. Previously, a few mods have alleviated this issue, such as one where people remove the stock ILM (independent loading mechanism) and replace it with a specialized contact frame.

With Nova Lake-S, Intel is reportedly developing a new ILM with a lever on either side, similar to the LGA 2011 socket. That platform was meant for Xeon server processors, but Intel has already tried two different ILMs in a recent consumer generation: Arrow Lake. The LGA 1851 socket was slightly redesigned to introduce an "RL-ILM" (reduced load) that sat flatter and was found on higher-end motherboards a few months after launch.

Moreover, the company has moved on to a PHM (processor heatsink module) on later Xeon sockets, which has no retention mechanism at all; the heatsink is bolted down to the frame from the factory. With LGA 1954 expected for Nova Lake-S, it will be the first time any Intel consumer chip fits on a dual-levered socket, highlighting just how important this upcoming lineup is for the Blue Team that it's ironing out even the small quirks.

Following the recent launch of Core Ultra 200K Plus, next up in Intel's desktop lineup is finally Nova Lake-S. We're expecting dual-compute tile SKUs with up to 52 cores and 288 MB of bLLC, while single-tile variants are expected to get up to 28 cores and 144 MB of bLLC. Now, a cut-down version of that flagship 52-core SKU featuring 42 cores has been upgraded to 44 cores, according to reliable leaker Jaykihn.

This 42-core SKU was revealed last year when another leak confirmed that Nova Lake-S will have four configs — 52-core, 42-core, 28-core, and 24-core — all with big last level cache (bLLC) that's Intel's answer to AMD's X3D. The 52-core and 42-core SKUs feature two compute tiles with double the cores and bLLC, while the 28-core and 24-core SKUs feature a single tile. Every CPU will be binned from one of these four SKUs.

The 42-core silicon was supposed to feature 14 P-cores and 32 E-cores, and 4 LP-E cores, along with 288 MB of bLLC. This would be made possible by combining an 8P+12E tile with a binned-down 6P+12E tile. Now that this SKU has 44 cores, two identical 8P+12E tiles can be used instead. This shift, however, has freed up those 6P+12E tiles, and Jaykihn says they could make it to market as locked variants.

All prior rumors have claimed that only K-series Nova Lake-S chips are going to feature bLLC, so this is a major departure. We could be looking at more non-K variants of Nova Lake CPUs with bLLC down the line that are cheaper, which would only increase competition versus AMD's Zen 6 (X3D). As it stands right now, a Core Ultra 7 SKU is likely where we'll see this new 22-core SKU (6P+12E+4LPE) with 144 MB bLLC.

Due to this extra cache being fabricated on the die instead of stacked under or over the core cluster, Nova Lake is expected to have a high manufacturing cost that should put bLLC-equipped SKUs above the unlocked variants. The flagship, dual-compute tile SKUs with 288 MB of bLLC might even be segregated into a new segment, possibly "Core Ultra X" to bring them to parity with the nomenclature introduced on Panther Lake.

Nova Lake is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year, but recent reports have claimed that the launch has been pushed to 2027 due to the ongoing component shortage, exacerbated by the global geopolitical climate. Between now and then, a lot could change, so take all this information with a grain of salt. Regardless of the specifics, though, a CPU battle for the ages is cooking up with Intel and AMD's next-gen desktop families.

Intel's 2026 roadmap is unlike any the company has published in recent years, because its manufacturing ambitions and its product launches have to succeed simultaneously.

Panther Lake, the Core Ultra Series 3 laptop processor unveiled at CES in January, is the first consumer chip built on Intel 18A — the company's new process node combining RibbonFET GAA transistors with PowerVia backside power delivery. Clearwater Forest, the next-generation Xeon E-core server CPU formally introduced March 3 at MWC 2026, is the server counterpart to it, and both are proof points for a foundry business that Intel has publicly stated could not justify proceeding to its next node, 14A, without first securing a major external customer.

Meanwhile, Intel is currently shipping the AI data center chip Gaudi 3, which has been available through cloud partners since late 2024. The chip was supposed to be followed by Falcon Shores, but Intel cancelled it for commercial release and confirmed it would deploy the chip internally instead, redirecting its GPU roadmap toward inference workloads. That produced Crescent Island, an inference-focused data center GPU which is expected to enter customer testing in the second half of 2026, with a potential successor in ‘Jaguar Shores’, due 2027.

Meteor Lake to Nova Lake

Since 2023, Intel's consumer CPU roadmap has focused on architectural consolidation, including the abandonment of the monolithic die. Meteor Lake, which launched in December 2023 as the first Core Ultra series processor, moved Intel's consumer laptop chips onto Intel 4 with Foveros 3D packaging, splitting compute, graphics, SoC, and I/O functions across separate tiles connected via hybrid bonding. That was an inflection point, with every subsequent generation iterating on that foundation rather than departing from it.

Then came Lunar Lake, the Core Ultra 200V series that launched in September 2024, which Intel hailed as its most power-efficient x86 platform, targeting the Copilot+ PC category with a fourth-generation NPU and the debut of the Xe2 graphics architecture. Arrow Lake followed in October 2024 as the desktop counterpart under the Core Ultra 200S branding.

While both share the multi-tile approach, they diverge at the process level. Arrow Lake consumer parts don’t use Intel 20A; Intel publicly confirmed the decision to use external nodes instead — almost certainly from TSMC — for the consumer desktop line. Intel originally said that 20A would be the node that would introduce RibbonFET and PowerVia, but the company moved those technologies to 18A instead and treated 20A as a stepping stone it bypassed for production.

Panther Lake, announced at CES in January 2026 as Core Ultra Series 3, is the first client platform built on Intel 18A. Intel cited over 200 system designs in development across laptop partners, alongside a claimed 60% better multi-threaded performance versus Lunar Lake at similar power, and up to 180 total platform TOPS — 120 of which come from the Xe3 integrated GPU and 50 from the NPU 5 architecture. Those figures are Intel estimates tied to specific workloads and comparison generations; the NPU alone meets Microsoft's 40 TOPS threshold for Copilot+ PC certification, but the 180 TOPS figure reflects all three compute engines combined.

Nova Lake is next, with Intel's Q4 2025 earnings guidance initially targeting an end-of-2026 launch. This, as we understand, is likely to be delayed to 2027; process node and die configuration details remain unconfirmed, and it’s far too early to speculate given that the upcoming Arrow Lake refresh (Core Ultra 200K Plus) is still to come.

Xeon and data center CPUs

Xeon 6 formalized a split Intel had been building toward for several years: P-core variants targeted at compute-intensive and AI inference workloads, and E-core variants aimed at density, throughput-per-watt, and scale-out workloads like containerized cloud infrastructure.

Sierra Forest launched in June 2024 as the first Intel 3 server product. Its E-core design packs a high thread count into a constrained thermal envelope, making it well-suited for high-density rack deployments. Granite Rapids, the P-core counterpart, followed in September 2024, targeting scientific computing, high-performance databases, and AI inference on large models. Both families share a common platform foundation — a unified I/O die connected via EMIB packaging — which reduces platform churn for OEMs and provides a validation reuse advantage across derivative SKUs.

Meanwhile, Clearwater Forest, introduced March 3 at MWC 2026, is Intel's first 18A server CPU. Expected to be released later this year, the chip packs 288 Darkmont E-cores across 12 compute chiplets in its maximum configuration, each with 24 cores all built on 18A. Those compute tiles are stacked on three active base dies fabricated on Intel 3 using Foveros Direct 3D, while two I/O tiles on Intel 7 handle connectivity, and lateral integration across the package is handled by EMIB.

EMIB 3.5D then extends this further by combining those Foveros-stacked modules with Intel's second-generation EMIB bridges — scaled from 55-micron to 45-micron bump pitch — to link heterogeneous tiles laterally across the package, whether those are identical compute modules or disparate I/O and memory dies. The result is a package whose total silicon area far exceeds what a conventional silicon interposer could accommodate. A clean Clearwater Forest launch would therefore validate both Intel 18A and its advanced packaging simultaneously.

Finally, Diamond Rapids will arrive as an exclusively 16-channel platform after Intel cancelled the 8-channel SKUs that were originally planned for the Xeon 7 lineup. The remaining parts are expected to pack up to 192 P-cores across four compute tiles in an LGA9324 package, with 2nd-generation MRDIMM support pushing memory bandwidth to roughly 1.6 TB/s — nearly double Granite Rapids' ~844 GB/s. Intel has indicated a 2H 2026 launch window, but has said nothing more solid at this stage.

AI accelerators

Intel’s AI accelerator portfolio hasn’t followed as clean a generational progression as its CPUs have. Gaudi 3, as previously mentioned, is the current shipping product and has been available through cloud partners and direct customers since late 2024, with Intel expanding availability throughout 2025.

Intel has marketed Gaudi 3 around openness and software portability, with the argument being that customers locked into Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem face procurement and pricing constraints that a chip running on open frameworks like PyTorch and oneAPI can avoid. While this has let the chip find some traction, Gaudi 3 hasn’t achieved a meaningful share in large-scale training clusters where Nvidia’s accelerators still dominate by a huge margin.

The most concrete successor to Gaudi 3 in the near-term is Crescent Island, which Intel announced as an inference-focused data center GPU in October 2025 at the OCP Global Summit, with customer sampling due to begin in the second half of 2026. The card is built on the Xe3P architecture, a performance-enhanced version of the Xe3 GPU used in Panther Lake, and carries 160 GB of LPDDR5X memory.

That memory choice is a deliberate departure from the HBM stacks used by Nvidia and AMD in their high-end accelerators: Intel is positioning Crescent Island as a power- and cost-optimized part for air-cooled enterprise servers, with Intel CTO Sachin Katti citing "tokens-as-a-service" providers as the primary target. No performance figures have been disclosed.

When and if it does sample later this year, it will be going up against AMD's Instinct MI450 and Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture, both of which use HBM4 and target a broader range of workloads. Crescent Island's narrower inference focus could make it competitive on cost-per-token, but the 160GB LPDDR5X configuration offers substantially less memory bandwidth than HBM-based competitors, which remains the main bottleneck for large model inference.

Jaguar Shores, meanwhile, has been confirmed by Intel as a product, though technical details about it remain sparse. Intel products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus stated during the company's Q1 2025 earnings call that Jaguar Shores remains on the AI roadmap despite the cancellation of its predecessor, Falcon Shores, and described it as a rack-scale design incorporating silicon photonics interconnects. Intel has also confirmed, via a slide shown at its AI Summit, that Jaguar Shores will carry the Gaudi brand and use HBM4 memory from SK hynix.

Should it launch, Jaguar Shores would be Intel’s first return to HBM-based AI acceleration since Ponte Vecchio, but specifications remain unconfirmed, and we’re very unlikely to see a release until 2027 at the earliest. That would put it up against Nvidia’s Vera Rubin successors and AMD’s Instinct MI500 series — and whether it can be competitive by then depends heavily on software maturity, an area where Intel’s track record in AI acceleration has been consistently weak.

Process nodes and packaging

Intel 4, which debuted with Meteor Lake, was Intel's first EUV-enabled manufacturing node, claiming 21.5% higher frequencies at the same power as Intel 7, or 40% lower power consumption at the same frequency, alongside a 2x transistor density improvement for high-performance libraries. Intel 4 also introduced second-generation Contact-over-Active-Gate, enhanced copper interconnects with cobalt cladding for better performance and electromigration resistance, and doubled MIM capacitance density to reduce voltage droop.

Production ran at Intel's D1 facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, with Fab 34 in Ireland coming online for Intel 4 volume production in late 2023. Notably, only Meteor Lake's compute tile used Intel 4; the graphics, SoC, and I/O tiles were sourced from TSMC and older Intel nodes, reflecting the limited scope of Intel 4 as a chiplet-specific node.

Intel 3 followed as an 18% performance-per-watt improvement over Intel 4, with broader EUV usage, improved transistor cells, and both I/O and high-density cell libraries suited for server workloads. Sierra Forest, which launched in June 2024 as the first E-core Xeon 6, was its first flagship product, followed by Granite Rapids with P-cores in September 2024. Unlike Intel 4, Intel 3 was designed as a more general-purpose node from the start, underpinning Intel's server ramp and serving as the base die for Clearwater Forest's heterogeneous packaging.

Intel 20A, meanwhile, was the planned introduction point for RibbonFET and PowerVia in production, and Intel confirmed it entered production readiness in 2024. But Intel also confirmed the decision to shift Arrow Lake consumer parts away from Intel 20A to external nodes. The only logical explanation for this is that Intel concentrated its 20A engineering on proving the key technologies it needed for 18A rather than committing a high-volume product line to an intermediate node.

Every product on Intel's 2026-2028 roadmap runs on Intel 18A, the company's first node to combine RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors with PowerVia backside power delivery. RibbonFET wraps the gate entirely around the channel on all four sides, improving electrostatic control and reducing leakage compared to the FinFET structures Intel used through its 10th Gen era. PowerVia routes power through the back of the silicon wafer, freeing front-side routing resources for signal interconnects. 18A entered high-volume manufacturing in October, but yields remain below profitable levels and, per CFO David Zinsner, will not reach desired cost thresholds until the end of 2026 at the earliest.

Intel 14A, which uses High-NA EUV — which Intel is the first to deploy — remains contingent on securing a major external foundry customer. The good news is that Intel has said it has two prospective customers in the works following early PDK access, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan reckons that firm supplier decisions will be made in the “second half of this year… extending into the first half of 2027.” A lot is riding on these prospective customers, with Intel having publicly discussed the possibility of slowing or cancelling 14A and subsequent nodes if external foundry revenue does not materialize at scale. Without it, the capital expenditure required to develop and ramp leading-edge nodes past 18A will become extremely difficult to justify.

The future of Intel

Whether Clearwater Forest's 2026 launch materializes will be a solid indication of whether 18A performs at the scale Intel has projected, while Panther Lake's rollout through laptop OEMs will test whether 18A volume manufacturing is genuinely ramping up or still constrained to early production quantities.

Meanwhile, any announcement from Intel Foundry on an external customer committing to 18A or beginning 14A engagement could substantially change the economics of Intel’s roadmap.

During the 10nm era, Intel's manufacturing problems were visible and protracted over several years. Today's timeline is more compressed, and Intel’s public milestones — Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest shipping on 18A in close succession — are specific enough to hold the company to account.

As reported by German news outlet ComputerBase, ECS has unveiled its newly revamped Liva P300 mini-PC, specifically engineered to harness the power of Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 400 (codenamed Nova Lake) processors. These next-generation chips aim to put Intel back in a position to challenge, and potentially surpass, the best CPUs currently available on the market.

While Intel has taken the wraps off its Core Series 2 processors with P-cores (codenamed Bartlett Lake) at Embedded World 2026, ECS is already showcasing mini-PCs that support Nova Lake, more specifically, the Liva P300. If you're a fan of mini-PCs, you'll know that the Liva P300 series launched a few years ago, but ECS is bringing it back with a redesigned model that can house the upcoming Nova Lake chips.

The renovated Liva P300's specification sheet reveals a major advancement in memory support on the Nova Lake platform. Apparently, the next-generation chips support lightning-fast DDR5-8000 memory across all SO-DIMM memory ports. It would mark a significant leap over Intel’s current Core Ultra 200 series (codenamed Arrow Lake), which natively supports DDR5-6400.

Notably, leaked Intel documents have already confirmed that the upcoming Arrow Lake Refresh, rumored to launch at the end of this month, will further push memory speeds by adopting DDR5-7200. Given this rapid progression, it was only logical to anticipate that Nova Lake would debut with support for even higher data rates. It's possible the feature won't do Nova Lake any favors, however, since high-speed memory yields diminishing returns and the current AI-created memory shortage has sent DDR5 pricing through the roof.

ECS Liva P300 Specifications

The 3.5-liter Liva P300 mini-PC will harness the power of the B960 chipset, one of five rumored Intel 900-series lineup. According to recent leaks, Intel is preparing to roll out five new chipsets: Z990, Z970, B960, Q970, and W980. Of these, the Z990, Q970, and W980 stand out as genuinely next-generation and reportedly offer native PCIe 5.0 support.

In terms of storage, the mini-PC provides two M.2 2280 ports that run at PCIe 5.0 x4. Expansion-wise, the device has enough space for a low-profile graphics card if you don't plan to use Nova Lake's integrated Xe3P graphics engine, which is based on the Celestial architecture. The Liva P300 accommodates a discrete graphics card in a horizontal orientation using a riser card.

With the new Liva P300, ECS is planning to double the power supply from 120W to 210W or 240W. Apparently, the upgraded capacity is due to the substantial demand for Intel's Nova Lake processors. Early projections pegged Intel's flagship Nova Lake chip with a PBP (Processor Base Power) of 175W, 40% higher than Arrow Lake's 125W. ComputerBase reportedly confirmed the data on the site.

According to the publication's conversations with various manufacturers at Embedded World 2026, Intel plans to launch Nova Lake in late 2026. Realistically, most processors won't hit retail until 2027.

The state of the PC, nay, the tech industry at large, is one of confusion right now, characterized by the somewhat still ongoing AI boom despite little real-world benefits. RAM is already three times as expensive, while SSD and GPU prices are also rising. Now, it seems upcoming CPUs are being affected, too, as new info suggests that both AMD and Intel are eyeing delayed launches for their next-gen desktop lineups.

According to Benchlife, the Ryzen 10000 "Olympic Ridge" family is expected to arrive in 2027. This seems to be in stark contrast to prior comments from AMD, which had confirmed that Zen 6 was a 2026 product on its roadmap. In 2025, the company even said that its EPYC "Venice" CPUs based on Zen 6 would launch next year (aka 2026). Data center and server releases are almost always followed by consumer releases.

So, a staggered launch for Zen 6 was likely the plan all along, but the manufacturing crisis might have pushed its mainstream desktop release beyond 2026 to minimize turbulence. An older roadmap leak for AMD's mobile CPUs did put Zen 6 as a 2027 release, so it was never truly confirmed when Olympic Ridge would launch specifically. There was just a general assumption that it would line up with Nova Lake.

Funnily enough, that's still possible as Nova Lake seems to have been pushed back as well. On Weibo, leaker Golden Pig Upgrade has claimed that the Blue Team's next-gen desktop CPUs will be released in 2027, despite CEO Lip-Bu Tan previously confirming a year-end launch. There's still a chance that initial Nova Lake variants come out in Q4 2026, with Nova Lake-S to be officially unveiled at CES 2027.

It's too early to speculate on all this, since Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake refresh hasn't even been announced yet, and the company just launched Panther Lake for mobile devices. AMD is more straightforward, as its next desktop launch is supposed to be Zen 6 with no stopgaps in between. Besides, given the current state of the tech landscape, these reports are only really unearthing rationality rather than revealing shocking information.

Last year, Intel said it was shifting production capacity from consumer chips to data center CPUs, and it's no surprise to see this now. Nearly every company has begun prioritizing AI money — that's how we're in this mess after all — so even though there's no reason given for Nova Lake-S' delay, we might be able to connect the dots with the little info we have.

We do know a lot about specs; however, a couple of days ago, we covered the leaked Zen 6 core configs, which are expected to finally introduce a 12-core CCD, enabling a new 24-core Ryzen flagship. Top-end Nova Lake is a 52-core behemoth on the other hand, with up to 288 MB of bLLC to compete with X3D chips. Either family is set to bring major architectural improvements, so the battle is sure to be spicy.

Intel expects its Core Ultra series 4 processors, codenamed Nova Lake, to change its fortunes on the desktop and laptop markets and finally offer performance that is higher compared to direct competitors from AMD. However, another important factor to consider will be the costs of these CPUs, and if the alleged Nova Lake compute chiplet die sizes leaked by @9550pro are accurate, these processors will be anything but cheap to make.

When implemented on TSMC's N2 manufacturing technology, Nova Lake's compute tile with eight high-performance Coyote Cove P-cores and 32 energy-efficient Arctic Wolf E-cores measures over 110 mm^2, whereas the same tile equipped with 144 MB of big last-level cache (bLLC) measures over 150 mm^2, if the numbers from @9550pro are correct. To put the number into context, it is believed that the size of Arrow Lake's compute tile —implemented on TSMC's N3B technology and housing eight Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores — is believed to be around 117 mm^2.

TSMC's N2 is projected to be a more expensive process technology to use than N3B, as, despite the fact that it is expected to feature roughly the same number of EUV layers (20 ~ 23), it is also believed to use EUV multipatterning for at least some critical layers, which adds costs. This, and other factors, contribute to manufacturing costs, so it is safe to say that Nova Lake's compute tile without bLLC will be a bit more expensive to make than Arrow Lake's compute tile, assuming an accurate die size for the former. The compute tile with bLLC will be significantly more expensive, though, considering that these tiles will be used for expensive CPUs aimed at gamers and enthusiasts, this will hardly be a problem for Intel.

Just like most of Intel's latest processors in recent years, Nova Lake will use a multi-tile design that will include a compute tile (or two), a system-on-chip (SoC) tile, a GPU tile, an I/O tile, and a base tile. The main chiplet — the compute tile — will be made using both Intel's own 18A fabrication technology at the company's Fab 32 in Arizona as well as TSMC's N2 manufacturing process at the foundry's Fab 22 in Taiwan.

Intel has never publicly revealed which versions of Nova Lake will be used for desktops and which will be used for laptops, and whether there will be any difference at all. However, given that Intel expects to make the majority of Nova Lake silicon in-house and keeping in mind that laptop CPUs outsell desktop CPUs 7:3 these days, it is reasonable to expect that the bulk of laptop CPUs will be made at Intel's own fab in Arizona. To that end, the company's balance sheet will barely suffer from the high costs of its Nova Lake compute tiles with bLLC at TSMC.

The cost of a chip is a function of process technology, die size, functional yield, and parametric yield. While we may well speculate that TSMC's N2 is more expensive than N3B, without factors like parametric yields, our assumptions about the costs of the actual compute tile will be highly speculative, to put it mildly.

The Arrow Lake refresh expected in March is Intel's upcoming desktop family, but the chipmaker's true next-gen offering will be Nova Lake. Set to debut later this year, it should bring significant architectural improvements, including a bump to 52-core configs and the inclusion of big last-level cache (bLLC) that rivals AMD's X3D, according to rumors. Now, a new leak claims Intel is also planning to drastically increase the maximum power consumption of these chips to 700W.

Reliable tipster @kopite7kimi reports that the top-end silicon for NVL-K, meaning the unlocked Core Ultra 9 flagship CPU with dual compute tiles, can reach up to 700W for short bursts — likely in its PL4 state. That's power level 4, and it represents the hard electrical limit for Intel CPUs; it's the ceiling you're technically not supposed to hit because it will instantly throttle your processor. PL4 and PL3 aren't enabled out of the box, even on unlocked SKUs.

As a hard limit, PL4 isn't something you'd normally encounter, rather serving as a hard power limit in order to protect the processor when you remove power limits in your BIOS (such as when using the Intel Extreme performance profile). The outgoing Core Ultra 9 285K, based on existing Arrow Lake microarchitecture, has a max power limit of 490W. Pushing the chip to that point voluntarily is not a good idea unless you're into extreme overclocking.

In worse case scenarios, the CPU can trigger a shutdown to protect the system, but it looks like Intel is designing Nova Lake to ride close to this ceiling anyway. We say that because another leaker, Jaykhin, says that Nova Lake won't allow you to offset TJMax, the maximum safe operating temperature, so you manually force the CPU into running hotter.

TJMax for Arrow Lake is 105 degrees, up from 100 degrees on Raptor Lake, so expect Nova Lake to be around this limit as well. Once TJMax is hit, your CPU starts to thermal throttle to cool itself down, and you also won't be able to disable that behavior in Nova Lake. The "NVL-S" designation in the tweet below refers to the Nova Lake desktop series as a whole.

Moreover, Jaykihn mentions how Nova Lake can even post without the performance cores, solely working on the standard or low-power efficiency cores. We already know this lineup will mark the debut of LP-E cores on desktop, and that they'll be clustered off into their own low-power island. So, now this apparently confirms that the silicon can clock-gate, blocking the clock signal to almost the entire compute complex to save power and run cooler when idling.

Nova Lake is said to come in two variants: a cut-down version with 28 cores on a single compute tile, and a maxed-out 52-core version split across two tiles. The latter would be a behemoth with 16 P-Cores, 32 E-cores, and 4 LP-E cores, bolstered by up to 288 MB of bLLC cache (128 MB per tile). This chip will go against whatever AMD prepares as the flagship for its pending Zen 6 desktop lineup. When you take all that into account, a 700W PL4 starts to make a lot more sense.

Although 700W sounds like a lot for a CPU, it's worth reiterating that PL4 serves as a hard power limit, and it's disabled out of the box. The more important numbers are PL1 and PL2, which represent sustained and burst power, respectively.

Previously, leaks have shown us that Nova Lake mobile might be limited to a single compute tile, and even before that, there were even rumors of an insane Strix Halo competitor called "Nova Lake-AX," which have since died down. We know that this family will debut on the new LGA 1954 socket, which is backwards compatible for CPU coolers with LGA 1851 support. That platform will bring 900-series motherboards with it, too, that are currently tipped to launch in late 2026.

We already know that Intel pins a lot of hopes on its Nova Lake processors and hopes that they will put it back on the map for high-end desktop CPU enthusiasts, but until today we did not know almost anything about the company's next-generation 900-series chipsets that will support Nova Lake CPUs. On Monday Jaykihn, a leaker who tends to know a lot about Intel's plans, published a table describing specifications of Intel's B960, Z970, Z990, Q970, and W980 platforms.

Two things that strike the eye with the new family of chipsets is the lack of the H910 platform for entry-level PCs as well as the presence of the Z970 platform for inexpensive desktops with overclocking capability, which is an all-new category of platforms. For demanding users that plan to overclock their CPUs, Intel will offer its Z990 chipset (which supports overclocking using both multiplier and BCLK), whereas those who do not plan to overclock can go with the W980, which is officially positioned as an entry-level workstation solution and therefore supports vPro technology and manageability features. In addition, Intel will have the Q970 chipset for performance-mainstream desktops. Interestingly, the Q970 will be the only chipset that will not support memory overclocking among the 900-series chipsets.

The range-topping Z990 and W980 chipsets will offer 48 PCIe lanes (including 12 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the chipset and 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU), two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports supported by the processor, 5 USB 3.2 20 Gbps, and 10 USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports. By contrast, inexpensive B960 and Z970 will only support 34 PCIe lanes (including 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU and 14 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chipset), one TB4/USB4 port supported by the processor, two USB 3.2 20 Gbps ports, and four USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports, according to the leak.

Intel's 900-series chipsets are expected to support Intel's Nova Lake processors that are said to use the LGA1954 socket and pack up to 52 cores, including up to 16 high-performance Coyote Cove cores, up to 32 energy-efficient Arctic Wolf cores, and four ultra-low-power cores. In addition, the new CPUs are projected to feature Xe3 integrated GPU and media engine from the Xe4 GPUs.

Although Intel has reaffirmed Nova Lake will arrive before the end of the year, the company hasn't shared any details about the processors yet. Before we see them, we expect to see a minor range of Arrow Lake Refresh chips.

According to a report from the Korean outlet Hankyung, Samsung Foundry, the manufacturing division of Samsung Electronics, has reportedly secured a notable client: none other than Intel. The foundry has ostensibly obtained 8nm orders to manufacture Intel's forthcoming Platform Controller Hub (PCH).

The report states that Samsung and Intel are in the final stages of mass production of Intel's chipsets. Consequently, it is plausible that the forthcoming 900-series chipsets for the LGA1954 socket, which will accommodate the Core Ultra 400S (codename Nova Lake), will leverage Samsung's 8nm process technology. There exists a longstanding history of collaboration between Samsung and Intel, as the former has previously produced chipsets and other low-value chips for the latter.

Samsung presently manufactures certain Intel chipsets utilizing the 14nm process node at the foundry situated in Austin, Texas. Meanwhile, Samsung's 8nm process node is at its manufacturing plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Consequently, it appears that Intel's forthcoming chipset production may be relocating back to Korea. This strategic move to choose Samsung seems logical, considering Intel's intent to diversify away from TSMC, which is currently experiencing a persistent shortage.

You don’t really need cutting-edge manufacturing processes for chipset production, so 8nm is perfectly fine. Nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of benefits Intel can reap from Samsung’s 8nm process node, whether they come in the form of improved features, better power consumption, or thermals. One thing’s for sure, though. The transition from 14nm to 8nm could give Intel some bragging rights over AMD since the latter’s current 800-series chipsets are still on the 14nm process node. Then again, who is to say that AMD’s next chipset will not surprise us with a node shrink?

Since its introduction in 2017 and commencement of mass production in 2018, Samsung's 8nm manufacturing process has achieved a satisfactory yield level, thereby attracting significant clients. The foundry previously secured a contract with Nvidia to produce the custom System-on-Chip (SoC) for Nintendo's Switch 2 console, which is experiencing strong sales. Landing a deal with Intel represents a notable achievement for Samsung as well. Despite Intel's declining processor market share to AMD, the Blue Team remains the dominant industry player, holding over 75% of the market share, approximately.

Samsung's production capacity is approximately 350,000 wafers per month. Specifically, the 8nm process node yields between 30,000 and 40,000 300mm (12-inch) wafers monthly. This figure accounts for roughly 11% of Samsung's total capacity. Nevertheless, as the number of clients the foundry acquires increases, so does the demand for photomasks, thereby creating a mutually beneficial situation for all stakeholders within the supply chain.

Assuming the report is accurate, Samsung will commence full-scale manufacturing of Intel's 8nm chipsets in the upcoming year. Intel has already confirmed that Nova Lake will be launched either before the conclusion of 2026 or shortly thereafter. Given Intel's customary practice of releasing its Z-series chipsets initially, the premium Z990 chipset will probably serve as the inaugural product of the Samsung-Intel 8nm partnership.

Following the Arrow Lake refresh, Intel is set to debut Nova Lake sometime in 2026 as its true next-gen desktop architecture. Nova Lake should bring massive improvements across the board, one of which is the inclusion of bLLC (Big Last Level Cache), serving as Intel's answer to AMD's 3D V-Cache tech. Previously, it was reported that we'll see up to 144 MB of total L3 cache thanks to bLLC on certain Nova Lake chips, and now seasoned leaker Jaykihn is claiming those will be unlocked SKUs.

Nova Lake supposedly tops out at 52 cores, with the flagship SKU carrying 16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, and 4 LP-E cores, split across two 28-core compute tiles. Each tile already has its own integrated L3 cache, with the bLLC taking it even further. The extra L3 cache in AMD's X3D chips sits either above or beneath the CCD, using hybrid bonding. On the other hand, Intel already has bLLC in its Clearwater Forest server chips, but they use 2.5D packaging where the LLC tile sits alongside the compute tiles on an interposer.

Nova Lake will be fabricated on Intel 18A, and it remains to be seen whether Intel will use the same packaging techniques. According to Jaykhin, though, the bLLC is part of the compute tile, but that leads to another interesting detail stemming from the core layout. If the bLLC is on the compute tile and the higher-end SKUs use two of them, it implies that a dual-bLLC solution could exist somewhere down the line with even more L3 cache. For now, bLLC on just one compute tile seems to be speculation.

So far, leaks suggest that only the midrange 8P+16E/12E-core SKUs (Core Ultra 5) will get the bLLC upgrade, since they'll use a single compute tile. These are rumors after all, so there's no confirmation whether higher-end SKUs with more cores will be entirely cut off from featuring bLLC; previously, one leaker mentioned a 180 MB Core Ultra 9 SKU could make it to market.

Keeping the 144 MB number in mind, that would beat even AMD's current-gen flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D's L3 cache count by 48 MB, since that has 32 MB of L3 cache, boosted to 96 MB total with 64 MB added as 3D V-Cache. Funnily enough, Intel has previously explored using 2.5D/TSV packaging to add extra cache on top of CPU cores all the way back in the Broadwell era, but it never materialized beyond internal testing.

Those Ryzen 9000X3D chips are also unlocked, meaning you can overclock them to your heart's desire. When 3D V-Cache debuted on Ryzen 5000, AMD locked the CPUs, saying that the voltage regulation required to enable the extra cache was simply too precise to allow user tweaking. So, if this Nova Lake rumor is to be believed, at least Intel will start off on the right foot, achieving parity right away with AMD's X3D by having it on unlocked SKUs first.

Intel's management revealed during the company's Q3 2025 earnings call that while its 18A fabrication process is progressing predictably, with usable yields, enabling the company to begin ramping production of the Core Ultra 300-series processors, codenamed Panther Lake. However, the ramp-up of 18A processors will be slow due to relatively low yields, and Intel will not expand available 18A capacity at a rapid pace. Currently, 18A's yields are not yet comfortable from a commercial point of view.

"We are making steady progress on Intel 18A, we are on track to bring Panther Lake to market this year," said Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive of Intel. "18A yields are progressing at a predictable rate, and Fab 52 in Arizona, which is dedicated to high-volume manufacturing, is now fully operational."

Intel's 18A process technology is the company's first production node that relies on RibbonFET gate-all-around (GAA) transistors as well as features PowerVia backside power delivery. Intel will use 18A to produce Panther Lake processors for consumer PCs, then for Xeon 6+ 'Clearwater Forest' and 'Diamond Rapids' processors for data centers, as well as for Nova Lake CPUs, which target the enthusiast market.

18A ramp will be slower than planned

David Zinsner, Chief Financial Officer at Intel, told analysts that yields are sufficient to support Panther Lake product shipments, but not yet high enough to deliver normal profit margins. Yields should reach Intel's desired cost level by the end of 2026, with industry-standard results in 2027, according to Zinsner.

"Yields are adequate to address supply, but they are not where we need them to be in order to drive the appropriate level of margins," said Zinsner. "By the end of next year we will probably be in that space, and certainly the year after that they will be at what would be an industry-acceptable level."

This means that Intel will ramp up production of its Panther Lake processors more slowly than initially planned, and will focus on building more advanced models first (assuming it can make enough chips with higher-end specifications), to sell them at higher prices.

Zinsner also emphasized that Intel does not plan to add significantly more 18A capacity in 2026. Lip-Bu Tan added that the company will add capacity only when it has commitments from its own products division or to external customers. The executives expect 18A supply to peak by the end of the decade.

"I would not expect significant capacity increases in the near term [next year]," Zinsner said. "We do not get to peak supply for 18A until the end of the decade, and we do think this node will be a fairly long-lived node for us."

Intel certainly has big plans for 18A, and its performance-enhanced variant 18A-P. The company's chief executive emphasized that 18A will serve as the foundation for at least three future generations of consumer and server products, which include secure-enclave programs with the U.S. government, and for external foundry clients. Last quarter, the company also released an 18A-P process development kit (PDK), which opens the door for external customers to design chips on this fabrication technology.

Intel is thought to be working on its Panther Lake lineup of mobile CPUs set to release toward the end of this year or early in 2026. Beyond that, the 2026 roadmap is filled with its Nova Lake client processors and Diamond Rapids server processors, and while most of the news surrounding these has come from the rumor mill, we've just got a major official confirmation from Intel itself.

Previous leaks have suggested that the Nova Lake family would ship with brand new core micro-architectures, and the latest edition of the ISA Reference document, published by Intel, has just confirmed this. Nova Lake, which will spread across desktop and mobile, will use Coyote Cove P-Cores and Arctic Wolf E-Cores. Updated cores bring IPC uplifts and efficiency improvements — how much so remains to be seen — which are expected to pair with the new LGA 1954 socket for platform improvements, too. Nova Lake may also pack in a new Xe3 GPU tile for integrated graphics.

The flagship Nova Lake-S desktop chip is rumored to feature up to 52 cores, while the mobile lineup will reportedly top out at 28 cores. There were rumors of a Strix Halo competitor dubbed Nova Lake-AX that would mark Intel's re-entry in the booming APU segment, but those have since been put in limbo. Nova Lake will reportedly be manufactured by TSMC for the most part, with at least one tile being fabricated using Intel's own 18A process. It will serve as Intel's direct answer to AMD Zen 6 client CPUs.

Yesterday, @x86deadandback posted over on X, what appears to be a Nova Lake-S entry tagged as a pre-qualification sample with a surprising 28-core configuration. If accurate, that would mark a sizable jump over the current top Arrow Lake-S and even Raptor Lake-S parts, both capped at 24 cores. For now, take the news with the relevant dosage of salt.

The manifest simply lists a 28-core Nova Lake-S part. While the document doesn’t break down the core types, earlier Nova Lake mobile leaks pointed to a potential eight P-core, 16 E-core, and four low-power LP-E core configuration, which could carry over to desktop. Though, this is of course unconfirmed.

While Arrow Lake’s Core Ultra 9 285K sticks to the familiar eight P-core, 16 E-core layout, Nova Lake could tack on an additional cluster of efficiency-oriented silicon. The result would be a total of 28 cores (around 36 threads if hyperthreading holds), and a platform shift to a fresh LGA 1954 socket.

This suggests that Intel is moving faster than expected to bulk up its desktop core counts, possibly to counter AMD’s Zen 5-based Ryzen 8000 line-up.
Arrow Lake has been a solid step forward with Lion Cove and Skymont cores, but on paper, its flagship doesn’t dramatically outpace Raptor Lake in raw core/thread counts. Nova Lake, with Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf cores built on Intel 18A and TSMC’s 2nm process, looks like a genuine leap.

Nova Lake-S vs. Arrow Lake-S vs. Raptor Lake-S

More cores, but the same P-core ceiling

Given the recent news cycle surrounding Intel's administration and its ambivalent future ambitions, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the company lacks proactive plans. However, it remains firmly in the chip making business, and the rumor mill is alive as ever. The Blue Team is working on its upcoming Panther Lake (mobile) lineup at the moment, set to release later this year, but it's next year's Nova Lake that has leaked yet again. This time, we have spied the purported exact core configs of all Nova Lake variants, including the top-end Nova Lake-HX chip.

Coming from reliable tipster Jaykihn, Nova Lake will launch in the usual HX, H, and U variants, each targeting different laptop categories. At the top, the highest-end Nova Lake-HX SKU will feature eight P-Cores, 16 E-Cores, and four low-power LP-E Cores, plus a quad-core Xe3 iGPU—a total of 28 CPU cores when added up. That puts it in the same ballpark as the current Arrow Lake 285HX, albeit with a different balance of high-efficiency cores.

Interestingly, this leak does not mention the Nova Lake-AX chips that surfaced earlier. Recently, reports have suggested these are seemingly on the chopping block already, which means Intel still won't have an answer to AMD's Strix Halo. Still, it paints a better picture than Panther Lake, which won't even have an HX variant, but both will fall far behind the rumored 48-core GPU that we might get with Nova Lake-AX.

The mainstream Nova Lake-H tier will top out at 16 cores (four P-Cores, eight E-Cores, and four LP-E Cores) and offer up to 12 Xe3 GPU cores depending on SKU. These designs share similarities with the previously leaked Panther Lake-H chips, though with different CPU microarchitectures and a slightly altered GPU layout. Anyhow, we then have likely the Nova Lake-U family with a maximum core count of eight (4P+4LP) along with four Xe3 cores going to the iGPU.

On the lowest end, a 2P+4LP model is also expected, carrying only two Xe3 cores, positioned as the successor to Intel’s Wildcat Lake platform, catering to budget notebooks where cost and battery life are the main priorities—justifying its lack of standard E-cores. This also means that, if we believe the leak, every single Nova Lake chip is going to have four LP-E cores.

Speaking of all the cores, the Nova Lake lineup is set to also introduce microarchitectures that diverge from the current Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake lineups. We expect to see Coyote Cove P-Cores and Arctic Wolf E-Cores, alongside Skymont-based LP-E cores. As mentioned previously, the GPU cores are from Intel's Xe3 'Celestial' architecture. We also got rumor-mill confirmation that Nova Lake mobile will not use two compute tiles like its desktop counterpart.

These configs round out the Nova Lake lineup. We've included a table below to better illustrate and compare the specs, but keep in mind that this just a rumor, and a potentially far-fetched one at that. Literally. Because Nova Lake is more than a year away and a lot can change before it actually releases. We're likely going to hear more about Nova Lake in the build up to its launch after Panther Lake—set to debut in the second half of this year—comes out, finally bringing Intel's 18A process node to the market.

For the first time in more than two decades, Intel is moving past its long-standing CPU classification system in favor of a new one. With Nova Lake, the company’s next generation of processors, Intel is signaling the end of the Family 6 era that has defined x86 processors since the late ’90s. This change was unearthed as part of the Linux enablement Intel is doing for Nova Lake as we speak.

The initial patch, spotted in the Linux kernel mailing list by Phoronix, introduces Nova Lake under a brand-new identifier: Family 18. This marks a clean break from the legacy Family 6 framework, which has carried everything from Pentium Pro to Arrow Lake. The move required significant refactoring in previous kernel releases, ensuring Linux code could adapt to architectures beyond Family 6.

The update also adds definitions for two models: Nova Lake (Family 18, Model 1) and Nova Lake L (Family 18, Model 3), the latter likely denoting low-power mobile variants. These early hooks allow future driver-level patches—covering graphics, power management, and scheduling—to integrate seamlessly once Nova Lake hardware lands in late 2026.

This isn’t just a naming exercise like the company dropping the "i" branding for its CPUs two years ago, rather Intel’s segmentation strategy is becoming clearer: Family 18 for client CPUs, while Family 19 will house next-gen Xeon processors like Diamond Rapids. By splitting desktop and server under distinct families, Intel aims to simplify feature tracking and driver enablement across platforms.

Intel is rumored to be introducing a new large L3 cache pool that will rival AMD's 3D V-Cache chips with its next-gen Core Ultra (likely Core 400, if Core 300 is a refresh of Arrow Lake) series CPUs. Leakers Haze and Raichu on X believe this new last-level L3 cache will feature a 144MB capacity.

If true, Intel's next-gen L3 cache will be noticeably larger than AMD's 3D V-Cache equivalent. At 144MB in total, Intel's next-gen chips will have 16MB more L3 than multi-CCD Ryzen X3D CPUs such as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and a whopping 48MB more L3 cache than AMD's highly-popular Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Intel’s lack of a proper answer to AMD’s Strix Halo—and by extension, Apple’s M-series—has left a clear gap in the high-end APU space. The Blue Team hasn’t seriously competed in the graphics-focused mobile market for a while, but that might be about to change. Just yesterday, “Nova Lake-AX” leaked as a potential return to form, marking what could be Intel’s most capable mobile chip to date; just the ace needed to stir up the market again. Now, we have a full spec breakdown, and it paints a very different picture of what’s coming.

The details come courtesy of leaker Raichu in a now-deleted tweet, a reliable name in the Intel rumor mill. According to him, Nova Lake-AX features a massive 28-core CPU layout on a single compute tile, instead of the two we're expecting on the upcoming Nova Lake-S desktop lineup. It's comprised of 8 P-Cores, 16 E-Cores, and 4 LP-Cores, likely based on the rumored Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf architectures. Similar to Lunar Lake, these cores will lack hyperthreading in order to gain some efficiency. Still, Intel appears to be targeting hybrid compute performance at a scale we haven’t seen from its mobile segment before. Yet, the CPU isn't even the most interesting bit—that designation would go to the GPU.

Nova Lake-AX is rumored to feature 384 Execution Units—equivalent to 48 Xe-Cores, assuming an 8-unit-per-core setup like Xe2—based on Intel’s upcoming Xe3 architecture. That’s more than double the core count of Intel’s own Arc B580 desktop GPU, which has 20. This would mark a massive leap over Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake, and possibly even surpass AMD’s Strix Halo, which peaks at 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units. For further context, Apple’s M4 Pro has up to 20 GPU cores, while Lunar Lake tops out at just 64 EUs. If accurate, Nova Lake-AX could offer the highest iGPU compute density ever seen in an x86 chip.

That kind of GPU horsepower demands serious bandwidth, and Intel seems ready. Nova Lake-AX is rumored to support LPDDR5X memory at speeds up to 9,600 MT/s, possibly even 10,667 MT/s, across a wide 256-bit bus. That would both match and exceed AMD’s Strix Halo, which also uses a 256-bit interface but tops out at only 8000 MT/s. Apple’s M-series chips use unified memory up to 8,533 MT/s in the M4 Max, though the narrower bus limits their actual throughput. Nvidia’s upcoming N1 SoC, which also targets the hybrid APU segment with a custom Grace CPU and Blackwell GPU cores, remains largely under wraps, but it will likely feature even faster memory.

All that being said, despite the impressive specs, Nova Lake-AX may never even launch. The tipster Raichu notes that the design is currently “paused,” and earlier leaks suggest it was sidelined internally as Intel restructured its client roadmap. This makes it unclear whether the project will be revived or permanently scrapped. Even so, the fact that such a spec sheet exists—and was developed far enough to leak—shows Intel was seriously exploring a high-performance APU to rival AMD’s and Apple’s best.

That’s important because the market is shifting. AMD has significantly upped its game and dominates the high-end APU space with Strix Halo, at least on the Windows side. Apple’s M-series SoCs continue to lead on performance-per-watt and have become increasingly competitive in raw power. Even Nvidia will soon be gunning for the same territory. If Intel wants to remain relevant in this segment, a chip like Nova Lake-AX—whether it launches or not—might need to go from rumor to roadmap again.

Intel's codenamed Nova Lake-HX processors for high-performance notebooks will use the same packaging as the upcoming codenamed Panther Lake HX CPUs for high-end laptops, according to info surfaced by X86 dead&back. This will greatly simplify the transition from one platform to another for PC makers.

Based on multiple cargo descriptions in the NBD database, Intel is shipping various test tools for Nova Lake-HX (NVL-HX) processors, intended for high-performance notebooks, to India. Among the details revealed by the shipments declaration is the 2540-ball BGA packaging (BGA2540), the same packaging used by the Panther Lake-HX CPUs for high-end laptops. The use of this packaging will greatly simplify the transition to the new platform for notebook makers, as they will be able to leverage their existing motherboards for the new CPU, provided that GPU developers maintain the same packaging for their products.

According to NBD data, Intel is shipping a broad range of BGA2540 test tools, including a voltage regulator test tool that is used to electrically connect and test power delivery for BGA-packaged Nova Lake CPUs. Additionally, the company is shipping TA short channel add-in cards used to test various interfaces, such as USB4 and Thunderbolt.

Intel's upcoming Nova Lake chips are expected to advance their modular design philosophy by bringing together future Xe3 and Xe4 IPs to handle different engines on the chip. Jaykihn, an avid Intel leaker, asserts that Nova Lake-S will allegedly use Celestial for its graphics engine. At the same time, Druid will handle media and display functions, likely on a separate SoC Tile.

The disaggregated chiplet design, introduced for consumers with Meteor Lake, provides Intel with the flexibility to manufacture less critical chip elements using mature and cheaper fabrication nodes. Meteor Lake splits the media and display capabilities from core graphics. The media and display units were placed on a separate System-on-Chip (SoC) chiplet, manufactured using TSMC's N6 process, while the graphics engine resided on a separate tile produced with TSMC's N5 technology.

A similar strategy has been observed in Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, however, Nova Lake reportedly is poised to advance Intel's chiplet approach by using separate and specialized IPs for these blocks. Jaykihn claims that the integrated graphics (iGPU) on Nova Lake-S (S: Desktop) will be powered by Xe3 (Celestial), meanwhile, the graphics and media engine move to the more advanced Xe4 (Druid).

An official Intel document has detailed several of Intel's upcoming product lines, as revealed by avid hardware enthusiast InstLatX64 at X. The roadmap outlines a handful of new products, including Nova Lake for desktop (S) and low-power mobile (U), plus the rumored P-core-only Bartlett Lake-S family for LGA 1700 platforms. That being said, given the nature of the document, it's important not to mistake a simple reference for a definitive confirmation.

The document essentially provides an overview of offerings targeted at Intel's Time Coordinated Computing (TCC) platforms for edge computing. It's important to note that a footnote clearly mentions Intel has not classified this roadmap as a POR (Plan Of Record). In industry parlance, Plan Of Record refers to a document that outlines a company's definitive plans and objectives, in this case, upcoming products, over a specific period. Essentially, while an Intel department anticipates these products in the future, they haven't been formally committed to a development schedule.

With that context in mind, the document mentions upcoming Panther Lake mobile processors. These CPUs are slated for High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) later this year, with on-shelf supply by early next year. In fact, Intel showed off several RVP (Reference Validation Platforms) equipped with these processors at Computex. Official die shots show a five-tile layout, though only three of them, the Compute Tile, Platform Controller Tile, and GPU Tile, are projected to be active.

Intel's upcoming LGA1954 socket for next-generation Nova Lake CPUs is rumored to match its predecessor's size and may retain cooler compatibility. Ruby_Rapids on X highlighted NBD shipping manifests detailing the socket dimensions of LGA1954. At 45mm x 37.5mm, the size remains largely unchanged, despite offering roughly 100 more pins than LGA1851. However, full compatibility is still up in the air due to potential hotspot shifts with Nova Lake, depending on how and where Intel designs the cores.

Intel's current Arrow Lake processors utilize the LGA1851 socket, which was originally designed to support the now-axed Meteor Lake-S family on desktop. Though there are whispers of a potential Arrow Lake Refresh up in the air, it is expected to mirror Raptor Lake Refresh with improved silicon, higher clock speeds, and potentially more cache.

In essence, the next major desktop release from Intel should be Nova Lake, which has officially been slated for a 2026 launch. If rumors hold true, these CPUs will use the LGA1954 socket, necessitating a new motherboard, which is a bummer if you've already invested a lot in the current platform. That being said, you may be able to keep your current cooler. Shipping data from NBD indicates the LGA1954 socket measures 45mm x 37.5mm, matching the size of LGA1851 and even LGA1700. This at least hints at mechanical compatibility for the CPU cooler.

AMD announced its new Zen 5-powered Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000 WX-series and non-Pro processors here at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, touting up to 96 cores and 192 threads in the flagship 9995WX. AMD's newest 'Shamida Peak' Threadrippers bring the benefits of the Zen 5 architecture to AMD's premier WX-Series workstation and non-Pro processors, saying they deliver up to 2.2X the performance in rendering than Intel's fastest competing Xeon-W chips.

AMD also revamped its non-Pro Ryzen Threadripper 9000-series chips, with the flagship 9980X HEDT chip wielding 64 cores and 128 threads. AMD's full Threadripper 9000 series will be available in July.

The Threadripper 9000 chips have much in common with their predecessors, the Threadripper 7000 series, with AMD continuing to split the chips into the Pro and HEDT swimlanes. The chips also have the same core counts, base clocks, and cache capacities (up to 384MB) as the prior-gen models across the range of the product stack, but the peak boost clocks have been bumped up to 5.4 GHz for all models, an increase ranging from 100 to 300 MHz. The TDP ratings also remain the same 350W for all models.

The processors provide up to 22% more performance than the prior-gen in threaded workloads, and the lion's share of their increased performance from the jump from the Zen 4 architecture to Zen 5, which imparts a 16% IPC gain, and the move from 5nm to 4nm for the compute dies.

AVX-512 support is also fully baked into the design, dramamatically improving performance in applications that utilize the dense instruction set. The chip also come with all of the same I/O connectivity as before, including up to 128 PCIe 5.0 lanes, but memory support has been bumped up from DDR5-5200 to DDR5-6400. ECC is fully supported and AMD's Pro chips feature the AMD Pro Technolgies suite of RAS features.

As with all of AMD's Threadripper chips, these models have the same design as AMD's data center chips, in this case, the EPYC 'Turin' 9005 series, but come with special firmware and power tuning to optimize them for workstation platforms.

As you can see above, the chips have a large central 6nm I/O die flanked by rows of 4nm compute dies. With this generation, AMD has rotated the eight-core compute dies 90 degrees and arranged them into four vertical rows of three chips apiece, for a total of 12 compute dies with 96 cores for the flagship 9995WX. AMD removes four of those chips to create the 64-core 9980X, with further adjustments to the number of compute dies for the different models.

Both families of Threadripper 9000 chips will drop into the same sTR5 socket as the prior-gen chips. The WR90 platform with support for eight channels of memory will house the Pro chips, while value-optmized TRX50 boards with support for four channels of memory house the HEDT processors.

After a BIOS update, the new chips are compatible with existing motherboards. AMD expects a few new refreshed motherboard models from vendors, but it says the chips will largely leverage the existing ecosystem of sTR5 motherboards. As such, all of the existing sTR5 coolers on the market are fully compatible with the new processors.

AMD shared a few benchmarks to underline its performance superiority over Intel's Xeon-W lineup, but as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, take them with a grain of salt. We've included the full test notes below.

AMD claims the 96-core Threadripper 9995WX is 2.2X faster than Intel's 60-core flagship W9-3595X in the Cinebench multi-core rendering benchmark, an incredible lead. It's also 22% faster than the previous-gen 96-core Threadripper 7995WX.

AMD also shared a broader spate of benchmarks, with impressive gains ranging from 140% to 245% faster than the W9-3595X in a diverse set of real-world applications like media and entertainment, design and manufacturing, and LLM inference verticals, among others.

Overall AMD's Threadripper 9000 series appears poised to continue its utter dominance over Intel's competing workstation processors. AMD hasn't shared pricing yet, but given that its most affordable previous-gen HEDT model weighed in at $1,400 while the flagship retailed for $4,999, these chips will undoubtedly be pricey. As you'd expect, we'll have our own benchmarks coming around the time of launch in July.

Intel demoed working Panther Lake Core Ultra 300 silicon for laptops, its first chips based on its crucial 18A process node, here at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. Unlike the first public demoes at CES 2025 that merely showed the chips powered on, Intel put Panther Lake its paces in real-time rendering and AI applications, showing that the silicon is healthy and on-track for retail availability in early 2026. Intel also shared more information about its performance and power consumtpion expectations for the new chips. 

As you can see in the image above, Intel also had a Panther Lake chip on display, enabling us to see how the CPU, GPU, I/O tile, and SoC tile are arranged on the package. These chips are thought to come with Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores (you can see the unconfirmed leaked specifications of some of the chip models here). 

Intel says the Panther Lake chips blend the power efficiency of Lunar Lake with the performance of Arrow Lake-H, noting that while the chips will be in production in the second half of 2025, presumably launched at CES, full retail availability will not come until early 2026. Intel did tease that the chips will come with the next-gen integrated graphics with XMX graphics, but aside from saying the iGPU performance will be closer to Lunar Lake than Arrow Lake, the company didn't elaborate. These iGPUs are thought to be based on the Xe3 architecture.

Intel ran its Panther Lake benchmarks on two Reference Validation Platforms (RVP) that you can see in the above album. These platforms are used to validate the design and emulate real-world conditions. Both RVPs were equipped with a heatsink and fan, so they were presumably operating without thermal constraints. 

Intel demoed one system running the newly-resurrected Clippy as a large language model to demonstrate that the chips are running AI workloads. The presenter used the system to write game code in Python code. Intel didn't share performance metrics from the benchmark. 

Intel also demoed a system running Da Vinci to edit and manipulate video using local AI processing to process the video, enabling fast manipulation of the video clip, such as changing backgrounds, clothing colors, and adding flying text to the clip. 

Intel also displayed a running developer kit that 300+ developers with ISVs are using to enable software support for the coming chips. Intel demoed the system being used for image editing with auto-coloring and upscaling features, powered, of course, by AI. As you can see in the album, the developer system is quite compact. Intel also had a host of laptops on display from its OEM partners. 

Intel's Panther Lake appears to be on track for its launch schedule, which bodes well for the company's immensely important 18A process node. Intel teased that the next steps are to release concrete speeds and feeds along with more information about the various chip models. We expect those to come trickling our over the next several months. 

AMD is reportedly going big on core-counts with Zen 6 mobile next-generation, as suggested by a new rumor from HXL, backed by several other leakers. Codenamed "Medusa Point", these APUs will reportedly carry up to 22 hybrid cores, based on Zen 6, with classic, dense, and low-power options. Since Zen 6 is at least a year off, and mobile versions might not arrive until early 2027, we need to be careful about putting too much faith in this leak.

Medusa Point is slated to be the follow-up to AMD's current Zen 5-based Strix Point APU series. We probably won't see a direct shift to Medusa Point as AMD is reportedly working on the Gorgon Point (Strix Point refresh) family, planned as an intermediate step.

That being said, architecturally, Medusa Point will switch to the Zen 6 architecture, which should be detailed by AMD sometime around Computex next year. The graphics engine will allegedly adopt the updated RDNA 3.5+ design, though RDNA 4 would've been the ideal choice for many. It's probable RDNA 4 won't make its way to the APU landscape, since AMD's next-generation graphics architecture, UDNA 1 / RDNA 5, is projected for release during the same timeframe.

The mainstream Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 offerings from Medusa Point have been purported to feature up to 10 hybrid cores, divided across four classic Zen 6 cores, four dense Zen 6c cores, and two new LP (Low Power) cores. These LP cores are very likely smaller than their Zen 6c siblings, with their Voltage/Frequency operation tweaked for maximum efficiency. This is complemented by an eight Compute Unit equipped RDNA 3.5+ based graphics engine, similar to the Radeon 860M. The iGPU is a downgrade from the current 16-CU design on the Radeon 890M, but this was likely done to free up space on the chip for other components.

Currently, Intel's Foundry division loses billions every quarter as it invests heavily in new process technologies and production capacity. However, the company hopes that the Intel Foundry unit will break even sometime in 2027, which will coincide with the rollout out Intel's 14A manufacturing technology and production start on 18A-P node. 

Intel this week reaffirmed that the first product made on its 18A (1.8nm-class) fabrication process, the client PC processor (codenamed Panther Lake), will hit the market late this year and will ramp next year. The manufacturing technology will also be adopted for Xeon 'Clearwater Forest' and some third-party products, but from Intel's Foundry business perspective, 18A is will be a proof-of-concept for external clients. If this production node is a success, more potential customers will adopt its successors, including 18A-P, and 14A (1.4nm-class). 

"I think we do need to see more external volume come from 14A versus versus 18A, said David Zinsner, chief financial officer of Intel, at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. "We have […] a bunch of bunch of potential customers, and then we get test chips, and then some customers fall out in the test chips, and then there is a certain amount of customers that kind of hang in there. So, committed volume is not significant right now, for sure. But, you know, I think we have got to partly prove ourselves a little bit with our own product and eat our own dog food here, and then […] we start to see some engagement around customers." 

Zinsner admitted that if the company choses to use High-NA EUV lithography with its 14A process technology — as it plans to at the moment — its costs will go up initially. Intel hopes that advantages enabled by the new fab tools will outweigh those higher costs. 

In a bid to improve Arrow Lake sales, Intel has significantly discounted its mainstream 20-core Core Ultra 7 265K, which is readily selling at or below $300 at various retailers, including Amazon. That's a massive 25% cut over its original $400 recommended customer price set by Intel at launch. While the slightly more affordable 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K is also selling below its MSRP at $269, the Core Ultra 7 265K is arguably the better buy.

This is likely part of a small promotional sale, which is why we're using the term discount instead of permanent price cuts. Even so, they don't appear to be regional, as reports from ComputerBase indicate similar pricing trends in Germany. Intel's candidate is a great choice for promoting Arrow Lake sales, since the Core Ultra 7 265K wields an impressive 20 (8P+12E) core / 20 thread configuration, rivaling the i7-14700K from the previous generation, while offering better efficiency.

The CPU carries 66MB of total cache (36MB L2 + 30MB L3). Sticking to JEDEC-compliant speeds, Arrow Lake at stock can handle 6400 MT/s DDR5 kits (CUDIMM), going as fast as 8000 MT/s with Intel's warrantied boost profiles. As of writing, the Core Ultra 7 265K (and its KF variant) can be purchased for $294 at Amazon. The model with the integrated GPU is a no-brainer, given that its built-in Xe-LPG (Alchemist) iGPU offers QuickSync functionality with AV1 encoding.

Intel's new CEO Lip Bu-Tan took to the stage at the company's Intel Foundry Direct 2025 event here in San Jose, California, to outline the company's progress on its foundry initiative. Tan announced that the company is now engaging lead customers for its upcoming 14A process node (1.4nm equivalent), the follow-on generation of its 18A process node. Intel already has several customers with plans to tape out 14A test chips, which now come with an enhanced version of the company's backside power delivery technology dubbed PowerDirect. Tan also revealed that the company's crucial 18A node is now in risk production with volume manufacturing on schedule for later this year.

Intel also revealed that its new 18A-P extension, a high-performance variant of the 18A node, is now running through the fab with early wafers. Additionally, the company is developing a new 18A-PT variant that supports Foveros Direct 3D with hybrid bonding interconnects, enabling the company to stack dies vertically on top of its most advanced leading-edge node.

The Foveros Direct 3D technology is a key development because it provides a capability that rival TSMC already uses in production, most famously in AMD's 3D V-Cache products. In fact, Intel's implementation matches TSMC's offering in critical interconnect density measurements.

On the mature-node side of the operation, Intel Foundry has its first production 16nm tapeout in the fab now, and the company is also now engaging customers for the 12nm node it is developing in partnership with UMC.

Perhaps the most important developments at the show revolve around Intel's continued expansion with EDA and intellectual property (IP) partners that provide the critical tools and IP blocks that enable its customers to develop new designs with industry-standard design flows and tools. The company has also expanded its Intel Foundry Accelerator Alliance program to include the Chiplet Alliance and Value Chain Alliance programs.

Intel Foundry's progress comes during turbulent times in the semiconductor industry as geopolitical divisions threaten to fracture the global chip supply chain. Intel is currently the only US-based domestic supplier of leading-edge process node technology and advanced packaging capacity, a key advantage as tensions between China and TSMC continue to escalate. Despite TSMC's expansion of production in the US, a recent law passed by Taiwan now prevents the company from producing its most cutting-edge tech in the United States, leaving Intel as the only domestic foundry with both leading-edge chip production and R&D.

Naga Chandrasekaran, the Chief Technology and Operations Officer of Intel Foundry, and Kevin O’Buckley, the General Manager of Foundry Services, are also slated to deliver keynotes during the event, providing more details about the technology and roadmaps. We will update this article with additional information as it becomes available, but we have plenty to share to get started. Let's take a closer look at Intel's progress.

Intel 14A Process Node

Intel 14A Process Node

Intel's 14A, the next generation after 18A, is already in the works and scheduled for risk production in 2027. If all goes to plan, 14A will be the industry's first node to employ High-NA EUV lithography. TSMC's competing A14 (1.4nm-class) node is expected to arrive in 2028, but the Taiwanese company will not utilize High-NA for production.

Intel has already shared early versions of the Process Design Kit (PDK), a set of data, documentation, and design rules that enables the design and validation of a processor design, with its lead 14A customers. Intel states that multiple customers have already indicated their intention to build chips using the 14A process node.

Intel's 14A will have a second-generation version of its PowerVia backside power delivery technology. The new PowerDirect implementation is a more advanced and complex scheme that delivers power directly to each transistor's source and drain through specialized contacts, which minimizes resistance and maximizes power efficiency. This is a more direct and efficient connection than Intel's current PowerVia scheme, which connects to the contact level of the transistors with Nano TSVs.

TSMC's N2 node does not include backside power delivery; however, with A16, the company will employ a direct-contact backside power delivery network, dubbed Super Power Rail (SPR). A16 is essentially a derivative of the N2P node with SPR. The A16 node is expected to enter production in late 2026. TSMC's A14 will not leverage a backside power design methodology.

Intel's 18A-PT process node enables die stacking

Intel's 18A-PT process node enables die stacking

Intel's 18A node is the mainstream variant, but the company also has several 'line extensions' of the node, designated by different suffixes. These flavors of the underlying node are tailored for different use cases.

Intel has a new 18A variant up its sleeve; the new 18A-PT node that will provide the same performance and efficiency benefits as the performance-oriented 18A-P, but adds in Foveros Direct 3D hybrid bonding. This bump-less copper-to-copper bonding technique (meaning it doesn't use microbumps or solder to connect the two dies) fuses chips together with through-silicon vias (TSVs). Intel's implementation will employ a pitch of less than 5 microns, a distinct improvement over its initial goal of a 10um pitch by 2023, to fuse chiplets on top of the 18A-PT die. The pitch is a measurement of the center-to-center spacing between the interconnects, and lower values indicate higher density, which is better.

Notably, AMD uses TSMC's SoIC-X technology, a similar hybrid bonding approach, to fuse an L3 chiplet atop its X3D processors with a 9 micron bump pitch. TSMC's SOIC-X tech currently ranges from 4.5 to 9 microns, but the company has a 3-micron pitch offering on the roadmap for 2027. If productized effectively and on schedule, Intel's Foveros Direct 3D will dramatically improve its positioning against TSMC's packaging technology.

Intel's Clearwater Forest will be its first to use Foveros Direct 3D packaging, but the company hasn't disclosed the pitch for that specific product yet. Notably, TSVs are typically only included in the base die, and Clearwater Forest uses Intel 3-T for the base die with the Intel 18A compute dies stacked on top. Enabling TSVs for 18A will thus allow it to also have dies stacked atop, and SRAM cache is a logical use case.

Intel 18A process node updates

Intel 18A process node updates

As we reported last month, Intel's 18A (1.8 nm-equivalent) process node has entered risk production, marking the commencement of the first low-volume production runs of the node, with High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) scheduled for the end of the year. Intel did not specify which processors had begun production, but the timing generally aligns with expectations for its Panther Lake processors, which are expected to arrive at the end of the year. Intel's first 18A production will come from its Oregon fabs, but the company has already 'run the [18A] lot' through its Arizona fab, indicating it will soon begin production there as well.

The 18A node is the first in the industry to be productized with both a PowerVia backside power delivery network (BSPDN) and RibbonFET gate-all-around (GAA) transistors. PowerVia provides optimized power routing on the back of the chip to improve performance and transistor density. RibbonFET also offers better transistor density, along with faster transistor switching, in a smaller area through the use of four vertical nanosheets surrounded entirely by the gate.

The 18A node enters HVM in roughly the same timeframe as TSMC's competing 2nm N2 node. However, TSMC's N2 node does not come with a backside power delivery network, but it does have GAA technology with three vertical nanosheets. There have been some basic comparisons between the process nodes made based on presentations at a recent industry event. The general takeaway is that Intel's node is faster and lower-power than TSMC's, though TSMC retains the edge in density (and presumably cost). However, these distinctions could vary depending on the specific implementation in different chip designs.

Intel divulged today that it has wafers of its high-performance 18A-P node in the fab. This 18A variant features an optimized power and frequency curve, providing an 8% improvement in performance per watt. This can be leveraged as either higher clock speeds or lower power consumption at the same performance, depending upon chip-specific tuning.

The 18A-P node is design rule-compatible with the 18A node, easing the design process for customers. Intel is already collaborating with Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software vendors to enable broad support for industry-standard design tools, and it is also working with Intellectual Property (IP) designers to provide the necessary IP blocks, thereby simplifying implementation.

Mature Nodes: 16nm and 12nm continue advancing

Mature Nodes: 16nm and 12nm continue advancing

Intel Foundry not only addresses the leading edge of technology, but it is also working on several mature nodes. Intel's 16nm node, which is essentially a version of its 22FFL node that leverages industry standard design tools and PDKs, has a tapeout in the fab now.

Intel is also continuing its work with partner UMC to develop a 12nm node that will be produced in three of Intel's Arizona fabs beginning in 2027. In fact, Intel is currently engaging lead customer for this node. 12nm will be used primarily for mobile communication infrastructure and networking applications.

Takeaways, for now

Takeaways, for now

Intel canceled high volume manufacturing of the 20A node as a cost-cutting measure, but the company is now on the cusp of of production with with its18A node, marking a critical milestone as it looks to regain the manufacturing lead over TSMC. The addition of new line extensions, with the die-stacking-capable 18A-PT being a particularly strong advance, will help the company to further broaden its appeal to potential foundry customers.

The development of the company's 14A node is also well underway, signifying that the company is on track to providing a steady cadence of new nodes and features to the roadmap. We haven't yet heard any new details about Intel's plans for its 10A (1nm-class) process node yet, which is expected to begin development in 2027. Intel's press release also doesn't mention any new progress on its Intel 3 node, but we expect more details to emerge throughout the day.

Intel's event is focused heavily on displaying its broad portfolio of EDA, IP, and services driven by an ecosystem of indsutry stalwarts, like Synopsys and Cadence. The new Intel Foundry Chiplet Alliance is also an important development that will enable customers to mix-and-match chiplets into their design based upon interoperable and validated designs.

Intel's advanced packaging services are also of particular importance as they provide the fastest on-ramp to meaningful revenue generation. Intel did mention that it will make its 3D stacking Foveros implementation available to foundry customers, and noted a new partnership with Amkor. However, details are slight for now. We'll update this article as more information becomes available.

An update by Intel to the perfmon platform has added support for upcoming Panther Lake CPUs, listing their core architecture codenames and CPUID, via InstLatX64. This commit unofficially confirms that Panther Lake will employ Cougar Cove Performance (P) cores, while Darkmont will serve to power its Efficiency (E), and likely Low Power Efficiency (LPE) cores as well. Panther Lake is expected to launch later this year, succeeding current-generation Arrow Lake U/H offerings.

With Intel's flagship 18A in risk production, Panther Lake is scheduled for mass production later this year. Hence, it wouldn't be surprising if the bulk of Panther Lake arrives in Q1 next year, similar to how Meteor Lake rolled out. Make no mistake: Panther Lake isn't a successor to Lunar Lake, which was uniquely focused on efficiency as a one-off product, with on-package memory, limited TDP, and a power-optimized design. Current rumors indicate Panther Lake variants will sport up to 18 hybrid cores (6P+8E+4LPE) and 12 Xe cores, based on Intel's upcoming Celestial (Xe3) graphics architecture.

Intel positions Panther Lake as combining Arrow Lake's power and Lunar Lake's efficiency, but that's still a somewhat general claim. According to leaks, most Panther Lake systems will include traditional SODIMM/soldered memory, while some laptop designs might even support next-gen LPCAMM, combining fast and upgradeable RAM. Based on their TDP (rumored: up to 64W), Panther Lake chips are expected to power a wide range of devices, including entry-level laptops, handhelds, and gaming laptops. The company is even eying bringing this architecture to automobiles.

An Intel engineer has pushed an update to the lookup table for perfmon, adding Panther Lake as a supported architecture. Panther Lake has been marked with the "GenuineIntel-6-CC" identifier, assigning it to CPU Family 6, Model 204 (0xCC). In addition, the patch reports the Cougar Cove and Darkmont architectures for Panther Lake's Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores, respectively.

Intel on Thursday posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2025. The company's earnings were flat year-over-year; however, its losses deepened, and its gross margin declined despite lower operating expenses. While sales of the company's data center grade products demonstrated signs of growth, sales of client CPUs declined compared to the same quarter a year ago. Perhaps more importantly, Intel gave a bleak outlook for the second quarter due to macro challenges. 

In the first quarter of 2025, Intel reported flat year-over-year revenue of $12.7 billion, with a net loss of $821 million, nearly twice the amount compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company's gross margin declined to 36.9%, pressured by a product mix, startup costs for the 18A ramp-up, and uncertainties (which Intel referred to as macroeconomic headwinds).

The company's operating expenses — including research and development (R&D) as well as management, general, and administrative costs (MG&A) — declined to $4.8 billion in Q1 2025 from $5.9 billion in Q1 2024. However, despite this decline, the company's losses increased. 

"The first quarter was a step in the right direction, but there are no quick fixes as we work to get back on a path to gaining market share and driving sustainable growth," said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO. "I am taking swift actions to drive better execution and operational efficiency while empowering our engineers to create great products. We are going back to basics by listening to our customers and making the changes needed to build the new Intel." 

Perhaps the most alarming sign is that Intel's Client Computing Group (CCG) revenues fell 8% year-over-year to $7.6 billion. This drop was attributed to weaker-than-expected PC demand, particularly in the consumer segment, competitive pricing, and unfavorable product mix that includes a plethora of products made by TSMC. Interestingly, many of Intel's customers favored older-generation products like Raptor Lake over newer, higher-cost platforms such as Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, and Lunar Lake. 

Despite these challenges, Intel noted demand for AI PCs from business customers, as well as enterprise fleet upgrades and Windows 10 end-of-service migrations, although this was insufficient to offset the broader softness in consumer sales. 

Intel's Data Center and AI (DCAI) business unit reported $4.1 billion in revenue in Q1 2025, achieving an 8% year-over-year increase, making it one of the few growth areas for the company. The performance was primarily driven by strong demand from hyperscalers for host CPUs in AI server deployments. However, the segment faced margin pressure due to competitive dynamics from AMD, product mix, and elevated demand for older-generation parts rather than newer offerings. 

Despite the revenue growth, Intel acknowledged macroeconomic uncertainty, potential spending pullbacks, and competition from AMD and Arm-based server solutions as risks that could affect DCAI performance in the coming quarters. The company remains focused on stabilizing market segment share and increasing average selling prices (ASPs) while preparing for the ramp of its next-generation server products. 

Intel Foundry reported $4.7 billion in revenue, reflecting a 7% year-over-year increase driven mostly by internal demand, particularly from Intel's own product groups for wafers and advanced packaging services. Despite revenue growth, the Foundry segment continued to operate at a significant loss, posting an operating loss of $2.3 billion, which remained roughly flat compared to the previous quarter. 

Intel's Lip-Bu Tan reiterated at the conference call that the company's Foundry success hinges not just on manufacturing capabilities but also on building customer trust, improving process design enablement, and supporting a broader range of customer flows. For now, the key mission of Intel Foundry is to ramp up production of Intel 18A-based Panther Lake and then Clearwater Forest processors in late 2025 – 2026 to prove that IF has a node that is competitive with TSMC's N2. 

Times are already tough for Intel, but now it turns out its new, heavily-promoted AI PC chips aren't selling as well as expected, thus creating a shortage of production capacity for its older chips. The news comes as the CEO announced looming layoffs and a poor financial report sent the company's stock tumbling.

Intel says its customers are buying less expensive previous-generation Raptor Lake chips instead of the new, and significantly more expensive, AI PC models like the Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake chips for laptops.

During the earnings call, Intel announced that it currently faces a shortage of production capacity for its 'Intel 7' process node, and the company expects this shortage to "persist for the foreseeable future." That's an unexpected shortage to have, as Intel's current-gen chips use newer process nodes from TSMC instead of Intel's older 'Intel 7' node. Intel is a master at production capacity planning, so its disclosure points to an unexpected surge in sales of the older 'Intel 7' products.

Intel explained that the shortage of its 7nm production capacity is due to an unexpected surge in demand for its "N-1 and N-2" products, a reference to its two prior-generation chip families. This trend is occurring in both the consumer and data center markets.

"What we're really seeing is much greater demand from our customers for n-1 and n-2 products so that they can continue to deliver system price points that consumers are really demanding," explained Intel's Michelle Johnston Holthaus. "As we've all talked about, the macroeconomic concerns and tariffs have everybody kind of hedging their bets and what they need to have from an inventory perspective. And Raptor Lake is a great part. Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake are great as well, but come with a much higher cost structure, not only for us, but at the system ASP price points for our OEMs as well."

Bernstein Research's Stacy Rasgon pressed Holtahaus about the implications for the company's upcoming Panther Lake chips, which are set to launch at the end of the year, especially given that the looming tariff disruptions have not yet occurred.

Holthaus said the Panther Lake launch remains on track and the company expects continued success in the commercial market, which she said typically precedes broader consumer adoption. Notably, she did not directly address the company's expected next-gen AI PC adoption for consumer laptops. Regardless, the company also continues its expansive work to promote and cultivate a growing developer ecosystem to unleash the power of its AI wares.

However, the fact is that AI still doesn't seem to have the 'killer app' that would send waves of customers to stores to purchase an expensive new laptop. Instead, most of the new features revolve around built-in features in existing applications, such as chat and productivity software, that are more nuanced and not quite flashy enough to spark a wave of adoption.

Expanding its wings into the automotive ecosystem, Intel shared its upcoming SDV (Software-Defined Vehicle) SoC designs at Auto Shanghai 2025 yesterday. Slated to be the industry's first disaggregated design, the company presented its second-generation SDV SoC, internally codenamed Frisco Lake. A detailed investigation by 3elife, a Chinese tech and news publication, purports these SoCs are derivatives of Intel's Panther Lake design, with their successor allegedly based on Nova Lake.

Software-defined vehicles are automobiles where a majority of the functionality is handled through software, rather than traditional physical, mechanical, or electronic components. Compared to desktops, x86 has seen limited adoption in the automotive industry, primarily due to stringent power consumption requirements, real-time processing demands, and safety and security concerns.

However, as ADAS, autonomous driving, in-car experiences, and the need for high-performance computing in vehicles grow, Intel is positioning itself to gain traction in this market. Last year, the company released the 225W Arc A760A, offering a PC-like experience from the comfort of your car. The Raptor-Lake-based Malibou Lake platform represents Intel's latest SDV offering, featuring up to 14 cores (6P+8E), 24MB L3 cache, 96 EUs, and support for eight cameras, slated for a Q4 2024 launch.

Yesterday, Intel shared several slides detailing Frisco Lake, officially poised to deliver 10 times better AI performance and 61% higher efficiency than current offerings, presumably Malibou Lake. In addition, the inclusion of an Xe3 (Celestial) graphics IP block strongly suggests these SoCs are indeed derived from Panther Lake, a connection that is supported by the source and kernel patches (via Harukaze at X). The use of Intel's flagship 18A process node and the jump from Raptor Cove to Cougar Cove (rumored) would explain the sharp spike in efficiency.

That's not all, as 3elife secured an alleged roadmap detailing Intel's future product offerings from a third party. Assuming this timeline is accurate, Frisco Lake was never actually intended for launch and appears to be a last-minute addition to Intel's product stack. Apparently, Malibou Lake was in line to be superseded by Grizzly Lake, which is now expected to serve as Intel's third-generation SDV SoC design.

Under the Grizzly Lake lineup, the leaked slides mention an SoC codenamed Monument Peak, reportedly offering up to 32 cores, a 7 TFLOPS-capable Xe-based integrated GPU, slated for the first half of 2027. This time frame coincides with Nova Lake, and one rumored configuration of that architecture includes 32 efficient cores (16P+32E+4LPE), likely based on the Arctic Wolf microarchitecture.

So, if these rumors hold true, Intel is porting its consumer-grade architectures to the automotive industry with a one-year cadence. Considering the extensive validation processes and typically long lifecycles of these chips, automobiles usually don't opt for the most cutting-edge core design, unlike the desktop market. It's hard to say what the future holds, but perhaps Intel's limited success in the mobile phone and AI markets might be a catalyst for this drive to establish a strong foothold in the automotive domain.

Intel has reportedly placed orders with TSMC for its bleeding-edge 2nm-class N2 process technology, according to Economic Daily News. This news comes shortly after AMD officially confirmed its Zen 6 'Venice' server chips, likely the CCDs, will be fabricated using the same node. If the report is accurate, these wafers are likely intended for Intel's Nova Lake lineup of CPUs. While this might put into question 18A's capabilities, Intel officially declared a dual-sourcing strategy for Nova Lake as early as last November.

Nova Lake serves as the successor to Arrow Lake, and is rumored to feature up to 52 hybrid cores (16P+32E+4LPE) segmented into two blocks of eight Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, with four LPE cores likely in a separate SoC Tile. Rumor has it that Nova Lake will transition to a new LGA1954 socket, meaning existing 800-series motherboards won't be compatible.

We are seeing several architectural jumps here as the expected progression is Lion Cove (ARL/LNL), then Cougar Cove, and Coyote Cove for Performance (P) cores. Similarly, Arctic Wolf is suggested to follow Darkmont, which comes after Skymont (ARL/LNL) for Efficiency (E) cores. With 18A already in risk production, the shift to TSMC is probably driven by capacity needs, rather than performance or yield concerns.

Intel 18A should power some of Intel's most ambitious products in recent history: Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids (rumored), the former of which has been delayed to H1 2026 citing packaging concerns. To ease pressure on its 18A production line and prevent delays with consumer products, Intel, under interim CEO Michelle Holthaus, announced outsourcing some Nova Lake dies to partners like TSMC and Samsung.

As insinuated by leaker Kepler on X, high-end Nova Lake products will, allegedly, be built using N2 while 18A will be designated for the lower-end parts. This isn't Intel's first time partnering up with TSMC for CPU production, as the company's latest Arrow Lake CPUs (using N3B, N5P, and N6), Lunar Lake (using N3B and N6), and for GPUs Alchemist (using N6), and Battlemage(using N4) have all leveraged TSMC's process technology. This increases Intel's spending, requiring a careful balance between expediting product launches via external foundries or facing delays with its internal manufacturing.

To some extent, even Arrow Lake is dual-sourced with Arrow Lake-U (for low-power devices) using the Intel 3 process. While Arrow Lake had minimal in-house production, ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger reported that Intel will produce most of Nova Lake internally. Relying on TSMC isn't inherently bad if 18A can land a handful of external customers. Analysts have also suggested Nvidia might be eyeing Intel's nodes for its consumer GPUs in the future. Either way, Nova Lake is slated to be a 2026 product, so we're likely looking at the second half with how Intel launches usually proceed.

According to documents shared with Tom's Hardware by a source, Intel will announce a new "Intel 200S Boost" feature for its Arrow Lake processors tomorrow that's designed to boost gaming performance by providing official warranty coverage for a subset of overclocking features, including memory overclocking. As you can see below, we have put the new feature through a battery of tests before its official launch and found the gains generally match our expectations for memory overclocking, with an average improvement of 7.5% over the officially supported memory speeds.

It's no secret that Intel's Arrow Lake chips delivered disappointing gaming performance at launch — in fact, they are significantly slower than even Intel's own previous-gen models. The company has since corrected multiple launch-day issues, but that has not improved overall performance. The new approach aims to leverage several existing features and package them under the warranty protection umbrella, much like AMD introduced a 105W mode to boost performance for its underperforming 65W Ryzen 9000 models. However, Intel hasn't issued any official performance projections for the new feature yet.

The Intel 200S Boost feature enhances the performance of Arrow Lake K-series processors by enabling a few overclocking features in an easy-to-use one-click BIOS profile, but the new settings don't impact CPU clock speeds or power settings above current warranty limitations. Instead, the tweaks optimize specific memory and fabric speeds, marking the first time Intel has offered official warranty coverage for potential chip damage resulting from XMP memory overclocking profiles or adjusting fabric speeds.

There are, however, several caveats, and the tweaks are already well known to the enthusiast and overclocking community. Firstly, Intel now covers "up to" DDR5-8000 memory speeds within its warranty; however, not all chips will be able to reach that speed, and because the approach is still considered overclocking, Intel does not guarantee system stability with XMP profiles. As we demonstrate below, more affordable and easily supported DDR5-7200 kits offer nearly the same performance in most games and applications we tested.

The 200S Boost feature will be integrated into BIOS revisions from major motherboard vendors, with BIOS updates expected to arrive tomorrow from at least a few OEMs. The feature will only be implemented on Z-Series motherboards, which is a curious limitation given that Intel now supports memory overclocking on B-Series boards. It's also only available on K- and KF-series SKUs.

The 200S Boost profile also increases the speed of the Next Generation Uncore (NGU/SA Fabric), which enables communication between various chip elements, such as the CPU cores, memory controllers, and other components. This interface is upgraded from its standard 2.6 GHz speed to 3.2 GHz. Additionally, the Die-to-Die (D2D) communication fabric, which serves as a bridge between the Compute and SOC tiles or dies present inside the Arrow Lake chip, is increased from its stock 2.1 GHz to 3.2 GHz.

Intel is also obviously wary of motherboard vendors pushing the limits with their BIOS settings (which they have been known to do) and thus creating another potential chip reliability issue. As such, the company has also instituted several guardrails around the feature, with strict limitations that prevent motherboard makers from altering any other features, such as CPU clock speeds or power thresholds, as part of the 200S Boost settings. Intel also has voltage ceilings for the System Agent and memory that cannot be exceeded. You cannot use XMP kits that exceed the DIMM voltage ratings. The limits are listed in the table above.

The OEMs are allowed to tailor their voltage and speed settings within those constraints to optimize performance with their product. Any manual manipulation by the end user of clocks or other settings will automatically disable the 200S Boost profile, reverting you to manual overclocking. This feature also locks the overclocking mailbox to prevent OS-based overclocking. Finally, 200S Boost is entirely opt-in; it can't be enabled by default in the BIOS and requires users to turn it on.

Intel 200S Boost is separate from the Intel Performance Optimization (IPO) program, a China-specific collaboration between Intel and System Integrators (SIs) that facilitates more robust overclocking, including clock speeds and power settings. However, the SIs carry the warranty for that program, and Intel has no current plans to bring the IPO program to other regions.

Now on to the benchmarks.

Intel 200S Boost Gaming Performance

The 200S Boost feature is built on firmware with an MR1 or newer revision. We tested with the Core Ultra 9 285K on the MSI MEG Z890 ACE motherboard with a .1A53 BIOS revision that supports adding the feature, although it is not explicitly enabled yet. We merely recreated the correct settings for the feature in this BIOS, and sources close to the matter have confirmed that our results align with general expectations.

We tested six configurations and three memory speeds across 16 games at 1080p. The tested memory speeds include the stock DDR5-6400 with JEDEC timings, which was the previous limit for Intel's warranty, as well as the cost- and compatibility-friendly DDR5-7200 speed we use for our CPU reviews (32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-7200 kit for both). We also tested with a 32GB Patriot Extreme 5 DDR5-8000 kit to measure the peak supported XMP speeds.

The first slide displays the geometric mean of our gaming tests, which we conducted using an RTX 5090 Founders Edition. We tested the different memory speeds with the fabrics at stock settings and the listed memory speed (marked as stock in the chart), and then retested after increasing the fabric speeds to the higher 3.2 GHz threshold (marked as '200S Boost').

The largest increase in performance undoubtedly comes from memory overclocking. Moving from the stock DDR5-6400 configuration to the peak DDR5-8000 with fabric overclocking (200S Boost) yielded a 7.5% performance increase in our overall measurement. Naturally, performance increases vary by title, from as low as a 3.7% increase in A Plague Tale: Requiem to an 11.6% increase in Baldur's Gate 3. The per-game results generally hover in the 7% to 9% range. The titles that benefit most are simply the memory-sensitive titles, so there are no surprises here.

We, like many other outlets, test with a DDR5-7200 XMP profile as our default memory configuration. We chose this speed because it is widely supported by most chips (you may encounter issues with DDR5-8000 UDIMMs on some chips or motherboards) and it is more affordable — 32GB DDR5-8000 kits typically carry a $45 to $60 (43 to 57%) premium, yet deliver precious little extra performance.

We see that trend hold strong in our results, with the DDR5-8000 200S Boost configuration only being a mostly imperceptible 1.2% faster performance overall in 1080p gaming. Our advice for most enthusiasts remains the same — DDR5-7200 is the sweet spot for price and performance.

We have experimented with overclocking the fabric speeds in the past, but we found the increased performance to be largely unremarkable unless you are engaging in heavy overclocking of the CPU cores, which is not allowed in tandem with the 200S Boost feature.

To determine the impact of fabric speeds on the overall performance improvement, we toggled the fabrics between 200S Boost and Stock fabric settings for each memory speed. As you can see, it did give at least some boost in performance, but the gains undoubtedly fall into the imperceptible range. For instance, we measured a sub-1% increase in performance when using higher fabric clocks with the DDR5-6400 and DDR5-7200 configurations, and a 1.4% increase with the DDR5-8000 configuration.

It's possible that you could eke out higher gains from the fabric tweaks with lesser chips, like the Core Ultra 7 265K and the Core Ultra 5 245K, but you should keep your expectations in check.

We'll see how the fully-boosted Intel chips stack up against the competition further below.

In the interest of due diligence, we ran the chips through several productivity application benchmarks to assess the impact, but the results were entirely predictable — applications that benefit from memory overclocking saw small gains, while others saw none at all. In fact, the variations mostly fall within our expected run-to-run variance, so you shouldn't expect significant uplift in productivity applications.

The competitive landscape is basically unchanged

Here we've added the primary competitors for the Core Ultra 9 285K to the test results, and as you can see, the landscape remains largely unchanged from our most recent testing. Notably, we don't see as significant a gain because we test all processors with reasonable XMP settings applied as our stock configuration in reviews.

The fact that Arrow Lake couldn't match the gaming performance of Intel's own prior-gen Raptor Lake Refresh chips was one of the most disappointing aspects for enthusiasts. That still remains the case; the Core i9-14900K is now 6.5% faster than the 285K, whereas it was 9% faster in our prior testing (with both at DDR5-7200). That change isn't enough to drastically change the value equation between the Intel chips.

The situation also remains rough in comparison to AMD's competing models — the 285K is now about 3% slower than the Ryzen 9 9950X, roughly halving the distance between the two and bringing it closer to a draw, but the gaming-optimized X3D chips continue to dominate by almost absurd amounts. Here, the much less expensive Ryzen 7 9800X3D and its premium counterpart, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, still hold a 30%+ lead in gaming, so it remains a no-contest if you're strictly focused on gaming performance.

Despite the addition of new fabric tweaks and support for up to DDR5-8000, we still recommend that most users stick with DDR5-7200 — stepping up to DDR5-8000 incurs a significant cost for only about 1% more performance.

Overall, the new 200S Boost feature doesn't alter the competitive landscape, but it does provide an easy-to-use option for less-advanced users to gain a few extra percentage points of performance. The addition of warranty coverage for damage associated with the limited XMP memory or fabric overclocking is nice, but moderate memory overclocking is typically fairly safe in either case.

Intel is expected to officially announce the 200S Boost feature tomorrow, we'll follow up with further details as warranted.

Shipping documents sourced from NBD.ltd purport that Intel might switch to the LGA1954 platform for its next-generation Nova Lake processors on desktop (via Olrak). This is accompanied by PCH tooling likely intended for the 900-series chipsets. Importantly, these listings do not indicate an imminent launch, especially since Nova Lake has officially been confirmed as a 2026 product.

Nova Lake is officially a part of Intel's product family, set to supersede Arrow Lake next year. Preliminary silicon configurations allege two clusters of eight Coyote Cove P-cores and 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, complemented by four Low-Power Efficient (LPE) cores in the SoC Tile, adding up to 52 hybrid cores. Intel's engineers explore numerous design strategies, so whether this ambitious 52-core project will ever see the light of day is unclear.

The information within the manifests implies that Intel is actively distributing LGA1954 testing hardware to its global facilities. Specifically, these are not full-fledged motherboards but appear to be some form of a specialized interposer to test voltage regulation for the upcoming platform. Either way, these kits are designated for "NVL-S", the shorthand for Nova Lake Desktop.

Lip-Bu Tan, the newly appointed chief executive of Intel has launched a major leadership overhaul aimed at streamlining decision-making at the company, according to Reuters. With the new changes, Sachin Katti will become the chief technology office officer of Intel and will lead the company's AI effort. Also, the new management structure will get flatter and technical leaders from key groups will get direct lines with the CEO.

"Sachin Katti is expanding his role to include chief technology and AI officer for Intel," a spokesperson for Intel confirmed to Tom's Hardware. "As part of this, he will lead our overall AI strategy and AI product roadmap, as well as Intel Labs and our relationship with the startup and developer ecosystems."

New CTO

Up until now, Sachin Katti was in charge for Intel's networking and edge computing business unit and prior to that he was CTO of that unit. However, with the new expansion of his role, he will become chief technology officer of the whole company and the head of Intel Labs, therefore responsible for all the fundamental and applied research at Intel, which includes fundamental research for Intel's process technologies.

As part of his job as head of Intel Labs, Katti will also be in charge of relationships with startup and developer communities. Furthermore, Katti will also be in charge of Intel's new AI strategy and products roadmap.

The appointment of a dedicated AI chief is perhaps a long overdue job as Intel's AI strategy so far has not exactly been a success. Perhaps the problem is that AI was a part of Intel's data center unit and was considered as somewhat of a second-class citizen and therefore competed both for resources and management attention. With a dedicated lead, this could change, but keep in mind that Sachin Katti will not be solely dedicated to AI as he will be Intel's CTO as well as in charge of the edge and networking business.

Intel's chief technology officers (CTOs) role was originally focused on traditional technology development oversight, but in the recent years it got additional roles. Intel's 'classic' CTOs were Pat Gelsinger (2001 - 2009), Justin Rattner (2009 – 2013), and Michael Mayberry (2017 – 2021), who led the company's technology strategies that included CPU, systems, communications, and process technologies for making semiconductors. Intel had no CTO between 2013 and 2017 at all.

Greg Lavender, who served as Intel's CTO from 2021 to 2025, joined the company in 2021 from VMware and among his responsibilities as CTO were defining and executing Intel's software strategy across AI, accelerated computing and confidential computing, as well as leading the Intel Labs, Intel Federal LLC, and Intel Information Technology (IT) units.

That said, Katti will not be the first Intel CTO with additional responsibilities. However, Katti's CTO and AI responsibilities are both strategically important for the company's future and the fusion of the roles may be a strategic move by Lip-Bu Tan.

Technical leaders get direct line to CEO

While the Intel CTO role at Intel has become less apparent — and the vast responsibilities of Sachin Katti just prove that — Lip-Bu Tan is taking a more hands-on approach on development of key technologies and has established direct lines of communication with key technical leaders Rob Bruckner, Mike Hurley, and Lisa Pearce.

Let us detail their roles:

• Rob Bruckner serves as CTO of client platform architecture and definition (CPAD) organization within the Client Computing Group (CCG) that earns tens of billions of dollars a year.
• Mike Hurley serves as general manager of the client silicon engineering group (CSEG), overseeing end-to-end execution for all client products. His responsibilities include silicon architecture and design engineering, hardware and firmware IP development, as well as post-silicon validation and manufacturing readiness to ensure successful product delivery to market.
• Lisa Pearce is Intel's general manager of GPU and NPU hardware and software IP. This is not a key business division, but GPU and NPU hardware is strategically important for the company's CPUs, integrated and standalone GPUs, as well as a broader AI scope.

Previously, these executives reported to Michelle Johnston Holthaus, chief executive of Intel Products group overseeing everything from controller chips for client PCs all the way to premium data center-grade CPUs and server platforms. Yet, Michelle Johnston Holthaus is not going anywhere.

"I want to roll up my sleeves with the engineering and product teams so I can learn what is needed to strengthen our solutions," Tan is reported to have written by Reuters. "As Michelle and I drive this work, we plan to evolve and expand her role with more details to come in the future."

In addition, Intel is also changing how the CEO will work with the government affairs head: the new one will report directly to Lip-Bu Tan, which reflects the strategic importance of global regulatory relationships amid rising geopolitical tensions and ongoing tariffs on China. Bruce Andrews, who had previously worked for the U.S. Commerce Department under President Obama, left Intel after the U.S. elections in November.

Summary

A new Linux kernel patch brings hardware enablement for Intel's Bartlett Lake-S family of processors. In the same patch, an Intel engineer has seemingly confirmed the existence of a P-core-only counterpart to Bartlett Lake, via Phoronix. This update enables the kernel to properly identify these processors at boot, assigning them a CPUID for recognition in software. Likewise, these CPUIDs also allow the compiler to execute hardware-specific code path optimizations using the Intel CPU dispatcher mechanism.

At CES, Intel formally introduced the Bartlett Lake-S platform, which includes three CPUs configured with hybrid cores intended for NEX (Network and Edge) applications. Since last year, rumors have alleged the existence of a performance-core-only analog, wielding up to 12P cores and 24 threads. Bartlett Lake targets the LGA 1700 platform, so these CPUs should be drop-in replacements for existing 600-series and 700-series motherboards, after updating the BIOS, of course.

The Intel engineer added an identification entry for Bartlett Lake CPUs in the Linux kernel, assigning them to CPU Family 6, Model 215 (0xD7). These codenames allow the software to determine the processor family and whether it supports certain hardware instructions or not. The engineer additionally noted, "Bartlett Lake has a P-core only product with Raptor Cove", which effectively corroborates all previous leaks.

The Raptor Cove micro-architecture is an enhanced version of Golden Cove and powers the performance cores of Intel's 13th and 14th Generation processors. Pertinently, Bartlett Lake-S (P-core only) is reported to utilize a new die, as all Raptor Lake silicon is limited to just eight performance cores. The same leaker suggests these processors will debut in 125W/65W/45W configurations, catering to a wide variety of customers.

The elephant in the room is availability. Existing Bartlett Lake options are limited to embedded packages like COM-HPCs. Monolithic core configurations can clear up scheduling headaches and open a door for Intel to re-enable AVX-512 instruction support, which has been fused off silicon since later Alder Lake batches.

Bartlett Lake could be a double-edged sword; you'd likely see improved gaming performance, but at the cost of efficiency versus Arrow Lake. This might be a compromise gamers are willing to make, though, whether these chips can hold their own against AMD's Ryzen 9000 series remains to be seen. The rumor mill suggests a Q3 25 (July-September) release window for these processors, so we might be in for an announcement at Computex, next month.

Arrow Lake might have some fuel left in the tank, as Intel's latest IPO (Intel Performance Optimizations) tech is reportedly hitting pre-builts in China, per UNIKO's Hardware at X.

Intel recently unveiled the IPO program in China. It is supposedly a suite of tuned settings or profiles that balance overclocking and stock settings. It is important to note that Intel has not detailed or announced an IPO for the global market. In addition, for the time being, it appears these profiles are aimed at system integrators and OEMs, not individual customers.

Enthusiast and gamers can use many techniques to get the most out of their CPU. This includes manual CPU overclocking when you exceed your CPU's rated specifications, followed by XMP/EXPO for RAM. AMD offers a PBO that auto-tunes your CPU to extract maximum performance with minimal manual intervention. The catch is that all these utilities can technically void your warranty if things go south.

IPO is designed to serve as a middle ground between stock profiles and overclocking, with proper warranty coverage. These profiles promise a stable experience, eliminating the need for constant adjustments and the fear of crashing as seen with manual overclocking. IPO targets the CPU (P-cores, E-cores, Ring-bus, NGU, D2D interconnects, PL1 and PL2) and the RAM (Transfer speeds and timings).

In an example profile shared by UNIKO's Hardware, a pre-built from Maxsun with IPO lands a sweet 200 MHz uplift in core clock speeds while pushing RAM speeds to DDR5-8400 from DDR5-8000, resulting in a purported 10% FPS increase (on the pre-built's marketing material).

That's not all. Another leaker claims that Intel will offer "opt-in" BIOS presets to its Arrow Lake chips in the future, a premise similar to IPO. Maybe IPO serves as a pilot program for this feature. The exact specifics have not been detailed. This might make Arrow Lake a compelling choice against Ryzen offerings, particularly for system integrators.

Despite the substantial buildup to Arrow Lake, performance on launch day was subpar, with these chips failing to beat even their last-generation counterparts in some scenarios. Arrow Lake's MCM (Multi Chip Module) design eats away a chunk of the performance, with the memory controller designated to a separate tile, incurring unwanted latency penalties. Another aspect was the slower ring-bus clock speeds, almost 20% slower than Raptor Lake.

Additional firmware/software-related issues pushed Intel to release several fixes by December. The final update, microcode version 0x114 and CSME firmware kit 19.0.0.1854v2.2, launched in January, but our testing proved contrary to Intel's claimed performance improvements. IPO is Intel's latest attempt to wring every last bit of performance from Arrow Lake, but we are still light on details regarding availability.

Linux 6.15 will bring support for 8,192 cores in the Turbostat CPU monitoring utility, if you happen to have such a system (via Phoronix). The change was driven by an HPE (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise) engineer who faced an issue with their unnamed 1,152-core system since Turbostat wasn't designed to handle more than 1,024 cores/threads. We currently aren't aware of any server CPU configurations that can exceed this limit (in terms of physical cores), so this may be a custom or next-generation solution from Intel or AMD. The utility currently only supports x86 processors, which seemingly rules out an Arm system from causing the issue.

Turbostat is a Linux command-line utility provided by the kernel-tools package and is baked into most distributions. It's a monitoring utility that reports clock speeds, idle power-state statistics, temperature, etc., on x86-based processors. This is important information, as we can infer that the 1,152 core system is likely an Intel/AMD solution. Likewise, a while back, Ampere's 384-core servers exposed a maximum core count limitation with the ARM64 Linux kernel, which only supported up to 256 cores.

Turbostat had a hardcoded limit (CPU_SUBSET_MAXCPUS) that was set to 1,024, which defines the maximum number of CPUs (cores) it can handle. Yesterday, just before the merge window for Linux 6.15-rc1 closed, the CPU limit was increased to 8,192 along with the addition of a CPU idle debug telemetry tool, and several bug fixes.

The HPE engineer didn't specify the details of the hardware powering their system. On the Intel side, it would make sense to look into its latest Xeon 6 'Granite Rapids' offerings, where we find the Xeon 6788P (86 cores) with 688 cores or 1376 threads in an 8S configuration or the Xeon 6900E (288 cores), topping out at 576 cores when put in a 2S setup. Similarly, AMD's EPYC 9005 'Turin Dense' can achieve 384 cores in a dual-socket configuration with the EPYC 9965.

Since none of these match up to the 1,152-core system, it's plausible to assume HPE is using a custom solution for higher socket counts. There is a possibility that this metric refers to the logical cores (threads) and not the physical cores, which falls well in the ballpark of existing solutions. As far as future products like Diamond Rapids and Venice are concerned, we're still in the dark regarding key specs like core counts.

The topic of an Intel Arrow Lake CPU refresh has been a recurring topic of discussion among leakers for several months, though these rumors have largely been inconsistent. Jaykihn, who has a very strong track record when it comes to Intel, reports that an Arrow Lake refresh is back in development after the first concept was scrapped. This supposed Core Ultra 300 series will allegedly feature only unlocked (K/KF) variants, which typically carry a premium price versus their non-K counterparts. Details on the core architecture and a potential release timeline have not been shared, so that bit remains a mystery.

Before launch, the expectation was that Arrow Lake would be the Hail Mary Intel's chip division needed, delivering exceptional performance while being efficient. To everyone's surprise and dismay, Arrow Lake struggled to keep up with last-gen Raptor Lake chips, while taking multiple blows from AMD's Ryzen X3D chips in gaming. Several of these issues can be traced back to latency penalties incurred by the off-die IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) and slow ring-bus frequencies.

Arrow Lake also suffered from several underlying issues that pushed Intel to release a fix by December. A follow-up with further enhancements in the form of a new microcode and BIOS firmware update was promised by January. However, despite Intel's many claims and fixes, Arrow Lake still lags behind AMD's offerings and Team Blue's own Raptor Lake.

Jaykihn alleges that Intel planned and axed an Arrow Lake refresh, only to revive it later with a revised design. Initial leaks pointed towards a 40-core (8P+32E) variant, or one with an upgraded NPU design on the SoC Tile. Given the product's preliminary nature, it's hard to draw up architectural changes, if any even exist. It's anyone's guess at this point, but Intel's primary objective will likely be resolving or at least mitigating the latency problems discussed earlier.

Likewise, following Intel's updated nomenclature, this supposed Core Ultra 300 series will only feature unlocked variants, which generally have a base TDP of 125W, going as high as 295W (PL2), in the case of Arrow Lake. One more supported generation, albeit only with pricier K/KF variants, would be sufficient to prevent LGA 1851 from being considered the most short-lived platform in Intel's history.

The leaker claims Intel will offer "opt-in" uplifts to current-gen Arrow Lake chips. On further clarification, Jaykihn is referring to specific BIOS presets for increasing performance that do not void warranty. The exact specifics are unknown. However, these presets are said to be similar in premise to Intel's in-development IPO (Intel Performance Optimization) settings, designed to deliver higher performance with guaranteed stability, aimed at system integrators and OEMs.

No further details were provided on a release date, specifications, or pricing. With Nova Lake slated for a 2026 launch, we are likely to hear more about this refresh straight from Intel sooner rather than later.

Tom’s Hardware has tested dozens of processors to find the best CPU for gaming. Our list of 2026 CPU gaming benchmarks currently comprises 17 of the most demanding titles available on the market, which we run each gaming processor through to see the chips that come out on top. We select our picks based on the data in our CPU benchmark hierarchy, so all of the CPUs below are backed by hundreds of hours of real-world, hands-on testing where we gather extensive data on how a CPU performs and behaves while gaming. If you want a broader look at the CPU market, our AMD vs. Intel article shows you where the current CPU duopoly stands, while our CPU buying guide can help you narrow down the best processor for you.

Now in the back half of the year, we don’t expect major new releases from AMD or Intel. AMD has been on a tear with refreshes, particularly among X3D CPUs. We recently reviewed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, AMD’s first CPU with 3D V-Cache on both CCDs, and it’s the most powerful chip from Team Red currently available. It’s earned a spot on this list, though the (much cheaper) Ryzen 9 9950X3D isn’t far behind in overall performance.

We’ve also seen the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which is technically the fastest gaming processor on the market, as you can see in our Ryzen 7 9850X3D review. However, we’ve kept the base Ryzen 7 9800X3D as our top recommendation for the best CPU for gaming due to its price. It’s only marginally behind the refreshed model (about 3% on average), and much cheaper. For most gamers, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D makes more sense.

Intel has seen a recent boost in gaming performance with Arrow Lake Refresh, and both the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus have earned spots on our list. AMD dominates in gaming at the moment, however. Our sights are set on Intel’s next-gen Nova Lake chips for a big gaming boost from Team Blue, as well as the rumored ‘Raptor Lake Next’ lineup that’s supposedly arriving early next year.

For the rest of the year, we have the Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition to look forward to, which are arriving in July and June, respectively. We don’t anticipate they’ll make a major impact on our rankings here, but we plan on reviewing both CPUs as soon as they’re available.

In addition to the fastest CPUs from AMD and Intel, we’ve included a few DDR4 options on this list. The price of DRAM and NAND flash has made building even a budget PC prohibitively expensive, so DDR4 platforms are a great way to save money. Vendors are signaling a shift back toward DDR4 platforms at the moment, so we may reconsider some older CPUs for our rankings as pricing and availability allows.

Here are the gaming CPUs we recommend buying. We have a shortlist of the top options and some alternatives below, but you can click the ‘More’ links to read our thoughts about a particular CPU and where it stands in the current market.

Prime Day Exceptional CPU deals

Here are our standout CPU deals from the Prime Day event, which is currently taking place. See our best overall picks below.

Best CPU for Gaming in 2026 at a glance (more info below):

The list below is for the best CPUs for gaming, while the best budget CPUs can help you find a cheap chip. Processors benefit from the best thermal paste, so check out our guide if you're shopping for a new processor. But if you're after the best CPU for gaming, you're in the right place.

Best CPU for Gaming Benchmarks

We rank all the Intel and AMD processors based on our in-depth CPU benchmarks hierarchy. You can see some of those numbers in the charts above, including CPU overclock performance results (marked as PBO for AMD processors). We're currently retesting all of these processors with the Nvidia RTX 5090, but only the first four slides have that testing. The remainder are historical testing results with the RTX 4090, which we'll remove once we have fully retested all of the gaming CPUs with the RTX 5090 for our benchmarks. This group of results comprises only the chips that have passed through our newest test suite. Additionally, the tables in our CPU benchmark hierarchy include rankings based on past CPU benchmarks and breakdowns of single- and multi-threaded performance in productivity applications across a broad spate of processors. Finally, be aware that the pricing in the charts above can fluctuate.

Quick Shopping Tips

When choosing the best CPU for gaming in 2026, consider the following:

• You can't lose with AMD or Intel: As noted in our AMD vs. Intel feature, AMD tends to make the best all-around CPU for gaming for mainstream PCs lately, but both offer compelling performance options at any given price point.
• Eight cores is sufficient for gaming: If you’re looking at a pricey flagship, you’re likely wasting some money if gaming is your primary focus. You can game on as little as a quad-core CPU, but performance scaling really falls off past eight cores.
• Budget platform costs: You never want to pair a strong CPU with a weak GPU, RAM, and storage. Right now, it’s especially important to consider platform costs, however. DDR5 prices are peaking, and you’ll need to factor in the cost of DDR5 and a new motherboard if you’re coming from an older socket like AM4.
• Overclocking isn’t for everyone, but if you follow our How to Overclock a CPU guide, you can scrape out extra performance gains.

Best CPU for Gaming 2026 - $300 to $400

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D technically isn’t the fastest gaming chip on the market any more. That title goes to the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, though the victory is marginal. As you can read in our Ryzen 7 9850X3D review, AMD’s latest X3D offering pushes ahead by 3.3% on average. Despite a minor uplift, we’re still recommending the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. With prices as they currently are, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is only 3.3% faster despite costing around 6% more than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

This chip really has no peer in the market outside of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivers outstanding gaming performance, beating Intel's fastest gaming chip, the $469 Core i9-14900K, by 30% in our test suite. The 9800X3D is also almost unbelievably 35% faster than the current-gen Intel flagship, the $560 Core Ultra 9 285K. The stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D's 1% low frame rates (a good smoothness indicator) also deliver an exceptionally smooth gaming experience, benefiting gamers even in GPU-limited scenarios.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has eight cores and 16 threads that operate at a 4.7 GHz base and 5.2 GHz boost clock rate. The chip employs AMD's 3D V-Cache tech with a new spin, which places a 3D-stacked SRAM chiplet underneath the die to deliver an incredible 96MB of L3 cache to great effect. AMD moved the L3 cache chiplet from the top to the bottom of the compute die this generation. That gives the integrated heat spreader (IHS) direct access to the compute die, allowing for more thermal headroom, and in turn, higher clock speeds. The end result is a comparatively low-power chip that delivers incredible gaming performance and comparable productivity performance to other eight-core models on the market.

3D V-Cache previously came with trade-offs in the productivity department, but that’s not the case with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Still, 3D V-Cache doesn’t provide a performance benefit in every game, and the performance benefit is less pronounced as your display resolution climbs.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has much lower power consumption than the Intel competition, making it a far cooler processor that won't require as expensive accommodations, like a beefy cooler, motherboard, and power supply. It also takes particularly well to undervolting, which is easy to accomplish with AMD’s Curve Optimizer. That means the 9800X3D delivers top-notch gaming performance and a cooler, quieter, and less expensive system than you'll get with an Ultra 9 or Core i9.

Read: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review

The $305 Ryzen 7 9700X had a rough initial product launch, but AMD's targeted firmware and operating system improvements have changed the picture tremendously, allowing the chip to place much higher on our CPU benchmark hierarchy (head there for the most up-to-date gaming benchmarks). Combined with lower-than-launch pricing, the Ryzen 7 9700X is a strong contender, tying Intel's Core i9-14900K in gaming and beating the Core i7-14700K. That's not to mention that it beats Intel's entire lineup of Arrow Lake processors as well. Now, all of those processors offer faster performance in heavily-threaded productivity applications than the 9700X, but when it comes to a pure gaming experience, the 9700X either ties or beats all current Intel competitors.

The Ryzen 7 9700X has eight Zen 5 cores with 16 threads that operate at a 3.8 GHz base and 5.5 GHz boost clock. The chip has a 65W TDP, though AMD retroactively added a 105W TDP option you can select in the BIOS that helps boost performance in productivity applications. It's covered by the warranty, as well. With either setting, the 9700X has comparatively tame power consumption, so it is an easy chip to cool. You'll have to buy your own cooler for the processor, though.

The Ryzen 7 9700X drops into socket AM5 motherboards, and B-series motherboards make the most sense for this class of chip. B850 and B840 motherboards get AMD's latest chipset with features like mandatory PCIe 5.0 support on the top M.2 slot and better availability for features like Wi-Fi 7. However, the Ryzen 7 9700X will still work with the older B650 chipset if you can find a board on sale.

Read: Ryzen 5 9700X Review

The $350 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus performs like a flagship CPU, but it costs about half as much. In games, it narrowly outclasses the Core i7-14700K and offers a 2.4% boost over the competing Ryzen 7 9700X. AMD’s last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D still offers around a 10% boost over the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, but it’s also around $50 to $80 more expensive depending on sales.

It’s a solid gaming CPU, and certainly a better recommendation than the Core i7-14700K given prices right now. Compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, things are tighter. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus gains an edge with productivity performance. Short of the 9950X, it’s at the top of our multithreaded performance rankings, more than doubling the performance of the Ryzen 7 9700X.

On the gaming front, it supports Intel’s new Binary Optimization Tool, which offers an average of an 8% improvement in gaming performance based on our testing. It’s only available in a limited number of games at the moment, but Intel says it plans to support the feature with updates in the future.

For specs, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is close to the 285K. It comes with 24 cores and threads, split across eight Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Darkmont E-cores. The P-cores boost up to 5.4 GHz and the E-cores can climb to 4.7 GHz. Across the CPU, you get a total of 76 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. It comes with a 125W TDP and 250W MTP. Critically, the Core Ultra 270K Plus also comes with a 900 MHz boost in die-to-die frequency and 400 MHz boost in fabric frequency compared to stock Arrow Lake chips.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus slots into existing 800-series motherboards with the LGA 1851 socket. This is an unlocked chip, so if you want to get the full benefits of overclocking, you’ll need a Z890 board. However, it’ll still work with H- and B-series motherboards, just without CPU overclocking support.

Read: Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Review

Mid-Range Best CPU for Gaming - $200 to $300

Intel has returned to gaming prominence with its Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs, and nowhere is that clearer than with the $220 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. It’s priced like a budget CPU at $220, but it can perform as well (and sometimes even better) than chips that cost twice as much. It doesn’t dominate the gaming charts in the same way as AMD’s X3D offerings, but at this price, it doesn’t need to. It offers marginally better performance than AMD’s competing six-core Ryzen 5 9600X in games while running the tables with application performance.

On average, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 1% faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X at 1080p, and 9% faster than the 245K. It’s functionally identical, but Intel’s new iBOT feature allows the chip to hold some solid leads in certain titles. For instance, it’s 10% ahead of the 9600X in Cyberpunk 2077. Even in a non-iBOT title like Doom: The Dark Ages, the 250K Plus leads by 12%. There are still some games that struggle with the unique Arrow Lake architecture like F1 2024, but the losses are less pronounced with the souped-up Arrow Lake Refresh chips compared to the stock offerings.

The application performance is what really stands out with the 250K Plus, however. With 18 cores, it outpaces the Core i7-13700K, nearly matches the Core i7-14700K, and more than doubles the performance of the Ryzen 5 9600X in multithreaded applications. In single-threaded applications, it beats the Ryzen 5 9600X by 6%.

Although you get 18 cores, they’re split between six Lion Cove performance cores and 12 Darkmont efficient cores. The P-cores climb up to 5.3 GHz, while the E-cores top out at 4.6 GHz. The CPU comes with a combined 60 MB of L2 and L3 cache, along with a TDP of 125W and a MTP of 159W. Like all Arrow Lake chips, it doesn’t support Hyper-Threading, so you get 18 total threads.

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus slots into existing motherboards with the LGA 1851 socket. It’s unlocked for overclocking, so a Z-series motherboard is an ideal pairing. However, Intel increased the die-to-die frequency and the fabric frequency out of the box, and you’ll see those improvements in action on B- and H-series motherboards, as well. It’s locked to DDR5 memory, unlike Raptor Lake and Alder Lake platforms, and it officially supports speeds up to 7200MT/s.

Read: Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Review

The $230 Ryzen 5 7600X3D is currently the best value gaming CPU you can get right now, though it trades performance in other areas to reach that status. It's just 4.5% slower than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D based on our testing, giving you most of the performance of AMD's coveted 3D V-Cache in games without the extra cost.

In games, it outclasses more expensive CPUs with ease, including the Ryzen 7 9700X, and averaged just 65W of power draw during our gaming tests. Outside of games, however, the Ryzen 5 7600 X3D struggles. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is more than twice as fast in multithreaded performance, and in single-threaded performance, even the base Ryzen 5 7600X is around 13% faster.

The lagging productivity performance makes sense. The Ryzen 5 7600X3D is a six-core / 12-thread chip, so it has limited multithreaded potential, and it only clocks up to 4.7 GHz. The limited specs give AMD room to cram 102 MB of combined L2/L3 cache on the die, however, which comes with a sizeable boost in gaming performance. Compared to the base Ryzen 5 7600X, the X3D version is 22% faster despite coming in at lower peak clocks and power draw.

You can slot the Ryzen 5 7600X3D into socket AM5, which is available on 600- and 800-series motherboards, though the latter may require a BIOS update. Memory and CPU overclocking is available on both B- and X-series chipsets; however, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D has a locked multiplier, so the only overclocking you can access is through AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive, or PBO.

Read: Ryzen 5 7600X3D review

Highest Performance Best CPU for Gaming - $400+

How do you improve upon a CPU that already claims a dominating position in gaming and productivity workloads? You add more cache, of course. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is powerful, expensive, and hungry for wattage, but it’s the best of the best if you want top-shelf gaming and application performance. It throws value out the window, and it’s only marginally better than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but it is still better.

Based on our testing, it’s about 3.9% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D in multithreaded applications, and in lockstep in gaming at 1080p. Compared to Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is 9% ahead in multithreaded performance and 23% ahead in average gaming performance. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivers a better value on the gaming front, and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a monster productivity chip at a third of the price of the 9950X3D2. But the magic trick of this chip is that it can do both without breaking a sweat.

Under the hood, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is similar to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. It’s a 16-core / 32-thread chip packing AMD’s Zen 5 architecture, and it tops out with a 5.6 GHz boost clock; just 100MHz behind the 9950X3D. As the name suggests, this processor is unique because it uses AMD’s 3D V-Cache on both CCDs. Both eight-core CCDs have 32 MB of onboard cache, plus an additional 64 MB chunk placed under the cores, giving you a total of 192 MB of L3 cache.

The extra cache slightly accelerates multithreaded performance overall, though only by around 4%. There are specific workloads where the advantage is more present, with some data science workloads showing performance gains in the realm of 26% over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Those specific workstation-class workloads are where the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 earns its stripes.

Otherwise, it’s the chip to buy because you simply want the best, no matter what the cost or how marginal the improvements are. It slots into existing AM5 motherboards, and it’s best suited for newer 800-series chipsets. AMD officially supports memory speeds up to DDR5-5600, though we find that DDR5-6000 is the sweet spot for Zen 5 CPUs.

Prices have dropped since release, though the 9950X3D2 is still expensive. It launched at $1,000, but you can find the chip for around $900 now.

Read: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Review

The prior-gen $469 Core i9-14900K is now selling for all-time low pricing, primarily because the newer $560 Core Ultra 9 285K has arrived to take its place. However, the Core Ultra 9 285K is actually slower than the 14900K in gaming, so it isn't a suitable replacement. The new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is marginally slower based on our testing, as well. Even in the face of Intel’s 200S Boost update, which was meant improve gaming performance, the competitive landscape remains unchanged. In our testing, the Core Ultra 9 285K gained an average of 7% from the update, which means it’s still slower than the Core i9-14900K.

You should be aware that the much more economically-priced 14700K (listed above) is only 2% slower than the 14900K in gaming but costs over $100 less. The Ryzen 7 9700X, also listed above, is also less expensive and effectively ties the 14900K in gaming.

However, there are Intel fans willing to pay extra for the absolute most gaming performance they can get from an Intel platform. Also, the 14900K does offer more multi-threaded horsepower than the 14700K and 9700X, which could be useful if you game, stream, and record simultaneously or do other heavy multi-tasking while gaming. Just make sure that your use case justifies the extra cost.

The 14900K sports leading-edge connectivity, supporting DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-5600 memory, along with 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs.

The chip comes with eight P-cores that support Hyper-Threading and 16 single-threaded E-cores for a total of 32 threads. The P-cores have a 3.2 GHz base, and peak frequencies reach an amazing 6.0 GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0 (this feature is only active on P-cores). Meanwhile, the E-cores have a 2.4 GHz base and stretch up to 4.4 GHz via the standard Turbo Boost 2.0 algorithms. The chip also has 36MB of L3 cache and 32MB of L2.

This 14900K has a 125W PBP (base) and 253W MTP (peak) power rating, but we recorded considerably lower power consumption than its prior-gen counterpart. You'll need to buy a capable cooler for the chip, and you'll also need either a 700-series or 600-series motherboard. Like other Raptor Lake Refresh chips, you can find DDR4 and DDR5 motherboards, though you’ll need to go with a DDR5 board for the highest performance.

The lower price of DDR4 might entice some gamers, but you'll lose anywhere from 5-8% of gaming performance with higher-end Intel chips. You can step up to the much more expensive DDR5 if you need access to more memory throughput and, thus, every bit of performance possible.

Beyond specs, the Core i9-14900K was at the center of a years-long controversy concerning instability. An error in the microcode (CPU firmware) meant the Core i9-14900K would degrade faster than expected, starting with instability in games. Intel has rectified the issue with microcode 0x12F, so make sure you update your BIOS immediately if you pick up Intel’s last-gen flagship

Read: Intel Core i9-14900K Review

Best Budget CPU Pick - $100 to $150

The $164 Ryzen 5 7600X is an attractive budget CPU at its new price, forced down by Intel's new Arrow Lake Refresh chips. It’s marginally slower than the Ryzen 5 9600X, but also marginally cheaper – the Ryzen 5 7600X offers about 90% of the performance of the Ryzen 5 9600X for 94% of the price. It’s a slightly worse value, but it’s still a good option to keep in mind, especially if you find it on sale. The Ryzen 5 7600, sans X, is available at around the same price. We’ve yet to see it drop below the Ryzen 5 7600X, however.

With the 7600X, you get six cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, clocked at 4.7GHz with boost speeds up to 5.3GHz. Unlike the Ryzen 5 9600X, the Zen 4-based version comes with a TDP of 105W. Cooling it shouldn’t be an issue, and you’re free to run in AMD’s 65W Eco mode through the Ryzen Master software.

The Ryzen 5 7600X slots into AM5 motherboards, including 600- and 800-series chipsets, and it supports PCIe 5.0. DDR5 is required, which is a tough pill to swallow at this bang-for-your-buck price point, but it’s hard to avoid soaring RAM prices.

Read: Ryzen 5 7600X review

The $135 AMD Ryzen 5 5600 delivers a solid blend of performance in both gaming and productivity applications, bringing a new level of value to the Zen 3 lineup. If you're fine sticking with a previous-gen AM4 motherboard, the Ryzen 5 5600 makes a great base for a budget build. The primary trade-off for the AM4 platform is that you're limited to DDR4, and you don't have access to PCIe 5.0. You also have a limited runway for upgrades, as the fastest gaming CPUs on AM4 – the Ryzen 7 5700X3D and Ryzen 7 5800X3D – have reached end of life.

The Ryzen 5 5600 also makes an absolutely unbeatable budget chip if you're updating a first-gen Ryzen system. The 5600 unseats the Ryzen 5 5600X, a long-time favorite. The 5600X is only a mostly imperceptible ~1% faster in gaming and multi-threaded PC work than the non-X model, but provides a 4% advantage in single-threaded work.

Our testing shows that the Ryzen 5 5600 generally matches the gaming performance of its more expensive sibling, the ~$230 Ryzen 7 5800X. That makes the 5600 an incredibly well-rounded chip that can handle gaming well, from competitive-class performance with high refresh rate monitors to multi-tasking gaming workloads like streaming, while also serving up more than enough performance for day-to-day productivity apps. As with all AMD CPUs for gaming, you can fully overclock the chip.

The Ryzen 5 5600 has a 3.7 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost clock. The chip also has a 65W TDP rating, so it runs cool and quiet. Existing AMD owners with a 500-series motherboard will be happy, as the 5600X drops right into existing 500-, 400-, and 300-series motherboards. If you need a new motherboard to support the chip, AMD's AM4 motherboards are plentiful and relatively affordable, with the B-series lineup offering the best overall value for this class of chip.

Prices for the Ryzen 5 5600 have drifted upward as stock depletes, but that’s offset by platform costs. In addition to low prices on AM4 motherboards, the Ryzen 5 5600 is limited to DDR4. High DDR5 prices are a significant roadblock to opting for a newer chip, as prices continue to surge. So it’s hard to recommend a newer budget CPU, even if it’ll net you higher performance. In the event you already have a kit of DDR5, the $189 Ryzen 5 7600 is a compelling option, and it includes AMD’s Wraith Stealth cooler.

Read: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Review

Entry-Level Best CPU for Gaming - For gaming on integrated GPUs

The $268 Ryzen 7 8700G, AMD's flagship desktop APU, delivers the fastest socketed performance on the market from integrated graphics, bringing passable 1080p gaming to the desktop PC without a discrete graphics card, but its high price point relegates it to a niche audience.

In contrast, the $191 Ryzen 5 8600G delivers 90% of the 8700G's performance but for ~$80 less, making it a solid alternative for gaming systems that don't use a discrete GPU.

Naturally, you'll have to accept lower fidelity settings and be realistic about which titles can play at 1080p resolution. Still, AMD's Hyper-RX suite of features, which includes in-driver Radeon Super Resolution upscaling tech, frame generation with AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF), Anti-Lag+, and Radeon Boost, helps boost performance at a slight cost to image quality. This new feature set, a first for AMD's iGPUs, is a boon for budget gamers.

The Ryzen 5 8600G has six Zen 4 CPU cores and the RDNA 3 GPU engine with eight CUs. The Ryzen 5 8600G drops into the AM5 platform, with value-focused B650 and A620 motherboards being the obvious best combination. These systems offer a new level of connectivity for AMD's APU processors, which were previously on the aging AM4 platform but require DDR5 memory. That adds some cost, so do a value analysis before selecting this processor. If you're looking for the lowest entry price possible with an APU, the Ryzen 5 5600G listed below slots in as the value alternative.

The Ryzen 7 8600G only supports 16 usable lanes of PCIe 4.0 connectivity, while other processors on the AM5 platform support PCIe 5.0. However, we don't feel this will impact this class of system.

More: AMD Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G Review

The Ryzen 5 5600G steps into the arena as the value champ for APUs, which are chips with strong enough integrated graphics that they don't require a discrete GPU for light gaming—just be sure you're willing to accept lowered quality settings.

The Ryzen 5 5600G gives you 96% of the gaming performance on integrated graphics than its more expensive sibling, the Ryzen 7 5700G, but for 25% less cash. Our testing shows that its level of performance makes it the best value APU on the market. As long as you're willing to sacrifice fidelity and resolution and keep your expectations in check, the Ryzen 5 5600G's Vega graphics have surprisingly good performance in gaming.

The 5600G's Vega graphics served up comparatively great 1280x720 gaming across numerous titles in our tests, but options become more restricted at 1080p. Of course, you can get away with 1080p gaming, but you'll need to severely limit the fidelity settings with most titles.

With eight cores and 16 threads that operate at a 3.9 GHz base and boost up to 4.4 GHz, the Ryzen 5 5600G also offers solid performance for its price point in standard desktop PC applications. The chip also comes with a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler, sweetening the value prop, and drops into existing 500-series and some 400-series motherboards, though support on the latter will vary by vendor.

The Ryzen 5 5600G is nearly five years old, and as a result, it’s hard to find it in stock at a reasonable price. AMD updated this model with the Ryzen 5 5600GT in early 2024, which features identical silicon and a slight boost to clock speed, and you’ll generally find it for less at around $150.

If your budget is tight and you're looking to build a system for modest gaming, you should check out our Best Cheap CPU feature. Some of those chips can deliver passable gaming performance without a graphics card, and their prices start at just $55 (£40).

Read: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Review

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