• Nvidia is pitching its upcoming Vera CPUs to Chinese clients while advertising availability soon
• Move into data center CPUs pits Nvidia against traditional rivals Intel and AMD, which currently control the bulk of the market in China and other regions
• Nvidia's move comes at a time when the Chinese government continues to advocate for home-grown chip solutions, and the US's chip controls have effectively reduced its share to 0% of a lucrative Chinese data center market

Nvidia is apparently pushing to win Chinese customers for what its CEO regards as the next multi-billion dollar frontier for the company: data center CPUs.

The firm has spent the past two years watching the 2nd-most important chip market in the world effectively cut it out with a mix of consumer-grade chips and homegrown solutions such as Huawei's Ascend offerings, backed by a Chinese government push for self-reliance.

While Chinese officials have held the line with soft barriers - no official restrictions on Nvidia's chip exports to China exist in the mainland - Nvidia is seemingly betting on a reset in relations when it comes to its Vera CPUs for the data center.

Why CPUs and why now for Nvidia?

Nvidia's Vera CPU is more than just another competitor in the market. It threatens to upend the existing status quo, with Intel and AMD chips dominating the market, by adopting an AI-first approach to its design.

Nvidia is presenting Vera as a CPU that is up to 1.8 times faster than current x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD in certain workloads, offers 4 times the memory bandwidth, and delivers up to a 50% increase in performance versus traditional rack-scale CPUs.

According to a Reuters report, at least one major unnamed Chinese cloud company intends to purchase 300 servers, each containing 2 Vera CPUs. The CPUs themselves are estimated to cost upwards of $20,000 before bulk discounts kick in.

However, whether this results in an order remains to be seen. Chinese regulators seem to be making a stronger push for self-sufficiency in their chip sector, prompting many of their AI startups and giants alike to opt for local chip options, such as Huawei's Ascend and T-Head's Hanguang.

Nvidia's salvation however, might come from an unexpected place, as battle lines might be different this time around: the same AI export controls that crushed its Chinese business might work in its favor now.

Not only are CPUs considerably less regulated by US export rules, but the Chinese market is also reeling from a squeeze on server CPUs, with Intel pushing delivery lead times to as much as 6 months in some cases, even as AMD noted that the CPU market remains tight, with demand outstripping supply.

If Nvidia can navigate past the politics and the incumbent x86 architecture's software advantage, as well as the ecosystem built around it, it might carve out an important piece of the lucrative Chinese data center market, even without the CUDA 'stickiness' that makes its GPUs so sought-after in this segment.

Whether that is enough to overturn the obvious advantage that both well-placed chipmakers (Intel and AMD) have in terms of an ecosystem, as well as the edge the domestic champion, Huawei, enjoys in terms of government-level backing, however, remains to be seen.

• Rumor has it that Intel's CPU with integrated Nvidia RTX GPU is planned to debut early in 2028
• We could see an announcement at CES 2028
• This will be a powerful mobile chip that could be a huge step forward for gaming laptops and handheld devices

Intel processors with integrated Nvidia RTX graphics are coming, we know that, but we now have a rumor of a rough timeframe, namely early 2028.

VideoCardz reports that according to YouTube tech reporter Erdi Ozuag on X, Intel's silicon roadmap currently has its processors featuring built-in Nvidia GPUs as launching in the first quarter of 2028.

In theory, then – assuming this is true, and the planned timeline doesn't slip – we could be looking at a CES 2028 launch for these chips which are codenamed Serpent Lake.

Also regarding the timeline, it aligns with the expectations for the release of Nvidia's next-gen of GeForce RTX GPUs, which is currently forecast to debut in 2028.

Ozuag adds that the prospect of Intel producing Apple silicon continues to advance, and the final quarter of 2027 is apparently the target for Team Blue to be making chips for MacBooks or iPhones (probably lower-end models, the rumor mill has previously suggested). This (theoretically) represents Apple diversifying somewhat away from TSMC for chip production duties.

Analysis: a lot of potential – but some questions too

An Intel processor with Nvidia RTX chiplet on-board to provide graphics muscle should be a huge move for the PC world. Granted, we know very little about the chip as it stands, but packing next-gen RTX graphics is likely to mean this could usher in SoCs which are revolutionary for the performance of thin-and-light gaming laptops. Indeed, these Intel processors should prove excellent for elevating gaming handhelds too.

If this rumor is true, it means these Intel chips are potentially only a year and a half away. Or at least that's when we could first see the silicon announced, although the notebooks packing the chips themselves may take a fair bit longer to arrive on shelves.

Of course, a lot of how this timeline plays out may be heavily dependent on what happens with the current RAM and component crisis, and its impact on the world of laptops in general. (Which could get substantially nastier as time rolls on – as I've discussed elsewhere recently, I think now could be a smart time to buy a laptop based on the indicators we're hearing from various key players in the PC sphere – and indeed phones for that matter).

Other questions remain, such as: where does this leave Intel's own Arc graphics plans? And how will this partnership play out given that Nvidia is now spearheading a fresh thrust to make Arm devices more relevant in the realm of Windows 11 laptops with its RTX Spark chip – a prospect that'll surely worry Intel (despite the brave face in public)?

There are a few unknowns as to how all this will unfold, let's put it that way, but this Intel and Nvidia collaboration still remains an exciting prospect.

• AMD has a new marketing campaign criticizing the MacBook Neo
• The main thrust of the argument is that the Neo fails as a gaming laptop
• That's a highly confusing angle to take, seeing as this isn't what MacBooks are about – and especially not the budget-friendly Neo

AMD appears to be getting defensive about its Windows 11 laptops and the threat posed by Apple's MacBook Neo.

Tom's Hardware noticed that AMD has a new marketing campaign that intends to take the Neo down a notch or two, promoting the benefits of Ryzen AI CPUs instead.

AMD insists that: "The competition made compromises. You don't have to." It then adds that: "Everything MacBook Neo leaves out, built in with AMD Ryzen AI processors."

The main thrust of the compromise messaging is that the MacBook Neo isn't up to scratch for gaming. AMD notes that 15 of the top 20 PC games don't run natively on a MacBook Neo, and that you need 'workarounds' (emulation) to play them. The games are picked by Team Red itself, although it's a fair enough selection of esports classics and more modern efforts such as Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 6, and Black Ops 7.

It's not just about games, of course, but that's the lead item here. AMD also points out that Windows 11 laptops with its Ryzen AI CPUs can have touchscreens (which the MacBook Neo doesn't), and a better port selection than the MacBook Neo's two USB-C connectors.

AMD then highlights benchmarks of the Ryzen 5 220 against Apple's A18 processor as seen in the Neo, where both laptops have 8GB of RAM, but the Ryzen is up to 57% faster for multitasking, and 38% faster for content creation as measured in Blender and Cinebench, among others.

Analysis: confusion over compromises

This is an odd one, really, because what plenty of confused people on Reddit have been saying – echoing my own first thought – is: "I didn't buy a Mac to play games. That's not really what they're for."

Someone else on that thread agrees: "Ok, but no one is buying a MacBook for gaming, right?"

And a further Redditor observes: "Imagine if 'Macs don't game' is the best you've got, lol. I'd fire my marketing team."

These folks are, of course, quite right. You don't buy a MacBook for gaming, and moreover, you especially don't buy a MacBook Neo for PC games. This isn't just an Apple laptop, but a low-end one with a mobile chip designed entirely around being affordable (for students, mainly) and able to cope with daily computing workloads – and that's all.

Okay, so you might want to do a spot of casual gaming, but the MacBook Neo can cope with that just fine. What you aren't going to be looking to do on a Neo is play the top PC games, not unless you're very misguided, and okay, probably a few people out there do fall into this category.

So why AMD has led with this gaming angle in its Ryzen AI laptop marketing, versus MacBook Neo marketing, really is a head-scratcher. It isn't like the kind of Windows 11 laptops AMD is using as comparisons to the Neo, in a similar price bracket, can run those top PC games all that well, anyway.

Of course, AMD has chosen its 'top games' very carefully, which goes without saying. But still, the Radeon 760M integrated graphics (used in the comparative benchmarking) can't come close to running some of these games with any kind of fluidity, even with low details (at the Full HD resolution in which the testing was conducted).

The same cherry-picking applies to the productivity and creativity benchmarks, and the thing about the MacBook Neo is that, as we've seen at TechRadar, despite only having 8GB of RAM, it runs smoothly and responsively in everyday tasks. That's not something you can always say about a Windows 11 laptop with 8GB of RAM in the same price bracket.

Granted, Microsoft is busy working on making Windows 11 better with lower RAM loadouts, but Apple isn't standing still either, providing quite a performance boost with the recently launched beta of macOS 27.

AMD should've thought more about the positioning of this marketing piece, especially seeing as it's the Neo the company is going after. The truth is that, as far as gaming is concerned, you shouldn't expect much out of any budget-friendly laptop – even if what you get from a Windows 11 machine is obviously a better deal, thanks to the mentioned game compatibility with no need for emulation tricks.

• Intel has detailed how it's designed Wildcat Lake laptops to be affordable
• This isn't only about the Wildcat Lake processor itself, but the supporting components
• These have been implemented in a cost-friendly way, leveraging phone chips and design elements, helping to further reduce the cost of production

Intel is talking up how laptops based on its new Wildcat Lake mobile chips will be a major step forward in terms of affordable notebooks, underlining the lengths it's gone to in order to keep costs down.

VideoCardz noticed a new video from Intel on YouTube (see below) in which the company claims it "reimagines mainstream laptops with Core Series 3" processors (Wildcat Lake — not to be confused with Core Ultra Series 3, which is Panther Lake).

Wildcat Lake is mobile silicon for more budget-oriented laptops, and the chip itself is built with that affordability, and power-efficiency, firmly in mind. But what Intel details here is the way it has implemented the rest of its reference platform – that laptop makers can pick up and run with to produce their own models — in order to reinforce those cost savings.

It's called the 'Firefly program' and to cut a long story short, Intel has brought in supporting elements from the world of phones as an alternative to what would typically be used in PCs.

That means using phone-class system memory (LPDDR5X), along with the likes of audio chips from the phone world, and much more besides.

Intel explains: "We see two Firefly prototypes, including a 12.9mm metal chassis with redesigned thermals, standardized internal cabling for a separate I/O board, and a new core logic module that combine Intel SoCs with phone-class memory to lower costs and accelerate time-to-market."

With cost reductions in all the supporting chips and hardware, and the likes of internal cabling, and indeed the motherboard itself, being brought in on top of the cheaper CPU, Intel is further reducing the bill of materials (overall cost) for laptop makers.

Analysis: Intel definitely isn't phoning it in…

The core idea is to leverage the smartphone component supply chain to use in laptops, and the design work therein demanded quite some effort from Intel engineers. The end result is a more affordable laptop, a key consideration for Windows 11 notebooks when you consider just how well Apple is now doing in this budget space with the MacBook Neo.

There's another important boast from Intel here, too, and that's the speed with which Firefly laptops can be brought to market. Apparently, this can be done in just a few months using Intel's reference platform, and so the suggestion is that Wildcat Lake laptops won't take long to arrive in force to combat the MacBook Neo – which is already a very popular device.

There's a reason for that popularity, of course, because laptop price hikes have now set in, so an attractively priced MacBook looks doubly tempting. We need more Windows 11 notebook rivals to offer a wider choice in that respect, and from what I've seen of Wildcat Lake thus far, I think it's a great move from Intel — and it'll be interesting to see exactly what kind of price tags are attached to these portables.

The likes of the new Dell XPS 13, which uses Wildcat Lake for the entry-level model, look set to offer a premium-like laptop experience for a palatable outlay ($699 in the US, or $599 for students) in a Neo style. However, I'm hoping there will be a good number of notebooks sat below this kind of pricing.

This would be all good news given the RAM crisis, of course, and could provide some great opportunities to get an affordable new laptop later this year (and I believe buying in 2026 could be a smart move, if you need a new portable).

There is, of course, another competitor that Intel will need to carefully consider – namely Nvidia with its new RTX Spark chip. Now, while that silicon is about as far from a budget effort as you can get, and not a direct rival, it's having a knock-on effect to advance all Arm-based Windows 11 laptops, as I recently discussed. Interesting times indeed, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon C chips are also incoming as a tempting budget option for this year.

• Intel has detailed how it's designed Wildcat Lake laptops to be affordable
• This isn't only about the Wildcat Lake processor itself, but the supporting components
• These have been implemented in a cost-friendly way, leveraging phone chips and design elements, helping to further reduce the cost of production

Intel is talking up how laptops based on its new Wildcat Lake mobile chips will be a major step forward in terms of affordable notebooks, underlining the lengths it's gone to in order to keep costs down.

VideoCardz noticed a new video from Intel on YouTube (see below) in which the company claims it "reimagines mainstream laptops with Core Series 3" processors (Wildcat Lake — not to be confused with Core Ultra Series 3, which is Panther Lake).

Wildcat Lake is mobile silicon for more budget-oriented laptops, and the chip itself is built with that affordability, and power-efficiency, firmly in mind. But what Intel details here is the way it has implemented the rest of its reference platform – that laptop makers can pick up and run with to produce their own models — in order to reinforce those cost savings.

It's called the 'Firefly program' and to cut a long story short, Intel has brought in supporting elements from the world of phones as an alternative to what would typically be used in PCs.

That means using phone-class system memory (LPDDR5X), along with the likes of audio chips from the phone world, and much more besides.

Intel explains: "We see two Firefly prototypes, including a 12.9mm metal chassis with redesigned thermals, standardized internal cabling for a separate I/O board, and a new core logic module that combine Intel SoCs with phone-class memory to lower costs and accelerate time-to-market."

With cost reductions in all the supporting chips and hardware, and the likes of internal cabling, and indeed the motherboard itself, being brought in on top of the cheaper CPU, Intel is further reducing the bill of materials (overall cost) for laptop makers.

Analysis: Intel definitely isn't phoning it in…

The core idea is to leverage the smartphone component supply chain to use in laptops, and the design work therein demanded quite some effort from Intel engineers. The end result is a more affordable laptop, a key consideration for Windows 11 notebooks when you consider just how well Apple is now doing in this budget space with the MacBook Neo.

There's another important boast from Intel here, too, and that's the speed with which Firefly laptops can be brought to market. Apparently, this can be done in just a few months using Intel's reference platform, and so the suggestion is that Wildcat Lake laptops won't take long to arrive in force to combat the MacBook Neo – which is already a very popular device.

There's a reason for that popularity, of course, because laptop price hikes have now set in, so an attractively priced MacBook looks doubly tempting. We need more Windows 11 notebook rivals to offer a wider choice in that respect, and from what I've seen of Wildcat Lake thus far, I think it's a great move from Intel — and it'll be interesting to see exactly what kind of price tags are attached to these portables.

The likes of the new Dell XPS 13, which uses Wildcat Lake for the entry-level model, look set to offer a premium-like laptop experience for a palatable outlay ($699 in the US, or $599 for students) in a Neo style. However, I'm hoping there will be a good number of notebooks sat below this kind of pricing.

This would be all good news given the RAM crisis, of course, and could provide some great opportunities to get an affordable new laptop later this year (and I believe buying in 2026 could be a smart move, if you need a new portable).

There is, of course, another competitor that Intel will need to carefully consider – namely Nvidia with its new RTX Spark chip. Now, while that silicon is about as far from a budget effort as you can get, and not a direct rival, it's having a knock-on effect to advance all Arm-based Windows 11 laptops, as I recently discussed. Interesting times indeed, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon C chips are also incoming as a tempting budget option for this year.

• Nvidia's CEO has said the RAM crisis will last for "quite a few years"
• The comment came ahead of the announcement of a multiyear partnership between Nvidia and memory chip maker SK Hynix
• It's one of the bleaker predictions we've heard, and it might be wise to take it on board if you're thinking of buying a laptop, PC, or components in the near future

If you were hoping the worst of the RAM crisis might soon be over — and we've heard some hints to that effect in recent times — you can think again, according to Nvidia's CEO.

Reuters reports that Jensen Huang just predicted that the memory shortage is a crisis that'll last for "quite a few years", and this doubles down on some of the more pessimistic forecasts about the RAM crisis.

Given that this comes from a heavy-hitting source – Huang was speaking ahead of the announcement of a collaboration between Nvidia and SK Hynix in a "multiyear technology partnership for next-generation memory" — it's a distinct worry for me.

As I noted at the outset, we've recently heard some more positive inklings, suggesting that the RAM crisis could be peaking and a recovery might arrive sooner than expected. That includes the ex-chief of Samsung's semiconductor business forecasting that the RAM shortage could possibly ease in just a year's time, or certainly by early 2028, partly due to the efforts of Chinese memory chip makers.

Previously, though, we've also heard that more RAM price hikes are on the cards due to disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as predictions that the memory crisis could be prolonged until the end of the decade.

Interestingly, that latter claim of RAM pricing misery continuing through to 2030 came from the chairman of the parent company of SK Hynix, which Nvidia just signed its deal with, and Huang appears to have adopted the same line of thinking. For me, the declaration of "quite a few years" means at least three, and hints at more, effectively backing that previous 2030 worst-case prediction.

What does this mean for the average consumer? The words from the Nvidia CEO carry some considerable weight, I think, and this is a rather ominous development in my opinion, although it's not quite as simple as "if you think prices are bad now, just wait — so buy, buy, buy, while the going is still relatively good".

Of course, calling the going 'relatively good' given the price of RAM sticks themselves is more than a stretch, but the truth is that there are certain categories of hardware you should probably consider pulling the trigger on now, to avoid what might be even more painful price hikes by the time next year rolls around.

Here's what I think we all need to consider given the current picture and predictions relating to the RAM crisis, in terms of different types of hardware. I should caveat all this by underlining that it is just my opinion, and I may, of course, turn out to be wrong.

Laptops: don't hang around for too long here

What immediately sprang to mind when I read Huang's comment was that this additional gloom nugget is another sign that the time to buy a laptop is now. Or rather, perhaps as part of an Amazon Prime Day deal (later this month) or come Black Friday, with these big tech sales in 2026 likely to represent your best chance to get a new notebook at a relatively affordable price.

The trouble is that if the RAM supply situation really is set to be a very rocky road through to the end of the decade, even the big laptop manufacturers are going to run out of all their inventory of memory bought at (relatively) cheaper prices – and the same is true of storage (SSD price hikes have also been seriously nasty).

If all this plays out as Huang expects, continued pressure on just those two component categories are going to hike laptop prices substantially over a few years. And that's not considering other pressures such as with discrete GPUs (that use VRAM) on gaming laptops, or price increases on other notebook parts, notably CPUs which are starting to feel the heat a bit in the broader component crisis.

If you're thinking you'll need a new notebook in the not-too-distant future, and you can score a good deal with a laptop that's on sale this year, I can't see you losing out. It seems unlikely that you'll find something cheaper next year, put it that way — and if there's one piece of hardware I'd advise buying with some level of urgency, it's a laptop.

Do bear in mind, however, that more Windows 11 laptop makers are now dropping models back down to 8GB of RAM as a cost-cutting measure to reduce those sticker prices, and there are caveats for future-proofing here, which I've discussed at length elsewhere.

Desktop PCs: ditto, sort of…

I think everything I've written above about laptops is also true of desktop PCs to an extent, as the same pressures around the same components exist broadly, certainly for prebuilt computers. Matters are worse in so much as a desktop will usually have a discrete GPU (much more often than a laptop will), and the price hikes therein add some extra misery into the mix, particularly at the higher-end (although the same is true of gaming notebooks).

So, again look to the likes of Amazon or Black Friday sales, and if you need a new desktop, a discounted prebuilt might turn out to be a pretty smart move this year.

However, a DIY PC build is a bit different and more painful these days, as you are sourcing individual components all with varying price hikes, and some of those increases are huge – you're lacking any of the cost cushioning that you might get from a prebuilt (where the PC maker gets cheaper prices for bulk buying components, of course). In this case, I'd be far more cautious, as it's not exactly clear how things will play out with component pricing more widely as I'll come on to next.

RAM and SSDs: the real pain points

The RAM crisis kicked off all this pricing pain when it began back in September 2025, followed by SSDs (which also use memory chips, of course), and at this point, price tags on both are massively hiked.

Having to buy system RAM is as bad as it gets when it comes to the extra damage to your wallet, although the exact extent of that can depend on the type of memory you're looking at. Prices of DDR4 and DDR5 RAM have trebled or even quadrupled in price, though, which is ridiculous, frankly.

In short, I'm loathe to recommend buying RAM at this kind of premium to anyone. That said, Huang's comment here hints that perhaps memory does still have further to go in terms of hikes, and as Tom's Hardware recently reported, a Lexar executive just predicted a further doubling of RAM prices by the end of 2026.

So, in spite of some recent evidence of memory price stabilization or even slight decreases, it seems the worst isn't over yet. At the same time, there's a ceiling as to what consumers will pay in terms of price hikes before they collectively fold their arms and refuse to buy. Overall, it's unclear how this will play out, and while the Lexar exec's prediction feels alarmist to me, it's not a great overall indicator of where we're headed – particularly now in light of what Huang's chipped in with.

I simply can't recommend buying RAM at the price it's at, and the same is true for SSDs in many cases. Indeed, I have to wonder how much worse the prices on these components can get before it becomes farcical, frankly. But for now, I'd err on the side of playing a waiting game to see how these fresher predictions begin to pan out.

GPUs and CPUs: a more positive picture, but not entirely

As for computing components outside of RAM and SSDs, the main concerns are the other key staples of any PC – the processor and graphics card.

If you're in the market for a desktop GPU in the near future, I think it's probably a good move to buy (again, perhaps with a bargain in the next big sale – though I think we're less likely to see any sizeable discounts on graphics cards as opposed to, say, laptops). That's because pricing is relatively palatable currently for mainstream products, meaning mid-range and lower-tier GPUs – we've seen some solid deals on AMD's RX 9070 XT GPUs recently for example.

For high-end GPUs – meaning Nvidia models – sadly price hikes have been a lot heftier (what with more copious amounts of video memory being involved for one thing). It's quite possible these graphics cards could see further cost increases, though, into next year, but the RTX 5070 Ti and upwards are already seriously over and above the MSRP to the point where I balk at recommending them.

CPUs are a different matter, with price inflation being much more restrained here, and with the possibility of processors getting more expensive down the line, I think it's a safe bet to buy one now if you need an upgrade. There's even a new budget Ryzen 7700X3D set to launch next month, and we could see further additions along these lines at the lower-end from AMD apparently, so I think the picture for CPUs looks stable enough for the foreseeable.

• Dell's new XPS RTX Spark Desktop has been glimpsed
• We don't have tech specs yet, but this mini PC could be a threat to the Mac Studio
• Apple is struggling to produce this Mac, and compact PCs like the XPS model could lure buyers away – depending on exact pricing

Nvidia's RTX Spark processor was one of the major highlights of Computex 2026, with Team Green (in conjunction with Microsoft) promising to 'reinvent' the PC no less — and we've just seen Dell's effort at a mini PC packing this CPU.

Wccftech caught a glimpse of the Dell XPS RTX Spark Desktop at Computex (via Notebookcheck.net), and as you can see from the image below, the mini PC takes a fair bit of inspiration from the Mac Studio.

It's a compact box with the power button on the front, accompanied by a selection of ports including four USB Type-C, and an HDMI plus Ethernet port. Around the rear of the XPS mini PC there are two further USB-C ports alongside a microSD card slot.

Whereas Wccftech divulges thermal info on a rival RTX Spark device, the Asus ProArt Mini PC, which targets 140W, we don't know how much power Dell will be supplying to this XPS box.

We're told the XPS mini PC will run with the N1X chip (the more powerful RTX Spark CPU, as you might expect) and up to 128GB of RAM on board. That copious amount of memory makes it clear that this is a device targeted at professional usage, and specifically running AI locally.

Analysis: sparking a small but powerful rebellion?

Reaction to the Dell XPS RTX Spark Desktop has been somewhat mixed, I think it's fair to say. As noted, we don't have the full story on the spec yet, and we're also missing some critical information in terms of the pricing. Dell hasn't indicated what this PC might retail for — we don't yet have an official press release for the device — and the same is true for pricing with other RTX Spark desktops (there are a bunch of these inbound, including one from Microsoft and the mentioned Asus hardware).

Collectively, what these compact PCs do offer is an alternative to Apple's Mac Studio at an opportune time when the latter is notably struggling for stock. If you want a Mac Studio right now, there's a distinct problem with Apple having order lead times of the likes of four months or more. On top of that, the maximum amount of RAM you can equip your Mac Studio with is 96GB currently, whereas some AI use cases demand much more than that (and that spec is only available with the much pricier M3 Ultra variant, otherwise you're looking at a cap of 64GB for the lesser Mac Studio).

So, in a time where that's increasingly a problem for developers and those engaged in heavyweight AI work, RTX Spark machines could be an alternative to Apple's PC — Dell's XPS box will run with up to 128GB.

The question is, can Dell muster stock which has that memory spec? As obviously it faces the same RAM headwinds as Apple does right now. The bigger worry for many, though, is exactly where the price might end up with such a model. The chatter we've heard thus far indicates a price tag for RTX Spark desktops which is north of $4,000 in the US, possibly closer to $5,000 (and regional equivalents to that). Although in fairness, a high-specced Mac Studio is very pricey too.

There may be folks who want to wait for the M5 version of the Mac Studio, granted, but I wouldn't hold your breath on that score. The RAM crisis is rumored to have sidelined that refresh for now, and that would certainly be no surprise given all the stock issues with the current Mac Studio.

As to how all this will play out, we'll just have to wait and see for now, as RTX Spark desktops (and laptops) aren't due to emerge until September at the earliest. If you order a Mac Studio from Apple now, though, you still won't have it by then.

Computex 2026 happened this week, and the computing extravaganza brought with it a raft of interesting hardware revelations, questions and commentary. As well as the shiny new gadgets, some of the speeches or interviews given by key players in the tech industry made us all sit up and take notice — and below we've picked out the five most pertinent quotes that tell us about the future of computing.

From Qualcomm's boss through to Nvidia's leather jacket-toting chief, we heard some weighty utterances, and there was no shortage of talk around one particular subject. AI wasn't the only topic mentioned regarding the future of computing, though — thankfully — as you'll see, but there's no denying it was a very prominent subject indeed.

1. "Resistance is futile" (Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm)

No, the Borg didn't turn up at Computex 2026 this year (though sources tell me there's a mysterious cube-shaped booth booked for 2027), but rather it was Cristiano Amon, the chief executive at Qualcomm, who told us that "resistance is futile".

What should we not waste our energy resisting, then? Well, predictably enough it's the inevitable advance of AI, and more specifically, Amon sees the irresistible force that'll pervade our lives as AI agents.

As The Register reported, the Qualcomm CEO believes that in the future, these agents – fancy AI bots that will automate tasks, do things for us, and organize our lives – will have their tendrils everywhere, in all our devices.

From your phone to your earbuds to your smart glasses (if big tech's campaign to make the latter an acceptable gadget succeeds), all of this hardware will feed data of one kind or another to the AI agent.

Amon explained: "The agent isn't tied to the device, it actually moves with the user. It's there with the user, regardless of the device that you have. Once you understand that change, you understand how the whole mobile industry is going to change."

In short, we're all going to turn into walking sensors and cameras, with 6G connectivity enabling all this to be piped back to AI which will gorge itself on this data – all for our benefit, of course. (Ahem – what could possibly go wrong?)

The 'camera' reference isn't mine, by the way, as Amon explicitly stated: "If you have smart glasses, they see what you see, so the connectivity needs to enable a very fast uplink. 6G is going to make all of us into walking cameras in this world."

Don't want your every waking moment, and probably your sleeping moments too, to be shadowed by AI? Hate this idea with every fiber of your being? Well, tough, because Amon explains that this vision of the future – which is seemingly inevitable, as this is where the "resistance is futile" remark was made – can only work by leveraging the power of all our devices.

These sophisticated agents can't be run only in the data center, and so future devices— with ever-more powerful CPUs, and of course NPUs for local AI acceleration — will take the load off with on-device processing in various degrees. And unsurprisingly, Qualcomm's hardware, in various forms, will figure in this dystopian-sounding future of omnipresent surveillance.

2. "Our goal is to deliver unmetered intelligence to every home and every desk with Windows" (Satya Nadella, Microsoft)

Qualcomm's chief exec wasn't the only CEO to be heavily pushing AI, and to no one's surprise, Satya Nadella got in on the act here. As part of Computex 2026 – or GTC 2026 Taipei therein, strictly speaking – Microsoft and Nvidia got together for the big reveal of Team Green's RTX Spark Arm-based 'superchip' which is set to drive the reinvention of the Windows PC, no less.

I'll come on to Nvidia's big quote on this project next, but Microsoft had two telling soundbites for us, one of which was from Nadella, who observed: "Our goal is to deliver unmetered intelligence to every home and every desk with Windows. RTX Spark marks a real breakthrough towards that vision."

Unmetered intelligence refers to AI, and elsewhere, Microsoft's head of Windows, Pavan Davuluri, talked about a new chapter for Windows PCs, and said: "We are building toward a future where Windows provides a unified foundation for AI, from the device in your hands to the infrastructure behind it."

So, while Microsoft has promised to cut back on AI as part of the big drive to fix Windows 11, that may mean that some Copilot options are pared back from various menus – but it absolutely doesn't mean that Microsoft is minimizing AI within the OS. As we see from these quotes, when it comes to AI agents – with agentic AI being something Microsoft has been pushing in a big way of late – Windows is very much being developed with these firmly in mind.

Much like Qualcomm's Amon, Nadella envisions AI being present in every home — and on every desk — thanks to Windows devices. (And again, are you distinctly not stoked about that idea? Well, don't worry, AI will surely be happy to listen to your feedback).

3. "We're really focused on doing something that is just such a big deal, reinventing the PC after 40 years" (Jensen Huang, Nvidia)

Naturally, Nvidia's boss had some weighty quote material to throw around at Computex 2026, and the highlight for me pertained to the Arm-based RTX Spark CPU (as mentioned above).

Huang said: "We're really focused on doing something that is just such a big deal, reinventing the PC after 40 years."

Of course, this is a collaborative venture between Nvidia and Microsoft, who according to the joint press release for the project, want to "reinvent Windows PCs for the age of personal AI".

It is, of course, a big move for Nvidia to launch a new processor for the PC, the gravity of which is reinforced by the kind of changes Microsoft is making to Windows 11 for this chip. We're talking about specific optimizations in Windows 11 for Nvidia RTX Spark, and not small moves either – sizable changes, some of which advance the cause of all Arm CPUs (like Qualcomm's) considerably with the OS. That includes a drive to support more software with Arm-based Windows 11 devices, and even to improve game compatibility (with some notable anti-cheat stumbling blocks being resolved).

As it happens, Huang's above quote actually came as part of a response to a question about whether a gaming handled might be made with the RTX Spark CPU. As PC Gamer reported, the full quote was: "If somebody wants to do it [a gaming handheld], you know, we'll work with them on it. But right now we're really focused on doing something that is just such a big deal, reinventing the PC after 40 years."

So, the idea of a handheld was brushed aside, as what this is all about, really, is that 'reinvention' of the PC around AI.

As Huang further enthused: "Can we help reinvent the PC? And, boy, if you get a chance to reinvent the single most important instrument, the single most important tool of humanity, what you and I grew up with defined just about everything about our lives, and we have an opportunity after 40 years to go reinvent it for the age of AI. Wow, we're not going to sit around, not let it get done."

When you put this together with Nadella's comment, and Amon's vision of the AI-centric future, there was a clear vibe at Computex 2026: agentic AI is coming, and you might as well accept this now.

Of course, more than most, Huang has a vested interest in promoting this line of thinking. Nvidia's done quite well out of AI so far, I believe.

4. "We know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon" (David McAfee, AMD)

Not everything about the future of computing at Computex 2026 revolved around AI, of course, and there was some commentary on the dire situation around PC component price hikes — and what might be done about that going forward.

When questioned about why AMD had just released a last-gen 3D V-Cache processor as an alternative budget offering — as a reaction to rising PC build costs — rather than a current-gen Zen 5 model, AMD's VP and general manager of Ryzen CPU and Radeon Graphics, David McAfee, had something pertinent to say.

McAfee teased: "I think as we go through the rest of this year, I mean we're always looking for ways to, you know, create as many options as we can, and that [Zen 5 X3D CPU] may become… maybe something that we look at doing as a runway product later this year, simply because you know we know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon."

So, we may see a Ryzen 5 9600X3D CPU (or similar) emerge as an affordable engine for a gaming rig later this year.

More broadly, this is a signal that AMD is actively thinking about how to help ease the demands that price hikes on RAM, storage, CPUs and GPUs (and more besides) are exerting on the wallets of consumers. Although it also serves as a depressing acknowledgement that pricing woes aren't going away for quite some time yet.

It was also good to see AMD underline its commitment to the AM5 chipset with support guaranteed through to 2029 at Computex, for those who aren't planning on building a new PC anytime soon. Waiting out the worst of the pricing crisis may well be the best approach, frankly, if that's a viable option in your circumstances.

5. "Longer term, I think something has to give, right? The over-inflation, we will have to keep an eye out" (Nish Neelalojanan, Intel)

Like AMD, Intel also had thoughts on the current PC component pricing nastiness which it shared at Computex 2026.

Specifically, in a chat with Tom's Hardware, Intel's Nish Neelalojanan, who is senior director of product management for client computing, said of the RAM supply crisis and spiking costs: "Longer term, I think something has to give, right? The over-inflation, we will have to keep an eye out."

Neelalojanan elaborated on this, noting that Intel was adapting its strategy to help frustrated consumers in terms of maintaining support for last-gen (DDR4) memory and older (more affordable) CPUs. The exec noted: "We do have products that support DDR4 on both desktop and mobile. Raptor Lake [13th-gen CPUs that first emerged in 2022], we're not end-of-life-ing any of them; they're there. We'll continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies if they're available and cheap."

With laptops, Neelalojanan pointed to Intel's new Wildcat Lake mobile silicon, of which the exec promised "we are validating lower configs", meaning lower-end notebooks starting at 8GB RAM.

Neelalojanan said: "Wildcat Lake is a single-channel product, so there are products which can leverage low memory and give reasonably good performance."

This range of mobile silicon does indeed seem like a promising addition for more affordable laptops, and so it's not all bleak news for the future of PCs in terms of the undoubtedly painful price hikes we've all sadly become accustomed to.

• AMD's David McAfee has hinted that a Ryzen 5 9600X3D could be in the cards for later this year
• This follows the launch of the Ryzen 7 7700X3D as a response to pricing pressures
• McAfee said that "we know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon"

AMD appears to be considering making a new addition to the family of current-gen Zen 5 CPUs in the form of a wallet-friendly 3D V-Cache (X3D) processor.

Tom's Hardware spoke to AMD's VP and general manager of Ryzen CPU and Radeon Graphics, David McAfee, at Computex, and questioned the exec on why the company decided to release a past-gen X3D chip rather than one from the Zen 5 (Ryzen 9000) range.

The backdrop here is the launch of the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, which has just happened, and Tom's is essentially wondering why Team Red didn't go for a Ryzen 5 9600X3D.

McAfee responded that the launch of such a contemporary CPU "may be something that we look at doing… later this year."

The exec elaborated: "I think as we go through the rest of this year, I mean we're always looking for ways to, you know, create as many options as we can, and that may become… maybe something that we look at doing as a runway product later this year, simply because you know we know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon."

Analysis: under pressure

Obviously this is far from a confirmation that AMD will produce a new budget X3D chip for Zen 5, but the admission that it's possible the CPU maker could start rolling such a product off the assembly lines is a hopeful nugget that Team Red is still looking to further ease the pressure on PC builders.

Right now, building a new computer is a depressing task consisting of shopping for various components, most of which have had substantial price increases applied. (And the price hikes for certain parts, notably RAM and storage, are positively astronomical in some cases). A wider choice of more affordable processors obviously won't hurt for those carrying out a DIY build, and for that matter, it'll help with pre-built computers too, as another option for PC makers looking at building cheaper gaming rigs.

Of course, McAfee's comments don't come without an element of concern, namely the casual acknowledgement that "we know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon". In other words, don't expect PC component pricing pressures to ease for quite some time, and that's a prediction that has been widely made elsewhere. Most notably in recent times by the major RAM chip manufacturers – with one especially bleak forecast.

Indeed, AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, recently predicted that demand is going to wane on the consumer and gaming side for Team Red due to "higher memory and component costs" in the second half of 2026. Adding to that is further uncertainty around the global shipping situation, as continued disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is now affecting the RAM supply chain in other ways.

All in all, it's not a pretty picture, and we'll take what relief we can in terms of the prospect of more affordable components.

• An Intel exec has said that Nvidia's new CPU is 'a good thing'
• Team Blue apparently welcomes the competition and it 'shows the importance of how critical the PC is'
• There are surely some worried faces at Intel behind the scenes, though, as to how the RTX Spark could drive the wider success of Arm-based laptops

Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, freshly revealed at Computex 2026, has been causing quite some waves, but Intel isn't worried about this new challenger in the CPU market apparently — at least not on the face of it.

The Economic Times reports that Intel's Alex Katouzian, general manager of the client computing and physical AI group, said of the new Arm-based Nvidia CPU: "If you take a look at what they brought to market (Monday), I think it's a good thing."

Katouzian then added: "It shows the importance of how critical the PC is."

These comments were made at a news conference over at Computex, where the Intel exec elaborated: "We welcome the competition, but I think we're going to do really well," noting that Intel has "every segment covered" with a strong roadmap at its back.

Katouzian also noted: "They [Nvidia] want us to grow with them, there's new opportunities on the AI side."

In a nutshell, the Intel executive is arguing that this new Nvidia processor is a positive development because it further establishes the position of PCs as important within the overall tech landscape, and that Team Blue is sufficiently diversified that it'll benefit in other ways (like the AI sphere).

How true is that, really, though — and how much of this is bluster?

Putting on a brave face?

I've got a feeling that while Intel can certainly see opportunities in some respects — and RTX Spark silicon is doubtless an injection of fuel for keeping PCs relevant more broadly, going forward — there's a lot more worrying being done about Nvidia's RTX Spark than Katouzian, or Intel's other top brass, would ever let slip.

The problem is that while this CPU might be driving the relevance of PCs in a good way, it's advancing the Arm side of the equation therein. Intel's x86 chips are dominant in the laptop world — as the traditional desktop silicon, if you will, with Windows PCs — and Arm-based chips represent a threat to that. In the recent past, that has meant Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors, but more recently we have had second-gen Snapdragon X2 silicon on the scene, and now reinforcements in the form of RTX Spark.

Arm-based CPUs offer some notable advantages, including battery life by the bucketful. Indeed, Nvidia has already promised that we should "expect all-day battery life" from laptops with its new processor, which is quite something considering the powerful performance packed by the 20-core N1x CPU and integrated Blackwell GPU.

Remember, regarding the latter, we're looking at the equivalent of an RTX 5070 laptop GPU here, in a thin and sleek notebook form factor, not a chunky workstation. (Of course, to be fair to Intel, I should point out that it has also made very impressive strides with power efficiency and battery life in recent times, with its past couple of generations of mobile silicon).

Microsoft just revealed the Surface Laptop Ultra as an Nvidia-powered laptop and it's catching a great deal of interest at Computex, underlining the threat posed to Intel to some extent — but there's also a potential fly in Arm's ointment that this device highlights. Namely that RTX Spark notebooks are going to be premium pieces of hardware, and potentially very pricey.

As The Economic Times points out in its report, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have observed that: "This move [Nvidia's RTX Spark launch] may create incremental pressure for Intel and Qualcomm; however, given the complexity and likely premium pricing, we don't expect significant competition with mainstream AI PCs."

Here's the key point, though: the danger to Intel isn't from RTX Spark laptops as such, but the wider effect of this hardware on the balance of power in the Windows processor world.

Optimization and compatibility

The Surface Laptop Ultra is not a consumer-targeted device — it's for professionals, and indeed for local AI usage — and it will surely be eye-wateringly priced. (Especially with those beefier memory configurations and the current cost of RAM, even basic Surface devices are a lot pricier now). But what's important — or worrying for Intel — is what's happening alongside the launch of RTX Spark laptops.

Namely that this is driving further Arm-related optimization in Windows 11, as Microsoft made clear in a recent blog post (as well as moves to optimize performance with unified memory in the desktop OS, which is also part of the equation with Nvidia's new CPU here).

Moreover, RTX Spark is ushering in a drive to make even more apps compatible with Arm architecture. This means more popular pieces of software will be coded natively for Arm PCs running Windows 11, as opposed to having to run traditional x86 apps and rely on emulation. And speaking of the latter, Microsoft's translation layer (Prism) to run x86 apps on Arm systems has been refined considerably over the past year, and it's now been "tuned for the microarchitecture of RTX Spark" Microsoft informs us.

Even gaming, which has always been a stumbling block for Arm laptops due to compatibility issues — particularly those affecting online games due to the use of anti-cheat tools — is taking some big strides forward. The RTX Spark-related announcements Microsoft has made also included the revelation that the likes of League of Legends and Valorant are coming to Arm PCs, as is PUBG: Battlegrounds, with native Arm support for anti-cheat utilities BattlEye and EAC. (The latter is Easy Anti-Cheat, although that compatibility move actually happened last year, with Fortnite coming natively to Arm).

That's huge for gamers, and remember, this renewed drive for software and gaming compatibility doesn't just benefit laptops with RTX Spark inside, but also Qualcomm's Snapdragon silicon. Which means that much cheaper Arm laptops benefit here, particularly as Qualcomm has new Snapdragon C chips in the works, aiming to usher in much more affordable notebooks — we're talking the sub-$500 budget category (and equivalent in other currencies).

Spark of excitement

This is the true excitement around Nvidia's RTX Spark for me — that it might be a literal spark whereby we really see the ignition and take-off of Windows-on-Arm laptops, in the budget space, and all the way up to top-end offerings like the Surface Laptop Ultra. The latter will pack quite some gaming performance, even though I realize that isn't the point of these devices – but it's a nice bonus.

With the launch of RTX Spark, Qualcomm just welcomed Nvidia to the Arm 'family' and that feels like a much more genuine sentiment compared to Intel's equivalent 'welcome the competition' statement here — which feels considerably more political in nature.

Ultimately, Intel wants to keep the balance of power in the laptop world just as it is — with its Core processors as the dominant force — and Nvidia just made Arm a much more threatening presence as a rival in this space.

I very much doubt that Intel welcomes anything about that prospect, even though it does have cards to play in the budget laptop segment itself (namely Wildcat Lake, which is freshly on the scene).

• AMD has announced it will be supporting Socket AM5 for CPUs through 2029
• It's following in the same footsteps of its decade-long support for Socket AM4
• The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D has also returned for the AM4 socket platform

AMD has consistently supported its Socket AM4 for CPUs over the last decade, with new additions to its Ryzen CPU lineup — and, fortunately, its current CPU socket platform is receiving the same treatment.

Announced at Computex 2026, AMD is set to extend its support of the Socket AM5 platform through 2029, after the launch of the new Ryzen 7 7700X3D processor. This comes after Team Red has offered a decade of support for AM4, as the manufacturer adheres to longevity.

It's also worth noting that the popular AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D has returned as a '10-Year AMD AM4 Anniversary Edition', serving as AMD's way of celebrating its lengthy AM4 support — and frankly, it's one of the best gaming CPUs available, and the best AM4 gaming CPU.

"For gamers, the support extension represents more time to build, upgrade, and improve a system around the same platform," AMD says in its blog post.

"A longer platform roadmap can reduce the need for full system replacements and gives PC builders more confidence when choosing AMD Ryzen processors, AM5 motherboards, and compatible memory."

Both announcements are great news for AM4 and AM5 CPU users; not only is AM5 confirmed to have at least three more years of support, but it's highly likely we'll see irregular cases of new CPUs launch for Socket AM4.

The latter means PC gamers, like myself, using AM4 motherboards can continue doing so comfortably, especially since AMD's AM6 platform doesn't seem to be launching any time soon — and it's probably better if it doesn't release for another few years, at least until this RAM crisis disappears.

Around the world, “sticker shock” is a growing concern for CIOs and IT leaders confronting the rising cost and limited availability of enterprise components, driven by insatiable demands for AI infrastructure.

Organizations are experiencing a structural shift in infrastructure economics, described as a “memory super-cycle,” whereby demand for infrastructure capable of supporting AI workloads is placing pressure on the supply of standard components. And it’s traditional enterprises that are struggling to keep pace.

While hyperscalers purchased years of capacity in advance, manufacturers are prioritizing high-bandwidth memory for GPUs, the specialist chips used to power AI and data heavy workloads.

This is driving up infrastructure costs, constraining availability and extending lead times, creating challenges that not all enterprises are equipped to manage.

Scaling infrastructure used to be simpler – when demand increased, organizations added more hardware. But this is no longer an option. We are at an inflection point where enterprises can’t buy their way out of the problem. The solution to the hardware crisis isn’t producing hardware – there needs to be a focus on smarter software.

The limits of hardware-first thinking

Enterprise IT has long relied on adding capacity to address performance challenges, but the current supply crunch is exposing the limitations of this approach. As demand for AI-ready infrastructure accelerates, memory costs have surged – often accounting for more than 50% of total system spend – while supply remains limited.

Consequently, simply adding capacity is becoming increasingly expensive and, in many cases, unsustainable. Enterprises are being forced to rethink their infrastructure strategy and try and do more with less.

This is where optimization comes in; using software to manage resources more intelligently and efficiently. What began as a response to cost pressure now represents a broader transformation in how infrastructure is designed and operated.

In practice, this means rebalancing resource utilization. In many environments, CPU capacity, the processing power provided by central processing units, remains underused, while workloads are constrained by memory availability.

Techniques such as high-speed NVMe memory tiering, which moves less active data from expensive DRAM to cost-effective NVMe storage, allow organizations to significantly reduce memory costs and increase VM density.

At the same time, extending the life and value of existing infrastructure has become a priority. Approaches such as intelligent oversubscription, workload balancing, and memory optimization enable higher workload density without compromising performance.

Storage efficiency also plays a key role, with data reduction techniques increasing effective capacity while unlocking stranded CPU and memory trapped in rigid configurations.

Together, these software-led strategies are reinforcing the role of private cloud platforms as a control layer for modern infrastructure, empowering enterprises with greater visibility over how resources are allocated and optimized in response to industry constraints.

Smarter software is the answer

The structural supply crisis is a wake-up call, signaling a broader reset in how enterprise IT should be operated.

The long-standing model of addressing performance challenges by purchasing more hardware is no longer sustainable. In response to the memory super-cycle, a software-defined approach centred on optimisation and flexibility is taking hold.

By adopting software-driven optimization within private cloud environments, enterprises can increase efficiency, improve agility, and scale more effectively, meeting evolving infrastructure demands without relying on continual hardware investment.

Organizations that embrace this shift will be better positioned to navigate ongoing constraints, control costs, and sustain digital transformation.

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• Microsoft is bringing in a new feature to boost the CPU briefly, in order to make Windows 11 apps and menus more responsive
• Critics have fired flak at Microsoft for 'cheating' and this being a general fudge of a fix
• A Microsoft exec has made it clear that this isn't some kind of cheat, and that other major operating systems do the same thing

Microsoft is going to boost Windows 11 performance by using a trick that briefly speeds up the CPU when opening apps or menus, and an executive has defended this concept after it came under some fire from online commenters.

Windows Latest spotted that Scott Hanselman, a VP, member of technical staff at Microsoft, and a key part of the team tasked with fixing Windows 11 this year, took to X in order to fight back at critics who've called Microsoft lazy for this particular idea, which goes under the label of 'Low Latency Profile'.

There's a general feeling among some that Microsoft is taking shortcuts and fudging a fix for performance here.

To recap on what the Low Latency Profile actually does, it boosts the processor speed for around one to three seconds or so, giving a brief bit of extra pep for when opening an app, or the likes of the Start menu, to ensure this happens a good deal more snappily. And based on early testing, it does indeed do the job in terms of making Windows 11 feel more responsive in these scenarios.

The accusations leveled are that Microsoft is 'cheating' by calling on the CPU in this way, but Hanselman points out that this is nothing new for modern operating systems.

Hanselman responded to one thread (among others) on X, which began: "What a disgrace MicroSlop boosting the processor performance right on time and briefly just to make apps open faster. No other company would dare to do the same." (Note that this is translated from Spanish.)

Hanselman replied that: "All modern operating systems do this, including macOS and Linux. It's not 'cheating'; this is how modern systems make apps feel fast: they temporarily boost the CPU speed and prioritize interactive tasks to reduce latency."

Elsewhere, Hanselman further observes: "Apple does this and y'all love it."

Another complainant talks about mobiles, saying "imagine your smartphone boosting max CPU every time you touch something to be responsive", and Hanselman reminds them: "Your smartphone already does this. Constantly. Every touch wakes cores, boosts clocks, renders a frame, then drops back to idle milliseconds later. You've discovered dynamic frequency scaling. Welcome to modern computer science. Come on in! The water changes temperature often."

Analysis: feelings running hot

It's clear that Hanselman feels compelled to put some folks in their place here, and fair enough, these are valid points he's making, and there is a general vibe towards shooting down whatever Microsoft's trying to do, which is unfair.

However, I think the Microsoft executive needs to be somewhat mindful of where much of this flak is coming from – namely, many years of Windows 11, where people have felt they haven't been listened to, with Microsoft botching a number of fixes for the OS.

I've written many times about how faith and trust in Microsoft have been eroded over the past couple of years (well, going back way before that, really, but this has been especially true in recent times). And this kind of reaction is a symptom of that.

But yes, granted, it can't feel good to have many of the ideas that you have for fixing Windows 11 being shot down in a general atmosphere of 'let's see Microsoft mess this one up'.

On a broader level, some critics aren't directly criticizing Low Latency Profile, but rather they're saying that it's more of a band-aid that doesn't address bigger issues with the likes of core Windows 11 apps (notably the web-based efforts) running sluggishly. Or indeed issues around general resource mismanagement in Windows 11 – although overarching performance improvements are something that's on Microsoft's fix list, of course.

In short, there is a lot of fixing to be done with Windows 11, and Microsoft has to start somewhere. From where I'm sitting, the general attitude so far from Microsoft has been impressive, though, in terms of implementing some important fixes quickly and engaging with the community.

I feel the critics do need to give Microsoft more time and a chance, but at the same time, I realize how some frustrations run pretty deep with Windows 11 – and Windows 10 before it, for that matter – and Microsoft only has itself to blame for that.

One key question for me, though, is simple: why didn't Microsoft include this CPU trick in Windows 11 in the first place? Or at least start developing it as a performance fix at an earlier date, given that all other contemporary desktop platforms make good use of similar features.

The answer is likely bound up in solving power-efficiency and battery life issues – and that remains a concern about this feature now. Sources inside Microsoft have already said that any battery longevity impact will be minimal, mind, and it's likely that with the huge battery life levels we're seeing with some modern laptops, this gives Windows 11 more room to breathe anyway.

Interestingly, another observation Hanselman makes is that Low Latency Profile is going to work particularly well with Windows 11 laptops that have Arm-based (Snapdragon) chips, which are better suited to shifting power states swiftly than AMD and Intel CPUs.

• Windows 11 is getting a new 'Low Latency Profile' feature
• It gives the CPU a brief boost to help apps and menus load faster
• It's just rumored, and still in early testing, but we're told that we shouldn't worry about it having a detrimental impact on laptop battery life

Windows 11 is getting a feature designed to speed up performance when the system tackles spikes of demanding activity — like the workload created when opening an app — by putting the accelerator to the floor with the CPU briefly.

Windows Central reports that this is apparently part of the so-called Windows K2 project, otherwise known as 'The big drive for this year to fix everything that's wrong with Windows 11'.

There's a good deal of focus on shoring up performance with K2, and according to leaker Zac Bowden, the new processor-boosting trick is already in testing with the Windows Insider Program. Indeed, Windows Latest has already enabled it (using a configuration utility) and tried out the functionality.

Sources inside Microsoft told Bowden the feature is known as the 'Low Latency Profile' and it kicks in, boosting up the frequency of the CPU briefly – from between one to three seconds – while performing bigger operations. That includes firing up an app, or opening parts of the Windows 11 interface, for example the likes of the Start menu or right-click context menus.

The result is up to 40% quicker launch times for Microsoft's apps such as Edge and Outlook, and menus are up to 70% faster to load, we're told. Third-party (non-Microsoft) apps running in Windows 11 should get the benefit of this low-latency functionality, too.

Based on Windows Latest's testing, it seems that the feature does indeed provide an impressive boost to loading speeds.

Low Latency Profile will work seamlessly in the background, coming to life automatically when needed. It isn't yet clear if there will be a switch to enable or disable it, but that isn't the case currently.

Analysis: laptop worries and general skepticism

Windows 11 seemingly feels a lot more responsive with the new Low Latency Profile in place, and based on those claimed percentages for speed-ups — albeit they are best-case scenarios — I'd imagine it would do. Menus opening at not far off twice the speed is the kind of performance tweak Windows 11 could really do with, and it should make the overall experience of using the OS a good deal more pleasant.

Presumably File Explorer will get the benefit of this — as technically it's an 'app' for Windows 11, or a process that powers your desktop folders — but it isn't mentioned (by Bowden, or Windows Latest), so that isn't clear. Mind you, Microsoft is already doing a whole lot of work to speed up File Explorer anyway.

An obvious worry is the effect of these brief CPU boosts on battery longevity in the case of Windows 11 laptops, but Bowden notes that the sources who leaked the details say that any impact on battery life is 'minimal'.

This is still in early testing, Bowden reminds us, and so the concept could change considerably before it comes to fruition. In any case, it clearly illustrates that Microsoft is thinking in some depth about how Windows 11 can be made a good deal more performant in ways that will be meaningfully felt in everyday usage.

One thing I would caution is that if folks are concerned about the impact on thermals that this feature may have on an older laptop with, say, an ailing cooling system, it seems like a sensible idea to include that switch to turn off Low Latency Profile.

Skeptics also remain on the subject of how good this feature might actually turn out to be. As one Redditor observed: "'I'll only believe when I see the results, but I really hope it is true, I miss the old Microsoft."

We all hope it's true, let's face it — and it's looking promising based on the early testing conducted by Windows Latest. (Although granted, we need to take that with some seasoning, as it was a limited use of the feature in a very early state, inside a virtual machine).

• Apple is rumored to be doubling production of the MacBook Neo
• It will supposedly now ship 10 million units
• Meanwhile, Microsoft commissioned a report to point out the strengths of budget Windows 11 laptops compared to the Neo, and it's been criticized online for its level of bias

Apple's supposedly set to double production of the MacBook Neo to meet demand for the popular budget laptop — although Microsoft is fighting back in the war of affordable notebooks.

Wccftech reports that, according to Tim Culpan, an ex-Bloomberg reporter and one of the more reliable sources of chatter from the grapevine, Apple is boosting production of the first-gen MacBook Neo to 10 million units, up from the initial (rumored) run of 5 to 6 million.

Such a move would make sense, seeing as there's clear evidence that the Neo is selling very well. Indeed, the laptop has been since its launch, with CEO Tim Cook acknowledging recently that demand has been "off the charts" for the Neo, and that Apple could take a while to address supply issues (for this MacBook and the Mac mini).

Wccftech also flagged that Microsoft is directly responding to the popularity of this new MacBook, having commissioned a report from Signal65, which compared wallet-friendly Windows 11 laptops to the Neo, and came out strongly in favor of the former.

Signal65 highlighted a bunch of advantages for the Microsoft-powered devices, as seen in a post on X, which states that Windows 11 notebooks "starting $150 below the MacBook Neo delivered more performance AND up to 56% longer battery life in Procyon Office Productivity testing".

The report from Signal65 also found that Windows 11 laptops, which were at matching (or cheaper) prices to the MacBook Neo, had up to 92% faster CPU performance for multi-threaded tasks (based on Cinebench testing). It also found that the Windows machines were faster in Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft's productivity apps.

Analysis: cherry-picking problems

Okay, so there's an obvious issue with a study commissioned by Microsoft, and that's how the benchmarks and comparisons have been cherry-picked to show Windows 11 devices in the best light against the MacBook Neo (given that Microsoft has paid for this research).

For example, what about single-core performance? That isn't mentioned, just multi-core, and performance was tested plugged in, too, not on battery power. Working off the electrical grid favors the Windows 11 devices as the processor has more ability to benefit from the considerable extra power it can then chug (without throttling to balance battery life concerns).

What also isn't mentioned is the screen of the MacBook Neo being a lot brighter, which favors the battery life of the Windows 11-toting Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x (the laptop rated as having 56% better battery life, and the main point of comparison for the Neo as the cheapest Microsoft-powered model). That Lenovo machine has a bigger battery as well, so it was always going to win on that front.

Other factors, such as the quality of the screen and the speakers, aren't touched upon — areas the Lenovo IdeaPad has been criticized for — and pricing-wise, Microsoft's laptops are also compared to the Neo with discounts applied here. The key comparison with the wallet-friendly Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x mentions it starting $150 cheaper than the Neo, but I could only find it on sale in the US at $50 cheaper (at the time of writing).

As one commenter on X put it: "The review skipped all benchmarks where the Neo was better (single core performance, display, sound). You only took what made the PC look better. This is a reminder to have a more neutral review process and this ain't it."

This isn't to rule out the Windows 11 laptops, mind, or to cast aspersions on the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x, as for the money, it does indeed look like a very good notebook. Granted, it has 16GB of RAM versus the 8GB with the MacBook Neo, and I do worry about the future-proofing with 8GB, as I've said in the past. But it's abundantly clear that for today's everyday computing tasks, the Neo runs nicely and slickly — just manage your expectations of this Apple laptop tackling any demanding workloads.

Ultimately, the battle of the MacBook Neo versus Lenovo IdeaPad or other affordable Windows 11 laptops (and it should also be noted that two of the devices Signal65 considers in its report are much pricier than Apple's hardware) comes down to whether you're happy with macOS or Windows. Are you tied into Apple's or Microsoft's ecosystem? Then your choice may already be made for you. (It's also worth remembering that the Lenovo IdeaPad is an ARM-based PC, with some limitations therein compared to AMD or Intel chips — though granted, Microsoft has been fixing some of those issues).

The MacBook Neo's key strength is its relatively high-quality nature — in terms of the build of the notebook, and that screen, speakers, and so on — for the outlay, but that said, it's here where Apple could struggle as time goes on.

Mainly because, as Tim Culpan points out, paying for new CPUs to be manufactured to go in the rumored revised shipping target of 10 million units is going to cost Apple. Buying that production capacity at a time when everyone is trying to grab what they can is going to be expensive, and the worry is: will that be reflected in the Neo's price? Especially considering the ongoing RAM and component crisis.

One of Culpan's theories is that Apple may only offer the higher-tier model of the Neo — the laptop with 512GB storage — later this year, effectively making the starting price $699 in the US (and an equivalent bump elsewhere) without actually implementing a price hike. Or some 256GB entry-level production may be maintained, but not much, and that model will effectively be out of stock most of the time.

Another theory is price hikes softened by new color options, though I'm unconvinced that a jazzy new colorway or two is going to take much out of the blow delivered by a potential pricing increase in the first year of the Neo's existence.

• A PC modder just built a room-sized gaming PC, fit with an air conditioner and a sauna
• The gaming PC has hardware components larger than a human
• The RAM sticks are props that are estimated to be 18,000GB of RAM each

Gaming PC builds come in all different shapes and sizes, either targeting improved airflow and temperatures or prioritizing desktop space — but this one takes the cake.

As reported by VideoCardz, a modder known as Soda Baka on Bilibili, has built a gaming PC the size of a room, with gigantic fans, a large GPU, CPU, and an AIO cooler. These are accompanied by an air conditioning unit to help control room temperatures and a literal 12,000W sauna with added water to help simulate the heat of a regular-sized gaming PC.

It's worth noting that the RAM sticks in this build are only props, and that's no surprise, since the estimated capacity based on their scale is 18,000GB of RAM each. That would already cost a fortune on its own, but we're in the middle of a RAM crisis, so I couldn't even imagine how costly each RAM stick would be.

Baka's project is easily one of the most ludicrous PC building projects out there, and has almost no real-world use case, as I struggle to imagine anybody has the resources readily available — or better yet, any reason to build a system like this, but it's great for aesthetics.

It's quite an amusing solution to summer heat (minus the sauna), with a significant amount of room for a gaming PC's operation and the addition of an air conditioning unit.

However, in a more practical and reasonable use case to help keep temperatures cool, it's best to simply invest in an AIO water cooler for the CPU, and look toward undervolting the GPU where possible. I've done exactly that with my main gaming PC build, and temperatures for both my RTX 4080 Super and AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D — and both max out at 65 degrees Celsius.

That's easily achievable, without building a room-sized gaming PC, but again, it is a perfect themed environment for any gamer.

• Intel just had an impressive Q1 fiscal, beating expectations for revenue by some way
• This is reportedly in part due to 'turning what may have been scrap or low-expectation output into revenue', according to an analyst firm
• This essentially means repurposing silicon that hasn't made the grade for its intended usage, but isn't a reflection on CPU quality, it should be noted

Intel has reportedly been able to boost its revenue by selling CPU chips that would in the past have effectively ended up on the scrapheap.

Tom's Hardware spotted a post on X from the CEO of analyst firm Creative Strategies, Ben Bajarin, who claims to have got feedback from Intel's investor relations as to where some of Team Blue's additional profits have come from (in its Q1 earnings, which were just reported).

Add your own sprinkling of salt, but Bajarin says: "Intel got an unexpected margin lift from better yield salvage. Chips that would normally have been lower-value edge-die on the wafer were binned down and still sold into usable SKUs, turning what may have been scrap or low-expectation output into incremental revenue."

Multiple chips are cut from a single wafer, but not every chip is up to par for its intended usage, and so some — particularly those cut from near the edge of the wafer, as noted — are either downgraded for use as a lower-tier CPU (where faulty cores are simply disabled), or they're just thrown away (well, recycled to other ends).

That's a boiled-down, basic view of what happens, but you get the point, and seemingly part of Intel's big jump in revenue for this quarter was down to being able to sell chips that'd normally have been 'scrap' to its customers.

As Bajarin further observed: "Customers didn't care, just said I'll take it all. That's the demand environment we are in for CPUs."

It's interesting to note that Bajarin is bullish on Intel's CPU manufacturing capabilities, to the point where in another post, he envisions that before long, AMD might be having some of its processors made at Intel Foundry (to make up for what it can't get produced at TSMC, which is struggling to cope with demand).

Analysis: bad omens?

There are some important points to note here. First, we don't know for sure that this is happening; we only have one analyst's word for it. Although it does throw some light on how Intel pulled a good deal more money into its coffers for Q1 than those in the financial know had forecast (revenue beat expectations by 10%, in fact).

The other thing to make crystal clear is that these 'subpar' chips are not somehow dodgy, meaning that you're not running a risk buying such an Intel CPU. It's a common industry practice to use chips that don't make the grade for their intended product, as noted, in a lesser product.

A chip that's failed to make the cut for a Core Ultra 9, say, can be repurposed as a Core Ultra 7, with the defective cores simply disabled (as they aren't needed for the core count of the latter). This doesn't make such a chip any different from another Core Ultra 7, or those which were made to be Core Ultra 7 models — they all have the exact same number of functional cores, with no greater chance of anything being awry. Failed Core Ultra 7 models might then become Core Ultra 5, and so on.

All of which is to say you don't need to worry about anything relating to chip quality here. All that's happening is that Intel's making more money from chips that wouldn't normally be sold, as hardware makers are buying these CPUs because there's such a demand for silicon right now, that supply is looking dicier.

Sound familiar? Yes, this may remind you of the scarce supply of memory chips — affecting RAM and storage — and as predicted, the same woes are now being visited on processors. With more and more data centers getting built to service AI demand, the servers in those behemoth buildings don't just need RAM and SSDs, they're also powered by processors, of course.

Now, here's the gloomy bit. Remember early in the RAM crisis, when prices started to spike? And further recall that they then shot up at an unfathomably fast rate. Well, we could see an acceleration of processor prices, too. Indeed, a recent report already observed some major price rises in AMD CPUs in Japan, which comes on top of other rumors of both server and consumer-targeted processors getting pricier.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this will have the same upwards trajectory as with memory pricing, but nonetheless, this rumor is a further sign that yet another PC component, and a key one, could get a good deal more expensive as 2026 progresses.

• An Intel reference laptop has been spotted with a Wildcat Lake CPU
• It has a design that's very MacBook-inspired, and it looks like a notebook that'll go after the Neo
• You'll get peppier performance here, though, with a faster CPU and twice the RAM of the Neo

A sighting of a reference laptop from Intel featuring a new Wildcat Lake CPU has been causing quite a stir, as it appears to be squarely taking on Apple's popular new MacBook Neo.

Tom's Hardware highlighted a post on X by Vaidyanathan Subramaniam from Notebookcheck.net, who got a first look at the laptop at an Intel event, with some further info posted on the Notebookcheck.net site itself.

The device is a thin-and-light 14-inch notebook that has an aluminum chassis and sleek MacBook-style lines, with a vibrant green colorway that also follows in the footsteps of the Neo's bright appearance.

The CPU inside is a Wildcat Lake chip, as mentioned, which is a budget offering and effectively a cut-down version of the new Panther Lake silicon. The processor used is apparently the Intel Core 7 360 or Core 7 350, based on the presence of an NPU with 17 TOPS, alongside the CPU, which has two performance cores and four low-power efficiency cores (smaller than the normal efficiency cores, of which this chip has none).

The CPU offers what should be a decent enough level of performance, with a PL1 of 17W (22W maximum) and a PL2 of 35W (which can be hit for very brief bursts). Interestingly, there's also the option of operating at 11W, which allows the notebook to operate in fanless mode, needing no active cooling, so it'll be dead quiet in that case.

There's 16GB of soldered system RAM present alongside the CPU.

Analysis: a newer Neo?

Given that the MacBook Neo operates at lower wattages (generally under 10W), this should be a performant rival – especially given that it packs twice the RAM of Apple's laptop.

Remember, the Neo is restricted to 8GB of system memory, though Apple has done a good job of ensuring that this isn't a hindrance for typical everyday usage.

Future proofing, however, is more of a concern for me with the MacBook Neo due to that RAM loadout. Still, we don't know what price a Wildcat laptop, such as the one shown by Intel, will demand. Apple has, of course, made the Neo very competitive, and that value has been clearly demonstrated by the way it's flown off retail shelves.

I've been talking about the threat the MacBook Neo poses to the dominance of Windows 11 in the notebook world ever since Apple launched its budget portable, while wondering what Microsoft's answer might be. Fixing Windows 11 is one thing, but it looks like Intel could step in to lend its processing forces in the fight against Apple with Wildcat Lake, although there are still a good deal of unknowns to be fathomed out yet.

It's worth noting that the Intel laptop looks good in the photos taken and shared, but according to Subramaniam, its appearance is even more impressive in real life. Watch this space, as they say.

• More fake Samsung SSDs have been uncovered, and the drive maker has said it's 'taking consistent action against such counterfeits'
• At the same time, CPU sales are seemingly in a major slump, the worst seen in a decade, we're told
• With the PC component crisis just getting more intense, there is hope for some relief later this year – but the way it'll be realized isn't very comforting

As the PC component crisis intensifies, with CPU sales now apparently in a serious slump, we've had another warning about fake Samsung SSDs as scammers try to capitalize on expensive higher-end drives.

First off, let's look at the SSD nastiness, with German tech site ComputerBase reporting (via VideoCardz) that an Austrian buyer had the misfortune to receive two Samsung 990 Pro SSDs from a retailer that have both been confirmed to be fakes.

While the packaging of the 1TB drives looked authentic enough, and didn't ring any alarm bells, inspection of the SSDs did, as they had a blue circuit board (rather than the black color Samsung uses). They also used the wrong SSD controller (a Realtek model rather than a Pascal controller).

The real sign that something was very wrong, though, was the fact that these solid-state drives didn't work at all. (Unlike better fakes, which work, and can even appear to be the correct model when installed in a PC if you don't engage in anything other than a cursory inspection).

When Samsung was told about this incident by ComputerBase, the company provided a statement that read: "Samsung takes such reports about counterfeit memory products very seriously. We are taking consistent action against the distribution of such counterfeits.

"We recommend purchasing Samsung storage media exclusively through the Samsung Online Shop or authorized retailers. Consumers can also use the Samsung Magician software to verify that their product is genuine."

With the price of CPUs creeping up, maybe we'll also need to be wary of an uptick in processor fakes (such as the counterfeit Ryzen 9800X3D chips we've seen palmed off on unsuspecting consumers in the past).

More broadly, is it the case that pricier processors, and the squeeze from the memory crisis in general, are killing sales of desktop silicon? Apparently, this is indeed happening, as mentioned at the outset.

PC Gamer reports that TechEpiphany, who regularly posts figures from major German retailer Mindfactory, shared some recent data on X showing that processor sales have fallen sharply in the last three weeks (after being in something of a slump across the whole of March). It's mainly AMD Ryzen sales that have dropped actually – though that's partly a function of Intel sales numbers already being a great deal less at the start of 2026 – and it's an eye-opening slump.

Based on that data, and other sales figures drawn from the likes of Amazon, TechEpiphany posted on X that: "In 10 years of tracking retail CPU (and related) sales, I have never seen such a steep decline."

Analysis: an 11.5-level crisis

Saying that this is the single biggest slump which TechEpiphany has witnessed in the last decade is quite a statement regarding CPU sales. When asked 'on a scale of 1-10, how done are we?' in a follow-up post on X, TechEpiphany replied that we're at '11.5' currently.

Are processor prices really rising that steeply? Well, following rumors of major price increases late last year, they are going up, certainly, as there's a CPU shortage which is getting more serious.

However, this isn't just about processors in a bubble, but the entire custom PC market. With the prices of all components going up, and particularly RAM along with storage, building a computer from scratch – or looking at a substantial upgrade to a new motherboard platform for an existing system – has become a ridiculously pricey affair.

So, people just aren't doing that, and this is going to depress CPU sales, and indeed all components – not just the memory side of the equation, where the price hikes have been truly astronomical.

Counterfeit products being increasingly wheeled out as scammers try to profiteer from these high prices isn't going to help the situation, either. It's not great news that fake Samsung SSDs have now reached Europe, after an increase in Japan was already observed – though at least this latest bout of fakery wasn't as sophisticated as previously seen.

There's one hope here, namely that these stupidly high prices – and the PC market in general getting out of hand – is indeed resulting in a refusal to buy from consumers (as apparently seen with CPUs, but also RAM recently, too). That in itself could rebalance the supply and demand seesaw to some extent, and lead to prices falling. And as PC Gamer also spotted, MediaTek is tentatively predicting a more optimistic pricing trajectory for RAM in the second half of 2026 based on this kind of theorizing.

MediaTek's SVP and head of global sales, Eric Fischer, recently told analyst firm Counterpoint: "We're super cautious, maybe cautiously optimistic about the second half [of 2026], about where it goes because, at some point the prices are going to have an impact on the consumer's ability to spend – whether it's notebooks or [other] consumer products."

This is a sentiment we've heard elsewhere, but it isn't really all that comforting that the best hope for the RAM crisis to slacken its grip on our wallets is that pricing simply gets so high that people point-blank refuse to spend. But, here we are, and this is seemingly what it's come to...

Enterprise IT teams have long treated hardware refresh cycles as a predictable routine. Devices were replaced on schedule, budgets were mapped out years in advance, and procurement teams had a fairly good idea what the next round of devices would cost.

That predictability is gone. HP recently revealed that RAM now accounts for roughly 35% of a PC's build cost, up from around 15–18% just a few months ago.

Analysts have also warned that PC prices could rise by 15–20% during the second half of 2026 if manufacturers continue passing rising component costs driven by demand for AI systems on to buyers.

IT leaders tell us volatility is already hitting planning hard. Refresh quotes are arriving 30–60% higher than anticipated, and suppliers are compressing price validity windows — sometimes to just a few hours.

During this “RAMageddon” period, here are five ways enterprises are adjusting their approach to hardware:

1. Moving from time-based to usage-based refresh decisions

For years, the default rule was simple: replace devices every three to five years. It kept refresh cycles predictable, even if many of those machines were still performing well. Now, instead of focusing purely on purchase dates, organizations are beginning to examine how devices actually behave during normal work.

Making that shift usually requires more than just an IT decision. Refresh policies often sit at the intersection of endpoint teams, procurement, and finance, all of whom have different priorities. Security teams may also have requirements around device age or operating system support.

Moving to a usage-based approach means those groups need to agree on new criteria for when devices should be replaced and when they can safely remain in service.

The starting point is device data, and getting it doesn't have to be complex. Platforms that continuously collect CPU activity, memory demand, and application usage across an entire fleet, provide IT teams with an accurate view of pressure points.

Take one New York bank we worked with. It had been planning to replace roughly 7,000 laptops each year as part of its normal refresh cycle. After analyzing workload patterns and device stress, the number dropped to around 600 machines that genuinely needed replacing.

2. Right-size devices according to real workload requirements

In one enterprise device estate analysis involving 5,000 laptops originally scheduled for refresh, usage data showed around 1,400 users could move to lower-cost machines without affecting their work. Adjusting the hardware mix revealed close to $1 million in potential savings without replacing the entire fleet.

Examples like this tend to surface quickly once organizations begin examining real workload patterns. Device fleets rarely stay balanced for long. Over time, companies accumulate a mix of machines that are either far more powerful than necessary or struggling to keep up.

It is not unusual to find someone answering emails on a high-spec laptop while another employee tries to run demanding software on a much weaker machine. Once IT teams look at actual workload patterns, those imbalances become obvious.

Workload analysis can also reveal that performance problems are sometimes caused by inefficient applications or background processes rather than hardware limitations, while the same visibility often highlights unused or rarely used software that organizations can remove to reduce unnecessary license costs.

3. Extend device lifecycles safely using performance data

When teams start digging into performance data, another pattern often appears. Many laptops continue handling everyday work long after the traditional refresh deadline has passed. The challenge is identifying which machines still have room to spare and which ones are starting to struggle.

Ongoing end-user monitoring helps IT teams make that call with much more confidence. Devices that continue to run comfortably can remain in service, while the smaller group showing signs of strain can be prioritized for replacement.

In many organizations, the same data is also used to understand the wider digital employee experience, highlighting performance issues that may not be obvious from hardware specifications alone.

That visibility also helps IT teams spot small problems before they turn into support tickets, reducing interruptions for employees and limiting the need for reactive troubleshooting.

A Forrester study examining a financial organization with 40,000 devices found annual replacement rates dropping from 25% to 23% by extending the life of roughly 40% of the fleet from four to five years. Over three years that translated into around $2 million in avoided hardware costs.

4. Reduce dependency on high-spec endpoint hardware

Another way organizations are managing hardware pressure is by reconsidering where computing workloads actually take place.

Virtual desktop infrastructure and desktop-as-a-service platforms allow applications to run on centralized infrastructure rather than on the local device. In practical terms, that means organizations do not need to buy powerful laptops for everyone.

Of course, this model does not suit every role. Engineers, designers, and developers often require powerful local machines to run specialized software. However, many office-based employees rely mainly on web applications and productivity tools that run perfectly well in virtual environments.

In one investment management organization, device performance data was analyzed before a virtual desktop rollout to understand which workloads genuinely required local processing power.

The analysis helped identify employees who could move to virtual desktops without affecting productivity, allowing the organization to extend the lifespan of many endpoint devices.

5. Use device intelligence to improve forecasting and procurement stability

Usage data also changes how procurement planning works. Instead of replacing large numbers of devices at the same time, organizations can spread upgrades more gradually and align them with real demand.

That flexibility matters when prices are moving around as much as they are today, because it reduces the risk of committing to large hardware purchases at the worst possible moment.

The same approach is useful when introducing newer technologies such as AI PCs. Not every employee needs the additional processing power or memory. Developers or data specialists may benefit from it, while employees who primarily work with email, collaboration tools, and documents are unlikely to notice much difference.

Many organizations are therefore starting with small pilot groups to understand where those capabilities actually deliver value before committing to a broader rollout.

The nickname “RAMageddon” started as a bit of gallows humor among IT teams, but it captures the mood in many IT departments right now. With memory prices moving this quickly, refresh planning has become far less predictable and requires a much more hands-on approach based on how devices actually perform in everyday use.

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• Processors could be in line for major price hikes
• Rumor has it that Intel and AMD are increasing CPU prices due to a supply shortage, and this could end up as serious as the situation with RAM
• Storage prices are also heading up sharply, and device makers are having to rethink plans — with a handheld even getting canned this week due to pricing difficulties

If you've not heard enough about supply woes and price hikes for various PC components, here's another bit of bad news: CPUs are now apparently in the firing line.

PC Gamer flagged a report from Nikkei Asia, which observes that the market for processors is suffering "an average price hike of between 10% to 15%", which has hit both server and PC CPUs. This information has been provided by multiple sources, we're told, all singing the same unwelcome tune.

Nikkei Asia also claims that according to these sources: "Intel and AMD have recently told clients they will increase prices for all series of CPUs from March and April, respectively."

The lead time taken to ship processors that have been ordered is increasing, too, and by a large margin. Wait times have increased from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, or indeed more.

One of the sources is an executive at a gaming PC manufacturer who says that the supply of CPUs is expected to become thinner on the ground in the second quarter of 2026. That exec said: "Intel and AMD have prioritized capacity for server CPUs, and the supply for PCs has become less ... What PC players can get in Q2 is much less than the volume we got in Q1."

They added, "What we worry about is that even if we pay more, we still cannot get more. The CPU shortage is getting more serious day by day, no less than the memory chip situation."

Analysis: AI crushes the hopes of consumers once again

If you wanted a worrying statement about the situation with CPUs, I don't think you could get a more ominous utterance than the last sentence above. If we're going to start thinking about comparing processor supply levels to what's happened with memory chips, then that's the start of a very dark path that CPUs could be about to head down. Indeed, seemingly this is already happening, and the article is citing multiple sources to this effect.

As you might guess, this is all about the AI boom. It's driving a huge need for computing power, and that isn't just about memory and storage for servers, but also processors. Meaning the drive for profits is leading to CPU makers prioritizing data center sales over consumers, just as with memory, because these are business decisions after all, and you go where you can make the most money.

Unfortunately, the storage crisis is getting worse, too. This week, we've had news of the price of a 1TB external SSD from SanDisk tripling on the Apple store (via Gizmodo). And a high-end handheld has been effectively cancelled, with Ayaneo shutting down pre-orders of its Next 2 portable gaming device, as Kotaku reports. Thanks to the spiralling costs of storage and RAM, the Next 2 would've ended up costing some $4,000, which clearly isn't tenable. (Maybe the top-end Strix Halo Ryzen CPU was a factor here, too).

Meanwhile, Asus has just treated us to a forecast of 25% to 30% price rises for its PCs in Taiwan over the next quarter, and that reality will surely be reflected globally to a large extent.

It's a bleak picture that appears to be worsening. And it's also very odd that Intel has just revealed a couple of very wallet-friendly consumer CPUs with its refresh of Arrow Lake. How those low prices will work in this climate remains to be seen, although of course, so do the stock levels of said processors – they may only be produced in small quantities.

The advice for those thinking of buying a new CPU for their PC would be to do so now, or in the near future, much as is the case for those mulling a laptop purchase.

Intel entered 2026 on the back foot — not something I'd have previously expected to write about one of the most dominant companies in computing. Apple, having dropped Intel as a hardware partner for its Macs was getting acclaim for its Arm-based M-series chips, while Intel's old rival AMD had a string of hits that allowed it to eat away at Intel's commanding market lead when it comes to processors.

So, 2026 is an incredibly important year for Intel, and with the Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” launch back in January at CES 2026, the company appeared to come out swinging.

After the launch, I was able to score some time with Intel’s Product Leader Nish Neelalojanan to get more details on Intel's hopes and plans for Panther Lake.

Panther Lake breakdown

2026 is another year where Intel has decided to break with its traditional CPU suffix structure. Panther Lake comes with X-prefix SKUs, as well as the usual H-suffix chips, and some that have no lettering at all.

While Intel does have various resources highlighting all 14 new Panther Lake SKUs, a chart isn’t always the most obvious way to delineate the various differences between CPU segments. Neelalojanan broke down the stack, “Anything you see with the X, which are new for Panther Lake, will have the Arc B390 graphics. So that indicates the best of the best. So this indicates to end users if I have the big graphics, I have big everything, I’ll just go get it.

“Then you have the non-X [SKUs] and there are some ending with an H, and some without,” Nellalojanan continued, “the H indicates the best CPUs. So the 16-core CPU. If you want to have an H, then it has the best CPU. If you have an H and an X, then you have the best of everything. And then the lower config, the 8 or 4-core config, doesn’t have a suffix. So it’ll just be a number. Intel Core Ultra and a number.”

The point? “Take Panther Lake, and take all the Panther Lake IPs and scale it down to price points or the battery life, the productivity, but without all the other fluff, right?”

At least for this generation, Intel is retiring the traditional -P and -U suffixes. But we may see them return in the future.

Record-setting battery life

Intel’s initial claims for the Core Ultra 300 series included a staggering degree of power efficiency. While Intel managed to achieve impressive battery life with the Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake series, this next generation of processors continues the pattern, despite having a different underlying architecture.

Intel promises up to 27 hours of video streaming battery life. But is that battery life expected on every iteration of Panther Lake? After all, there are quite a few different models of the architecture out there, as well as variations across the Panther Lake SKU stack.

This was apparently intentional: “it’s going to be a choice point for OEMs to be able to pick and choose what they want to deliver,” Neelalojanan explained. “The 8-core [CPUs] are more productivity and battery life [focused], that would be better than previous generations.”

Panther Lake has so many “different chops and cuts and things” to try and fit a variety of consumer needs, with different I/O variations and a veritable ton of PCIe lanes to feed, the needs of Intel’s OEM partners. But despite that large swing in core counts, clock speeds, and features, Neelalojanan attests it won’t come at the expense of battery life. “With our Core Series 300, you’re going to get that 20 hours of battery life all the way down.”

Handheld dominance

Intel announced a major handheld partnership at CES 2026, with partners including Acer, MSI, and Microsoft. While the details were at first a bit vague, Intel clarified its position later. Intel is making handheld-specific G-series processors, and they’re coming later this year. Obviously Intel wasn’t sharing a ton of details about those CPUs yet, but Neelalojanan did share some additional details.

“So we will have some dedicated SKUs. Previously it was standard, off-the-shelf SKUs,” Neelalojanan confirmed. “We wanted to have dedicated SKUs. Two reasons; one, Panther Lake Architecture… it has the ability to go lower down [in regards to power consumption], but if we did some more tweaks, we can optimize it, because handhelds are definitely going to be 15 to 35 watts, depending on how OEMs can fix it right? So we want to make sure we are optimized for it.”

And that optimization goes down to the silicon. “If you take the P and E cores, we have a performance cluster where we have the P- and E-cores. In Lunar Lake, we have P-cores only in the performance cluster, right? So in Arrow Lake, in that performance cluster, the E-cores didn’t have as much last level cache. Panther Lake E-cores, in the performance cluster, are going to have as big of a cache, so there’ll be access to that big cache in that performance cluster.

"When it comes to low-power gaming, running on those E-cores in the performance cluster will free up enough power for the graphics. So, we are focusing on trying to be able to have SKUs which can leverage that more and have a construction fit for that.”

Essentially, “it’s taking all the same building blocks, but it’s a more optimized SKU for handhelds. So that’s the bigger focus so that we can go hit the right type of handheld both on price and performance.”

The handheld G-series processors will also be a bit trimmed down in terms of features, with fewer IO and PICe lanes, because a handheld simply doesn’t need all that extra flexibility. The upcoming Panther Lake handheld CPUs aren’t a sticker change on an existing mobile CPU, or a repackaging of “very old silicon,” but a full “SKU configuration, so it will take the same base, but the core configuration and everything will be different.”

2026 could be Intel’s best year

Panther Lake has been heavily anticipated since it was barely a whisper on the Intel roadmap, and expectations now that it's been released are higher than ever. Intel was also the one manufacturer to focus on PC innovations during the company’s CES keynote, which helped further the hype.

Based on Neelalojanan’s statements, this was intentional, “We had the most amount of PC content, that also feels good, that we can show up and show our intent.” And show intent, Intel certainly did.

Intel does have some competition this year, with AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 series and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 series having launched as well, which means all three major Windows chipmakers have had new systems powered by their components hit the shelves at the same time.

So the fight to determine which laptop chip is superior may be decided sooner than expected.

However, Panther Lake isn’t the only iron Intel has in the fire. Intel’s 2026 roadmap started with the main Panther Lake launch in January, which is expected to be followed up by the Arrow Lake Refresh desktop and high-end gaming laptop series launching sometime in mid 2026, followed by the Panther Lake handheld launch in the later half of the year.

There's also the recent Arrow Lake Refresh launch, and if Team Blue can stick both landings, this could be the series of wins the company desperately needs.

Neelalojanan himself certainly was enthusiastic for Intel’s 2026 lineup — particularly the headliner. “The three big things of Panther Lake is bringing that Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake performance all into one place or package… The next one is scalability and choice of price point, so it’s scaling in terms of multitudes of price points and the other one is, it’s available across 200 systems. It’s available right now, right? So we wanted to focus on those three things. Getting tangible battery life and performance, scalability, so everyone can enjoy it across price points. It’s available right now in multitudes of designs, which is three things not always done [by] our competitors when they put out products. Not to name names.”

• Rising RAM prices are becoming the biggest driver of notebook cost increases
• Processor price hikes are adding significant pressure to already-strained notebook supply chains
• AI infrastructure demand is quietly reducing chip availability for entry-level notebooks

Notebook prices may increase sharply during the coming quarters as memory and processor costs climb across the global supply chain.

New figures from TrendForce claim the combined effect of rising component prices could push retail notebook prices higher if manufacturers attempt to maintain current profit margins.

The report estimates that a mainstream notebook originally selling for around $900 could see price increases of up to 40% if both processor and memory costs continue to rise.

Memory price surge could change notebook prices

Under typical conditions, memory components such as RAM and SSD represent roughly a 15% share of a notebook’s bill of materials.

After several quarters of price increases, TrendForce claims the share may exceed 30% this year, and manufacturers may have to adjust accordingly.

This means that memory components alone could drive a large price increase because of tightening supply conditions affecting DRAM and NAND flash.

Processor costs are rising alongside memory prices, adding another layer of pressure to notebook manufacturing costs.

TrendForce's supply chain observations, Intel has already raised prices on certain entry level and older notebook processors by more than 15%.

Additional increases affecting mainstream and higher tier notebook platforms may follow during the next quarters.

Processors already account for one of the largest portions of a notebook’s bill of materials.

When both CPUs and RAM rise simultaneously, their combined share of system costs may increase from about 45% to nearly 58%.

These increases could translate into retail prices rising close to 40% if manufacturers and distributors maintain their current margin structures.

Supply volatility may worsen the situation, as demand for AI infrastructure drives manufacturing capacity toward high performance computing processors.

This leaves fewer resources available for lower tier notebook chips, and the shift is beginning to tighten supply for entry level notebook processors.

The effects of component cost increases will not be uniform across the industry. Large manufacturers with long term procurement agreements may secure better pricing and stable allocations from suppliers.

Smaller vendors may encounter greater cost pressure and shipment uncertainty as supply fluctuates.

Competition between processor vendors is also influencing supply conditions. Notebook manufacturers increasingly rely on both Intel and AMD platforms.

This dependence has gradually increased AMD’s share of the notebook processor market.

However, reports indicate shortages in certain entry level AMD platforms, suggesting tighter supply conditions across multiple processor ecosystems.

Rising component costs could affect a wide range of systems, including premium consumer notebooks and corporate business laptops.

Whether retail prices increase to the full extent projected by TrendForce will likely depend on how manufacturers absorb costs, negotiate supply contracts, and manage demand.

Via TechPowerUp

• Intel revealed new Arrow Lake Refresh processors
• They are the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus
• Both offer core count increases compared to their Arrow Lake predecessors — and a sizeable boost in gaming performance to the tune of 15%

Intel has released a pair of new desktop processors, which are refreshed models that are a step forward for the firm's current Arrow Lake range.

Tom's Hardware reports that these Arrow Lake Refresh chips are the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. These are pepped-up models of the existing Core Ultra 7 265K and Core Ultra 5 245K CPUs, respectively.

Intel's Robert Hallock, VP, Client Computing Group, General Manager, Enthusiast Channel Segment, boasts: "First, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Ultra 5 250K Plus are the fastest desktop gaming processors Intel has ever built. Second, they nearly double the content creation performance of our competitor. And, thirdly, they're arriving with exciting new technologies that revolutionize the setup and optimization roadmap for Intel gaming platforms. These chips are a value that's hard to beat."

That's some big talk, so what's new exactly with these CPUs?

Intel has beefed up the core count, so the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has eight performance cores plus 16 efficiency cores, which is an extra four efficiency cores compared to the 265K. The same treatment has been given to the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus with an extra four efficiency cores, meaning it now has 12 efficiency cores to go along with its six performance cores.

As for clock speeds, these remain essentially the same as their predecessors, save for minor changes — you do get 100MHz more boost with the 250K, but the 270K maintains the same 5.4GHz for the performance cores as seen with the 265K.

Intel has brought in performance boosts elsewhere, though, notably with an up to 900MHz increase in the die-to-die speed of these new processors. That means lower system latency and a boost for PC gaming, Intel observes.

There's also support for faster RAM — up to 7200 MT/s DDR5 (up from 6400 MT/s on current Arrow Lake chips) — which will help performance, and a new Intel Binary Optimization Tool or iBOT.

Intel explains that iBOT is "a first-of-its-kind optimization technology" which will "increase processor instructions per cycle (IPC) and user performance".

We're told that this tool can increase IPC in certain games — think of that as a different way of upping performance aside from clock frequency increases — and this holds even if the game has been optimized for a different platform (like a console).

The proof will be in the (independent) game benchmarks, of course, but Team Blue is already calling iBOT a "key aspect of Intel's long-term performance roadmap for enthusiasts".

In terms of the game benchmarks for launch, Intel's claiming 15% faster gaming performance for the 270K Plus versus the 265K based on the average frame rates over 38 games (at 1080p resolution, high details, with the iBOT tool enabled where supported).

The price of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor is $299, and the MSRP of the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is $199.

Analysis: a statement of intent from Intel

Intel has a lot of work to do to gain favor again in the world of PC enthusiasts and gamers, because Arrow Lake wasn't well-received by the gaming community, and before that, we had those nasty stability issues with 13th and 14th-gen CPUs (which weren't well-received by anyone). However, this Core Ultra 200S Plus refresh — albeit that it's a modest two-chip effort — is an important step towards rebuilding Intel's desktop reputation.

The gaming performance jump with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a sizeable one, with the extra cores, die-to-die speed boost, and complementing tech providing some serious extra power. When you consider those gains through the lens of the asking prices — which are actually lower than the old models these refreshes succeed — you've got a potent recipe for success, frankly.

Hallock's PR boasts aren't hollow by all accounts, and the refreshed Arrow Lake CPUs here have been a pleasant surprise for the gaming community and PC enthusiasts alike.

The only thing missing is a flagship refresh, with no 290K Plus model. That means the flagship 285K is in an odd position, seeing as the new 270K Plus is its equal in core count and almost matches the former's clocks (it's 100MHz shy in the boost stakes, but that's not a big deal at all).

More eyes, however, are likely to be on the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, because at $199, this looks like an excellent value proposition, and a much-needed breath of fresh air at a time when many PC components are getting depressingly expensive (RAM and storage, of course, and also GPUs).

• Intel extends Xeon 6 roadmap with 18A-based processors targeting AI in telecom networks
• 288-core Clearwater Forest reduces rack power and improves performance per watt
• Testing shows 38% lower runtime rack power versus comparable Sierra Forest systems

At MWC 2026, Intel introduced its upcoming Clearwater Forest Xeon 6+ processors, built on the 18A process and aimed at edge AI and early 6G infrastructure.

The update adds a higher density option to the Xeon 6 lineup for network and data center deployments.

Clearwater Forest, which was first previewed in October 2025, follows the current Xeon 6 generation and is expected to arrive by 2027.

AI in networks isn’t “CPU vs. GPU”

Intel is expanding Xeon 6 across radio access networks, or RAN, which connect devices like smartphones to the broader mobile network, as well as mobile core systems and edge sites.

The strategy keeps network functions, security workloads, enterprise services, and AI inference on standard server hardware.

Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, said: “AI in networks isn’t “CPU vs. GPU” — it’s right compute for the workload”.

The idea is that not every AI task inside a telecom network requires a separate accelerator. In many cases, inference can run directly on Xeon processors depending on performance and power constraints.

In the RAN, Xeon 6 SoC integrates Advanced Matrix Extensions and vRAN Boost, allowing inference workloads to run on the same server that handles virtualized network software. That can limit the need for extra hardware in certain deployments.

Rakuten Mobile is working with Intel to train and deploy AI models for low latency RAN workloads using Xeon 6 SoC. Vodafone has committed to adopting Xeon 6 SoCs for Open RAN and vRAN modernization projects across Europe.

Clearwater Forest, branded simply Xeon 6+, increases core density and shifts to Intel’s 18A process.

In testing by Ericsson, a single 288-core Xeon 6990E+ Clearwater Forest processor reduced runtime rack power by 38 percent, delivered more than 60 percent better performance per watt, and improved overall performance by 30 percent compared with a dual socket 288-core Xeon 6780E Sierra Forest system.

Higher core counts and lower power consumption sit at the center of Intel’s pitch as AI workloads expand inside telecom infrastructure and networks move closer to early 6G development.

• AMD reveals its Ryzen AI 400 series at MWC 2026 as the successor to the Ryzen 8000G range
• These chips have been refocused on AI, with an NPU that hits 50 TOPS
• It means a desktop PC will qualify for Windows 11's Copilot+ features

Over at MWC 2026 AMD has revealed new Ryzen AI processors designed to bring a powerful NPU – and Copilot+ (AI) features – to desktop PCs.

As TechSpot flagged up, the Ryzen AI 400 series (which comes alongside Pro variants for businesses) is built with Zen 5 CPU cores (as with Ryzen 9000), along with an RDNA 3.5 integrated GPU and an XDNA 2-powered NPU for accelerating on-device AI tasks.

The idea is to provide a relatively wallet-friendly all-in-one processor for more budget-oriented PCs which don't have a discrete graphics card, bringing in the ability to use AI features with an NPU that's rated at 50 TOPS. That's fast enough to qualify as a Copilot+ PC and to access Windows 11's AI trappings therein, such as Windows Studio Effects for improving video chats.

The flagship model is the Ryzen AI 7 450G, which offers eight cores (16 threads), 24MB of cache, and boosts up to 5.1GHz, packing Radeon 860M graphics. The latter is RDNA 3.5 and has eight Compute Units (CUs).

There are also Ryzen AI 5 chips, the 440G and 435G, which have six cores (12 threads) and boost up to 4.8GHz and 4.5GHz respectively (with 22MB and 14MB cache). They step down to a Radeon 840M integrated GPU with four CUs, but all chips have the full-fat NPU with (up to) 50 TOPS.

The TDP of these processors is 65W, but they also come in low-power versions (GE models) that only use 35W.

According to TechSpot, AMD (and other sources) have said that these Ryzen AI 400 desktop models won't be sold as boxed standalone products, at least not initially – they'll be for PC makers (OEMs) instead.

In other words, you'll likely only be able to buy prebuilt machines with these CPUs, with those PCs expected to debut in Q2 2026. However, later on, these chips should be available directly on retailer's shelves.

Analysis: It's all about that AI

As mentioned, these processors are targeted for budget builds with no GPU, or mini PCs, or indeed office computers (there are Ryzen AI Pro 400 versions as mentioned). If you're wondering where they fit in AMD's range of silicon, they're replacements for the old Ryzen 8000G offerings.

So, they could theoretically be Ryzen 9000G chips, but due to the new AI slant – and that much more powerful NPU for the desktop – AMD has rejigged the naming to reflect this.

These chips are mainly designed for efficiency (particularly the power-sipping GE variants) and the ability to run AI tasks swiftly, or indeed running (modest) LLMs (Large Language Models) locally.

That isn't an exciting prospect for many folks, though, and a good deal of the early online feedback very much reflects this. The Ryzen AI 7 450G flagship will make a decent enough effort at casual gaming, but there's been some disappointment around the chip's performance levels in that respect, too. Mainly because the integrated GPU has fewer CUs than its flagship Ryzen 8000G predecessor, and so isn't much of a step forward. (It's architecturally more advanced, of course, being built on RDNA 3.5, which means a refreshed RDNA 3).

Would you rather have had the extra chip space put into a powerful NPU so you can have Copilot+ offerings in Windows, or would you have rather had the effort put into a juicier integrated GPU for a machine that could handle a bit more gaming as well as office work?

We'll have to see how pricing shakes out with the prebuilt PCs that turn up with Ryzen AI 400 processors inside, but obviously the likes of Lenovo, HP and Dell are going to struggle keeping a lid on price tags with the RAM crisis still very much making life miserable for anyone looking at buying (or upgrading) a computer.

TechRadar is on the show floor for this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, Spain, and we’ll be covering the latest news from some of the biggest names in mobile, computing, fitness and more.

Who will be the lucky customer to grab this collector’s item from eBay? This Dell Poweredge R820 server sells for a mere $1,200 (less than 1,700 Australian Dollars), about one hundredth its original selling price, talk about depreciation!

Yes, it’s located in Canberra, yes, it is a refurbished, 13-year old antiquated dinosaur in tech terms. But where else can you get a relatively cheap and affordable computer with 1TB of RAM, yes RAM- albeit the DDR3L type.

There’s 32 memory modules, each with a 32GB capacity so that’s less than $40 per stick (and just over $1 per GB), manufactured by SK Hynix. The same registered ECC (HMT84GR7AMR4A-H9) memory costs almost $60 in the US.

1TB DDR5 memory would set you back more than 10 times this price! So you’re essentially getting the rest of the server for free.

Dell PowerEdge R820 deal

And what a system it is! This is a rare quad-CPU server; each processor has eight cores/16 threads. Granted, these are Intel Xeon E5-4640 types, a 95W CPU launched almost 14 years ago, with a single-thread performance that’s vastly inferior to the Intel N100.

However, there are four of them, making it a fantastic, dirt-cheap way of running virtual machines via Proxmox or ESXi.

There’s plenty of connectivity options as well: two Fibre Channel cards (16GbE?), two SPF+ ports (10GbE), two Ethernet ports (Gigabit), a standard serial port, VGA ports, an iDRAC management port, a SAS connector to connect to external storage, USB and even a SD card slot.

Storage-wise, you get a pair of 10K SAS HDD and a single 800GB Intel DC S3700 SSD, just a SATA drive, but still very capable. Oh, and don’t forget the DVD drive and the pair of 1100W redundant power supply units.

Just as a caveat, shipping that monster to anywhere in the world will cost a lot of money, it has no rack rail (you won’t be able to mount), and there’s obviously no warranty.

And do not underestimate the power consumption on this server; it will likely consume almost 1Kwh costing you more annually, at least in the UK, than the price of the server itself. Think of it as an electric heater that’s also a server. Madness!

Gemini also tells me that it was never designed to be quiet (after all, it lived all its life in a data center in Australia). When it boots up, expect to experience something akin to a Boeing 747 taking off from your workbench, probably complete with the vibrations.

Also consider

If you missed out on that deal, then consider this Cisco UCS B440 blade server with four Intel Xeon E7-4870, four 300GB Intel SATA SSDs and 1TB of DDR3 RAM for a mere AU$3,799 (about $2,700). Yes, it is also based in Australia for some odd reason.

For a bit more, and a US shipper, this Sun Oracle ZS-4 ZFS storage server has 64 (yes 64) 16GB DDR3 memory modules with a pair of 600GB HGST 10K SAS HDDs and a bunch of other components as well. It costs significantly more with a sticker price just over $3,000 but you can make an offer.

Our last candidate is UK-based. Eight HP Proliant s6500 4U racks are on sale with eight nodes in each. Each node has two CPUs and 128GB RAM, totalling 1TB of system memory (128 8GB modules). At around $3230, it’s quite a bargain if you know what you’re doing and the seller will take offers as well.

• New rumor suggests laptops with Nvidia's new CPUs could arrive in the first half of 2026
• These are the long-rumored N1 and N1X processors, which are Arm-based
• There'll be notebooks from Dell and Lenovo, plus other vendors, too

If you're wondering when laptops will start shipping with Nvidia's new Arm CPU inside, the latest rumor suggests the initial models will debut in the first half of this year.

A report from the Wall Street Journal (via VideoCardz) claims that Dell and Lenovo are working on laptops with Arm CPUs from Nvidia – built in collaboration with MediaTek – that "could come in the first half of this year".

That suggests an arrival in the next four months or so, and this info comes from sources in Nvidia's supply chain.

These are the long-rumored N1 and N1X CPUs, in case you were in any doubt. The report notes that the hope is that Nvidia's silicon can help to make notebooks both lighter and thinner, while maintaining a long battery life.

That, of course, fits the bill very well for an Arm chip, with these processors excelling at achieving new heights of battery longevity in thin-and-light laptops.

Dell and Lenovo are mentioned specifically, but the WSJ notes that other laptop manufacturers will be on board with Nvidia's Arm CPU, as you'd expect – though perhaps the first devices will be from the mentioned vendors.

Analysis: strong Arm tactics

While Arm has its strengths – as noted, certainly in power efficiency – these laptops have their weaknesses when running Windows 11, too. Namely, compatibility issues around some software and particularly games, though a lot of meaningful strides were taken in smoothing over gaming on an Arm notebook last year.

An Nvidia-powered Windows on Arm laptop could be pretty exciting, then, as a thin-and-light capable of coping with mainstream gaming relatively well with its integrated graphics. Because, naturally, the GPU is going to be one of Nvidia's strong points here, with previous rumors that the graphics core count could be up there with the RTX 5070. Although note that doesn't mean actual performance will be – we've got to be realistic around the scope with integrated graphics, given thermals and so forth.

There's also the issue of driver quality in Nvidia's favor, which is a shakier area for the Adreno GPUs in Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips (which will be Team Green's rival in the realm of Windows on Arm notebooks).

Regarding the rumored timing, there are concerns about the RAM crisis, which is making everything difficult in the PC world and extending to storage memory chips, too, and how that might interfere with Nvidia's launch plans.

Previous rumors suggested a Q1 2026 launch for these N1X laptops, but that never seemed all that likely, as Nvidia didn't even mention the devices at CES 2026 (and if they were close at hand, Team Green surely would have done).

I'm not sure about a launch in the first half of 2026, either, at this point. The WSJ seems rather tentative in its phrasing with the rumored timeframe, so it sounds far from certain. From a betting perspective, I'd give Q3 the same odds as Q2 here, given the current PC climate, but we shall see.

Furthermore, there are other notable questions here. What about the rumored desktop incarnation of Nvidia's new Arm CPU? And indeed, remember Nvidia's separate collaboration, away from MediaTek, in which the firm is providing integrated graphics for Intel CPUs (among other plans) – how does that fit with this Arm masterplan? 2026 is sure to be a revealing year for Nvidia, but I'm not convinced those revelations are anything like imminent yet.

Oh, AI expansion, is there nothing you can't ruin? It seems like there's always some drama in the world of modern generative AI, whether it's ChatGPT 5.2 ruining some functionality of previous versions, or Elon Musk's Grok merrily producing explicit content, or Microsoft ruining Windows with Copilot, or Microsoft ruining Windows some more with Copilot, or Microsoft ruining Windows even more with Copilot, or... well, you get the idea (and yes, those are three separate stories).

The latest AI chicanery to grind my gears is, unsurprisingly, the RAM crisis. AI datacenters require a lot of hardware, and we've been seeing the impacts of this new industry's growth for a while now, with GPU and SSD prices slowly creeping up, but the price of memory in particular has spiked aggressively since December, with 64GB of DDR5 RAM now costing more than a MacBook.

If you're a seasoned PC-builder like me — or you've simply been considering some piecemeal upgrades to an aging desktop system — you're probably in panic mode right now. The usual upgrade advice has been thrown out of the window; where once I would have consistently recommended more RAM or a bigger, newer SSD as small, simple upgrades to your PC, I now find myself admitting that buying a pre-built system might be a better idea.

Don't lose hope, though. There are still options; not everything has been completely annihilated by the rising demand for AI hardware, at least not yet. So if you're contemplating an upgrade to your desktop, this is my refresh advice, presented in descending order of priority. Let's get started!

Get a better GPU

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the way to get the most bang for your buck right now is probably by upgrading your graphics card. Yes, this still has potential to be a pricey upgrade, but it's going to produce a much greater performance boost than swapping in some new memory or a fresh CPU.

Based on the video card section of the latest Steam Hardware Survey, a not-insignificant portion of y'all are still rocking older cards like the RTX 2060 and GTX 1650. Without wanting to sound like some sort of wealthy purist, if you're still trying to play the latest games on a 20-series card or older, it's probably time to get yourself one of the latest and best graphics cards.

You don't need to shell out for an RTX 5090 to see a significant step up in gaming performance from your rig, though. Any RTX 4000- or 5000-series GPU from Nvidia will provide a good step up in performance from older budget GPUs, with the RTX 5060 Ti ideal for gaming at 1080p and 1440p.

Of course, the higher you go, the more of a boost you'll see, but be wary of bottlenecks; leaping from a 2060 to a 5080 will almost certainly also require an upgrade to your CPU, PSU, and most likely your motherboard too.

If you're on a tighter budget, Intel's offerings are surprisingly great nowadays. We scored the Intel Arc B5080 a rare five stars in our review, citing its incredible 1440p performance and competitive pricing, and also praised the Intel Arc B570 as a fantastically affordable 1080p gaming GPU.

Replace your monitor

Okay, this isn't technically a direct improvement to your system (and I promise I won't start calling a new keyboard a 'PC upgrade'), but there's no denying that a better monitor can significantly improve your gaming experience. And right now, upgrading your display can be surprisingly affordable.

The best monitor for your specific needs will vary, but if you shop the sales it's a lot easier to snap up a cut-price display right now than some discount RAM. In terms of sheer cost-effectiveness, a new monitor is definitely an upgrade that PC-builders should consider — not least because it's a very 'future-proof' upgrade.

Unlike the components inside your rig, your monitor is wholly independent and should never have issues with compatibility; even if your existing system isn't pushing the limits of your display, it'll still work great, and upgrading effectively eliminates future display bottlenecks caused when you do upgrade the rest of your setup.

In terms of what to actually get, a good rule of thumb is to bump things up by one standard resolution level. So if you're currently using a 1080p monitor, look for a 1440p one; if you're at 1440p, spring for 4K. It's also worth keeping an eye on refresh rate (120Hz should be plenty for everyone except serious esports gamers) and, of course, size. Bigger is better, and getting a larger display can improve immersion (and productivity, if you use your PC for work) without requiring an actual performance increase. If you regularly do creative work like digital art or photo editing, it's worth paying close attention to the color gamut and contrast ratio, too.

Upgrade your CPU (and perhaps more)

They're a bit more expensive than they used to be, but desktop CPUs haven't been as badly hit by the shifts in the PC hardware industry as most other components. You can still snap up a solid midrange chip for a good price; at the time of writing, Newegg has the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X for just $199.99, and you get a free AIO liquid cooler too.

With that in mind, the correct CPU upgrade for you won't be as simple as picking one of the best processors. If you're upgrading from an older CPU, it'll likely also mean upgrading your motherboard because you'll need a different chip socket. Thankfully, mobos also haven't seen the same sharp price hikes, but there's another problem: many newer motherboards require DDR5 memory (and the DDR4 DIMM socket is different, so there's no backwards compatibility with older RAM), and we're trying to avoid spending an arm and a leg on new RAM.

Thankfully, AMD hasn't completely abandoned the AM4 chipset yet, so you can find motherboards that will accept AM4 chips and DDR4 memory. AM4 CPUs themselves ended with the Ryzen 5000 series, which is admittedly a few years old now, but they're still very solid chips for gaming; you can pick up a 5800X or XT for only a couple hundred dollars or pounds right now, and that represents a very solid upgrade over any older AM4 Ryzen chip. Meanwhile, an AM4 motherboard that'll be compatible with your existing DDR4 memory shouldn't cost you more than a hundred dollars or the equivalent.

If you're rocking an Intel build, then a CPU upgrade is unfortunately liable to cost you a lot more in terms of extra components. While Intel's latest chips are quite competitively priced on an individual basis, Team Blue shifts chipsets more frequently than AMD (five new mainstream CPU sockets in the past decade vs two from AMD), meaning that you'll almost certainly need a new motherboard — and probably new RAM too — if you choose to upgrade.

...and all the rest

There are more options out there for PC builders aiming for piecemeal upgrades, of course. A new PSU is a solid (and still reasonably affordable) upgrade that won't boost your everyday performance but will provide more headroom for future upgrades, especially if your current power supply isn't ATX 3.0-compatible or newer.

Another upgrade that won't actually make your games run better, but which could be good for your system's long-term health is a new case. You can get a perfectly good case for a pretty reasonable price (since they've been largely unaffected by the current component shortages), and if you're like me and routinely forget to clean the dust out of your rig, you might be dealing with years of accumulated wear and tear that a simple air-dusting won't fix.

There are other, less critical upgrades that can be done cheaply, but there's a question of whether or not they're worthwhile or wise. New fans won't hurt, but if your case is super-old, a whole new chassis is probably a better shout, and most of those will come with fans anyway. A better cooler can also be a good idea (especially if you see CPU temp spikes in your existing system), but be wary of future incompatibility issues; if you decide to buy a new one, get one that comes with multi-bracket compatibility so you won't have to pony up for another new cooler if you change motherboards.

Lastly, there's storage. Again, this isn't likely to provide much in terms of an actual performance boost, unless you're still playing games off a tired old HDD — in which case, please at least buy a SATA SSD. High-speed M.2 SSDs are also rising in price (and game install sizes are getting bigger, too!), so my advice here is this: if you're sitting on less than 1TB of storage, snap up a new drive ASAP before the cost spirals even further out of control.

• Nova Lake flagship is rumored to hit 700W of power consumption
• That's a fleeting peak-wattage figure, though (and still just a rumor)
• The reality may be that the next-gen flagship is more of an enthusiast CPU than it has previously been – but that won't necessarily reflect on the lower tiers of Nova Lake

Intel's next-gen flagship desktop processor has been rumored to reach eye-opening levels of power consumption – although there's a lot to unpack here, and we shouldn't be panicking about CPUs eating monstrous amounts of wattage just yet.

First of all, the rumor itself – and it is just a rumor – comes from a regular hardware leaker on X, Kopitekimi7, as flagged by VideoCardz.

The top Nova Lake processor, which is rumored to have 52 cores (and is an unlocked 'K' model that can be overclocked, which is why the leaker refers to it as 'NVL-K'), apparently reaches a power consumption of over 700 Watts at "full-load".

I'll come back to exactly what that means in a moment, but obviously it's a huge figure, remembering that this is the power being piped to the CPU, and only that (not the full system load of wattage across all the PC's components, as somebody on X asked for a clarification about).

If you're wondering how the Nova Lake desktop flagship has 52 cores, it's because most of them are efficiency cores, or low-power (tiny) cores – there are 32 and four of these respectively, plus 16 performance (normal) cores.

This Core Ultra 9 flagship is supposedly a dual-chip model, meaning those cores are split across two chiplets – as already seen with AMD's top desktop CPUs – and Nova Lake has Big Last-Level Cache (bLLC) which is essentially Intel's equivalent to AMD's 3D V-Cache (X3D models).

Analysis: it's too early to start fretting about 'Supernova Lake' heat levels

Okay, so what's going on here, and what could it mean for the average PC buyer (or upgrader) when Nova Lake turns up? (These desktop chips might debut later this year, or possibly in 2027 – Intel hasn't confirmed exactly when, though we should get some silicon in 2026, but it could be the laptop variants for all we know).

The figure floated by Kopitekimi7 – which may or may not be accurate, it should be noted – is 700W under full load, which the leaker clarifies is with power limits removed. In other words, this is theoretically the absolute limit of power that can temporarily peak with the CPU (known as 'PL4'), which, crucially, is a momentary load, not a working level of wattage.

Of course, you still need a PC with a motherboard and power supply (plus CPU cooling) that can deal with such a fleeting surge. And on top of that, we can compare this to the PL4 of Intel's Raptor Lake flagship processor, which saw a peak of 314W – so this is a good deal more than double that.

In effect, this is a hint that Nova Lake could be more power-hungry than we expected. However, I wouldn't go leaping to conclusions yet, because we don't know if this leak is accurate. And even if it is, the rest of Nova Lake may not be built along those lines.

Remember, this is a dual-chip flagship with a lot of cores, and it's a processor that looks to be more in HEDT (high-end desktop) territory – a very expensive CPU aimed at enthusiasts who need a processor to do seriously heavyweight work.

The average consumer or gamer won't be looking at this Core Ultra 9 flagship, then – even less so than would normally be the case with an Intel flagship. They'll be much better served by the Core Ultra 7 model, which is rumored to be a single chiplet CPU, and that configuration may work better for gaming with the bLLC cache setup, too.

So, what this points to more than anything is an even more heavyweight, pricier flagship coming with Nova Lake. Away from that top-end CPU, it's possible Nova Lake could be more efficient in terms of power consumption, and in fact I'd bet on that. I don't think Intel is going to retread old ground – as seen with Raptor Lake (and its refresh), where power envelopes were pushed very (too) hard – with its brand-new Nova Lake desktop range built to try and take the initiative back from AMD's Ryzen silicon (following a string of desktop mishaps on Intel's part).

For high-end PCs, though, the Nova Lake flagship could be a handful for a power supply to deal with when paired with a power-hungry GPU like an Nvidia RTX 5090, for example.

• A Chinese manufacturer, Seaviv, has revealed a new all-in-one PC
• The AideaOne R27 is a premium-looking all-in-one like Apple's iMac, but with a big difference
• It's built around AMD's powerful Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, backed with an eye-opening amount of RAM

AMD's flagship Strix Halo chip is the powerful engine of a new all-in-one PC that's been revealed over in Asia.

As reported by VideoCardz, Chinese manufacturer Seaviv has unveiled the AideaOne R27 all-in-one PC, which is built around a 27-inch 4K screen and AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor (which has found a home in plenty of mini PCs and handhelds).

The hardware components are in the monitor's stand, a different approach to situating them behind the screen as with a typical all-in-one device.

The AideaOne R27 is a premium-looking PC and is listed at 21,999 yuan in China, which is around $3,170 in the US. That's a big step up from the Apple iMac M4 starting at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,999, but the R27 packs some seriously powerful components to justify the price.

Seaviv's all-in-one PC doesn't just have that beefy 16-core Ryzen chip, which incorporates a Radeon 8060S integrated GPU, but it's also packed with 128GB of RAM – which in itself costs a small fortune these days – as well as a 2TB SSD.

The RAM crisis has led to an unprecedented hike in prices for memory kits, so all in all, the $3,000 price tag is not that surprising. After all, this is an all-in-one PC that can tackle demanding tasks for productivity, and gaming with performance results similar to an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU.

It's a niche product, though, obviously enough – and not one the average consumer will be able to stomach the price of, certainly not in comparison to Apple's iMac.

Analysis: the OLED factor

There's a notable weak spot with the AideaOne R27, and it's not just the availability of the device outside of Asia (which we don't have any info on). This downside is that the all-in-one PC has a rather pedestrian screen in the form of a regular 60Hz IPS monitor.

That may seem like something of a mismatch given the rest of the high-powered spec, but it's likely a reflection of the intended usage – meaning productivity, and those working with AI locally (given that massive lump of RAM inside).

It'll do gaming, and facilitate creative work, sure, but an OLED screen – which are gradually becoming more affordable and common for PC monitors – would be much better for those types of usage.

OLED offers much better contrast and color accuracy than a regular LED, of course, while delivering a punchier, more immersive image. There's no backlight bleed with OLED, either, as the tech relies on individual self-lit pixels (which allows for a truly deep black level).

Maybe in the future, we'll see an all-in-one built around the powerful Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with an OLED screen to give Apple something to really think about. Price would, of course, remain a question mark over such an all-in-one, which definitely wouldn't come cheap.

I admire niche products, like this AideaOne R27 PC, which are trying to do something different, with its peppy hardware and the approach of building the components into the stand, rather than within the display.

• Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang teased new N1X and N1 SoCs for AI computers
• They’re the product of a collaboration with Mediatek
• Nvidia may eventually use them for handheld PCs based on recent advancements in handheld hardware

While Nvidia is a leading manufacturer of desktop and gaming laptop GPUs, it hasn’t yet produced a chip for a handheld PC, with the closest to it being Nvidia Shield and the Nintendo Switch 2 – but that could change very soon.

As reported by VideoCardz, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently discussed the N1X and N1 chips – the result of Nvidia’s system-on-a-chip collaboration with Mediatek – in remarks to local media in Taiwan, hinting that they could serve as a low-power and high-performance solution for computers with AI capabilities.

While the N1X and N1 have yet to be officially revealed, we know that they’re designed for AI PCs, and according to multiple rumors, they’re also expected to appear in high-performance gaming laptops, with potential RTX 5070 performance levels.

The new chips could place Nvidia in direct competition with AMD and Intel, with the latter recently announcing a dedicated handheld gaming platform within its new Panther Lake processor lineup. And while there’s no guarantee that Nvidia will use its upcoming N1X and N1 processors for handhelds, it's looking likely.

We've already seen AMD's Strix Halo Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU provide RTX 4060 levels of performance, with the chip employed to impressive effect in the GPD Win 5 and the upcoming Ayaneo Next 2, so it's not far-fetched to imagine that these high-performing Nvidia and Mediatek SoCs could be used for handheld gaming PCs.

It's no longer impossible to use such powerful hardware in handheld devices, but if Nvidia does decide to use the N1X in handhelds, performance would be the least of my concerns.

Analysis: an Nvidia-powered handheld would be super-expensive

It's important to note here that Nvidia hasn't suggested the N1X or N1 will be used for handhelds, but rather that the primary use case will be in AI PCs and laptops, so this is all speculation on my part.

In a world where we do see an Nvidia-powered handheld, particularly one that supposedly offers RTX 5070-tier performance with DLSS 4.5 available, I'd very much expect it to be a device with a premium price tag – and definitely upwards of prices for popular handhelds like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go 2.

The RTX 5070's performance in a portable device is already impressive enough, but DLSS in this hypothetical handheld has the potential to single-handedly do the heavy lifting and trump AMD and Intel's handhelds, which use FSR and XeSS, respectively. I can say that confidently after testing DLSS 4.5, which provides a significant improvement in image clarity over previous iterations.

I have some doubts about an Nvidia-powered handheld PC becoming a reality, as the new chips aren’t officially slated for such devices, and it would naturally require collaboration between Team Green and a manufacturer like Asus or Lenovo. But I’m hoping that it does happen – the handheld gaming space has been revitalized by devices like the successful Steam Deck, and there’s ample opportunity for Nvidia to capitalize on this fledgling market.

• Capcom released a new Monster Hunter Wilds patch to address performance issues
• The new patch significantly improves performance problems, reducing stutters during gameplay
• The patch has made the game more playable on handhelds like the Legion Go S

Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds (MHW) has been the subject of heavy criticism from gamers, specifically on PC, due to poor performance and optimization impacting all system configurations, but a major advancement has been made.

Thanks to a new performance patch, Monster Hunter Wilds now runs at more consistent and stable frame rates on both high and low-end PC configurations. The patch also comes with a new CPU options menu, allowing users to adjust settings such as game effects that are heavy on processors.

This comes after a Reddit user discovered a bug that has the game constantly making DLC checks, effectively leading to worse performance with frustrating stutters in hub areas and a lack of smoothness during intense gameplay sequences.

Now, with multiple fixes officially implemented by Capcom, the difference is clear, with a significant reduction in micro stutters. If the massive uplift to positive reviews on Steam isn't enough evidence for you, then perhaps my tests should do the trick.

Frame rates are stable, but don't expect a miraculous boost

I tested the new patch on my main gaming PC, equipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor, and 32GB of RAM (yes, I know I'm lucky), as well as on my Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme handheld.

First things first: if you're going back into MHW expecting a major boost in frame rate, you might be a little underwhelmed. While there will be a frame rate jump, especially if you were previously playing on a lower-end system, there's a bigger impact to take note of.

Instead, this update improves performance via much higher 1% lows, which are effectively the lowest possible frame rates your game is hitting, or in other words, your lowest frame rate 1% of the time. It's also massively decreased VRAM usage, ideal for 8GB GPUs.

On my main rig at 4K with maximum graphics settings, DLSS 4.5 Performance, and no Frame Generation enabled, I was able to maintain 60 fps the majority of the time during monster battles, with a few dips into the mid-50 fps range.

When playing at my usual ultrawide 3440x1440 resolution, I could get away with using DLSS 4.5 Quality, and manage 62 to 75 fps (and much higher in some regions), which is a huge accomplishment for this game without relying on frame gen.

Without the small performance loss (on an RTX 40 or 50 series GPU) from using DLSS 4.5, you could probably expect more frames in these scenarios, but what was most important was that the 1% lows were within the same range as the base frame rates – and that eliminates the stutters that previously plagued the game experience.

On my Legion Go S, using the low graphics preset at a 1200p resolution, with Intel XeSS or FSR 3 Balanced enabled, I managed 40 fps during exploration and combat, and around 30 fps in areas that were previously CPU-heavy (e.g., the Grand Hub).

Bear in mind, this wasn't previously possible on this Z1 Extreme configuration, as it was effectively unplayable due to consistent stuttering and frame rate drops, both of which aren't an issue after Capcom's patch.

Fortunately, enabling frame gen works as intended on both my beefy gaming PC and handheld, by doubling the frame rate without gameplay feeling choppy. With the new CPU options available, you can yield even better performance results by reducing the CPU load for more GPU utilization.

More work is needed, as I feel that frame rates could be a little higher in circumstances of using DLSS or FSR Performance upscaling methods. However, from where MHW's performance started at launch, this is a massive improvement, and fortunately, Capcom still has performance patches planned to make Monster Hunter Wilds run optimally.

• AMD Ryzen 9850X3D bundles have been spotted in China
• They bundle the new CPU with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a cooler
• This could be a way to give PC builders a break on the price of memory, and might be a plan AMD brings to other regions with any luck

AMD could have a plan to tackle the pain of component price hikes – most notably the rocketing cost of RAM – and that's to sell bundles with its imminent new Ryzen X3D CPU, or at least there's some evidence to indicate this in Asia.

Tom's Hardware highlighted a post on X from Uniko's Hardware which shows a bundle that AMD is reportedly launching in China, consisting of a processor plus cooler and system RAM.

What buyers get in this package is the new Ryzen 9850X3D CPU, which was recently revealed – and is about to go on sale, looking a great addition to AMD's gaming lineup – along with a Cooler Master cooler for this chip, and 32GB of V-Color memory (a pair of 16GB DDR5 sticks to be precise).

We don't have pricing yet, only a photo of this bundle as you can see in the post above. However, what's interesting here is that this appears to be an official collaboration between AMD and V-Color alongside Cooler Master, rather than a retailer simply throwing together its own bundle, hence the logos on the box.

There's another telling difference in that the motherboard isn't bundled here. Typically you'd get a CPU and memory plus motherboard in a bundle box, but here the latter is replaced by said cooler.

Analysis: a hopeful hint in a deeply pessimistic market

Presumably, the motherboard has been dispensed with to keep the cost down, as obviously a bundled cooler in its place will ensure an overall lower price (while still making sense as a partner for a high-end gaming CPU). And the main point of this bundle is, of course, to provide DDR5 RAM at a (relatively) palatable price alongside pushing AMD's new processor.

It is, of course, likely that the V-Color DDR5 RAM comprises of affordable 16GB memory sticks, so there'll be no high-end, speedy RAM here (as that would defeat the point of an affordable bundle). As observed by Uniko's, it's likely DDR5-4800 memory (meaning it runs at a speed of 4800MT/s, which is the slowest performance for DDR5).

As Tom's further notes, what's important in that regard is that AMD has been busy making it clear that the Ryzen 9850X3D doesn't need fast RAM. In fact, there's barely any difference in performance between DDR5-4800 and faster DDR5-6000 RAM with the 9850X3D, with a less than 1% difference in frame rates (across an average of 30 games – see the above slide courtesy of VideoCardz).

In other words, whatever DDR5 RAM you're using won't make any noticeable difference with the Ryzen 9850X3D. This is true of X3D processors in general, as their beefier cache (3D V-Cache which the naming convention 'X3D' refers to) means the CPU has to tap the system RAM less often, so the speed of that memory isn't such a factor in determining overall gaming performance.

This is all well and good, but will these bundles arrive outside of Asia? That's the key question here – this and exactly where AMD might pitch pricing. On the latter point, if the bundle isn't a considerable saving on the separate parts, there would hardly be much point.

As to whether the US, or Europe, or anywhere else will see Ryzen 9850X3D plus RAM bundles, we obviously don't know. But the fact that this is happening in China is certainly an indication AMD is mulling strategies to keep RAM pricing down for PC builders – given this is an official collaboration as noted – so I don't see any reason why that strategy might not apply to the wider global marketplace. Well, except for supply worries, naturally, but this is at least a hopeful hint that similar bundles could be in the works.

Meanwhile, standalone DDR5 RAM remains at ridiculous prices, even if it's discounted as we saw yesterday.

• AMD has announced that its Ryzen 9850X3D CPU will go on sale on January 29
• The new gaming chip is priced at $499 in the US
• That's a mild bump in cost of around 5% over its predecessor, with a 400MHz jump in boost speed making it a compelling new option

AMD has announced that its Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor – a chip that PC gamers are excited about as a step on from the 9800X3D –will be out in less than a week – and we've got a confirmed price.

VideoCardz reports that AMD's David McAfee, Corporate VP of the Client Channel Business, revealed on X that the "world's most advanced gaming processor just got faster" and that the Ryzen 9850X3D will retail at $499 in the US.

The CPU goes on sale on January 29, and pricing will be in line with that in other regions. To put that US price in perspective, it's just shy of a 5% increase on the MSRP that was pinned to the 9800X3D upon launch, and which is widely regarded as the current top gaming chip on the market.

The Ryzen 9850X3D offers an increase in boost speed to 5.6GHz, meaning it's 400MHz faster than its predecessor (which ran at 5.2GHz), which is a considerable bump. Other than that, though, it's the same spec as the 9800X3D.

Analysis: the price is right – assuming no stock woes or inflation

Some folks who have bought a Ryzen 9800X3D in the recent past may feel their noses have been put a bit out of joint. Especially considering that chip has held its value – it is still selling at close to MSRP – and the 9850X3D doesn't cost much more. At least not in theory, anyway, unless stock and availability issues inflate the price.

Ultimately, those who bought the 9800X3D have still got an excellent gaming CPU for their money, and the 9850X3D is essentially a higher-binned version (meaning a top-performing sample, capable of having the max boost speed pushed further, with no other changes in the spec elsewhere as noted). In fact, if you got lucky with your 9800X3D, it might even be close to the 9850X3D in gaming performance terms, anyway.

So, let go of any buyer's remorse, but that said, the Ryzen 9850X3D is a welcome option to have in terms of that faster boost. And with the price tag not being nearly as high as some rumors had us wondering about – some European retailers had pre-release pricing on their product listings as high as €700 (around $820, £600 or AU$1,200) – this is a great release for gamers who are after a fast CPU.

Although always bear in mind that the GPU is the more important part of the equation for gaming, and the processor only comes more to the forefront with certain games (or lower resolutions).

• Asus is investigating reports of issues with Ryzen 9800X3D CPUs
• These chips are failing in its 800-series motherboards, according to posts on Reddit
• This follows previous problems with the Ryzen 9800X3D in ASRock (and other) motherboards

Asus has issued a statement to acknowledge that it's investigating reports of problems where Ryzen 9800X3D CPUs are failing with its 800-series motherboards.

VideoCardz noticed the statement, which comes following a cluster of recent reports on Reddit detailing issues with these processors and Asus boards.

Asus informs us: "We are aware of recent reports concerning AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs and Asus AMD 800-series motherboards, and we have initiated an immediate internal review.

"Our teams are conducting preventive checks on product compatibility and performance, working closely with AMD to validate reported cases and ensure ongoing stability and quality. We are looking to provide timely solutions to ensure our products and services meet expected standards."

Obviously, it's good to hear that the worries here are being directly addressed. What's happening with these CPUs is that the reports (like this one on Reddit) indicate that they are dying and the system is failing to boot (naturally) with an error 'Q-Code 00'.

In the meantime, pending the results of the review, Asus advises those who own an 800-series motherboard to update to the latest BIOS to "help ensure system stability".

That goes for all motherboards, of course – the latest BIOS should provide the most reliable experience running your PC components (not just the CPU). Although don't confuse the 'latest BIOS' with any advance beta release – these aren't fully tested, and may cause more problems than they solve.

Stick to the latest full version, avoiding beta software, especially with something like the BIOS which is a sensitive area to be deploying technically still unfinished releases.

Analysis: a long-running saga

If all this sounds familiar, it's because there are long-running reports of problems with Ryzen 9800X3D processors falling over in this manner. In the past, these have been more of an issue with ASRock motherboards, although other brands have been hit – it's just there's a notable uptick right now with complaints around Asus boards.

Eventually, the problems with ASRock motherboards were put down to a "memory compatibility issue" with earlier BIOS versions, and that issue was fixed. Even so, after that fix, there have still been some 50 recorded cases of 9800X3D CPUs failing in the Reddit megathread about the problems with (mainly) ASRock boards. (A few of these past cases were Asus motherboards, too).

For some 9800X3D owners, the controversy continues to rage across social media posts, and there's some unhappiness (to say the least) about pinning down the root cause.

Although the truth is this could be a complex issue with multiple causes. And don't forget, the 9800X3D is the kind of gaming chip that's going to be tinkered with and overclocked – perhaps substantially by enthusiasts – which could certainly make these kinds of failures more likely to happen. (Other Ryzen 9000 chips have been affected by this problem, I should make clear, but it's mostly hitting the popular 9800X3D – perhaps partly due to its positioning with enthusiasts, as noted).

We can but hope that the investigation Asus is carrying out will shed some further light on the matter, especially seeing as there's a newcomer taking the baton from the 9800X3D now. This is the even faster, higher clocked, Ryzen 9850X3D, which AMD has just announced is coming out next week – with a more tempting price tag than expected.

• The Xbox app has been ported to Windows 11 PCs with Arm CPUs
• This is another stride forward to make gaming better on Arm laptops, following recent moves to bolster game compatibility
• Microsoft observes that: "Today, more than 85% of the Game Pass catalog is compatible with these PCs."

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox app is now out on Windows 11 PCs with Arm processors, meaning the likes of Copilot+ laptops built around Snapdragon X silicon.

In a blog post, Microsoft noted that: "Players can now download and enjoy a wide range of titles from the Xbox PC app game catalog on Arm-based Windows 11 PCs. Today, more than 85% of the Game Pass catalog is compatible with these PCs."

The firm also said it's working with developers to get more games supported on Arm, and that for those titles which can't be run on these Windows 11 devices, there's always another option – streaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The Xbox app offers a central hub for all your games, acting as a game launcher and tying in social aspects, as well as facilitating cloud gaming, as noted, alongside other neat tricks (such as cross-platform saves for your Xbox and PC).

Analysis: big things could happen for Windows on Arm in 2026

This is certainly a useful step forward for Windows gamers who have an Arm PC, and it's one of a few strides that Microsoft has taken in terms of making Snapdragon X laptops better on the gaming front.

That includes compatibility with quite a few more PC games, with the notable addition of titles that use AVX or AVX2 extensions, which Prism – Microsoft's emulation layer to run x86 (AMD and Intel) games on Arm processors – gained the ability to cope with in the October 2025 update for Windows 11.

On top of that, we saw Epic tune up Fortnite to run on Arm PCs, making the game's anti-cheat tool (EAC) compatible. That has long remained a stumbling block for gaming with an Arm processor. Hopefully, other game developers who use EAC to keep cheats at bay will follow suit. (This includes titles such as Elden Ring).

The porting of the Xbox app over to Arm PCs comes with some interesting timing, as we're about to see new Snapdragon X2 laptops introduced in the near future. On top of that, rumor has it that laptops packing Nvidia's N1X processor could debut in the next couple of months. It's another Arm chip and one that has some seriously powerful integrated graphics. Given that, 2026 could be a very promising year for Windows on Arm devices.

• Laptops packing Nvidia's N1X are set to arrive in Q1 2026, rumor claims
• That means these notebooks should debut in the next two months
• Further models are to follow in Q2 2026, and the next-gen N2 series should launch later in 2027

Nvidia's big consumer chips for PCs, the Arm-based N1 and N1X, could finally be about to arrive if a new rumor is correct.

A report from DigiTimes (hat tip to VideoCardz) claims that laptops with Nvidia's N1X chip inside will be launching in the first quarter of 2026. So, within the next two months.

These will target the consumer market, and three other variants will be on sale in Q2, we're told. Presumably, that includes the base N1 chip, which is less powerful, but still intended for producing 'high-end AI computing platforms' – the N1X is the more performant CPU which will be aimed at notebooks for professionals, the report observes.

There's still some confusion around the naming and where exactly the N1 and N1X will fit into the CPU landscape, with some guessing that the N1 will be a desktop chip, and the N1X a mobile (laptop) chip. However, DigiTimes makes it clear that both the N1 and N1X will appear in laptops (add your own seasoning, naturally). That doesn't mean that there couldn't be a desktop variant of one of these chips as well, though, and perhaps that's still planned.

Following the N1 series, the next-gen N2 silicon will take the baton for Nvidia in the third quarter of 2027, the report claims.

Obviously, be skeptical about that timeframe in particular, because even if Nvidia has plans for these N2 chips, this schedule may end up going awry (what with the silicon still being relatively early in development).

Analysis: a chip to worry AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and even Apple?

The rumor comes from supply chain sources, we're informed, and the delay of the N1 series – which was supposed to arrive late in 2025 as per the original speculation about Nvidia's Arm CPU – is due to Team Green fine-tuning these chips, and "Microsoft OS timelines", the report states.

The latter presumably refers to Windows 11 26H1, which is a new spin on the OS specifically for Snapdragon X2 chips – and seemingly Nvidia's N1 silicon, too, as that's Arm-based and a direct rival for Qualcomm's processors powering Windows 11 laptops. So, the launch of the N1 and N1X being put back to wait for this 26H1 update – which isn't being delivered to non-Arm Windows PCs (AMD and Intel) – makes sense.

Still, we must be cautious because, as already noted. I don't rank DigiTimes as one of the most reliable sources out there, but it can, on occasion, dig up useful and accurate rumors from the supply chain. The purported launch timing seems believable enough given what I've just outlined, and also we've heard rumors suggesting similar plans in the past – such as an Alienware laptop with an Nvidia CPU aiming for a Q1 2026 launch.

Those past rumors indicate why the N1X is a chip to get excited about, too, and why not just Qualcomm, but Intel and AMD (as well as Apple) might be very worried here. Remember that the grapevine reckons the N1X's integrated graphics are, in terms of raw core count, the equivalent of the RTX 5070 GPU. If you're expecting RTX 5070-level performance in a laptop, mind, think again – I've discussed why in the past (it's down to the power envelope and thermals, and also memory issues). But nonetheless, the N1X is still shaping up to be a highly performant chip for notebook gaming (or creative usage), make no mistake.

Back to the rumor from DigiTimes itself, and if you wanted to argue a case against this report, you might point out that this is a difficult climate to launch fresh laptop silicon, given the predictions of falling PC sales due to spiking prices of notebooks wrapped up in the current RAM (and storage) crisis. However, if Nvidia made the decision to wait, the trouble is how long would the company have to hang on? The RAM crisis isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future – potentially lasting through to 2028 – so Nvidia biding its time until this all blows over isn't an option realistically.

A better question is if these laptops are that close, why didn't Nvidia show off the N1X at CES 2026 recently? I haven't got an answer for that one, except that maybe Team Green wants to carry out a standalone launch that gives the spotlight entirely to this new Arm-based silicon to make a big splash for the entrance of these laptops.

• CISPA researchers uncover AMD CPU flaw “StackWarp” breaking confidential VM protections
• Vulnerability enables RCE, privilege escalation, and theft of private keys in Zen processors
• AMD released patch (CVE-2025-29943), rated low severity, requiring host-level access to exploit

A newly discovered vulnerability in AMD chips allows malicious actors to perform remote code execution (RCE) and privilege escalation in virtual machines.

Cybersecurity researchers from the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Germany detailed a vulnerability they named StackWarp, a hardware vulnerability in AMD CPUs that breaks the protections of confidential virtual machines, by manipulating how the processor tracks the stack, and letting a malicious insider or hypervisor change program flow or read sensitive data inside a protected VM.

As a result, malicious actors can recover private keys, and run code with high privileges, even though the VM’s memory was supposed to be secure.

Silver lining

StackWarp was said to impact AMD Zen processors, 1 through 5, with the researchers demonstrating the impact in multiple scenarios. In one instance, they were able to reconstruct an RSE-2048 private key, while in another - bypassed OpenSSH password authentication.

The silver lining in the report is the fact that the malicious actor first needs privileged control over the host server running the virtual machines. That means the vulnerability can be exploited by either malicious insiders, cloud providers, or highly sophisticated threat actors with prior access.

This significantly shrinks the number of potential attackers, but it still highlights how AMD’s SEV-SNP, designed to encrypt VM memory, can be weakened and compromised.

“These findings demonstrate that CVM execution integrity—the very defense SEV-SNP aims to offer—can be effectively broken: Confidential keys and passwords can be stolen, attackers can impersonate legitimate users or gain persistent control of the system, and isolation between guest VMs and the host or other VMs can no longer be relied upon,” it was said in the report.

AMD acknowledged the findings and has released a patch, which the bug now tracked as CVE-2025-29943 and was given a low severity score (3.2/10).

Via The Register

• AMD needed a solution to product failures
• NexGen produced some powerful equipment
• The company used a unique x86 architecture

NexGen was among the highest flying semiconductor US companies during a boom time in the 1980s.

Based out of Milpitas in California, the company gained a reputation for its rather unique implementation of the x86 architecture in its processors.

Notably, CPUs developed by NexGen run code on the chip’s internal RISC architecture as opposed to translating code that was then run on the CISC-based x86 architecture.

It was a design that set the company apart at the time and drew the attention of some major industry players in years to come. Better still, its flagship processor design paved the way for a revival at one of the industries biggest manufacturers.

Here’s everything you need to know about NexGen.

NexGen’s plan to challenge Intel

The company was founded in 1986 by Thampy Thomas, who’d previously co-founded Elxski, a California-based minicomputer manufacturer. NexGen was a fabless design house, relying on other companies for product, with chips produced by IBM’s Microelectronics division in Vermont.

NexGen had some big backers during the early days, most notably Compaq, ASCII, and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

It’s safe to say NexGen had Intel in the crosshairs. Its first design specifically targeted Intel’s 80286 (i386) processor line, but early production challenges meant it failed to launch a challenge.

With its second product line, the Nx587, NexGen aimed to mount a direct challenge against the Intel Pentium line. There was a big stumbling block here, however.

Other chips on the market competing with Intel, such as those from AMD and Cyrix, were pin-compatible with both the Pentium range and other Intel chips.

The Nx586 wasn't, and instead required its own custom-made motherboard and chipset. Regardless, the performance of the Nx586 was impressive. The Nx586-P80 CPU, for example, could go toe-to-toe with the Pentium range, clocking in at 75MHz.

It wasn’t exactly a hit, but did see some enterprise uptake, most notably from Compaq. Its performance did catch the eye of AMD, however, and the chip giant began circling the wagons.

AMD comes knocking

Shortly after NexGen went public in 1994, AMD came knocking with a significant offer. Sales of the chip giant’s K5 chip range had flopped amid sluggish performance and efficiency.

Eyeing up a solution to the problem, AMD acquired NexGen for $850 million in 1995 - and it quickly began working to integrate the firm’s designs into its own successor range.

AMD’s K6 range drew heavily from the Nx686 design and when launched in 1997 mounted a serious challenge to Intel's Pentium dominance. The microprocessor was specifically designed to integrate with existing desktop designs which used Pentium CPUs.

Moreover, it was a powerful bit of kit for the time. The initial version clocked in at speeds of up to 200MHz, with a 233MHz version launching later in the year.

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• Intel announced that there'll be a handheld gaming platform with the Panther Lake series
• Partnerships with MSI, Acer, GPD, and Microsoft mean a good few handhelds could be on the way
• These devices won't be here any time soon, but more details are expected later in 2026

Nothing much has been happening with handheld gaming PCs at CES 2026, but Intel has hinted at the potential for a raft of major new launches later in 2026.

As reported by Notebookcheck, Intel has promised that handhelds are coming which are built with its Panther Lake series of processors. This potentially includes partnerships with the likes of MSI, Acer, GPD, Microsoft, and Onexplayer, with further updates set to be revealed later this year.

With both Lenovo and Asus recently launching the Legion Go 2 and the ROG Xbox Ally X respectively, this leaves both of those manufacturers effectively out of the picture for a handheld refresh powered by these new Intel chips – new devices surely won't be coming for some time on those fronts.

Essentially, this leaves room open for one of the big players, namely MSI, to make a successor to the Claw AI+ handhelds that use Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V processor.

Based on Intel's performance claims for Panther Lake's Arc B390 integrated GPU, which is said to be 73% faster than AMD's Radeon 890M while running at a lower power usage, it's safe to say that Team Blue could give Team Red a run for its money in the handheld space here.

If it was built around a Panther Lake CPU, we could see a new MSI Claw device with significantly better performance than most of the current-gen mainstream handhelds. As Intel claims, this is supposed to be next-gen handheld gaming performance (see the graph above).

It also helps that XeSS 3 (supported by Panther Lake and older Xe integrated graphics) comes with the benefits of multi-frame generation, a technology that we've only seen Nvidia utilize for its RTX 5000 series GPUs (although it's also possible via Lossless Scaling on Steam).

More importantly, in the grand scheme of things, the battle between AMD and Intel in the handheld market is on.

Analysis: Intel is making a stronger name for itself in the gaming market

While AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU essentially provides gaming laptop-tier performance for the GPD Win 5 and other premium handhelds, Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V is still the most impressive chip overall for me.

It's the processor used in the MSI Claw AI+ handhelds, and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the best handheld I've used to date. Yes, the Claw's $899 price tag was a point of contention for me, but with Max+ 395 handhelds costing nearly $2,000, there's a clear winner in terms of value.

If Intel's generational performance leap claims are accurate, we'll be in for a far more powerful successor to the MSI Claw 8 AI+ with a Panther Lake chip as its engine. And Intel will further establish itself as more of a presence when it comes to hardware for gaming – especially since its upcoming Arc B770 discrete GPU has leaked, supposedly packed with 16GB of VRAM.

There's plenty to look forward to from both AMD and Intel, not only in the desktop GPU department, but also for SoCs and their powerful integrated graphics for handhelds. I'm pumped to see what happens in 2026.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 live news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything we've seen.

You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we’ll do our best to answer it.

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CES 2026 is well underway now, and the TechRadar team has been on the show floor – and in the many private briefing rooms dotted all over Las Vegas – to see what the most important, most innovative, and most fun gadgets coming your way in 2026 will be.

We've had our experts all over the big launches as well as the smaller stuff tucked away at the back of the halls, and we've chosen our 25 favorite products of the show. We're covering a wide gamut of consumer tech here, so make yourself a coffee and dig into what we loved, and why it stood out to us.

Want to watch along and see more of the tech we loved at CES? Check out the video below!

Best phone

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

• A phone that really turns into a tablet
• Impressive camera system, too
• Read more: I finally tried the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold and couldn't believe my eyes

We finally got to try Samsung's first double-folding phone (it may be called the TriFold, but there are two hinges…), and we called it a "remarkable feat of engineering that offers the potential of truly pocketable big-screen tablet productivity". When folded, it isn’t meaningfully thicker than regular phones, and it has a 6.5-inch screen… but then it becomes 10-inch tablet – so truly tablet-sized – in an instant when you fold its two sides out.

It's not just a one-trick pony, though – the TriFold has five cameras in total, to make sure it can deliver all the flexibility you want from a modern phone. There's Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy customized powerful processor, and a generous 5,600mAh battery. It's the clear stand-out among CES's phones this year.

Best earbuds

Shokz OpenFit Pro

• Shokz' first open earbuds with active 'noise reduction'
• Great fit and sound quality
• Read more: I’ve worn the all-new Shokz open earbuds for 4 days and the ‘noise reduction’ is so good, I forget they’re open-ear

The best open earbuds have become incredibly popular, but Shokz has making them for longer than most, and the new OpenFit Pro proves that it's good to be the veteran. Crucially, these are the company's first with active noise cancellation – even though Shokz doesn't want to call it that, because not having an in-ear seal means it's not quite as effective as what people think of for ANC. No, this is 'noise reduction'.

Well, we've tested them, and actually the noise reduction is as good as a lot of ANC earbuds. It's really effective, and paired with impressive sound and high levels of comfort, these are really impressive.

Best stereo speakers

Cambridge L/R Series

• 3 sizes of wireless stereo bookshelf speakers with huge power
• Dedicated bass drivers with passive radiators
• Read more: Cambridge has unveiled three active bookshelf speakers at CES and it’s not hard to see the KEF resemblance

British hi-fi company Cambridge launched its first wireless stereo speakers, and despite being modest in size, they are huge in sound. There are three sizes – the L/R X is the biggest, the L/R M is the medium, and the L/R S is the small – and it's amazing how much oomph they provide.

We heard the L/R X going hard, and the bass is enough to shake the room, despite not being that big. A big down-firing woofer and dual passive bass radiators get it to this point, delivering an amazingly full sound, with tons of detail and finesse to it as well. And they're great-looking, too.

Best Bluetooth speaker

Fender Audio Elie 6

• 3-way speaker system in a small body produces great sound
• Connections for guitars and mics, and great wireless options
• Read more: Fender just released new wireless headphones and Bluetooth speakers

Fender Audio launched two speakers and a pair of headphones at CES, and all are interesting in various ways, but during our ears-on time it was the Elie 6 that really impressed us. It's a pretty small unit, but it packs in a tweeter, full-range speaker and down-firing bass driver, meaning the sound is amazingly full and impactful – especially in stereo mode, with two units connected wirelessly.

They have interesting features, too – a combined XLR and 1/4-inch port for connecting a mic or guitar directly, and even two wireless buttons for a specific connectivity feature Fender is planning to work with wireless mics. We like the design too, with a solid carry handle.

Best headphones

TDM Neo

• Headphones that 'twist' to become a portable speaker
• 200-hour battery life in headphones mode

We love seeing something totally new at CES. The TDM Neo work like a regular pair of on-ear wireless headphones. You put them on, you enjoy some nice bassy music. But when you take them off, you can twist the flexible headband and connect the earcups together magnetically, to form a small round device. As soon as you do this, they start playing music out loud, as a Bluetooth speaker.

They have two sets of audio drivers to make this happen: one for headphones mode, and a more powerful set for speaker mode. And they're really thoughtfully designed – the headband hinges attach to each other when you twist, so you know you've done it correctly, but then they become a flat surface you can stand the speaker on.

If you prefer, you can also change the behavior so that when you twist, they pause instead of auto-switching to speaker mode. And because the speaker mode requires more power, they have huge batteries, and can deliver a colossal 200 hours of life in headphones mode.

Best toy

Lego Smart Play

• A classic Lego brick, now with sound and light magic
• All the tech is under the hood – no screens required

At first glance, Lego’s Smart Brick looks like a regular 2x4 Lego brick. Aside from a transparent top, you’d never know it’s any different. But bring a Smart Minifigure close, and that's where the magic starts to happen. If Darth Vader approaches, the Imperial March starts up. Move R2-D2 nearby and you’re greeted with frantic boops and flashes of blue light. Same goes for a Smart Tag to identify what the Lego build is – say, an X-Wing or Tie Fighter.

All of this is powered by a custom chip hidden inside the brick, along with sensors, a gyroscope, non-invasive microphones, and a sound synthesizer. Together, they let the Smart Brick understand what’s around it and respond with the right sounds and lighting effects, without adding a screen or changing the core Lego experience. For now, it’s limited to a handful of Star Wars sets, but it’s a smart, confident foundation – one that enhances play rather than distracting from it.

Best OLED TV

LG W6 Wallpaper TV

• LG's best OLED panel, in a super-thin 9.9mm body
• Uses a wireless connections box to keep it aesthetically pure
• Read more: LG announces new OLED TVs at CES

The LG W6 is a stunner in more ways than one. It uses LG's most advanced OLED panel – the new Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 also used in the LG G6 – but in a design that's just 9.9mm thick. It's also totally uniform, meaning it can be as invisible on the wall as pretty much any TV can be these days. In the image above, you can see how well it blends in using a photo of the wall behind it. To help this minimalism, it uses a wireless connections box that's capable of full-quality 4K HDR pictures, but without the tangle of cables running to the TV.

It looks like it'll be a fantastic TV, thanks to the panel and LG's latest-gen image processing, and should only cost a little more than the G6 does. That means you'll be getting something super-impressive and premium at a still-realistic price.

Best RGB TV

Samsung R95H

• Stunningly rich color and fantastic contrast
• Available in realistic sizes, and shown in an amazing 130-inch model
• Read more: Samsung's enormous micro-RGB TV is coming to smaller screen sizes, and it borrows one great feature from Samsung OLED TVs

CES has been dominated by RGB TVs this year. These are basically mini-LED TVs with a new more colorful backlight behind the pixels, meaning they offer a greater range of colors, and can be even brighter. Having seen them in action, our pick of the bunch is the Samsung R95H. It looks so lush and colorful, with impressively inky black tones, and Samsung's anti-reflective screen ensuring you can see everything, without distractions.

More than that, this is a TV available in realistic sizes – Samsung showed off 75-inch and 85-inch versions, but overall its RGB TVs will come in sizes starting from 55 inches – while still feeling cutting edge. However, for good measure, Samsung also showed an amazing 130-inch version of this TV.

Best Mini-LED TV

TCL X11L SQD MiniLED

• A twist on traditional QLED mini-LED TV tech
• Astoundingly bright, with 20,000 dimming zones
• Read more: TCL launches next-gen SQD mini-LED TV at CES – the ‘best TV in the market’ for 2026

TCL has put a fascinating twist on its flagship TV here. It uses more traditional mini-LED tech rather than RGB mini-LED – but only sort of. TCL is employing a single-color mini-LED backlight, but has applied a layer of 'Super Quantum Dots' (the SQD part) directly over the top, which filter the color before – rather than after – it reaches the LCD layer.

This means it kind of works like an RGB TV, but TCL says this approach means it can pack in way more LEDs. It can produce 10,000 nits of brightness and 20,000 dimming zones for probably the best contrast we've ever seen from a mini-LED TV. Based on early impressions, this is the closest we've seen to mini-LED beating the blooming problem completely.

Best projector

Hisense PX4-Pro

• Ultra short throw laser 4K projector with amazing brightness and color
• Up to 200 inches projected with the device just inches from the wall
• Read more: Hisense unveils two 4K laser projectors — a 300-inch beast with huge brightness, plus the sequel to the best ultra short throw projector

The PX4-Pro is the follow-up to the projector we rate as the best ultra short throw projector overall right now, so we were excited to take a look, and it lived up to our expectations. Its picture looks beautifully bright with a good light-rejecting screen – closer than ever to TV brightness – and eye-grabbingly rich color.

But it can now project up to 200 inches in size still from right near the wall, while maintaining immersive brightness and color depth, and all still in the same size of projector package. CES is full of projectors this year, but this one popped for us.

Best soundbar

LG Sound Suite H7

• The world's first Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar
• A powerful all-in-one, and you can add more speakers in any position
• Read more: LG’s 2026 TVs and soundbars get the Dolby Atmos FlexConnect treatment

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect is a really interesting technology that means you can place home theater speakers wherever is convenient for your room, and the system will configure their sound to create immersive spatial audio, even if they're not in the 'ideal' spot.

LG's Sound Suite H7 is the first soundbar to include the tech, delivering 9.1.6 channels of Dolby Atmos sound on its own. However, you can add a sub and satellite speakers that are positioned anywhere in the room, and the soundbar will automatically optimize them and create the ideal immersive system. It sounds amazing, and the freedom of placement is a game-changer.

Best smartwatch

Pebble Round 2

• The original smartwatch returns!
• E-paper screen means a week of battery life
• Read more: Pebble unveils Pebble Round 2 — and fixes all the original's major pitfalls

Pebble holds a strong place in the heart of tech lovers – it was the first smartwatch that really took, and now it's back with its coolest model yet. Pebble Round 2 is a sleeker, rounder watch, and using a color e-paper helps it deliver a week of battery life per charge.

Naturally, it does some fitness and sleep tracking, and there's a big range of apps and watch faces, thanks to the ongoing commitment to having open source software on the Pebble range.

Best fitness tracker

Noise Luna Band

• A screenless health-tracking band
• No subscription needed – a rarity these days

We've enjoyed the Luna Ring models, and now the brand has the Luna Band. It's a Whoop-like fitness tracker, meaning there's no distracting screen. It doesn't really feel like tech, and that's a good thing – you just live your life, and the Luna Band will offer helpful updates on your diet, workouts, sleep, mood and more. You can use your voice to tell it what meal you ate, to log your workouts, or how you're feeling – and then you can review them later on the app. The one downside is that this function uses Apple's Siri, which means it's iPhone-only for now.

Perhaps the best part is that it doesn't require a subscription on top of the device cost to do all this – people are tired of being nickel-and-dimed, and so the Luna Band looks like it'll help you stay zen in more ways than one.

Best exercise tech

Merach W60 Walking Pad

• "Treadmill-grade engineering" for a low price
• Auto-incline or manual incline options

Walking pads are getting more and more popular, especially for people who work from home and want to get some exercise in during the work day. Merach's new model promises to help you do this more easily and reliably than ever. We love the promise of "treadmill-grade engineering" for a super-sturdy feel, and Merach says it will have a 2,000km warranty.

It's available in two options: one with an auto-incline feature, and one where you'll have to manually set an incline. There's also RGB lighting and Bluetooth speakers built in, if you want to set a mood. Starting from just $299 for the manual version and $329 for the auto-incline version, this really looks like it could be the new standout walking pad on the market.

Best wellness innovation

Nuralogix Longevity Mirror

• A smart mirror that can detect blood flow in your face to give health insights
• Everything from physiological age to mental health

This smart mirror has cameras built in that combine with an AI algorithm to work out a surprising amount of health data just from your face. It's not looking at your features – it's detecting blood-flow patterns, which it can make a variety of sophisticated estimations from.

These include your heart-rate, your physiological age (as in, is your body working as well as it should for your 'real' age?) and your mental health. It appears to be pretty accurate based on early testing – it seems like an incredibly clever system.

Best laptop

Dell XPS 14

• Smart new design with usability improvements
• Intel's new Core Ultra 3 chips inside
• Read more: Hands on: Dell XPS 14 2026 and XPS 16 2026

Without question, the most exciting laptop of CES 2026 was the Dell XPS 14. While many a reviewer and tech journalist is praising the return of the XPS brand itself, what matters most – in our opinion – is the redesign of the laptop. The last Dell XPS 14 and 2025's Dell 14 Premium (the short-lived successor to the XPS 14) were both fantastic laptops that were hamstrung by some major design flaws; namely, the virtual function keys and ‘invisible’ trackpad that turned out to be an accessibility nightmare.

Those have now been fixed with a new design that is also thinner and more modern-looking than its predecessors. And with the new Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips, it’s even more powerful and better equipped to take on the Apple MacBook Air for the 'thin and light' laptop crown.

Best gaming laptop

Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable

• A 16-inch display that expands to a 24-inch display
• The flexible OLED screen literally rolls out like a scroll
• Read more: Lenovo officially unveils the rumored Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop with expanding screen

The Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable, previously rumored but officially unveiled at CES 2026, is easily one of the most intriguing gaming laptops we’ve ever seen. Its screen expands horizontally from a 16-inch display to 21.5 inches, then once more to a 23.8-inch panel at max extension – all from a quick keyboard shortcut.

The Legion Pro Rollable is an exciting prospect for PC gamers who travel often and want desk-like levels of screen space without attempting to cram a massive laptop into their bag. Gaming aside, it also brings benefits to everyday browsing and productivity, giving you more space to organize windows at the click of a button. It’s only a proof of concept at the moment, but we'll be following it closely to see if the Legion Pro Rollable hits mainstream production.

Best computing innovation

Core Ultra series 3

• Excellent performance in thin-and-light laptops
• Particularly impressive GPU means great gaming on ultrabooks
• Read more: The Intel Core Ultra series 3 processors look impressive enough, but the Arc B390 iGPU is the real game-changer here

We’ve been waiting for the Intel Core Ultra series 3 for several months now, having seen pre-launch builds of Intel Panther Lake last year. Now the Core Ultra series 3 has launched, every laptop we’ve tried with the new chips just reinforces how well Intel has stuck the landing on this release.

This is especially true when it comes to the graphics performance of the higher-end 12 Xe core Arc B390 iGPU, which delivers high-quality 1080p PC gaming on an ultrabook – no other chipmaker even comes close in 2026. If you’re looking to upgrade to a premium thin and light Windows laptop, there’s little reason to buy anything other than a laptop with an Intel Core Ultra series 3.

Best action camera

Dreame Leaptic Cube

• Tiny modular 8K action camera
• Clip to a screen module, or just a battery

Dreame is best known for its vacuum and cleaning tech, but it used CES 2026 to announce its entry into a ton of other product categories. And one of the coolest things we saw at the show was this tiny action camera. The core here is a really small action cam with up to 8K recording, or 4K in HDR if you prefer.

But the clever part is its modular design. It has a little docking system, and Dreame showed it running into two modes: one with a clip-on battery, keeping the whole thing at a small size; and one with a touchscreen module that's larger. You can imagine all the possibilities for accessories from here, all enabling smart extra functions, not just attaching dumbly.

Best gaming accessory

Razer Project Madison

• The ultimate immersive gaming chair
• Surround speakers, haptic feedback and RGB lights all react to games

Razer has decided to throw every kind of immersive gaming chair tech into one product here. This chair uses sight, sound and touch to create something totally enveloping, taking features from Razer's products including the Freyja haptic gaming cushion and Clio headrest speakers.

This chair has speakers behind your head, which combine with front speakers to create a true 5.1 or 7.1 surround system. It has lights that react to compatible games, creating the feeling that events are happening around you, not just on the screen. And the built-in haptics deliver sensations and impacts during play. It looks like the best way to get truly lost in a game.

Best gaming innovation

Neurable / HyperX headset concept and priming software

• A brain-reading gaming headset to improve your performance
• Helps you lower reaction times and improve accuracy
• Read more: I tried a prototype brain-scanning headset designed to make you better at Valorant — and it actually works

Brain-scanning company Neurable has worked on headphones that can scan your brain activity using EEGs to help you focus and prevent burnout in the past. Now it's bringing these ideas to gaming headsets, in a collaboration with HyperX – but the focus is on improving your focus and performance in games.

We tried it out, and it really makes a difference. Using a 'priming' exercise before playing, where you have to focus your mind to shrink a cloud of dots down to nothing, we improved accuracy by a few percentage points, and the company's research has shown it can reduce reaction time by around 40 milliseconds. For esports players, this is a big deal, and the software can track your focus and cognitive load levels while playing, to potentially help with coaching and to prevent tilting.

Best robot mower

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD

• Offers ±1 cm positioning precision via an upgraded LiDAR, RTK and Vision navigation system
• Can make decisions almost instantly with a 10 TOPS AI chip
• Read more: I just watched Mammotion's new flagship lawnbot scale an astroturf mountain, and it was mesmerizing

There were a lot of incredible robot lawn mowers on show at CES this year, but the one that really stood out to us was the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD. It builds on the success of the excellent LUBA 2 AWD that precedes it, and is one of the most all-round capable lawnbots we've seen.

At the heart of the design is an upgraded 'Tri-Fusion' navigation system, where the bot will switch between LiDAR, RTK GPS and AI Vision depending on what's most appropriate for the situation. That means it's unlikely ever to get itself lost – the brand promises positioning accuracy to ±1 cm. Mammotion has also upgraded the processing system with a powerful AI chip that can handle 10 trillion operations per second, meaning it can make smart mowing decisions almost instantly.

Best robot vacuum

Roborock Saros Rover

• It's a robovac with actual, proper legs
• It can climb stairs, duck and dive, and even hop
• Read more: I saw Roborock's new robot vacuum with legs, and it promises to make no-go zones a thing of the past

This one is still in the middle of development, but is so cool already – and, admittedly, a little weird. This robot vacuum uses two extended legs that make it look like a Star Wars droid to get around your house more easily. Having articulated legs means it can climb stairs – including spiral staircases – cleaning them as it goes.

In fact, stairs are just the start. Roborock says the Rover is designed to be able to tackle any kind of terrain or home layout, no matter how awkward. Think of it like a 4x4 for cleaning.

It has some fancy object avoidance tech that means it can duck and dive, weave and jump, remaining completely stable throughout. We're not sure exactly what this is for, but it sure is impressive to watch. This maybe the most that a robovac has looked like a pet – it's got personality, it's useful, and we love it.

Best haircare tech

L'Oréal Light Straight +

• A straightener that uses infrared light tech to straighten effectively at lower temperatures
• Avoids the high temperatures that damage hair
• Read more: L'Oréal exec on why its new glass, infrared-powered hair straightener is so exciting

This innovative hair straightener promises to be three times faster at straightening hair, and yet will leave hair twice as smooth as regular plate straighteners do. And at the same time, it can do this at a lower temperature – always under 320°F / 160°C, compared to 365°F / 185°C for typical models. High temperatures break down hair, so reduction is a long-term good for your hair's health.

We got to try them out on – and this has been the first time we've ever used this phrase – human demo hair, and they certainly seemed to work incredibly well. This could be a huge change for a long-running industry, and that's what CES is all about.

Best smart light

IKEA Varmblixt LED Lamp

• It's a glowing, color-changing donut
• Works with IKEA's smart hub, or a Matter home system
• Read more: IKEA just revealed a new donut-shaped smart light – and it'll look sweet on your tables or walls

Sometimes, you've just got acknowledge when something is charming as hell, and that's what we're talking about with the new IKEA Varmblixt. It's a revamp of an ultra-popular lamp IKEA launched in 2022, but this new version is all about the color options, using an array of LEDs to create a beautiful soft toroidal glow.

It can be controlled with a remote, or you can connect it to IKEA's Dirigea home hub, but it also works with any Matter-ready smart home control option.

I've been testing and reviewing laptops for more than half a decade now here at TechRadar, and I've said in more ultrabook reviews than I could count that gaming isn't a consideration. So much so that we don't even really do official gaming benchmarks on iGPUs for our reviews because there really wasn't any point.

This year, however, I'm going to have to completely overhaul our entire laptop testing process because of a single iGPU: the Intel Arc B390.

I got to play around with the Intel Core Ultra series 3 processors last Summer, back when they were known as Intel Panther Lake, and I came away very impressed by the performance of the 12 Xe core iGPU.

I still wasn't prepared, however, for what Intel has been cooking up in its fabs, and now that the Arc B390 is official as of this week, I've had a chance to give its gaming performance a closer look - and I love what I see.

High FPS 1080p gaming without a discrete GPU is now a reality

When I first played Painkiller 3 on Intel Panther Lake back in 2025, the controls were smooth, and the visuals looked fantastic for a game playing on a thin and light laptop. But this was just one game, and it was a game built and optimized for fast-paced first-person combat, so it wasn't the most visually demanding of games I could have played.

Here at CES 2026, however, Intel let me test out more resource-intensive games like Dying Light: The Beast and Battlefield 6, and without question, the Arc B390 iGPU in the Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips has the juice.

With base rendered framerates of 45-50 fps for Battlefield 6 and 60-70 fps for Dying Light: The Beast in my time with the two games (running at 1080p on High Quality settings without RT, and Intel XeSS 3 set to Balanced), the raw performance of the iGPU is unmatched for a thin and light laptop.

Add in 4x MFG, and I was seeing 160-170 fps in Dying Light: The Beast and as high as 205 fps in Battlefield 6. And with such high rendered framerates to work from, perceived latency was effectively non-existent in most of the games I tried.

The outlier was Marvel Rivals, unfortunately, at least at the high-quality settings that the demo I played was using. But if you were willing to make a couple of graphics sacrifices (or you're not a serious esports player in ranked matches and you're just looking to have fun), the performance on offer provides a great experience for most people.

What's more, games that already support Intel XeSS 2 can be made to support Intel XeSS 3 with MFG through the Intel Graphics app override, so a lot of games will be able to support the kinds of triple-digit framerates out of the gate, with more to come in the weeks and months ahead.

The Intel Arc B390 alone makes the Intel Core Ultra series 3 the laptop and mainstream desktop chip to beat in 2026

Having seen the AMD Radeon 890M, Apple M5, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite in practice, an Intel Core Ultra series 3 with B390 iGPU is going to be the chip I recommend to anyone looking to buy a new laptop, mini PC, or AIO PC in 2026, purely on the power of the Arc B390.

I haven't seen the GPU performance on the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite or Elite Extreme chips yet, so I'll reserve a definitive judgment on those chips until I do.

But unless Qualcomm has cooked up the computing surprise of the century and hasn't bragged about it to anyone yet, I expect those chips to seriously improve on the Snapdragon X Elite's GPU performance but still fall well short of consideration here, given how the previous-gen flagship chip's GPU starts off being a complete non-factor when it comes to gaming. I expect the X2 Elite Extreme to be competitive with Apple's M5 or a lower-tier Radeon 800-series iGPU, but that's about it.

All that said, it's important to note that the Arc B390 is the 12 Xe core iGPU for the Core Ultra series 3, so the 8 Xe core iGPU—which hasn't been named yet, but I can guess will likely be the Arc B370, given it would be the follow up to the Arc A370M from the last generation—is still something of a mystery and so I can't speak to how that iGPU stacks up against its rivals yet. As such, the lower-end Core Ultra 5 300-series chips might not be all that much better than their AMD, Apple, and Qualcomm counterparts. Time will tell.

But for the Arc B390, there's nothing I've seen from any of Intel's competition that comes close to its gaming performance in a thin and light form factor. It's simply astounding that I'm able to play some of these games at frame rates this high and have them look this good on a laptop or mini PC so small.

The Arc B390 won't ever be able to replace the best gaming laptops on the market with modern discrete GPUs, but for the first time, high-quality PC gaming in full HD on a tiny 14-inch ultrabook isn't just possible, it's a reality with the B390 iGPU, and it honestly makes it hard to justify buying a premium thin and light laptop without one in 2026.

AMD’s next-generation desktop processors still don’t have a confirmed launch date, but Team Red isn’t done with this generation just yet, unveiling the Ryzen 7 9850X3D at CES 2026 along with a host of other chips.

Starting with the 9850X3D, it is essentially a faster version of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, featuring the same number of cores, the same cache and TDP, but with an extra 400MHz max frequency. That might not sound like a whole lot, but the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is arguably the best gaming processor ever released, so making it even faster is going to garner a lot of interest.

I will say, though, that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is going to be largely overshadowed by the other major CES announcement from AMD, specifically the Ryzen AI 400 series laptop processors. As Team Red’s answer to the new Intel Core Ultra 300 series processors announced last year, these chips are looking to take some of the wind out of Intel's sails to start off the year.

The AMD Ryzen AI 400 series is here to bring the fight to Intel Panther Lake

With a lot of anticipation around the new Intel Core Ultra 300 series, AMD is picking the right time to launch its new lineup of mobile chips.

At the top of the stack, you have the Ryzen AI 9 HX 475, a 12-core/24-thread chip with a boost clock of 5.2GHz, up to 54W cTDP, 36MB of cache, and a 60 TOPS NPU, which AMD notes is the most powerful x86 NPU you can get. Rounding it out is a Radeon 890M iGPU with 16 compute units and a GPU boost clock of 3.1GHz.

The next step down is the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, which looks almost identical to the HX 475 except for a slightly slower NPU with 55 TOPS. The rest of the stack fills out as expected, as you can see below.

I can’t say much about the performance claims AMD is making for these processors in their presentations and press materials, such as the purported 71% faster average performance in content creation or the 29% faster average multitasking performance for the HX 470 versus the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V.

It’s a bit of an odd comparison, since the 288V is an Intel Lunar Lake chip meant for thin and light laptops, as opposed to the more powerful Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX, which is really the more appropriate comparison here, since these are the chips you’d find in gaming and creator laptops.

Will that make all that much difference in the end? We'll see once we get them all in for testing in the coming months, as the numbers will ultimately tell the tale.

AMD's new chips offer more than just added AI noise in 2026

As expected, the new lineup of AMD processors at CES 2026 leans heavily into the current AI ‘environment’ and for a lot of PC enthusiasts and gamers out there hoping for more, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D might not be enough to fully satisfy consumers.

However, the mobile landscape certainly looks much more competitive for Intel as laptop makers get ready to launch Intel Panther Lake-powered laptops over the next few months, and there’s a lot to be excited about if you’re looking to upgrade your laptop in 2026.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from wireless TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.

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Intel launched its highly anticipated Panther Lake mobile processors today at CES 2026 as the Intel Core Ultra Series 3. The new chips will be shipping out with laptops starting this week.

Jim Johnson, Intel's Senior VP and General Manager for Intel's Client Computing Group, said at the company's CES press conference that Intel 18A is the center of the company's effort to reestablish its leadership position in the semiconductor industry.

The major rearchitecting of the SoC promises better power efficiency, better performance, and lower power overall.

Intel says its most excited about the new integrated GPU in the Intel Core Ultra Series 3, with the 12 Xe3 core GPU branded as the Intel Arc B390.

Importantly, this new GPU will be the first integrated GPU to feature multiframe generation through Intel XeSS 3. Intel says this will allow a game like Battlefield 6 run at 147 fps at 1080p on its highest graphics settings (Overkill settings).

Intel also revealed that it is developing an entire PC gaming handheld platform around Intel Core Ultra Series 3 that its partners like MSI, Acer, and others can use to develop their own products.

This is a major challenge to AMD's APU dominance for handhelds with its AMD Ryzen Z-series chips. Details on this framework are a bit light at the moment, but I can assume we're going to hear a lot more about this in the weeks and months ahead.

As for AI, Intel promises that its deep collaboration with its software ISVs, including Microsoft, will give Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips a definitive advantage over AMD and Qualcomm for on-device AI applications.

What those applications will be remains to be seen, but if AI really is the future of computing, Intel feels very confident that it is best positioned for it.

• Intel places seven CPUs in PassMark's top ten price performance rankings
• AMD leads only through discounted Ryzen 5 clearance entries
• Value favors Intel across widely available desktop CPUs

Intel dominates the top end of PassMark’s price performance rankings in a way that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago. Looking at the current leaderboard, Intel places seven CPUs in the top ten when performance is measured against price.

AMD does hold the top two spots, but don't be fooled. One comes from an entry-level Ryzen 5 benefiting from clearance pricing, while the other is an EPYC part listed at prices that are likely drawn from second-hand or refurbished markets rather than new retail.

The Ryzen 5’s position reflects its low price rather than performance that rivals AMD’s newer midrange or high-end desktop CPUs.

Intel favored across a wide spread of price points

Intel’s representation across the top ten is more consistent, with a mix of Core Ultra and older Core processors clustered closely in price efficiency without relying on clearance-level discounts.

That creates a leaderboard where Intel performs well across a wide range of price points rather than via a few isolated bargains.

Further down the table, AMD’s higher core count desktop CPUs fall behind in price performance, as their stronger raw scores don’t translate into better value once pricing is factored in.

Outside of the discounted entries near the top, much of AMD’s mainstream desktop lineup trails Intel on performance per dollar.

This matters because PassMark's chart blends current retail CPUs with clearance-priced and non-standard listings, meaning not every high-ranking position reflects what buyers will see when shopping for new parts.

Even so, the overall pattern remains clear, with Intel filling most of the highest value positions using CPUs that are current and widely available.

AMD’s strongest value showing comes from older or discounted products rather than its latest releases, which limits how broadly those results apply to new system builds.

For buyers focused on performance per dollar, PassMark’s data points toward Intel offering more predictable value across its lineup.

AMD still competes at the very top and in specific discounted cases, but the balance of everyday value now leans heavily in Team Blue’s favor.

• Intel’s flagship undercuts AMD while delivering similar overall desktop performance
• AMD charges much more for only modest gains at the very top end
• Power efficiency and pricing now define flagship CPU value

I’ve already written about Intel offering buyers better value at the low end of the desktop CPU market, asking whether the iconic chip maker is becoming the new AMD. That question feels even more relevant given that the same pattern is also noticeable when looking at top tier processors.

Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K is Team Blue's fastest desktop chip and currently sells for $519 on Amazon (discounted from $599). AMD’s competing Ryzen 9 9950X3D, positioned as a premium gaming and content creation processor, costs roughly $676 there.

Despite that price difference, benchmark results show the performance gap between the two CPUs remains relatively narrow.

Single-thread performance favors Intel

Before we go on, I should note the following comparison looks only at mainstream desktop CPUs. It doesn't include high-end desktop or server platforms such as Threadripper Pro or Xeon and EPYC processors, which target very different workloads and price ranges.

Looking at aggregate CPU benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D leads with a CPU Mark score of around 70,155.

The Core Ultra 9 285K follows closely at about 67,427, leaving AMD ahead by a single digit percentage.

The hardware configurations explain some of the difference, but certainly not all of it.

AMD’s chip offers 16 cores and 32 threads with a 170W rating, while Intel’s processor uses 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores for 24 threads at 125W.

Single-thread performance favors Intel. The Core Ultra 9 285K scores about 5,092 compared with roughly 4,739 for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which matters for games and everyday applications that don’t scale cleanly across many cores.

Power use also separates the two. Estimated yearly energy costs put the Intel chip at around $22.81, while AMD’s processor sits closer to $31.03 under similar assumptions.

That combination of pricing and efficiency explains much of the cost difference. Intel trades a small amount of peak multithreaded performance for lower power draw and a much lower retail price.

AMD’s advantage shows up most clearly in heavily threaded workloads and cache-sensitive tasks, where the X3D design can still pull ahead.

While those gains exist, they don’t double performance in the way the price difference between the two chips might suggest.

For buyers focused on creative tasks, gaming, general productivity, or mixed workloads, Intel’s top chip delivers near-flagship results without flagship pricing.

AMD still leads on absolute performance, but the premium it's charging for this certainly looks harder to justify than it once did.

• Intel’s cheaper CPUs now challenge AMD’s high end pricing logic
• Performance gaps shrink as AMD charges more for modest desktop gains
• Power efficiency and cost pressure reshape high end CPU value

I’ve already written about Intel quietly taking control of the low end of the desktop CPU market, where chips priced around $200 now offer performance that used to sit far higher up the stack.

However, making things even more uncomfortable for AMD is the fact that a similar pattern is creeping into the high end, where Team Red’s pricing no longer stretches as far as it once did.

A comparison between AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel’s Core Ultra 7 265KF shows why. On paper, the Ryzen part looks comfortably dominant with 16 cores and 32 threads, while Intel’s chip tops out at 20 threads using a mix of performance and efficiency cores. Benchmark results, however, tell a less dramatic - and far more interesting - story.

AMD ahead... marginally

The Ryzen 9 7950X scores around 62,260 in PassMark’s CPU Mark, while the Core Ultra 7 265KF lands at roughly 58,734. That puts AMD ahead, but not by much, especially considering the hardware and pricing differences.

Single-thread performance narrows the gap far further. Intel’s processor scores about 4,926, slightly ahead of the Ryzen 9 7950X at roughly 4,876, which matters for everyday desktop workloads that don’t scale cleanly across dozens of threads.

Pricing makes the situation harder to defend. The Core Ultra 7 265KF sells for about $270 on Amazon, while the Ryzen 9 7950X can be found selling for a far pricier $501 over on B&H.

Paying almost twice as much for a single-digit percentage lead in aggregate benchmarks shifts the value argument away from core counts and toward efficiency.

Power draw adds to that imbalance. AMD’s chip carries a 170W rating compared with Intel’s 125W, and estimated yearly energy costs reflect that difference at roughly $31 for the Ryzen processor versus about $23 for Intel’s chip.

The Ryzen 9 7950X still has a place in heavily threaded workloads like rendering, simulation, and large-scale code compilation, where its extra threads stay busy. Outside those scenarios, that advantage drops off quickly.

In my earlier look at the sub-$200 segment, I said that Intel was starting to resemble the old AMD by offering more performance for less money.

At the high end, the roles don’t flip completely, but the pressure feels familiar, with Intel delivering close enough performance that makes AMD’s premium pricing awkwardly hard to justify.

This year saw some pretty big changes for Intel, some of them being positive, and others, well, not so much. Overall, though, it was clearly a better year for Team Blue than the rocky 2024 Intel experienced, which culminated in the resignation of chief executive Pat Gelsinger – and the eventual appointment of a new CEO this year, Lip-Bu Tan, who took the top job in March 2025.

Tan's time at the helm has already been marked by some distinct turnarounds and progress, albeit there has been pain elsewhere, particularly on the job loss front. Let's dig into the ups and downs for Intel in 2025.

Another Arc Battlemage desktop GPU turned up – and XeSS 3, too

As the year kicked off, in the world of discrete GPUs, Intel followed the successful Arc B580 – which arrived late in 2024 – with a second Battlemage offering, the B570. It pitched up in January 2025, and we liked this graphics card, but not as much as its beefier sibling. As we observed at the time, the savings to be made on the B570 just aren't worth the drop in performance compared to the B580, and that remains true based on their relative pricing as this year comes to a close.

Still, both are good GPUs – particularly the B580, priced at under $250 in the US – and they were bolstered by the announcement of XeSS 3 in October. This represented a new take on frame rate boosting from Intel, complete with Multi-Frame Generation (similar to Nvidia's tech) that notably supports older Arc GPUs. While XeSS 3 still hasn't debuted yet, it's imminent, and the other good news is that it'll be compatible with all current XeSS 2 games.

Not a lot else happened with Arc on the desktop, though, and sadly that theoretical Arc B770 discrete GPU – the higher-end offering which was much-rumored throughout the year – never showed up. However, even as this year rolled to a close, there were still hints dropped that the B770 remains inbound, but add plenty of seasoning to that assertion.

Intel's laptop chips went from strength to strength

Following a limited launch late in 2024, Intel's Lunar Lake laptops truly arrived in numbers as we headed into the second quarter of 2025, and these excellent (and supremely efficient) chips proved to be a big win for Team Blue.

On top of that, we witnessed Arrow Lake mobile processors being revealed at CES 2025 to offer a higher-tier of more powerful laptop CPUs for enthusiasts.

Intel built up more excitement later in the year with the revelation of Panther Lake, the mobile range to take the baton from Lunar Lake – and it's set to do an even better job, by all accounts. We were very impressed by our early glimpse of these processors in October, and a particular strong suit for Panther Lake is its Xe3 (next-gen Celestial) integrated graphics, offering what Intel claims to be a 50% performance boost on the already impressive Battlemage (Xe2).

Panther Lake is now imminent (with an official launch at CES 2026) and looking extremely strong in terms of providing gaming chops to thin-and-light laptops, particularly when combined with the aforementioned XeSS 3 frame generation as a further speed boost (for supported games).

Intel's desktop CPUs continued to come under fire – but there were signs of a turnaround

Last year was a disastrous one on the desktop CPU front for Intel, as some buyers of 13th-gen (Raptor Lake) and 14th-gen (Raptor Lake Refresh) chips suffered serious stability problems with them. On top of that, the successor to Raptor Lake Refresh, Arrow Lake, also stumbled on launch with disappointing performance levels (particularly with gaming).

While Arrow Lake didn't recover its reputation with gamers in 2025 – and performance question marks remain on that front – these processors did gain favor in terms of their performance in professional and creative workloads (with some meaningful honing reported), and indeed for everyday use.

Not everyone is a gamer, of course, and late in the year, we witnessed Arrow Lake processors become a compelling purchase towards the budget end of the desktop CPU spectrum. Products like Intel's Core Ultra 5 245K looked very good value compared to rival AMD Ryzen processors as 2025 rolled to a close, and Team Blue is now delivering peppy levels of multi-core performance for not a lot of money (not much more than $200 in the US).

This represents a distinct turnaround – and perhaps even the start of a bigger turning point next year for Intel. Especially as people buying or building PCs may be looking to save money on other components like the CPU, as RAM and storage prices continue to be hiked in a ridiculous fashion.

Intel also announced an Arrow Lake Refresh (for 2026) late in the year, but there wasn't much to shout about here, as the next-gen range is looking like a minor performance bump. Nova Lake CPUs will be the true next generation for desktop chips (as Panther Lake is for laptops only, like Lunar Lake).

Big job cuts and big deals

As mentioned at the outset, there was a change of leadership for Intel as Lip-Bu Tan took the reins in March 2025.

Part of Tan's business strategy involved serious cost-cutting by enacting a series of major job losses, which included some 22,000 job cuts in April and 5,000 more in July. The stated goal was a 15% overall reduction in Intel staff, and "streamlining the number of management layers by about 50%" as part of a drive to "eliminate bureaucracy".

On top of that painful bedrock of streamlining came a bunch of deals that Tan cut. That included multi-billion dollar funding from the US government (in exchange for Intel stock), a deal with Softbank to the tune of $2 billion, as well as putting out feelers in terms of AI acquisitions to make some effort to catch up on that front. Intel has even reportedly been (and perhaps still is) talking to AMD about a plan to manufacture Ryzen chips for its big CPU rival (believe it or not – albeit not higher-end silicon).

However, Intel's most eye-opening deal for 2025 was with another major rival, Nvidia, whereby the latter pushed a huge $5 billion investment in Team Blue's direction. The partnership means that Intel will be manufacturing custom x86 CPUs for Nvidia's data center (AI) efforts, alongside consumer chips, too. The latter will be Intel SoCs with integrated Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets – although that does throw some question marks over how this will pan out in terms of Intel's own Arc integrated GPU efforts, of course.

Intel: in conclusion

There was a definite feeling of Intel regrouping this year, albeit at quite a cost in terms of major job losses. Clearly the new CEO has a vision, though, and those huge deals that were cut with Nvidia and the US government (and others besides) were critical to Intel's viability going forward.

Lunar Lake laptops proved popular this year, and rightly so, with Intel's revelation of Panther Lake promising even more along the same lines: powerful mobile processors that are seriously power-efficient, too.

The Celestial integrated graphics that Panther Lake packs are a particularly exciting development, given the potential of ushering in more wallet-friendly thin-and-light laptops that are capable of doing PC games justice. That said, there's something of a muddying of the GPU waters with that massive chip deal struck with Nvidia, where RTX chiplets provide the integrated graphics, not Intel's Arc range. (And the lack of any further Battlemage discrete releases since the Arc B570 casts doubt on Team Blue's desktop GPU ambitions, as well.)

However, with something of a resurgence in desktop processors, too – as Intel started to carve out territory for Arrow Lake in the more budget-friendly CPU space – it's clear that on balance, 2025 was a much better year for Intel compared to 2024. That said, there's plenty of work still to be done in terms of a fuller recovery here.

• Intel’s sub-$200 CPUs now deliver performance once reserved for far pricier processors
• Core Ultra 5 chips pressure AMD by pairing clocks with multicore results
• AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900XT struggles to justify pricing against newer Intel alternatives

I've spotted something interesting in the low end of the desktop CPU market - right now, some of the fastest processors you can buy for around $200 come from Intel, not AMD, and the performance gap is uncomfortable enough to raise an intriguing question: Is Intel starting to look like the old AMD, the company that wins by offering more performance for less money?

The clearest example here is Intel’s Core Ultra 5 245KF. At a penny under $220 on Amazon, it delivers performance that would have seemed impossible at this price not so long ago.

With 14 cores split between six performance cores and eight efficiency cores, boost clocks up to 5.2GHz, and a PassMark score hovering around 43,000, it outpaces many older high-end chips that once cost far more.

Intel offers better value

Even better for buyers chasing value, this level of performance sits close to the $200 mark rather than drifting toward $300 or beyond.

There is also a slightly more expensive alternative in the Core Ultra 5 245K, which adds integrated Intel Graphics and moves to the newer LGA1851 platform. At a penny under $230 at Newegg, it undercuts most competing high-core-count CPUs while offering modern features like PCIe 5.0 support and large cache sizes.

This is the kind of balance users building general-purpose systems, workstations, or mid-range gaming PCs really want.

In comparison, AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900XT tells a very different story. It’s a capable processor with 16 cores and 32 threads, but based on the older Zen 3 architecture and limited to DDR4 and PCIe 4.0.

It’s selling for $309 at Amazon, and even discounted from its list price of $349, it struggles to justify the premium when newer Intel chips offer comparable or better everyday performance for far less money.

That pricing pressure matters. AMD built its comeback years ago by undercutting Intel with aggressive core counts and solid value.

Now Intel is doing something similar, flooding the lower price tiers with CPUs that deliver strong multi-threaded performance without demanding flagship pricing.

For everyday work, creative tasks, and heavy multitasking, the numbers increasingly favor Intel.

Newer Ryzen platforms still compete well at higher price points, and platform longevity remains a big strength for AMD of course, but in the sub-$200 to $230 range, Intel currently sets the pace.

• AMD's Ryzen 9850X3D has been leaked again
• This time there's photographic evidence of the CPU on a BIOS screen
• With all the chatter on the grapevine about this refresh of the Ryzen 9800X3D, it seems likely to arrive soon, possibly with a CES 2026 launch

AMD's rumored refresh of its top gaming processor, the Ryzen 9800X3D, is the subject of yet another leak, with this chip having been a regular on the CPU grapevine of late.

This is the Ryzen 9850X3D, and Wccftech reports that HXL, a well-known hardware leaker on X, posted a photo of an Asus BIOS screen which shows the processor as an 8-core chip with a 5.3GHz clock speed. It's running in an Asus B850 motherboard.

In theory, we're seeing an engineering sample chip being put through its paces, but as with any leak, we should remain cautious – although the photographic evidence presented here is more substantial than previous whispers (with the possible exception of one apparent leak, when a page for the Ryzen 9850X3D was accidentally and briefly posted on the official AMD website in France before being taken down).

There were no spec details provided in that mistake on Team Red's French site, but we've already had multiple rumors all insisting the same thing – that the Ryzen 9850X3D will be essentially the same as the existing 9800X3D, it'll just crank up the boost clock to 5.6GHz.

Analysis: this should be good news for gamers, one way or another

While we don't see that 5.6GHz boost speed in the leaked photo, that doesn't put paid to the idea that the Ryzen 9850X3D will run with that top clock speed. Remember, this is an engineering sample in testing, so any clock speeds are likely to reflect that.

If the Ryzen 9850X3D does indeed reach a boost of 5.6GHz, that will make it 400MHz quicker than the Ryzen 9800X3D. A recent leak showed the 9850X3D being 5% faster than the vanilla 9800X3D in both single-core and multi-core tests in PassMark, but that's hardly an ideal benchmark to judge a gaming CPU by.

The reality is that the extra boost speed will be nice, certainly, but not likely a huge improvement – and at any rate, the influence of the CPU in gaming scenarios varies considerably from game to game (and is dependent on the resolution, too, as the GPU is much more of a factor at high resolutions such as 4K).

Still, the Ryzen 9800X3D is widely regarded as the top gaming processor, and so a refreshed take which is a bit quicker is always going to be well-received as a result. The problem is that when (well, I should say if) the Ryzen 9850X3D arrives it'll likely be selling at a fairly hefty MSRP. And if stock is thin on the ground to begin with, that price could be further inflated by demand or price gouging, potentially.

That said, any initial clamor will settle down no doubt, and there's another positive element to this potential release – namely that a Ryzen 9850X3D would put downward pricing pressure on the Ryzen 9800X3D, so we could get some more tempting bargains with that excellent chip next year, as we saw with the 7800X3D before it. Fingers crossed.

Of course, the Ryzen 9850X3D is still to be confirmed, but it's looking increasingly likely now, possibly debuting at CES 2026 which would be an obvious platform for this launch.