Processors

It was only in September last year that NVIDIA and Intel officially partnered to create custom x86 processors for data centers and x86-RTX SoCs (system-on-chips) for PCs, and now we are hearing that an unveiling of one of these processors may be just around the corner.

It was expected to take some time to produce the first chips, as most collaborations within the fabrication industry do. But, Jukan, an analyst for Citrini, wrote in an X post that some "sell-side analysts are expecting that NVIDIA may unveil an x86 CPU developed in collaboration with Intel at GTC 2026," which is scheduled to take place in just one week. Additionally, Jukan wrote, "I think that too".

If those rumors are true, we could see the unveiling of a new x86 chip born of a collaboration between NVIDIA and Intel, which would head straight into devices across the following markets: laptops, handhelds, mini PCs, and maybe even full desktops, depending on performance.

Microarchitecture analysts from Chips and Cheese have reported that the CPU cores on NVIDIA's GB10 "Superchip" can deliver desktop performance on par with AMD and Intel offerings.

The experts looked at the CPU cores on the GB10 and discovered they were Cortex X925 cores designed by Arm and licensed by NVIDIA for the GB10. Taking a closer look at the Cortex X925, the experts discovered it has a big 10-wide instruction decoder, substantial cache memory, a hefty branch predictor, and several concessions to reduce overall power.

The analysts landed on the Cortex X925, which is designed to maximize performance, and according to the experts, that performance is on par with AMD's Zen 5 and Intel's Lion Cove in their fastest desktop implementations. The report shows the Cortex X925 going up against cores in both the Intel and AMD chips, and being a worthy contender, but what is most impressive is that the Cortex X925 is able to go toe-to-toe with Intel and AMD, and be doing it with a peak clock speed of 4GHz, which is far below AMD and Intel's 5GHz.

At the recent Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, AMD announced that it was expanding its Ryzen AI lineup with a new series of desktop processors for next-gen AI and Copilot+ PC features. The new AMD Ryzen AI 400 Series and Ryzen AI PRO 400 Series desktop processors include a wide range of configurations, all of which support on-device AI with an integrated NPU, delivering up to 50 TOPS of AI performance.

Like their mobile counterparts, this new desktop series blends AMD's 'Zen 5' CPU cores with RDNA 3.5 graphics and an XDNA 2 NPU. However, the desktop series appears more conservative in its offerings, as the flagship AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G features an 8-core, 16-thread processor with a boost clock of 5.1 GHz and Radeon 860M graphics with 8 Compute Units.

Compared to the mobile Ryzen AI 9 HX 470's 12-core, 24-thread processor and Radeon 860M graphics with 16 Compute Units, the desktop lineup's pure graphics capabilities seem like a step down. That said, the goal here is to bring Ryzen AI to more users. For pure performance, the workstation-focused Ryzen AI PRO 400 Series reportedly delivers up to 30% faster multithreaded performance than competitive processors.

According to a new report over at the Wall Street Journal, Dell and Lenovo are planning to launch new laptops in the first half of 2026 powered by NVIDIA's new Arm-based N1 and N1X chips, which include both CPU and GPU hardware. These new chips, developed in partnership with MediaTek, will enable NVIDIA to offer an all-in-one mobile SoC that could provide an Intel and AMD-like solution for the first time.

These new chips have been rumored for a long time and could get a full reveal next month at the company's annual GTC (GPU Technology Conference) event. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has teased that it will unveil a new chip that will "surprise the world" at GTC, so there's a good chance it could be these new Arm-based N1 and N1X chips, unveiled alongside new laptops from Dell and Lenovo.

Based on that pedigree, it's expected that these will be Copilot+ PCs running Windows 11 on Arm, much like Qualcomm's Snapdragon-powered Windows devices. Naturally, these new NVIDIA chips will be all about delivering power-efficient performance in a thin-and-light package, with GeForce RTX hardware capable of accelerating local AI and even PC gaming.

Intel is apparently moving towards the rumored goal of a unified core strategy for its processors, or so a recent job advert suggests.

Olrak29 on X (via Wccftech) spotted the ad for a senior CPU verification engineer at Intel, which mentions seeking a highly motivated individual to join the 'Unified Core' design team.

As you're doubtless aware, Intel's current hybrid approach for CPU cores is to have them split into performance and efficiency cores (and of late, a scattering of low-power cores, too).

Although official roadmaps and even standard CPU cycle expectations have put AMD's new Zen 6-powered lineup of desktop Ryzen processors on track for a 2026 release, new reports are indicating that we shouldn't expect to see next-gen Ryzen until 2027 at the earliest. This news arrives via the outlet Benchlife, which claims the codename 'Olympic Ridge' CPU lineup is no longer on the cards for this year.

Interestingly, or unsurprisingly, this doesn't mean that we won't see Zen 6 at all in 2026, a processor technology that AMD describes as an "industry-first 2nm" CPU architecture. With AMD's roadmap highlighting "more AI pipelines" and expanded AI data type support, there's a good chance the company is simply prioritizing or allocating 2026's Zen 6 chips for its EPYC server processors.

This new rumor coincides with reports that Intel is also delaying the reveal and launch of its next-gen Nova Lake-S desktop processor to 2027. Both companies were originally set to go head-to-head in the desktop space with new architectures and different process technology later this year. But with the state of the consumer PC market at the moment, a delay feels almost inevitable, given that memory prices are skyrocketing and the biggest players in the CPU and GPU space have shifted to a "data center first" approach.

Intel was meant to launch its next-gen Nova Lake-S desktop processors this year, but according to the latest leaks, we'll be seeing Nova Lake-S unveiled at CES 2027 next year.

In a new post by leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" on Weibo: "It's alright, Nova Lake-S will also be released in 2027, they're all rushing to CES". We have been hearing about a "product winter" coming, meaning no major releases this year because of all of the headaches that the DRAM market is making... and now Intel is reportedly delaying its next-gen consumer desktop processor, and so too is AMD with rumored delays on Zen 6 until 2027.

Intel's next-gen Core Ultra 400 series "Nova Lake-S" was the biggest release of the year, as it will bring Intel up to a better competitive position in the consumer desktop CPU market against AMD and its mega-successful Ryzen CPUs. Nova Lake-S was rumored to also include a new X3D competitor with Intel's own "bLLC" cache on dual-tile, power-hungry 800W+ processors.

A new leak gives us what could be a look at the core configurations for AMD's Zen 6 desktop CPU range, running up to a 24-core flagship processor.

The theory posted on X by regular leaker HXL (flagged by Wccftech) is that AMD is going to run with 6-core, 8-core, 10-core and 12-core chips - those are the single chiplet models.

Then, AMD will double up on them all save for the baseline six-core model, so there should be two-chiplet models with 16-cores (8+8), 20-cores (10+10) and the 24-core (12+12) flagship.

Intel's upcoming Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs with 52 cores will need to be used on the highest-end 900-series motherboards in order to unlock all of its performance... because they'll require 700-800W of power.

In some new information from leaker @Jaykhin on X, we're hearing that only "some boards" will support the full-power 52-core platform, while "other boards" will "limit the performance and power" of the 52-core platform.

Intel's next-gen flagship Nova Lake-S desktop processors will feature 52 cores in a dual compute tile setup, with each of the compute tiles featuring 8 P-Cores, 16 E-Cores, and a rumored additional 4 LPE cores on the chip itself.

Sharing data from the PC component research and analysis firm Mercury, AMD has announced that the latest Q4 2025 'Processor Shipment Report' is basically all great news for the company. And sure, AMD EPYC Server CPUs have helped the company's server revenue share reach new heights, but thanks to its Ryzen desktop lineup, AMD's desktop revenue share has grown by an impressive 14.6% year over year.

AMD attributes this to strong demand for its Ryzen products, including popular models such as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Ryzen 5 9600X. According to Mercury, as 2025 began, AMD's processor shipment revenue share for its desktop Ryzen CPUs was sitting at 28%. Fast-forward to 2026, and that desktop CPU revenue share has climbed to 42.6%.

It's an impressive result, and although AMD's mobile and notebook revenue share isn't at that level, it increased 3.3% year over year to 24.9%. AMD's Client CPU (Desktop and Mobile) revenue share is now 31.2%, while Server CPU revenue share is 41.3%. Again, this is great news for AMD as it continues to erode Intel's market share. "These meaningful share gains across every major compute segment underscore strong execution and customer confidence in AMD's leadership products across the data center and client businesses," the company says.

AMD's next-gen Zen 6-based "Medusa Halo" APU will reportedly use LPDDR6 memory, confirming leaks from back in August 2025, arriving as new Ryzen AI Max SoCs in 2027.

In a new post on X, someone asked a leaker a question about the memory on Medusa Halo, to which he replied "LP6". However, leaker Moore's Law is Dead said last year that AMD would be either using LPDDR6 or LPDDR5X memory, on Medusa Halo, but now this leaker has added to the consensus that Medusa Halo indeed uses LPDDR6.

The August 2025 leaks from MLID on the memory controller for AMD's monster Medusa Halo APU were either a 384-bit LPDDR6, or 256-bit LPDDR5X. AMD's new Medusa Halo APU will truly be a monster, especially on a wider 384-bit bus and oh wow, if they had 48GB of LPDDR6 on the APU for the CPU and GPU, it would be a monster chip.

Intel's new flagship Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs are going to be chewing a chunk of power according to new rumors, with the dual compute tiles (52 cores) using upwards of 700W+ of power... HEDT style.

In a new post on X from leaker @kopite7kimi, we're hearing that the full-load power consumption of a Nova Lake K-series processor (unlocked for OC) is "over" 700W for the dual compute tile version. Each of the Nova Lake-S compute tiles will feature 28 cores with dual compute tiles sporting 52 cores... and a TON of power consumption for that.

Intel's next-gen Nova Lake-S desktop processors will be arriving in two variants: a single compute tile version with up to 28 cores, and a dual compute tile variant with up to 52 cores. They'll also be the first processors from Intel with its own bLLC cache design -- similar to AMD X3D cache -- with up to 144MB of cache on a single compute die, and a chunky 288MB of cache on the dual compute tile variant.

Intel's new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" processor has just turned up on Geekbench, showing us its performance levels with its 18 cores at up to 5.3GHz.

Intel is reportedly launching its new Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" desktop CPUs next month, with rumors that the new flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was cancelled recently, but the new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will still be launching. The 250K Plus CPU is expected to debut at under $300, acting as the new Arrow Lake Refresh replacement to the Core Ultra 5 245K, which costs around $200-$215 or so.

The new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus offers an additional 4 cores (4 x more E-Cores) than the 245K as well as 100Hz more CPU boost clock, with 18 cores split between 6P+12E (Performance and E-Cores). The new 250K Plus is expected to have 4.20GHz base CPU clocks and up to 5.3GHz boost, with 30MB of L3 cache, 6MB of L2 cache, and will work on the current LGA 1851 socket motherboards.

Intel is reportedly set to launch its new Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" desktop CPUs next month, with the flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus cancelled, and the new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus reviews going live on March 23.

We'll also see the KF variants of these two Arrow Lake Refresh processors, sans their integrated graphics, while the K series models keep the integrated GPU. Intel hasn't announced its Core Ultra 200S Plus processors to the public just yet, but the latest leaks suggest a March 23 embargo for Intel and its board partners for its new Arrow Lake Refresh processors.

Rumors from the last couple of weeks have suggested that Intel has nixed its upcoming Core Ultra 9 290K Plus processor, which would've featured the same 24-core CPU with 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores as the current Core Ultra 9 285K processor, but with higher CPU clocks and a higher Intel Thermal Velocity Boost peak.

Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro and Gen 6 mobile processors to support LPDDR6 + UFS 5.0 storage for the flagship SoC, the Gen 6 non-Pro to offer LPDDR5, to save partners on costs to the consumer.

The latest rumor on the next-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chip is that it will be compatible with new, and older memory and storage standards, which will help reduce costs for Qualcomm's vast family of partners... some somewhat good news to hear in the midst of the ongoing DRAM crisis.

Qualcomm is expected to charge even more for its next-gen flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro processor, with Weibo's Fixed-focus digital cameras claiming that phone makers will have multiple options when it comes to integrating LPDDR6, LPDDR5X, or LPDDR5 memory as well as UFS 5.0 storage. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 (non-Pro) chip is expected to only feature LPDDR5.

AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX processor is a 96-core, 192-thread Zen 5-based workstation beast CPU launching at $12,000... with a new OC mod applied that keeps the chip at under 50C under load at 1550W power.

Geekerwan has uploaded a new build video using the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX processor, where he attempted to reduce the thermal bottleneck of the cold plate by modding the CPU's integrated heat spreader (IHS) into the cold plate itself, with coolant channels machined directly into the IHS.

After some tests and prototypes the team purchased chips and machined channels into spare heat spreaders in order to compare against conventional high-end blocks, after iterating on water routing to improve the match on chiplet layouts, as the uneven flow can see one CCD running hotter than another when heat sources are spread out across the package.

ASRock has released a statement in response to reports that AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors have been experiencing issues when paired with the company's AM5 motherboards. Although the statement doesn't provide specific information on models or the extent of the reported issues and failures, it notes that the company is "seamlessly" working with AMD to continue optimizing firmware (BIOS) and improving system stability.

In addition, ASRock notes that it has begun a "comprehensive internal review" and a "rigorous verification process," and has opened a direct channel to its technical support team for customers with issues to get the help they need. The company views all feedback as a "cornerstone" of its improvement process, so it's taking the issues surrounding its motherboards and AMD Ryzen CPUs very seriously.

Although recent reporting from Puget Systems confirms that the failure rate of AMD's Ryzen 9000 Series processors is sitting at around 2.52%, with AMD's Ryzen 9000 X3D Series processor failure rate sitting at just 1.51%, there have been multiple reports on sites like Reddit of AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs failing on ASRock motherboards. Here's ASRock's statement in full.

Intel was meant to launch its new Panther Lake CPUs for gaming handhelds in the weeks ahead, but an "unexpected delay" has occurred, and now rumor has it we'll be waiting until sometime in Q2 2026.

Intel's VP and GM, Robert Hallock, confirmed not too long ago that its dedicated Panther Lake SoC for gaming handhelds would be released this year, without being specific on when. Then there was leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" who said not shortly after Hallock's comments that the new Panther Lake chips for next-gen gaming handhelds will be coming towards the end of Q1, or start of Q2.

There has reportedly been an "unexpected delay" in its launch according to the latest rumors, without being clear again, just "Q2" which could be anytime up until Computex 2026 in late May. Intel's new Panther Lake SoCs for gaming handhelds will feature 16 cores of CPU power, and up to 12 Xe3 GPU cores for integrated graphics, providing a true upgrade over its current-gen handheld offerings.

Apple is expected to unveil its more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max processors with the launch of its updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros next month, with new rumors suggesting we'll see improved 2.5D advanced packaging that will improve heat dissipation.

The new rumors claim that TSMC's 2.5D advanced packaging will be used versus the company's Integrated Fan-Out (InFO) technology, which will improve heat dissipation and lower resistance. In a new report on Weibo, insider Fixed-focus digital cameras explains: "the advantages of heat dissipation and low resistance are obvious. Although, it is still a 2.5D package, its density is higher than that of Info, making it a very promising direction for Apple this year".

Apple Silicon has been going from stride to stride, with its M5 Pro and M5 Max to offer some serious additional power over the stock M5 chip, and with that... comes improvements to how it is fabbed, as packaging everything onto a monolithic die creates a "hot spot" and that is hard for a single heat pipe that Apple has been trying to dissipate the heat from powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max processors.

It's no secret that AMD's Zen-powered Ryzen CPUs have not only been growing in popularity over the years but have also become the CPU of choice among PC gamers, with processors like AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D outperforming Intel's lineup when it comes to pure gaming performance.

This has been reflected in Valve's monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey results. As the data here is limited to people who use Steam to play PC games, it reflects current hardware trends amongst gamers. Thanks to the success of AMD Ryzen CPUs over the past couple of years, AMD has been slowly gaining market share in what has traditionally been an Intel-dominated space.

The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for January 2026 show that Intel remains in the lead with 56.64% CPU market share, followed by AMD at 43.34%. Over the past year, AMD's CPU market share has gained 0.5 to 1.0% each month, but as 2026 kicks off, Intel has surprisingly regained some ground.