The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is the new gaming handheld that I'd use as an example of how far these devices have come since the Steam Deck launched in 2022. It's a shame, then, that MSI's new device is far too expensive to reasonably recommend to most of my PC gaming pals.

Coming in at $1,799, MSI's new handheld is indeed priced out of the hands of many gamers. It's not MSI's fault, or at least not entirely. Whether it's the AI boom making components drastically more expensive, premium build quality and features, or the new Intel Arc G3 chips, $1,799 is a far cry from the Steam Deck's original $399 baseline price.

Last week, I wrote about how a gamer could buy an Xbox Series X, a PlayStation 5, and a Nintendo Switch 2 instead of an MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and still have $50 left over to spend.

The article kicked off a lively debate in the comments section and in our subreddit, with hundreds of replies aimed directly at me and at other commenters. Here's what the Windows Central community is saying about the rising cost of gaming handhelds.

Was Nintendo already leaving PC handhelds behind?

Nintendo fans are everywhere, and by far the broadest discussion about PC gaming handhelds revolves around a Switch-related comment from u/locked-in-place in our subreddit.

It's true that the Switch and Switch 2 have sold incredibly well. According to official Nintendo numbers, nearly 156 million Switch units have been shipped, with another 19.86 million Switch 2 units adding to the momentum.

Although Steam hasn't offered public Steam Deck sales numbers, it's believed that somewhere around 4 million units have been sold. That's a massive difference, and even if I add in other popular handhelds like the Xbox ROG Ally/Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go family, MSI Claw 8 AI+, and practically any others with a PC flavor, Nintendo is still far in the lead.

Many of the replies to the OP suggest that the Steam Deck and the overall PC handheld market were never meant to disrupt Nintendo's sales, which are themselves being disrupted by their own price hikes.

Just before the Switch 2 went up in price in Japan on May 25, sales skyrocketed. Right after? They plummeted. A comparable price hike is notably coming to the US, Canada, and Europe on September 1.

Comment from r/windowscentral

A good point is made here by u/First-Junket124, who suggests that the Steam Deck was never meant to compete with Nintendo and was instead an alternative route for PC gamers.

Another comment by u/UberShrew says what I've always thought: that the Steam Deck is an "enthusiast device to play your PC games on the go," whereas the Switch is first-party hardware that's the only way to play the latest Nintendo games.

Switch and Switch 2 are indeed intended for a different market than something like MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+. MSI sees its device as made for on-the-go PC enthusiasts who want top-tier performance and a device that can also act as a mini PC via Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. It's like comparing a four-cylinder sedan to a heavy-duty truck.

Comment from r/windowscentral

Lord_pizzabird's comment above seems oddly prescient. The Steam Deck and the PC gaming handhelds that followed it disrupted the market, but that disruption is now struggling (albeit due to circumstances out of its control).

I can see the PC gaming handheld market retreating at least until memory and storage prices return to normal. Unfortunately, no one can say for sure when that will happen.

The PC gaming handheld market isn't over ... it's just hibernating

Pulling myself out of the Nintendo weeds, there are some other comments well worth highlighting. Many of them are suggesting that the PC gaming handheld market is "over" and won't return, just as I mentioned in the original article's title.

Comment from r/windowscentral

There's an important distinction to make that doesn't fit in a title. While I do think the handheld market is frozen by the ever-increasing cost of components and the general PC sentiment that new models have to be faster and better (leading to higher costs no matter component prices), I don't think it's frozen for good.

For those who have had a chance to test the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ with Intel Arc G3 chips, you know what I'm talking about. I thought AMD's Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme hardware was good, and it is, but Intel worked some magic here.

If these Arc chips were going out in handhelds not hampered by inflated component prices, we'd be having an entirely different conversation.

Comment from r/windowscentral

A market thaw will undoubtedly happen at some point, and when it does happen, I think there will be a resurgence of interest. There are still plenty of people out there waiting for the right price and the right specs.

In the meantime, I won't be surprised if MSI's new Claw 8 EX AI+ does sell out at launch. There are still plenty of PC gamers with deep pockets who don't care about prices and just want the latest and greatest device.

The real shame is that handheld PC gaming really has no chance of going mainstream under the current market conditions, a blow that's double as hardware and design hit new heights.

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MSI revealed its new Claw 8 EX AI+ gaming handheld at Computex, and unfortunately, the price has been all that most gamers can focus on.

For good reason. A gamer can buy an Xbox Series X, a PlayStation 5, and a Nintendo Switch 2 for less money than the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+.

MSI introduced its new handheld with a $1,500 price tag, but that quickly climbed to $1,799 when it was listed on the official MSI website. It's now the same $1,799 price at Best Buy after appearing first at $1,699, and only Newegg is still showing $1,699. I expect Newegg's pricing to catch up any time now.

Here's what I'm really struggling to wrap my head around. For the same $1,799, you can buy an Xbox Series X with 1TB storage and a controller ($649.99), a PlayStation 5 Slim with 1TB storage and a controller ($649.99), and a Nintendo Switch 2 ($449.99).

The trio of modern consoles comes out to $1,750, leaving you $50 to buy a few games for whatever console you set up first. That covers three different rooms in your house (or one mega setup in your gaming room), three different gaming ecosystems, and three exclusive libraries of games.

Giving the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ the kudos it deserves

I want to be as fair as possible towards the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. I got to test it out first-hand at Computex, so I have a bit of extra insight.

What I was most impressed with was the performance. Intel's new Arc G-series chips are making their debut in the new Claw 8 EX AI+, and from what I saw, they're going to change gaming handhelds in a major way.

Intel likens these chips to a GPU with an integrated CPU. A GPU with super resolution, ray tracing, multi-frame generation, and newfound efficiency. A GPU that was keeping Hogwarts Legacy and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight at a smooth 120 FPS while I played.

The Claw 8 EX AI+ made the current offering of gaming handhelds seem outdated, which is exactly what you want from a new device.

From a hardware standpoint, I didn't really have any qualms, either. Its 8-inch touch display with 1920x1200 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate looked great with plenty of brightness, the device was comfortable to hold, and inputs were snappy and responsive. The only odd omission on a device at this price is a lack of an OLED display.

With up to 42% better performance at 1080p compared to the ROG Xbox Ally X with AMD Z2 Extreme, MSI's CLaw 8 EX AI+ is the real deal, at least on paper.

Why is MSI's new Claw 8 EX AI+ so expensive?

I highly doubt that MSI set a $1,799 price for its new gaming handheld just so it could make a few quick bucks off of those who still have a big PC gaming budget. The original MSI Claw 8 AI+ that launched in 2025 had an $899 price tag attached, nearly half that of the new EX AI+ version arriving officially on June 23.

The massive jump in price has a small part to do with upgraded hardware and new performance chips, but it has a massive part to do with RAM and storage costs. AI data centers are eating through the world's supply of these components, and practically all tech costs more than it did just a year ago.

The trio of consoles I mentioned earlier receives generous subsidies from their parent companies in order to keep prices down, but even they have become more expensive in the fallout of the RAM shortage.

MSI doesn't have a closed loop of games it can sell to make back the money it would theoretically spend on subsidies, so consumers are getting the full force of the price increases.

Who is buying the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+?

A $1,799 gaming handheld is a hard sell anytime, never mind in our current economy. At this price point, it's competing with full gaming laptops with discrete GPUs and, as mentioned, a bundle of consoles.

Yes, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is far more portable than anything else with the same level of performance, but I don't doubt that a lot of gamers will be happy to sit at a desk and play after saving hundreds of dollars.

👉 Gaming handhelds are the new netbooks — will they suffer the same tragic fate?

The average gamer is going to have a hard time coming to terms with such a high cost for one device when you can get an Xbox Series X for the living room, a PS5 for the gaming den, and a Switch 2 for portable gaming, all for the same price.

I agree that it's great to be a PC gamer, but whether or not the new flagship mobile device from MSI is worth more than three modern consoles is something you'll have to answer for yourself.

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Dell's new XPS 13 for 2026, which was only just announced at Computex a couple of weeks ago, is now available to buy. Prices start at $599 for students and $699 for all other customers, making it a new top Windows option to go up against Apple's MacBook Neo.

This initial launch of the XPS 13 includes models with Intel Core Series 3 processors and a Sky colorway; models with more powerful Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors and an additional Storm color option are expected to launch later this summer.

The new XPS 13, which is using model number DX13260, is so far only available at Dell.com, where the student discount is also readily available.

Hands on with the affordable new XPS 13 for 2026

Windows Central Senior Editor Zac Bowden and I each had a chance to go hands-on with the new XPS 13 at Computex. Zac had a lot more time to play around than I did, and he wrote about his first impressions.

The TL;DR? He couldn't believe how good it is in terms of design and pricing.

A few standout features include an ultra-thin aluminum chassis that weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg), quad speakers with 8W of output and Dolby Atmos tuning, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and a 1080p webcam with an IR sensor for Windows Hello.

The best feature might be its 13.4-inch display, featuring a 2.5K resolution, 120Hz variable refresh rate, Dolby Vision, anti-glare finish, 500 nits brightness, and 100% DCI-P3 color reproduction.

I spoke with Dell and Intel executives at Computex to find out more regarding the strategy behind the XPS 13.

The laptop was being designed well before Apple announced its MacBook Neo, so it's not like it was rushed out to compete. Dell sees the XPS 13 as a perfect student or "starter" device for those just getting into Windows, especially when it's available for as little as $599 with a student discount.

As with the Neo, there has been plenty of discussion regarding what 8GB of RAM feels like in a 2026 laptop. Many have argued that Windows 11 simply doesn't function on 8GB; however, that's simply not true.

I used a Windows 11 PC with 8GB of RAM recently to test the experience, and I had no issues handling the same tasks that students and more casual users would need on a daily basis.

The best part? Unlike the Neo, which has a hard 8GB ceiling, the XPS 13 can be configured with up to 16GB or 32GB (Core Ultra) of RAM.

How does the new XPS 13 compare to the MacBook Neo?

Zac also offered a brief comparison to the $599 MacBook Neo in his article, noting that Dell actually had Apple's laptop readily available next to each XPS 13 in the product showroom.

That's the thing about the new XPS 13. It doesn't feel like Dell has cut any corners to arrive at the $599/$699 introductory pricing, and the best part is that Dell offers plenty of additional configuration options for those who need more RAM, more storage, and more raw processing power.

On that note, it is worth highlighting the new XPS 13's launch cadence. These first models available now come with Intel's "Wildcat Lake" Core Series 3 chips. The more powerful "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 options are coming later this summer.

If you're interested in a deeper dive into the similarities and differences between the two laptops, be sure to check out my XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo comparison.

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Intel is calling its new Arc G Series processors, announced at Computex, the "next step in handheld gaming." After getting a chance to personally test the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and Acer Predator Atlas 8, I'm inclined to believe the hype.

The closed demo, hosted in part by Intel Fellow (and general PC hardware wizard) Tom Petersen, revealed a lot of additional information about the new chips before I got to choose a device and game.

One thing I picked up on immediately is that these new Intel chips should probably be viewed as an Arc GPU with an integrated CPU, rather than a CPU with an integrated GPU. As Petersen pointed out, this is the first time Intel has created graphics-forward Systems-on-Chip (SoC), and they're built specifically for gaming handhelds.

Gaming on the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and Acer Predator Atlas 8

MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+ was my first stop on the tour. It's a gorgeous Void Purple color with an oversized screen that extends just a bit out of the bottom of the device to accommodate the 8-inch screen.

MSI's shoulder buttons, triggers, D-pad, and standard buttons felt very crisp and responsive. Despite being larger than Acer's Predator Atlas 8, the Claw 8 EX AI+ wasn't too heavy and fit into my hands quite well.

One area where Acer has MSI beat is its thumbsticks. Despite most of its inputs feeling less snappy (I found the Acer shoulder buttons to be particularly soft), the joysticks felt a lot tighter with less chance of accidental movement.

Acer's Predator Atlas 8 is also a bit more compact, and it doesn't have the lower overhang for the screen despite also having an 8-inch display.

Audio out of both devices was respectable, and neither handheld made much fan noise despite running a rather demanding game.

I was equally impressed with the 8-inch displays, and I'll have to spend more time with the handhelds to really dial in the differences (if there are any). Both 8-inch screens have a 1920x1200 resolution, a 120Hz variable refresh rate, and tons of brightness.

Crunching the Intel Arc G Series performance numbers

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight and Hogwarts Legacy were the games of choice in the demo room. You might not think that a LEGO game is taxing, but with a recommended requirement of an NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER/AMD RX 6650 XT/Intel Arc B580, it certainly isn't an easy go.

I can attest; I picked up the game before my flight to Taiwan, and my Steam Deck struggles to maintain even 30 FPS in most areas.

That's anything but the case on these new handhelds. The game ran perfectly, holding strong at 100-120 FPS on both systems. Yes, my Steam Deck is showing its age, but Intel had AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme handhelds available to show the direct difference in performance.

How do Intel's new Arc G3 chips compare to AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme?

AMD has had a stranglehold on the gaming handheld market for some time now, but its Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip is starting to show its age in the face of the new Arc G3 chips.

Petersen had plenty of graphs and charts ready to back up his claims, and I'm sharing them here to give you an idea of what sort of performance is expected.

Compared to the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme in the ROG Xbox Ally X, the Arc G3 Extreme chip averages out to being 42% faster at 1080p, with 2x upscaling enabled and both chips at a 35W TDP.

Dropping the Arc G3 Extreme to 17W and leaving the Ryzen Z2 Extreme at 35W, the Intel chip averages out to twice as much performance per watt in tested games. Even at 12W, the Arc G3 Extreme pulls ahead by an average of 37% in the games Intel tested.

This boosted efficiency is exactly what you want in a mobile device. It's even more impressive considering XeSS isn't as energy efficient as AMD's FSR.

While using the new Arc G3 handhelds, the smoothness was remarkable. Intel's intelligent bias control plays a big role in that feeling, focusing mostly on the GPU so that the CPU doesn't suck up all the power.

E-cores are scheduled first, and P-cores get parked when they drop below 13W, making the overall experience much more reliable and with fewer power spikes.

The new Arc G3 chips have all the big XeSS features you want when you're PC gaming. I'm talking about super resolution, multi-frame generation, and ray tracing. Not to mention handheld extras like boosted efficiency, precompiled shaders, configurable TDP, etc.

Pricing remains an issue

The global gaming handheld market is being stomped on by RAM and storage shortages, and what were originally affordable mobile gaming PCs have become expensive luxury items.

👉 Gaming handhelds are the new netbooks — will they suffer the same tragic fate?

Acer hasn't yet set a price for its new Predator Atlas 8 (expected to launch October 2026), but MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+ is supposed to make its debut at $1,500 in June. I hope that number holds out, despite it already being quite high.

In any case, the handheld market is experiencing some serious friction, and that's a shame considering the advancements in performance I saw at Computex. Intel's Arc G3 chips seem to be the real deal, and I look forward to having more time with them once the MSI and Acer hardware launches.

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Dell and Intel are together casting a large shadow this year at Computex. For me, a bona fide laptop fanatic, one of the biggest announcements of the show is the new Dell XPS 13 featuring Intel’s Wildcat Lake Core Series 3 processors.

The XPS 13, reinvented for 2026, shocked practically everyone with its introductory $599 student price, climbing to just $699 for everyone else.

Although Dell says it’s been working on the XPS 13 for more than 30 weeks, which puts its inception before the MacBook Neo’s March 2026 launch, I can’t help but assume that Apple’s industry eye-opener played a part in that attractive price.

I joined a roundtable discussion with Dell’s Head of Consumer Products, Konstantin Tuv (KT), Intel’s GM of PC Segments, David Feng, and Intel’s Senior Director of Product Management, Nish Neelalojanan, where we discussed the new XPS 13, Intel’s Wildcat Lake chips, and more. Here’s what I found out.

Dell’s new XPS 13 is a door opener, much in the same way the Neo is positioned

Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo is a smart play in more ways than I think many people envision. Yes, it’s affordable and capable, selling faster than I ever expected, but it also acts as a shiny piece of bait on the end of a hook. If you go for it, chances are high that you’ll be taken along for a much longer ride than you were expecting.

What I mean is that the Neo is a great way to get users hooked on a certain type of device. For Apple, the Neo gets a MacBook into a student’s hands at a transformative time in their life. Once that student grows up and needs a new, more powerful PC, Apple’s MacBook Air and Pro devices are a natural progression.

Dell's Konstantin Tuv explains that this strategy is exactly what was in mind. “XPS 13 is a great student device. We want this to be their first XPS.” He adds that Dell, like Apple, has plenty of other devices for when a student’s needs inevitably change.

Considering that XPS is but a small portion of Dell’s PC portfolio, I can’t help but think this strategy could pay off better for Dell than for Apple.

The play is also about preparing a student for the workforce. Yes, MacBooks are the “cool” device that you'll see more often than not in a coffee shop, but the reality is that most of the world’s enterprises run on Windows.

Intel’s Wildcat Lake chips unlock a wider range of uses for students

One of Apple’s biggest weaknesses is gaming. That’s where Dell and Intel believe they have an edge with their ecosystem.

Tuv explains that a lot of students want to game in the evenings when study is finished. Wildcat Lake (and especially Panther Lake, which is coming to XPS 13 after launch) has that ability. As Tuv states, the XPS 13 is designed to “reset expectations in that space.”

And it’s not just about gaming, either. From an ecosystem perspective, the use of Wildcat Lake makes things smooth across the board. As Intel's Neelalojanan points out, “compatibility was one of the biggest things with Wildcat Lake, especially in emerging markets.” No port problems, no driver issues, and plenty of old software that can run perfectly on the Intel chips make for a smooth experience.

What is performance like in a $599 Windows laptop?

It’s OK to be wary of budget Windows laptops. For many years, the $600-$700 range of PCs was underwhelming, with cheap plastic bodies, mild features, and so-so performance. That’s not the case with the XPS 13.

Not only is it truly an XPS device from a design standpoint — CNC-machine aluminum chassis, superb keyboard and touchpad, beautiful 2.5K display — but also in terms of performance.

As Neelalojanan remarks, productivity performance and battery life on the XPS 13 with Wildcat Lake aren’t much different from Lunar Lake. And in terms of AI, although the XPS 13 isn’t a superstar, it’s a great starting point.

Feng explains that most of the productivity apps he uses every day sit in the same low-power island. This island is the same across Wildcat Lake and Intel’s other Series 3 chips, meaning you shouldn’t feel much of a difference. Feng states, “If my everyday work is mainly productivity, browsing, content consumption, that low-power island is there to deliver consistent performance.”

What kicked off this new generation of low-cost, high-quality PCs?

The PC industry is seemingly undergoing a major shift. Suddenly, it seems that even the budget tier is better than ever, with aluminum bodies, high-res displays, and snappy performance. So, what kicked off this revolution?

As Tuv explains, "everyone [in the PC industry] is getting more aggressive and trying to redefine what 'good' looks like." Feng adds that "engineers love to be challenged," and it was up to them to discover new ways to operate within the set budget. Everything from codec and cabling to memory and storage was considered.

And the best part? The XPS 13 isn't a one-off thing. It's official that Intel's Wildcat Lake chips will be used elsewhere in Dell's PC portfolio. Exactly where isn't yet clear, but the new XPS 13 is a great start.

My time with the new laptop was limited, but our Senior Editor Zac Bowden, who's also with me here at Computex, got the full hands-on XPS 13 experience; check it out for a lot more information about the device.

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Acer has unveiled a new gaming handheld at Computex 2026, dubbed the Acer Predator Atlas 8, and if the specs are anything to go by, it could give devices like the Xbox Ally X a run for their money.

The handheld is expected to launch in October 2026 in North America, Australia, and the EMEA region, though Acer has yet to reveal pricing. Given the current state of the handheld market, it's difficult to make even an educated guess as to what it might cost.

Still, while the price remains a mystery, the inclusion of two months of Xbox Game Pass Premium does help sweeten the deal, even if only a little.

With that said, let's take a look at the specs in the table below:

I'm all for seeing as many companies as possible throw their hats into the handheld gaming PC space. More devices mean more competition, and that's ultimately good for pushing the industry forward.

As someone who used to love Acer laptops back in the day, I'm glad to see the company entering the handheld market. But that's just how I feel about it. What are your thoughts on the Acer Predator Atlas 8? Is it a device you'd consider picking up, or are you planning to stick with what you already have?

Let me know by leaving us a comment, and don't forget to take part in our poll!

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Intel gave us a hint of its quest for handheld gaming domination at CES 2026, where it stated it was working on two new Panther Lake Systems-on-Chip (SoC) designed specifically for portable handheld gaming.

It was revealed that at least 11 partners, including Acer, MSI, and Microsoft, were working with Intel to design new gaming handhelds around these unnamed, unannounced chips.

Five months later, Intel has now unveiled further details about these new Arc G-Series CPUs just ahead of Computex. While we got a sneak peek at a new Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip due to a leaked MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ listing, Intel has also now made the Arc G3 official.

By all means, this appears to be the upgrade I've been waiting for, and the handheld market, largely dominated by AMD Ryzen, is in for a big shakeup.

Intel is taking a two-pronged approach with its new Arc G-Series chips. The Intel Arc G3 debuts with 14 CPU cores and Arc B370 graphics with 10 Xe cores, while the Arc G3 Extreme arrives with 14 CPU cores and Arc B390 graphics with 12 Xe cores.

The Arc G3 Extreme is really the SoC I'm most excited for. Its Arc B390 integrated graphics first debuted with Intel's high-performance Panther Lake chips (like the Core Ultra X9 388H), featuring 12 Xe GPU cores, a 2.3GHz frequency, and XeSS 3 upscaling capabilities.

XeSS 3 unlocks features like multi-frame generation, super resolution, and low latency, which are all tools that you want in a gaming handheld.

This chip is notably coming to Acer's Predator Atlas 8 gaming handheld, also announced today ahead of Computex.

It features an 8-inch FHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate, as well as up to 24GB of LPDDR5x RAM and up to 1TB of M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD storage.

Intel says it expects devices using its new Arc G-Series chips to begin rolling out in June 2026, "with broader availability through the year." As to how much these devices will cost in a handheld market being decimated by rising memory and storage costs, I can't say.

Windows Central's take

AMD Ryzen has long been the go-to chip for PC gaming handhelds, and although I think there's a future for ARM-based handhelds, it's great to see Intel entering the ring with a dedicated chip focused on maximizing performance for mobile devices.

Of course, how these chips actually perform won't be known until we get our hands on something like the Predator Atlas 8 or the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, but I'm confident that the stellar Arc GPU foundation that I've already seen in laptop chips will translate to handhelds.

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Ever confident, MSI is pushing ahead with its Claw 8 handheld, with the perplexingly named MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, and a move to Intel's Panther Lake-based Arc G3 Extreme chip. It's a processor expected to appear at the Computex show in Taipei next month (via VideoCardz), and Australian retail links have seemingly confirmed their inclusion in a "Void Purple" model.

It sounds great in theory, especially since I tested the previous MSI Claw 8 AI+ last year and came away impressed by the phenomenal performance from its Lunar Lake-based iGPU. However, that model came with a price that I already described as "absurd", but I'll have to find a stronger synonym after seeing the ~$1,900 price tag on the Claw 8 EX AI+ (converted from $2,749 AUD).

There's also a "Launch Pack" listed at ~$2,000 ($2,849 AUD), bundled with a tempered glass screen protector, claw-grip caps, a travel case, and a keychain. Unfortunately, any eager gamers with pockets full of money in Australia will be disappointed to see that Scorptec's listings are set to "out of stock", but the price doesn't feel unrealistic when the Claw 8 AI+ still sells for $1,299.99 in the US.

MSI never implied that the Claw range was anything but high-end, premium gaming handhelds, and it's still offering 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, a 120Hz touchscreen, and an 80Whr battery on the Claw 8 EX AI+ model. It's certainly an impressive display of what you can pack into a portable PC gaming device, but I'd struggle to convince anyone that a handheld is worth over $1,000.

At this point, I'm not sure who would be legitimately excited to buy the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ when there are more viable options on the market. Valve's still-brilliant Steam Deck remains the champion, and Windows-based alternatives start with ASUS' comparable ROG Xbox Ally (that's the $599 white one) and realistically end at the also eye-wateringly expensive $999 ROG Xbox Ally X.

Perhaps it's just a display of what's possible; a spectacle of sorts. Then again, this hardly feels like the time to show off your ability to push prices to their extreme — even with Intel's Arc G3 Extreme. Give me more affordable hardware that runs games at a consistent framerate, otherwise I'm sticking with the Steam Deck and ASUS' original ROG Ally (and so should you).

Windows Central will be at Computex, so we'll keep an eye out for Intel's new handheld-centric processor and any of the OEMs that might be showing it off — including MSI — to see how it justifies such a monstrous asking price. Until then, I wouldn't hold your breath for a price change before this launches. At least, not one in the cheaper direction.

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The new Surface Laptop for Business 8th Edition for 2026 arrives at a fascinating crossroads for Microsoft. While much of the recent conversation has focused on the Qualcomm revolution and the shift to ARM, Intel is not bowing out quietly. For the corporate world and government sectors, the "Business" moniker represents a specialized branch of hardware designed for security, repairability, and specific features that the average consumer might never notice, but an IT administrator will appreciate.

• Surface Laptop for Business, 13.8 and 15-inch (8ᵗʰ Edition) | Intel from $1,949.99 at Microsoft Store

This new 8th Edition brings some of the most significant functional upgrades we have seen in years, specifically an optional integrated privacy screen and a long-awaited boost in display density.

However, these improvements come during a period of controversy for the Surface brand, as price hikes continue to sting. With a starting price now reaching $1,949.99 ($500 more than last year's 7th Edition), Microsoft is clearly positioning this as a premium tool for the enterprise elite (Lenovo's competing ThinkPad X1 Carbon starts at $1,853, for comparison, but that only has a U-processor, not H, and a low-res display).

I have spent the last week living with the Intel Core Ultra variant to see if the "Business" tag justifies the heavy investment.

Hardware Specifications

Design, what's new and banner feature: Stealth Mode

At first glance, the Surface Laptop for Business 8th Edition keeps the iconic, minimalist aluminum design that has long defined the Surface lineup. It feels incredibly dense and premium (and compared to my 7th Edition with Qualcomm, it is a teeny 29 grams heavier, coming in at 2.998lbs).

Ports are the same: two Type-C (Thunderbolt 4), Type-A, and headphone jack on the left; on the right is the Surface Connect charging port.

Audio is also a highlight. The Omnisonic speakers with Dolby Atmos provide a wide soundstage and surprisingly deep bass for a thin laptop. Whether you’re on a Teams call or watching a video, the clarity is exceptional, especially since the speakers are hidden below the keyboard.

There's also Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 on board, which both worked flawlessly for me.

Microsoft ships the laptop with a 39W wall charger, with an optional 45W available for purchase. (The larger 15-inch variant has a 65W charger.) For fast charging, I believe a 60W charger is required.

While the look is familiar, the most important hardware change is hidden within the 13.8-inch display: the optional integrated privacy screen with touch, which is also anti-glare for the first time

This is the banner feature of the 8th Edition. With a single tap of the F1 key, the viewing angle narrows dramatically. To someone sitting next to you on a plane or in a coffee shop, your screen appears dark and unreadable, while you maintain a clear view from the front. This isn't a flimsy plastic add-on you clip to the bezel, as it is built directly into the display using "in-cell TDM technology" and wide-LEDs.

How this all works is similar to Samsung's vaunted Galaxy S26 Ultra, which I also use, with its new privacy screen. Basically, there are wide and narrow view pixels, and toggling between them creates the effect. As far as I know, this is the first time it's ever been implemented in a laptop in this way (HP has been doing SureView for LCD screens, developed with 3M, for many years now, but it's a reflective-blocking approach versus a directional emission one like Microsoft's).

Besides the convenience of being built-in, this tech works from all angles, whereas third-party screen-protector add-ons only work from the sides, and this can be toggled on or off with the F1 key.

The technical implementation is impressive because it maintains color accuracy (100% sRGB, 89% Adobe, and 100% P3 in my tests) and brightness when looking at it head-on.

Speaking of brightness, I'm only getting 500 nits at 100%, but that's not unusual for this class of device (but underperforms for this price range), and I found it satisfactory (it also supports HDR 600 in settings with a 120Hz variable refresh rate).

However, there is a catch. Currently, you cannot pair this privacy screen with a 5G-enabled variant. You have to choose between a secure connection or a secure display.

I also noticed the entry point for this feature is steep, with privacy screen configurations starting at a whopping $2,549.99.

Microsoft told me that it conducted extensive testing to make sure the display isn’t visible to people sitting nearby on planes or trains, simulating the experience in a lab while fine-tuning the hardware.

As someone who values privacy and often travels, I find this feature to be outstanding and a clever creation I had not anticipated from Microsoft.

That said, it's a slightly weird effect when you combine it with a matte display, so while some will value it, others will prefer the standard anti-reflective display.

Display: Sharper than Ever

Microsoft finally addressed one of my long-standing complaints: pixel density. On the 15-inch model, they jumped from 201 PPI to 262 PPI. The resolution now sits at 3270 x 2180. In daily use, this results in noticeably crisper text and sharper images. When you are staring at spreadsheets for eight hours a day, that extra clarity helps reduce eye fatigue.

While the 13.8-inch model remains at 2304x1536 resolution (201 PPI), text looks sharper and crisper to me compared to the previous-gen LCD, likely due to the new display panel.

Microsoft also notes that this display is certified TÜV SÜD to meet the requirements of ISO 9241-307.

Performance: Intel Core Ultra Series 3

My test unit is powered by the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H, with 16 cores (4 P‑cores + 12 E‑cores), boost frequency up to 5.0GHz on the P-cores, and sits only behind the X9 378H for performance in Intel's current lineup.

This chip brings a system-level approach to performance, balancing the CPU, GPU, and NPU (48 TOPS) to handle sustained workloads. That NPU also qualifies this as a full-fledged Copilot+ PC, though Qualcomm's current Snapdragon X2 lineup packs 80 TOPs by comparison.

Benchmarks and Context

I ran the SLB8 through our standard suite, and the results provide some much-needed context for the Intel vs. Qualcomm debate:

• Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core): The Surface Laptop 8 (Intel) scored 16,152, which actually surpasses the 14,557 score of the Snapdragon X Elite in the Surface Laptop 7. For raw multi-threaded power in x86 environments, Intel is still a beast.
• Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core): Here, the Intel chip scored 602, falling behind the Snapdragon X Elite's 961. This suggests that while Intel is great for bursts and general multitasking, the ARM variant still holds a significant lead in sustained rendering tasks.
• CrystalDiskMark (SSD Speeds): I was blown away by the storage speeds. The Read speed hit 7,006 MB/s, and Write speeds reached 5,842 MB/s. This puts it nearly on par with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 and makes the machine feel instantaneous when moving large files or launching heavy apps.

The Intel ARC B390 GPU is also noticeably more powerful this year. Microsoft claims up to 35% more graphics performance than a MacBook Air with M5, which is a bold claim that seems to hold up in my initial testing of creative apps. As Nancie Gaskill, Vice President of Surface Business, notes in the internal launch documents: "The hardware people use enables businesses and teams to achieve more," and this GPU definitely helps on that front.

In my testing, the B390 got 32,478 on 3DMark's NightRaid benchmark. To put that in perspective, an NVIDIA RTX 3050 for Laptop GPU scores 30,513, so this GPU packs a punch.

3DMark estimates 110+ FPS in a game like Fortnite when set to 1080p Ultra-level graphics.

Fan noise was remarkably quiet for everyday usage, only coming on during initial PC setup and for Windows Updates, both of which are expected. Likewise for temps, which remain on the cool side in usage, and only really warming up under sustained usage or fast charging, but not to a point where it's uncomfortable.

Touchpad and Keyboard: The Gold Standard

The typing experience on a Surface Laptop remains the best in the business. The keys have a perfect amount of travel and a satisfying tactile response. Backlight is also excellent with three stages and auto-sensing. But the real story is the touchpad.

The new advanced haptic touchpad is a joy to use. It provides subtle tactile cues that confirm your actions.

New for 2026, when I snap a window into place or drag a file between folders, the touchpad gives a tiny "click" feeling that makes the software feel physical. It even has detents for slider ranges. Microsoft has worked to ensure these signals have a delay of less than 50ms, so the feedback feels directly connected to your finger's movement (it even worked on the sound it makes).

What's even cooler is that there is an API for this, so third-party apps can now leverage haptic feedback for various tests like video scrubbing, snapping windows, raising volume, etc. Apps like PowerPoint, Concepts, Filmora, and Affinity either have this or are getting it in future updates, and I expect (hope?) other companies will follow suit.

Battery Life and Disappointments

(Note: I'm still testing the battery, so consider this early impressions/in-the-works as I collect more data. I'll update in the coming days with more solid numbers).

While the performance is top-tier, the 54WHr battery is merely "OK." Microsoft marketing may claim all-day battery life, but in my real-world usage—heavy Chrome and Edge browsing, Slack, Telegram, YouTube, and constant video calls—I am seeing about 8 hours of usage.

That is enough to get through a standard workday, but it doesn't touch the endurance of the Qualcomm-powered Surface Laptop 7. I expect the consumer Qualcomm variant with the Snapdragon X2 Elite, due later this summer, to significantly outperform this Intel model in terms of longevity, and possibly even performance.

I am also disappointed by the lack of Human Presence Detection (HPD). For a device so focused on privacy and security, having the screen automatically lock when I walk away would have been a perfect inclusion. Instead, you are still relying solely on Windows Hello facial recognition. While fast and secure, it isn't quite the "set it and forget it" security I wanted to see here.

The Enterprise "Differentiation"

Nancie Gaskill, Vice President of Surface Business, noted that "hardware people use enables businesses and teams to achieve more". This version of the laptop is explicitly aimed at enterprise and government users for several reasons:

• Security: It features a UEFI built with Patina, a modern, memory-safe approach written in Rust. This hardens the device against firmware-level attacks in a way consumer laptops rarely are.
• Management: Every unit includes scannable QR codes under the feet and inside the chassis to simplify asset management and repairs.
• Repairability: Almost every major component, from the display module to the motherboard and battery, is replaceable on-site by a technician.

While this is the "Business" edition, anyone can buy it through the Microsoft Store if they want the privacy screen or prefer Intel's compatibility.

Should you buy the Surface Laptop for Business 8th Edition?

You should buy this if ...

✅ You want a premium Surface experience for enterprise or government

✅ You work with sensitive documents in public spaces

✅ You want an excellent keyboard, touchpad, speakers, and webcam

✅ You need enterprise‑grade security (Pluton, Secured‑core PC protections, Rust‑based firmware, and deep Intune integration)

You should not buy this if ...

❌ You need a more rugged enterprise laptop

❌ You need a laptop with the best battery life

❌ You're working with a tight hardware budget

The Surface Laptop for Business 8th Edition is a specialized machine. If you are a standard consumer, you are likely better off waiting for the Snapdragon X2 models later this summer, which will almost certainly offer better battery life and cooler operation for a lower price.

However, if you are in the corporate or government sector and your "office" is often a tray table on an airplane or a busy terminal, this is currently one of the best laptops on the market. Between the revolutionary privacy screen, the top-tier typing and touchpad experience, and the rock-solid security foundation, it is a formidable tool for getting work done safely.

Microsoft has leaned into its strengths here. As Nancie Gaskill puts it, Surface is the "foundation that makes the rest of the strategy possible." If your strategy involves high-level security and raw Intel power, this is the machine you've been waiting for—just make sure your budget can handle the "RAM crisis" premium.

Some worthy alternatives to the Surface Laptop for Business 8th Edition include the HP EliteBook Ultra 14 (G1i), which has a slightly larger battery, is lighter, and more affordable, while also still being our top pick for business laptops. If you want super light, but also really expensive, and OK battery life, you could go with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 (we haven't reviewed the latest version yet, but will soon). The new Gen 13 model starts at $1,853.10, so it's not like Microsoft is really far off from the competition here.

My final score is 4.0 out of 5 stars because it is a very good laptop that I really enjoy using (it's one of my favorites, actually), but that high price and so-so battery life keep it from being perfect.

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Lenovo's "Aura Edition" subcategory continues its unique partnership with Intel, featuring a line of Windows devices that lean heavily into the AI PC trend. At its surface, that's what this is: an Intel-powered laptop with smart software tweaks, but most of the magic usually comes from the Core Ultra processor inside and the chassis around it.

• Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Ultra (Gen 11) Aura Edition for $1,889.99 at Lenovo USA

It's tricky to explain in a nutshell, so I tested the new Yoga Slim 7i Ultra (Gen 11) Aura Edition to go hands-on with an example — and to find out what's up with the specs and pricing. The US is missing the same flexible processor options I can access in the UK, and prices are fluctuating for Americans, too.

How much does the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition cost?

Lenovo estimated the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition (Gen 11) would start at $1,499.99 USD when it announced the laptop at CES 2026, but that optimistic price has turned out to be closer to $1,629.99 $1,889.99 for a configured version on Lenovo's storefront (the price increased as I wrote this). Using the "Build Your PC" option, you can upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro for $50 and from 1TB to 2TB of storage for $190.

Whether you push to $1,869.99 $2,129.99 by upgrading its two customizable components will depend on personal preference and individual use cases. Otherwise, we're looking at a $130 $390 price increase since we saw the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition announcement in January.

In the United Kingdom, Lenovo starts the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition at £2,010, but you get more customization options. Crucially, you can choose from three of Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" processors: a Core Ultra 5 325, a Core Ultra 7 355, and finally, a Core Ultra X9 388H with upgraded Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics for an extra £250.

Is the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition a good laptop?

At 2.15 lbs, this is one of the lightest 14-inch Windows laptops I've ever carried. Lighter than ASUS' Zenbook A14 (2.18 lbs) and Apple's 13-inch M5 MacBook Air (2.7 lbs), the magnesium-aluminum chassis still keeps it feeling solid and sturdy despite its featherweight build. The "thixomolding" procedure for its shell also means it feels particularly similar to the "Ceraluminum" ASUS used on standouts like the 14-inch Zenbook S 14, if slightly more glossy.

The 5.5-inch glass haptic touchpad also makes this laptop stand out from all the mechanical equivalents I've used before, though I'm not sure the technology proved to be quite as life-changing as I expected. Still, cursor control is smooth and responsive, complementing the deep 1.5mm key travel I expect from Lenovo's laptops. Just like the Slim 7i (Gen 9) I loved so much before it, this Aura Edition is a joy to use.

The webcam resides in a wide bar that slightly protrudes from the chassis, doubling up as a lip on the top lid that helps with single-finger opening. It's a great camera, and the speakers follow suit with impressive bass response in a setup with 2 woofers and 2 tweeters. An IR sensor enables Windows Hello for face-enabled logins and Human Presence Detection (HPD) that can blur my screen if "Shield Mode" is activated in Lenovo's Smart Modes via the F9 key.

There's a webcam shutter switch on the right side if you'd rather disable the camera altogether, though I quite enjoy using a "wake on approach" method with HPD enabled. Battery life on the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition borders on the absurd, reaching over 18 hours in PCMark 10 tests that emulate constant productivity app usage and video playback. For an x86-64 PC, it's an incredible feat and a display of Panther Lake's ability.

Finally, the 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED touchscreen reaches 511 nits without HDR in my colorimeter testing, and setting the brightness to 74% gives you a comfortable 250 nits. Without any tweaking, the display achieves 100% color accuracy in the sRGB and P3 gamuts, while AdobeRGB comes in shorter at 87%. It's a beautiful panel with strong contrast, offering a standard 60Hz refresh rate or a smoother 120Hz mode. Zero complaints here.

Does the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition have any issues?

Shrinking the hardware into this ultra-lightweight frame comes with I/O sacrifices. The Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition excludes USB-A, HDMI-out, and headphone options, leaving three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports with 45–65W power delivery and DisplayPort-out 2.1 for compatible external monitors. On the bright side, there's no proprietary AC adapter, but my USB-A dongles all need a hub or conversion cable.

Software bloat is still a minor gripe on Lenovo devices, and I found the usual McAfee (and WebAdvisor by McAfee) preinstalled, along with a Dropbox Promotion and an Adobe Creative Cloud advertisement in the Start menu. There's also a web shortcut to the Lenovo Subscription Marketplace pinned to the taskbar, which, again, is little more than a baked-in ad. Disappointing, but ultimately all removable with some user effort.

Lenovo says the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition is "designed to deliver exceptional performance for gaming", but you'd need the higher-tier Core Ultra X processors and the more capable Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics to stand any chance of seeing evidence of that. With the standard integrated Intel Graphics in the Core Ultra 7 355 processor in my sample, Cyberpunk 2077 couldn't exceed an average of 26 FPS at its lowest settings.

Less demanding PC games wouldn't need such drastic graphics hardware, but that always feels like a cop-out. As hardware progresses, it's less and less interesting to see the likes of Minecraft advertised as running on modern laptops just to claim they're capable of PC gaming. Counter-Strike 2 couldn't reliably maintain more than 60 FPS on its lowest settings at 1680 x 1050 resolution, and the CPU climbed to 95°C, so gaming is off the table.

How fast is the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition?

Lenovo advertises the Aura Edition range with phrases like "standout design, uncompromised power". The former is undoubtedly true for the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra, but the latter is muddied by its selection of the Core Ultra Series 3 family of processors. You see, the Core Ultra 7 355 is the sole option for US buyers, who aren't as lucky as those over in the UK, as we can upgrade to a high-end Core Ultra X9 388H — the 'H' meaning "highest performance".

This laptop deserves at least a Core Ultra X7 358H to match its stellar design and promises, a choice referenced in Lenovo's product specifications reference sheet for the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra. It's not that the Core Ultra 7 355 in my US-based sample is bad, as it can match or surpass the Core Ultra Series 2 "Lunar Lake" chips found in the Yoga Slim 9i (Gen 10) and Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition (Gen 9).

It does fall behind the Core Ultra 155H "Meteor Lake" chip from two generations prior, found in one of my favorites, the Slim 7i (Gen 9) — admittedly an apples-to-oranges CPU comparison for a laptop that retailed for around $1,240 at the time. Still, the Core Ultra 7 355 offers tremendous battery life, and this Ultra Aura Edition Gen 11 beats the Gen 9 in most other ways that count.

The elephant in the room is the absolutely incredible Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 11), powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite processor, which serves as a Windows on ARM alternative to the somewhat more traditional x86-64 chips on offer in this Intel-based Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition. There's no getting around it: the Yoga Slim 7x is extremely tempting, starting at just $1,099.99, and it comes from Lenovo itself. This laptop's biggest competitor is its sibling.

Should you buy the Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition?

You should buy this if ...

✅ You want the lightest 14-inch Windows laptop

✅ You're a frequent traveler who relies on long battery life

You should not buy this if ...

❌ You use graphic-intensive apps; upgrades will be needed

❌ You rely on USB-A devices or wired headphones without adapters

An "estimated" $1,499.99 starting price certainly made this laptop more exciting when Lenovo announced it at CES earlier this year, and even a bump to $1,629.99 was one I could handle. However, when the company triggered a second increase to $1,889.99 while I was testing the Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition, its limited processor options in the US became harder to accept.

The Core Ultra 7 355 is still a great example of Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" chips and the tremendous power efficiency they offer, but the Yoga Slim 7x and its Snapdragon X2 Elite chip are likely to draw many buyers away. It'll mean losing out on the haptic touchpad, lower display refresh rate, and the lightweight chassis, but I can't imagine that's enough. A tricky one.

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Once a month, the PC gaming mega-giant Valve opens an optional hardware and software survey for its Steam users to gauge trends and ultimately spotlight the world's most common components. Much of it is predictable and follows obvious patterns, such as the average amount of memory (RAM) increasing over time and discontinued parts falling off the graphs.

Still, some tidbits offer insight into buying habits and product adoption. In particular, the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for April 2026 shows that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 with 8GB of VRAM remains the most common discrete graphics card this year. For context, that GPU is now three and a half years old, and many gamers already debate the viability of 8GB cards in 2026.

It's a similar story for operating systems, as Windows holds an utterly dominant 93.47% adoption amongst Steam users, though it's divided between its two (technically) active versions. Windows 10 is in its End-of-Life phase, but Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program offers an extension through October 13, and it looks like 25% of Windows users have opted for it.

Linux and macOS fluctuated into ever-so-slight negatives, but the values were less than 1 percentage point and shouldn't be considered alarming. At the very least, Valve reports Arch Linux as the most-used "distro", which is the foundation for its in-house SteamOS rival to Windows 11, pre-installed on its four-year-old Steam Deck handheld and the upcoming Steam Machine PC.

Windows Central's take: Unaffordability is forcing a new norm for PC gamers

Again, it's the natural order of things for incremental hardware and software upgrades to be reflected in Steam's survey, but seeing a quarter of users holding on to Windows 10 is telling. While activists worldwide are staging mock funerals for Microsoft's OS, many PC gamers seemingly aren't willing to budge until the bitter end, possibly due to their device's incompatibility-led obsolescence.

That, and seeing the RTX 3060 clinging on for dear life, helps justify my frustrations with a lack of optimization in modern AAA games. This isn't even the 12GB version that's still going strong in my wife's PC; this is the entry-level 8GB model in NVIDIA's RTX 30 Series that lacks native FP8 support for cutting-edge DLSS tech. Your average gaming rig is two generations old.

And against Microsoft's assurance that 32GB of RAM is the "no worries" count in a world of hilariously expensive DDR5 memory, there still hasn't been a significant shift away from 16GB as the most common count in Valve's latest survey. All of this keeps my hopes alive for the Steam Machine to come with "affordable" pricing.

That, and I'm suddenly checking up on friends and relatives who are stuck on Windows 10. We can always bypass the TPM 2.0 check and upgrade an unsupported computer to Windows 11 with a bit of extra work, but it's starting to feel tense for those who still outright refuse to move over. Are you still using Windows 10? What are your plans for October? Not long now.

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Intel made the first of its "Panther Lake" mobile processors official at CES 2026 with Core Ultra Series 3. Now, the company has revealed follow-up Core Series 3 "Wildcat Lake" chips, without the Ultra designator or as high a price tag.

Like their full-fledged Panther Lake Core Ultra siblings, the new Core Series 3 chips are built on Intel's 18A process node with proven benefits to performance-per-watt and efficiency.

A hybrid core setup remains intact, with Darkmont Efficient cores and Cougar Cove Performance cores. Intel's X^e3 integrated GPU with up to two cores, and a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of up to 17 TOPS, are both also on board.

Here's a rundown of the new Core Series 3 mobile chips.

It seems like Intel is primarily targeting budget buyers who don't often upgrade their PC.

Intel compares the new Core Series 3 mobile chips to a five-year-old PC running a Core i7-1185G7, stating that the new hardware can deliver "up to 47% better single thread performance, up to 41% better multi thread performance, and up to 2.8x better GPU AI performance."

Performance gains remain rather impressive even when up against more recent chips; Intel says the new Core 7 360 offers "up to 2.1x faster creation and productivity" compared to the Core 7 150U from 2024.

Intel also shows off newfound efficiency. Compared, again, to the Core 7 150U, the Core 7 360 is shown to use up to 64% less battery when streaming a 4K YouTube video. In Procyon's Office Productivity battery benchmark, the new chip is 52% more efficient.

Intel claims you can expect up to 18.5 hours of Netflix streaming, 12.5 hours of office productivity, and 9.6 hours of a one-to-one Zoom call with AI effects enabled, all on a single charge.

Intel is also making a play for edge devices with Core Series 3

Intel's Core Series 3 mobile chips will get the most attention from me when they're in a laptop, but Team Blue is also clearly targeting edge cases like robotics, point-of-sale (POS), and smart metering.

Intel compares its new chips to NVIDIA's Jetson Orin Nano, claiming that the Core 7 350 delivers "up to 1.5x higher object detection performance, up to 1.9x faster image classification, and up to 2.2x higher performance for video analytics."

For edge cases, Intel adds a Core 5 305 chip with no NPU included to its list.

When is Intel launching new Core Series 3 "Wildcat Lake" mobile chips?

Intel says its Core Series 3 mobile chips are available starting today, April 16, 2026, in laptops from Acer, HP, Honor, MSI, and more. Here's what Intel lists so far as being available now (or imminently):

• Acer Aspire Go 14
• Acer Aspire Go 15
• Acer Aspire Go 16
• HP Omnibook 5 14
• MSI Modern 14S
• MSI Modern 16S

Other big names like ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung will have PCs with new Intel Core Series 3 later this year.

As for edge systems, Intel says it will begin shipping Core Series 3 beginning in Q2 2026.

Windows Central's take

It's no secret that PC prices are on the rise, making it harder for the average user to find a suitable upgrade path.

Assuming that new laptops launching with Intel Core Series 3 mobile chips will have a noticeable price difference compared to Core Ultra Series 3 configs, I can't help but meet this news with optimism.

With Wi-Fi 7 and dual Thunderbolt 4 support, seemingly excellent efficiency and snappy performance (we'll do our own tests as soon as possible), and availability in many different PCs, Intel could very well be onto something.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 chips aren't mentioned anywhere in Intel's press briefings, but I suspect that these chips are an attempt to claw back some of the value I'm now seeing with laptops like the OmniBook Ultra 14 (G2).

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, due to the state of the PC gaming hardware market, Intel has clarified that it doesn't have plans to retire production of its 13th and 14th Gen Core processors.

In an interview with Club386, Intel VP and GM of Intel's Enthusiast Channel, Robert Hallock, revealed that the company's Raptor Lake chips are "not going away any time soon," and that the aging hardware remains "a big part of our strategy."

These remarks were made in response to a question about Intel's DDR4 strategy. Unless you've been completely ignoring the price of PC hardware, you'll know that RAM prices have skyrocketed of late due to AI firms buying up the world's supply years in advance.

Although DDR5 prices have seen the most sensational rise, DDR4 prices aren't that far behind. The key here is that PC gamers hoping to upgrade their current system often try to reuse as many parts as possible.

Were you to buy one of Intel's latest Arrow Lake-S Core Ultra 200 series processors, including the impressive new 200S Plus chips we reviewed, you'd have to make the jump to DDR5 RAM. With Intel's Raptor Lake chips, that's not necessary; the 13th Gen and 14th Gen processors support both DDR4 and DDR5.

Hallock confirms that "Raptor Lake is a big part of [Intel's] strategy," and that "it's not going anywhere," especially with continued support from hardware vendors. He notes that hybrid DDR4/DDR5 LGA1700 motherboards entering the market recently add to the company's confidence surrounding the older processors.

When pressed about whether or not that means Raptor Lake chips will see an increase in production, Hallock noted that he can't comment on the subject.

Should you buy a 13th or 14th Gen Intel Raptor Lake CPU in 2026?

It's crazy that we're discussing something like this, but with RAM prices not expected to drop back to normal in 2026 (and maybe not in 2027, either), having any sort of gaming PC is better than having no gaming PC.

The big question is whether or not Intel's Raptor Lake chips are worth buying in 2026.

Intel's Raptor Lake chips were hit by a serious controversy surrounding instability, resulting in irreversible damage in 2024. However, Intel was able to identify the cause, and by all means, the problem seems to have been solved in chips produced after the fiasco.

How are prices looking? Something like the Core i7-14700KF we reviewed favorably currently sits at about $346.99 at Amazon. More popular amongst gamers is the Core i5-14600KF, which you can usually pick up for about $239.99 at Newegg.

Those prices aren't too bad, especially if you're already bringing your own DDR4 RAM and have an LGA 1700 motherboard to go with it (say from a 12th Gen Intel build).

Considering Intel's gaming performance hasn't changed all that much in its newer Arrow Lake desktop chips (aside from the 200S Plus bump), Raptor Lake is probably going to land high on your list, especially if you're on a tight budget.

What are your thoughts on Intel's dedication to keep Raptor Lake alive?

Is Intel's advertising of 13th and 14th Gen chips a way to get rid of leftover stock? How long do you think production will continue on these aging processors? Are you interested in an upgrade involving Raptor Lake? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Dell's Alienware gaming laptops are some of the best that we've tested and reviewed here at Windows Central, and the flagship models were recently updated to include Intel's Arrow Lake-HX Refresh processors.

These "Plus" chips, including the Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus and Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, give the Alienware 18 Area-51, Alienware 16 Area-51, and Alienware 16X Aurora a respectable power boost not only for gaming, but also for creators and professionals who work and play on the same PC.

The refreshed laptops are available to purchase now with the new Plus chips, and some of the older models are currently enjoying sizable discounts at Dell.

Intel clocks the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus as delivering roughly an 8% gaming boost at 1080p compared to the Core Ultra 9 285HX. If you're coming from an older PC, say with a Core i9-12900HX chip, Intel says you can expect roughly 62% better performance.

These "Plus" chips also bring support for Intel's Binary Optimization Tool (IBOT), which essentially increases performance by reordering unnecessary steps of compiled machine code. Windows Central Senior Editor Ben Wilson has a deeper explanation (and some testing) of IBOT in his Core Ultra 7 270K Plus review.

👉 Best gaming laptops in 2026

It's also well worth noting that the 16X Aurora is now available with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU; it was previously locked to the RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 mobile cards.

It's not just performance hardware that got an upgrade, either. Alienware's 16-inch laptops now have the anti-glare OLED display option that was teased at CES 2026.

Windows Central readers and writers are fans of Alienware laptops

The Alienware brand has been around for a long time, and it's a name that many associate directly with PC gaming. We asked if our readers were interested in these new PCs for 2026 when they were announced, and the response was very positive.

Former Windows Central reviewer Zachary Boddy is also a fan of the Alienware 16X Aurora after testing and reviewing the last-gen model. Boddy remarked:

"The Alienware Aurora laptops target the mid-range with great all-around performance and a practical design, and the more powerful 16X makes some smart upgrades to justify its added cost. For the budget-conscious PC gamers that still want a quality device, the Alienware 16X Aurora is absolutely worth consideration — just don't expect perfection in every category, like the keyboard or speakers."

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Intel's new Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop processors have garnered a lot of attention lately for their snappy gaming performance and phenomenal value, and I know that many PC gamers have been anxiously awaiting their official launch today, March 26.

There's no doubt in my mind that these chips are going to sell fast, and if you're interested, you'll want to nab one before they sell out and prices go up. I bring good news. Antonline has limited quantities of the Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus chips available now to buy at $214.99. Should you want integrated graphics, you can also pick up the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus for $229.99.

Intel's new Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop processors are an impressive generational refresh that kind of caught everyone off guard when they were announced.

They arrive as a low-cost alternative to Intel's flagship 200S "Arrow Lake" chips with gamers and creators in mind, and the reception from tech reviewers, including Windows Central Senior Editor Ben Wilson, has been largely positive.

Wilson awarded the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus a Windows Central Best Award in his review, remarking:

The difference between the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and the Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus is only a lack of integrated graphics in the latter. That means you'll need to pair it with a dedicated GPU, which most gamers and creators will already plan to do. That saves you some money compared to the 250K Plus, which Antonline also has for sale at launch.

The Core Ultra 5 250K/F Plus comes with 18 cores, 18 threads, and a boost clock up to 5.30GHz. You can see how the chip's performance compares to other CPUs we've recently reviewed in these graphs.

The Core Ultra 5 200K/F Plus is unlocked for overlocking (that's where the 'K' designator comes into play), and it works with the Intel LGA 1851 socket that's already in use by the non-Plus 200S chips. It can be paired with DDR5 RAM up to 7,200MHz.

Antonline will also have the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus for sale soon, should you want to grab the more powerful chip with integrated graphics.

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Razer's Blade 16 is a gaming laptop often considered to sit at the pinnacle of premium features and design, and it's just been refreshed for 2026.

The big news? Razer has made the change from AMD Ryzen AI HX to Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, bringing super-fast RAM, superior connectivity, and a brighter OLED display in tow. Razer also says the new Blade 16 is significantly more efficient when not gaming compared to the previous generation, with up to 13 hours of battery life for productivity.

The CPU used in all Blade 16 (2026) models is now the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H with 16 cores and a 4.9GHz boost clock speed, which is four more cores than the Ryzen chip used in 2025's model. That boost should show up in both gaming and heavy workloads, plus it has an NPU with 50 TOPS of power for Copilot+ AI tools in Windows 11.

The use of Intel's latest "Panther Lake" chips unlocks faster LPDDR5x-9600MT/s RAM (compared to 8000MT/s RAM in the 2025 model), of which you can configure up to 64GB.

NVIDIA's RTX 50-series mobile GPUs are still the big attraction here for gamers, and Razer lists the RTX 5070 Ti as a starting point with options for the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090.

If you're eager to get your hands on the new gaming laptop, I have some good news. The Blade 16 (2026) is available to buy now directly from Razer.com starting at $3,499.99.

The Blade 16's OLED display gets brighter, connectivity levels up

The switch back to Team Blue processors in the Blade 16 after the previous model's use of an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a testament to the efficiency and performance improvements Intel achieved with its Panther Lake generation.

This change has also unlocked Thunderbolt connectivity. The Blade 16 sports one Thunderbolt 5 and one Thunderbolt 4 port for the best connectivity possible, especially if you're a fan of the best docking stations.

👉 I tested Razer's new Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma — I can no longer live without this extremely convenient feature

The Blade 16 (2026) otherwise offers HDMI 2.1, three USB-A 3.2 (Gen 2), a UHS-II SD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack for your headset. It's a solid mix of ports that I'm sure will appeal to gamers and creators alike. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 are also as cutting-edge as can be for wireless connectivity.

One last change worth mentioning is a boost to the 16-inch OLED display's brightness. It now hits 1,100 nits in HDR mode, enough to land VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack 1000 certification. It still has a 2560x1600 (QHD+) resolution with a 240Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms response time, as well as NVIDIA G-Sync and perfect P3 color reproduction.

The Blade 16 for 2026 is still one of the thinnest gaming laptops the company has ever produced at just 14.9mm (0.59 inches) thin, a feat that's achieved by using a CNC-milled aluminum body.

This redesign is one we first saw when we reviewed the 2025 Razer Blade 16, when we called it "a fantastic redesign, once again establishing the Blade 16 as the ultimate luxury gaming laptop."

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Intel's latest Core Ultra Series 3 processors leaned towards an ever-growing focus on artificial intelligence when they launched at the beginning of this year, particularly (and unsurprisingly) for the enterprise sector. Alongside the usual performance promises, the company is expanding the security-centric benefits of its vPro platform — just as Intel did with Core Ultra Series 2 — and the improvements will benefit everyday workers and IT teams alike.

Intel vPro is a collection of hardware-level security and stability technologies that appeals to the corporate audience, and any PC with its certification signifies a minimum expectation that usually keeps the admins in your company happy. It's like a stamp of approval that means better security for remote management (and safer data protection in general).

During Intel's recent press briefing, the details of vPro on the Core Ultra Series 3 were an avalanche of acronyms and jargon. Still, the takeaways are fairly simple: the same battery-life benefits of Panther Lake carry over to enterprise laptops, while additions like "Device IQ" collect useful telemetry data from your devices to help apply real-time fixes for practically anything in the background — including problems that can affect your laptop's battery life in the first place.

If your company were to equip your entire team with new, vPro-certified Panther Lake devices, ranging from an entry-level Core Ultra 5 332 to an extreme high-end Ultra X9 388H, you could at least expect the usual generational improvements in battery life and power efficiency — just as you would with its consumer laptops.

Otherwise, the introduction of "TDT-DTECT" and hardware-level BitLocker protection will appeal to your resident admin team and help them protect your devices from external threats (or to you, because your work PC will be more secure). Either way, your next device will be better if it has that vPro branding.

As is the trend for hardware since the AI PC boom triggered by Meteor Lake processors, Intel Core Ultra Series 3 switches to its latest NPU 5 tile, pushing 46 – 50 TOPS on its own. Local AI tasks are generally more secure than anything in the cloud, keeping LLMs and your prompts on your own device, and Panther Lake chips can offer up to 180 total platform TOPS if they utilize every part of the processor.

Security platforms like CrowdStrike already use NPUs to help prevent data leaks, generally offloading heavier threat-detection tasks away from the CPU. In that, they currently seem to have more viable, real-world uses for enterprise customers than for regular consumers, though Copilot+ PC features should continue to expand in regular Windows 11 PCs, with Microsoft offloading more OS tasks to the NPU.

Intel Arc Pro graphics also get an upgrade with this vPro generation, with the Xe3 GPU cores introduced by Panther Lake appearing in new integrated and discrete variants. Yes, businesses will be able to pick up a new Arc Pro B65 or Pro B70 graphics card for their workstations and crunch whatever heavy-duty rendering tasks they might have, but no, we aren't getting any new consumer-grade Intel Arc GPUs yet — I'm waiting patiently.

The list of brand-new features isn't gigantic, but vPro still benefits from Intel's move to Core Ultra Series 3, including support for Wi-Fi 7 and a massive improvement to power efficiency that leads to better overall battery life.

Your resident IT expert will appreciate Intel's "Certified Apps Program," with software curated for vPro, and the intricacies of fleet management improvements should make their lives a little easier through integrations with Microsoft's Intune admin center.

TL;DR: Intel looks to be making great use of the power efficiency and local AI strengths built into its Panther Lake chips within the enterprise sector. If your company upgrades you to vPro-certified running Core Ultra Series 3 chips, then you should be pretty happy.

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Intel is back in the desktop CPU space with another generational refresh, expanding on its Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" processors. A technical duo of the new Core Ultra 200S Plus chips aims to surpass the likes of its last-gen Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 9 285K — though it's dropping the Ultra 9 variant this time around — and the company wants to appeal to PC gamers again. So, will it work?

Where can you buy Core Ultra 200S Plus?

There aren't many placeholder retail pages for each processor's March 26 launch at the time of writing, but Newegg lists the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, presumably at MSRP. It's the same for the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus at Newegg. I don't see any reason to doubt that Amazon will list the U7 270K Plus at the same price (if stock is healthy enough) alongside similar Amazon listings for the U5 250K Plus — but I'll update this section whenever I spot some confirmed listings with availability.

What type of motherboard do you need?

Both of the new Core Ultra 200S Plus processors require motherboards with an LGA 1851 socket, which, like most modern examples, has pins on the board rather than on the CPU. You'll need an 800 Series motherboard to use the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus or Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, with an entry-level H810, mid-range B860, or high-end Z890 chipset.

For example, I used Gigabyte's $199.99 – $289.99 Z890 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 ICE motherboard, with the lower price usually tied to sales events. It's a sample that the company provided for previous testing, and one that's likely overkill at its full MSRP, but a great deal for $200. Otherwise, something like MSI's $178.99 – $189.99 PRO B860M-A WIFI is a slightly more affordable option.

CPU coolers are a little more forgiving, as last-gen LGA 1700 brackets are broadly compatible with the new LGA 1851 socket, though a few considerations apply per individual brands. In my case, my personal choice of ARCTIC coolers includes contact frames, like in the $129.99 Liquid Freezer III Pro 360, which makes the installation process a little easier.

Testing the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus leads Intel's marketing for the new 200S Plus processor series, so it makes sense to start at the top. $289 – $299 for a 24-core, 24-thread processor clocking up to 5.5 GHz puts it up against the likes of AMD's Ryzen 9 9900X with its own 12/24-core/thread count and 5.6 GHz max clock speed, but at a much lower MSRP — and still lower than current $373.81 listings for the 9900X on Amazon, etc.

Somewhat comically, Intel pits the U7 270K against AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X, which now sells for around the same price when it's on sale. With today's listings, you could buy a 9700X for $299.65 at Amazon. It's part of why Intel can claim Core Ultra 200S Plus offers "up to 2x performance for creators versus competition", rather than a closer, apples-to-apples comparison.

Running my usual gamut of CPU-centric benchmarks saw a mix of expected results and caveats. Overall, the consensus is very similar to when I tested the Core Ultra 9 285K: Intel hits the top of the board in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024, but AMD pulls ahead in 7-Zip's compression and decompression tests. The goal was always to deliver "significant boosts to multithread performance", and you can clearly see that in synthetic benchmark tests like these.

However, it's important to remember that the U9 285K launched with a $589 – $599 MSRP. That means Intel is beating its own high-end Arrow Lake chips with a refresh that saves you $300. Considerations like these are where the performance-per-dollar appeal hits the hardest, and I'm left rethinking which desktop CPUs to recommend to creators. If the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus maintains sensible pricing, then this could be a spectacular win for Intel.

Testing the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus

For another $100 saving, you could pick up the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus with an 18/18-core/thread count and a 5.3 GHz max clock speed, albeit with the same 125W base TDP. Here, current comparisons to AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9900X show much closer results in benchmark testing, but Intel's $189 – $199 MSRP still stands out for its phenomenal value.

If you were budgeting for that amount, you'd be looking at $189 – $279 for a Ryzen 5 9600X — a respectable entry-level CPU that I praised when it launched. Still, unless you have an unwaivering attachment to AMD's chipset and AM5 motherboards, it'll be overshadowed by the Ultra 5 250K Plus and its generous, more appealing pricing.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus appear in new, affordable pre-built gaming PCs, regardless of whether Intel Binary Optimization makes a big difference on that front. So many gamers are moonlighting as creators that its appeal for video creation will likely carry over, at least in a much bigger way than the Core Ultra 5 245K tried to be.

Ultimately, this chip is the one that backs up Intel's claims against its competition, as it aggressively tackles AMD's Ryzen 9000 Series with an admirable move towards value for money. It's especially important as your average PC gamer is repeatedly beaten over the head by the ongoing memory and storage crisis; you might only need to commit to a new motherboard.

What is the Intel Binary Optimization Tool?

Putting value aside for a moment, Intel's marketing for the Core Ultra 200S Plus calls them the "fastest desktop gaming processors [it] has ever built". Besides the raw speed upgrades and support for 7200 – 8000+ MT/s memory speeds, this new Intel Binary Optimization Tool (IBOT) is part of what makes the new 200S Plus desktop (and 200HX Plus mobile) processors so interesting.

I had a chat with Rob Hallock, Intel's VP/GM for the Enthusiast Channel Business, to summarize that IBOT is essentially an x86 translation layer that identifies and reorders unnecessary steps of compiled machine code, such as error handlers, without ever editing the original human-written source.

So, if the Core Ultra 200S Plus processors can change the order that they process code, then they can focus on handling the instructions that a game needs processing more urgently, leading to better performance in specific games — a list of which is relatively modest right now, but Intel says it will "continue to explore titles both new and old".

Does IBOT make a difference?

For critical context, Intel's internal testing rig was a Windows 11 25H2 desktop running a third-party (PNY) variant of NVIDIA's top-end GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card — that's currently the best consumer graphics card in the world. It's pretty clear that high-end gaming PCs are where most of the IBOT benefits will be apparent, and even then, an average gain of +8% probably won't be very noticeable.

Out of curiosity, I also tested Cyberpunk 2077 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider with a few entry-level (and older) NVIDIA graphics cards. There wasn't any difference in FPS — and I didn't expect any, given the GPU bottleneck — but I had to know. So, yes, it can make a difference on a powerful rig with a defined list of single-player titles, and more should come, but it isn't a magic wand for every PC game.

Multiplayer games are currently not supported, but Intel says it will "work hand-in-hand with devs to ensure enthusiasts can benefit from this technology while enjoying anti-cheat protection". So, while the Core Ultra 200S Plus series is budget-friendly, that isn't necessarily the category that would see the greatest benefits of Intel Binary Optimization — at least not in the earliest days.

I'll check in on these processors in the near future to see how updates might affect the Intel Application Optimization (APO) app and the Intel Platform Performance Package (IPPP) it belongs to, which is an all-in-one package of libraries and frameworks that simplifies new PC builds with IBOT. Acronyms.

Should you buy a Core Ultra 200S Plus processor?

You should buy this if ...

✅ You're migrating from another gaming/creation PC

✅ You have a limited budget

You should not buy this if ...

❌ You already bought into Core Ultra 200S

Pushing on with Intel Application Optimization is admirable, and as an Arc gaming fan, the Binary Optimization Tool certainly feels promising, but Intel should be lauded primarily for its pricing here. These Core Ultra 200S Plus chips offer tremendous performance at prices that so severely undercut their rivals to a point that it almost feels unsustainable (but hopefully not).

If you already have DDR5 RAM and solid-state storage, you won't have to cough up too much cash for a migration to LGA 1851 motherboards and a multi-generationally compatible CPU cooler. Otherwise, starting from absolute zero will still sting — a little less than some competitors at these prices, but sting nonetheless.

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Pearl Abyss' massive open-world action game Crimson Desert is finally out, and if that near-250,000 player count peak on launch day is any indication, it's very likely going to end up as one of 2026's biggest and most-popular new games. For an entire subset of the PC gaming community, though, the ambitious title can't be enjoyed at all.

That's because, surprise, Crimson Desert doesn't support Intel Arc GPUs — the lineup of affordable graphics cards that Intel began rolling out in 2022 to shake up the PC gaming hardware market. At first, poor driver support resulted in subpar capabilities. In time, though, cards like the Intel Arc B580 offered impressive 1080p and 1440p performance for a low cost, disrupting the duopoly of NVIDIA and AMD in the space.

Indeed, while Intel Arc is still niche compared to Team Green and Team Red, it's on the rise — which makes the fact Crimson Desert doesn't work with any of its GPUs all the more frustrating. Pearl Abyss informed players of the incompatibility in the game's launch FAQ on its release date.

"No, Crimson Desert currently does not support Intel Arc graphics cards," wrote the developer. "If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options. We apologize for any inconvenience caused."

It's worth noting that there's no mention here of Intel Arc support potentially coming later down the line, which suggests there's a very real possibility Crimson Desert will never work with these cards. If you try to launch it with one installed, you'll just get a "The graphics device is currently not supported." error.

Another thing — and something that kind of rubs me the wrong way — is that Crimson Desert's incompatibility with Intel Arc wasn't announced until launch day. The aforementioned launch FAQ was actually published a week before its release date, and was updated with the confirmation Intel GPUs won't work at launch time.

With Pearl Abyss posting very detailed PC requirements and recommended specs and also being quite vocal about how much work it put into optimization, it's hard to believe that the developers didn't think about Intel Arc GPUs.

More of a heads up to the community would have been nice, and would have saved Arc users like this one from feeling blindsided and crushed after being excited to play Crimson Desert at launch. "I’m very disappointed I was very looking forward to play," they said. At least Steam and Epic Games tend to be very consumer-friendly with their refund policies.

As for why Intel Arc GPUs aren't supported, it's unclear. Some believe it's due to the fact that Arc is still rather niche overall, but then, Mac is almost never used for gaming these days and Crimson Desert works on Apple's platform. Others suggest that there may be some sort of DirectX feature the game relies on that Arc doesn't yet support, which may be the case.

Whatever the reason is, it's ultimately still very unfortunate that one of this year's massive new games isn't playable on a budget-friendly class of GPUs that's rising in popularity, and that nobody knew about that until after people preordered and it came out. I hope Crimson Desert gets support for Intel Arc cards at some point.

🗨️ Are you an Intel Arc user?

Even if Intel Arc users are the minority, it's still very unfortunate that those who do use the GPUs aren't able to play Crimson Desert, which is one of the biggest games of 2026.

Are you an Intel Arc user that was hoping to play Pearl Abyss' new hit? Let me know in the comments, and vote in our poll to say if you're getting the game or not as well.

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It's that time of year when Intel refreshes its desktop and mobile processors (for laptops), officially expanding its recently announced Core Ultra 200HX Plus Series range. These "Arrow Lake Refresh" (Series 2) chips are an upgrade to their predecessors rather than an all-new architecture generation, with Panther Lake still positioned as Series 3, and Nova Lake to follow as Core Ultra Series 4.

We'll see two new 200HX Plus processors appearing in brand new gaming laptops from familiar OEMs, including the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Ultra 7 270HX Plus. Both support Intel's new Binary Optimization Tool, acting as a "binary translation layer optimization capability that can improve native performance in select games."

In terms of generational improvements, Intel claims "up to +8% faster gaming performance" with the U9 290HX Plus compared to its previous Ultra 9 285HX processor, which appeared in gaming laptops like MSI's monstrous Raider 18. Elsewhere, you can expect support for Wi-Fi 7 and Thunderbolt 5 on the highest-spec workstations launching from today, March 17, 2026.

The Intel Binary Optimization Tool (let's call it IBOT) is the most interesting part since the rest is generally a run-of-the-mill "up to 900MHz die-to-die frequency" spec bump. It works like a code translation layer, much like Microsoft's Prism for Windows on ARM or even Valve's Proton for SteamOS, except it translates x86 instructions to variants that work more efficiently on its microarchitecture.

Intel's VP Rob Hallock says IBOT uses "no AI-generated frames, no skipped work, you just get much, much higher average FPS". So, when the company says its new Core Ultra 200S Plus processors are "optimized for advanced gaming", this is the in-house technology they're referring to, and the reason I'm more interested in this generational refresh.

A handful of gaming hardware manufacturers set to use the new Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Ultra 7 270HX Plus processors include Acer (Predator), ASUS (ROG), Dell (Alienware), HP (HyperX), Lenovo (Legion), and Razer, but you can expect to see more — all with premium price tags. This is Intel's new top-end HX-Series configuration, after all.

🗨️ Are you in the market for high-end laptops?

These chips are exciting for one particular subset of gamers, and it's the polar opposite of the budget-conscious PC gamer that Intel's Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop chips will appeal to. Do these HX-Series processors tickle your fancy at all, or are the types of gaming laptops with price tags in the several-thousand-dollar range outside of your interests? Let me know.

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Intel's Arrow Lake Refresh is real. The company just announced two new Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop processors with spec bumps, along with some interesting architectural tweaks that it says will deliver "value that's hard to beat". Technically, there are three, but the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus just has an extra 'KF' variant that skips integrated graphics.

The chips should launch at "suggested prices" of $199 for the U5 250K Plus and $299 for the U7 270K Plus via Intel's retail partners, starting on March 26, 2026 — just over two weeks from now. Naturally, I expect to see pre-built desktop PCs with the same Core Ultra 200S Plus processors appearing at the same time, but that'll depend on each OEM.

And yes, Intel is proudly marketing itself to the PC gaming category with this Arrow Lake Refresh, rather than focusing on AI as it did during the original Core Ultra 200S reveal in 2024. The company boasts "up to 15% geomean faster gaming performance" over their desktop predecessors, and "up to 103% better multithread performance compared to competing CPUs in their segments".

Those architectural tweaks come via a new Intel Binary Optimization Tool, described with a technical word salad as a "binary translation layer optimization capability that can improve native performance in select games". As an Intel Arc graphics enthusiast, I'll just take it as a welcome hint of its ongoing (if at times quiet) roadmap for Intel gaming platforms.

The new processors use the same LGA 1851 desktop motherboard socket as the Core Ultra 5 245K that I tested a couple of years ago, alongside the benchmark-crushing Core Ultra 9 285K. That means I can still use the same Z890 motherboard as before — or any 800-series board for that matter — and focus instead on the new core count and speed bump.

This Arrow Lake Refresh adds four more of Intel's efficiency cores (E-cores), bringing the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus to 18 total (6 Performance and 12 Efficiency), while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus jumps to 24 (8 Performance and 16 Efficiency). That, and we'll get a 900 MHz speed boost, at least when specifically comparing the new duo to its U5 245K and U7 265K predecessors.

So, we're getting higher speeds with added cores, and a more attractive price point than Arrow Lake's first desktop adventure. That, and native support for DDR5 memory clocked at 7200 MT/s, up from 6400 MT/s (though you can still push for 8000+ MT/s with overclocking). That's cool, but it's probably not a completely thrilling prospect for your average PC gamer suffering the ongoing memory crisis.

Still, I can set aside the idea of quadruple (now 4R CUDIMM) RAM modules and focus more on whether Intel will appeal to PC gamers who may have already passed on the previous generation Core Ultra 200S desktops. DDR5 is the modern standard for memory, and most other components would transfer over from other rigs just fine.

As a secondary consideration, it'll be the motherboard costs that stand out the most, because it's unlikely this Arrow Lake Refresh would appeal to anyone who already bought something like the Core Ultra 5 245K — even if they wanted to push for more supposed gaming benefits. Then again, the new MSRP certainly looks more appealing on the Core Ultra 200S Plus pairing.

I'm interested. Intel is throwing out big claims of "up to 2x performance for creators versus competition" (which I'll test in good time), and its apparent PC-gaming focus certainly caught my attention. I won't speculate too much, but I have my suspicions on where these processors might land in synthetic benchmarks, and it feels like those $199 and $299 price tags could be a big deal.

🗨️ Would you build an Intel gaming desktop PC?

PC gamers have almost certainly been swayed by one particular CPU brand for a while now, but this suggests that Intel might fight back with more affordable pricing. Are you interested in the Arrow Lake Refresh, or are you patiently awaiting Nova Lake?

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Typically, Windows laptops rely on x86 processors from Intel and AMD. In recent years, though, Qualcomm Snapdragon chips have started to gain ground, partly as the industry tries to catch up with the efficiency gains seen in Apple’s M series processors.

Now, Qualcomm is positioning the Snapdragon X2 Elite as a flagship Windows laptop chip, putting it directly up against Intel’s Panther Lake lineup. Early benchmarks suggest Qualcomm could have the edge this time, with the Snapdragon chip pulling noticeably ahead in early testing.

Early Geekbench results put Snapdragon ahead of Intel

Early Geekbench 6 scores for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme have surfaced online, as reported by PCGuide. The chip appeared in testing inside an ASUS Zenbook A16 laptop.

Geekbench runs a series of simulated workloads and produces a score that can be compared against other processors. The results are split into single-core and multi-core performance.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme scored:

• Single core: 4,033
• Multi core: 23,198

For comparison, Intel’s Core Ultra X9 388H scored:

• Single core: 3,066
• Multi core: 17,924

Of course, benchmark results do not always translate directly to real-world performance. Early tests should always be treated cautiously.

Looking at the hardware itself, though, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme features an 18-core design, while Intel’s Core Ultra X9 388H uses 16 cores. In this particular test, the Snapdragon chip was running at around 4.45GHz, while the Intel chip was recorded at roughly 4.0GHz; however, as PCGuide mentions, Intel does advertise 5.1GHz on its official website.

There are still some growing pains with ARM on Windows. Not every Windows app is built for it yet, although PRISM emulation has come a long way, and native ARM support is increasing.

One limitation is drivers. Unlike apps, old drivers cannot be emulated, which means some hardware or software may not work if it does not have an ARM-compatible driver.

This affects certain games that rely on kernel level anti cheat systems, such as Riot’s Vanguard used in Valorant. Without native ARM support for those drivers, the game simply will not run. You can actually look up if your game or app works on Qualcomm chips via the site Works on Windows on Arm.

But all of this is becoming a trope these days as generic rehash arguments against Qualcomm. Indeed, back in June of 2025, we reported how "100 of the most popular Windows apps are now Arm-native, and users are spending upwards of 90% of their time in non-emulated apps." Microsoft went on to boast about those numbers later in September, but for some reason, people who have never touched a Qualcomm PC are convinced "there are issues" for regular users. Funny how that is.

🗨️ Where do you think this chip race goes next?

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is already posting early numbers that put real pressure on Intel’s upcoming Panther Lake chips, and it’s setting the stage for one of the most interesting CPU battles we’ve seen in years. Qualcomm momentum, Intel’s response, and what these early benchmarks actually mean for real‑world laptops — there’s a lot to unpack.

So tell us: are you buying the early ARM lead, or do you think Panther Lake closes the gap once final silicon lands?

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Despite Microsoft’s meteoric rise, and one that made Bill Gates a billionaire, the same co-founder admitted he didn’t truly see the company as a success until the late 1990s, and often felt just one mistake away from death.

Microsoft isn’t called the software giant for nothing. Long before the razzle-dazzle of AI and Copilot, its bread and butter were Office and Windows, and they still are — driving broad adoption worldwide. That dominance helped transform Microsoft into a Fortune 500 powerhouse, with a market capitalization of $3.05 trillion at the time of writing.

Recently, CEO Satya Nadella seemingly expressed his gratitude to Intel and Apple for helping contribute to Windows and Microsoft Office's success in an interview with Morgan Stanley, though, as pointed out by our friends at PC Gamer, Nadella was specifically talking about the early days.

Back then, “Wintel” was a common term because MS-DOS was built for IBM PCs running Intel chips. For years afterward, Microsoft’s operating system became the default for home computing on Intel PCs.

They explain how Excel was first released on Mac, and the first GUI version of Word also debuted there before Windows. That likely happened because Apple’s original graphical OS, System 1, was more user-friendly (and popular) than Microsoft’s post-DOS Windows 1.0.

That said, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated that the company was moving away from Bill Gates' software factory vision. "That idea has guided us for decades," Nadella admitted. "But today, it's no longer enough."

The company is now doubling down on its efforts across security, quality, and AI transformation as its core business priorities.

💬 Does Microsoft still hold the fort in productivity?

Nadella’s views almost echo Apple's recent unveiling of its $599 MacBook Neo. In a promotional demo, Apple highlighted Word, PowerPoint, and Excel as the most-used apps, underscoring the software’s enduring dominance in productivity.

Even I juggle between Windows and macOS as my daily drivers, though lately I’ve admittedly been leaning toward the latter — maybe it’s the hype around the new MacBook Pro with its M5 Pro chip?

Still, when it comes to productivity, I rely more on Microsoft Office. Years of using Windows have made me appreciate its simplicity and the seamless integration across apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. That said, investors have begun voicing concerns over Microsoft’s heavy spending on AI with little return so far, especially after growth in Azure and Microsoft 365 apps fell well below expectations last quarter.

Microsoft recently highlighted its commitment to make Windows 11 better in 2026 based on user feedback and even reevaluating its AI strategy, which may include streamlining its user experience across its ecosystem and even removing Copilot in apps like Notepad and Paint.

What do you think about Microsoft's current strategy with Windows and Microsoft Office? Share your thoughts with me in the comments.

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Intel's foray into hybrid-core processors could be coming to an end. A job listing posted on LinkedIn shows that the company is hoping to hire a senior CPU verification engineer to join its "Unified Core" team that is based in Austin, Texas. The listing is no longer accepting applications, and it was only live for about three days.

According to the job listing, Intel is hoping to land a new engineer who "will be responsible for driving and executing the functional correctness of CPU logic designs through rigorous pre-silicon verification methodologies."

This signals that Intel is still a few years away from launching a Unified Core CPU, which has been rumored to be coming after Razer Lake (which itself is expected to be the successor to the upcoming Nova Lake generation).

A verification engineer's job begins far ahead of any sort of consumer-facing news, so it's not a stretch to believe that a potential shift back to a Unified Core architecture would arrive in 2029 or 2030.

What's the difference between Unified Cores and Hybrid Cores?

Intel's current hybrid core architecture got its public unveiling in 2021 with the announcement of 12th Gen Alder Lake chips. With Performance cores and Efficient cores, Intel's hybrid approach was very similar to ARM's big.LITTLE architecture.

The Performance cores draw more power and mainly tackle big tasks in the foreground, while the Efficient cores use less power and handle background tasks. In some cases, like for Intel's Xeon lineup mainly used in servers and datacenters, chips were built entirely from Performance or Efficient cores.

Under this architecture, Intel's multi-threaded throughput improved, as did efficiency when handling background tasks. This setup also allowed Intel to boost core counts, which is why something like Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K desktop chip has a whopping 24 cores (8 P cores and 16 E cores) and 24 threads.

Of course, splitting an architecture into Performance and Efficient cores required additional management, which was granted in the form of Intel's Thread Director. It keeps Intel chips humming along with strong multi-threaded power, but it also adds complexity that can sometimes get in the way of demanding tasks like gaming.

A return to a Unified Core setup would solve some of that complexity, and reduced scheduling overhead is always a good thing. With a single unified core type, Intel would also have more room for additions like larger cache, larger NPUs, and larger iGPUs.

AMD does something similar with its Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores, which use the same architecture and have the same IPC, but are tuned up or down depending on what's needed.

What do you think about Intel's potential return to a Unified Core architecture?

Are you looking forward to an Intel Unified Core architecture? Will it help the company compete with AMD's desktop chips? Let me know in the comments section!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" chips made their official debut at CES 2026, and laptops featuring the chips have now launched. Coinciding with the release, Intel has delivered a new Intel Graphics Driver (32.0.101.8425/32.0.101.8362) for its Arc A-series and B-series discrete GPUs, as well as Core Ultra CPUs featuring integrated Arc graphics.

The biggest news coming out of this driver update is the addition of Intel XeSS 3 Multi Frame Generation (MFG) support. While XeSS Frame Generation has been around for a while with a 1:1 framing setup, XeSS 3's MFG can insert up to three AI-generated frames between two "real" frames. It's the same type of technology available with NVIDIA's DLSS 4; AMD's FSR 4 so far does not offer MFG.

It's important to note that it's not just the latest Panther Lake chips that can now harness XeSS 3 MFG. The update extends to integrated graphics in Meteor Lake, Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake-S, and Arrow Lake-H mobile chips, effectively giving the older platforms a significant boost in the gaming department.

"Panther Lake" seems like the exact boost that Intel needed

The review embargo for Intel's next-gen Core Ultra "Panther Lake" Series 3 mobile CPUs has come and gone, and the general temperature around the new chips is quite warm. With excellent efficiency, solid performance on and off the charger, and a significant upgrade for the integrated graphics, it certainly appears that Team Blue has come up with a big win.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade arriving with Panther Lake is the move to Intel Arc B-series Xe3 integrated GPUs, including the Arc B370 and Arc B390. Thanks to the separation of the GPU tile from everything else, Intel can scale up the graphics independently from the rest of the chip.

As former Windows Central laptop expert Zachary Boddy wrote after they got an inside look at the Intel factory in Chandler, AZ, last year, the Panther Lake iGPU's new third-gen Xe cores bring "upgraded ray tracing cores, improved vector engines, increased memory bandwidth and reduced memory bottlenecks, massively enhanced platform tuning to better allocate and use GPU resources, and other advancements."

Boddy got the chance to test XeSS 3's MFG at the Intel Tech Tour, noting that they were "more impressed than with NVIDIA's implementation of the feature," mainly due to its responsive feel. As Boddy points out, games that already support XeSS 2 will immediately support MFG via XeSS 3, with the switch being controlled via the Intel Graphics Software app. Once you have the new driver installed, you should have roughly 45 games ready to test out with MFG.

Meanwhile, rumors suggest that AMD could stick with RDNA 3.5 graphics until 2029, leaving RDNA 5 reserved for "premium" devices. Is this Intel's opportunity to take over the mobile GPU market?

Are you excited to test out Intel's new XeSS 3 Multi Frame Generation? Have you already seen what it can do? Let me know in the comments below!

Intel has moved its 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors, which launched in 2021, into a discontinuance period that will eventually wrap up in 2027. The move arrives in the form of two official Product Change Notifications (PCN) at Intel's site, which lay out the schedule.

The Product Discontinuance Program, encompassing Core, Celeron G, and Pentium Gold, began on January 6, 2026, for tray (the products served to OEMs) and boxed (the products served to consumers) Alder Lake CPUs.

The cutoff date for new demand for tray CPUs is April 10, 2026, meaning these chips won't be available for OEMs after that date. A full discontinuance for orders on tray and box chips is July 24, 2026, which is the same day that Intel is cutting off cancellations and returns for any orders. Intel will completely shut down Alder Lake shipping on January 22, 2027, effectively killing the generation.

Here's a look at the full list from Intel's support page:

Alder Lake was a great generation, but did it push Intel past AMD?

Intel's 12th Gen "Alder Lake" CPUs represented a significant and positive shift for Team Blue.

These chips, built on the Intel 7 process — otherwise known as 10nm Enhanced SuperFin (10ESF) — garnered plenty of praise from reviewers for their newfound performance and value, not to mention the move to modern PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support.

Alder Lake brought the "big.LITTLE" hybrid design principle that had so far only been seen in Arm-based chips (like Apple's M1) into Intel's arsenal, splitting cores into Performance and Efficient for improved efficiency and power. This hybrid design is still in use by Intel today.

It wasn't all good news, however. AMD had launched its initial Ryzen 5000 chips — including the Ryzen 9 5950X — about a year earlier, and they were mighty impressive.

We polled Windows Central readers shortly after the 2021 Alder Lake launch and review period to gauge their opinion of Intel's newfound competitiveness. Only 42.7% of readers thought that Alder Lake would compete closely with AMD and Apple, with another 28.9% believing that Intel still lagged behind its competitors. A close 28.2% of readers believed that Intel's Alder Lake had pulled it into the lead over AMD.

Of course, AMD unveiled the awesome Ryzen 7 5800X3D about six months after Alder Lake made its debut, and it still sells quite steadily on second-hand markets.

Intel hit a rough patch after instability issues were found to be cooking 13th and 14th Gen chips, and its move to Core Ultra largely failed to excite the PC market.

Looking forward, Intel's next-gen "Panther Lake" chips for mobile devices are headed our way in early 2026, with desktop versions under the "Nova Lake" name expected late 2026.

(via Videocardz)

What do you think about Intel pushing its 12th Gen "Alder Lake" CPUs into end-of-life territory? A natural move due to age or a preemptive strike? Let us know in the comments section!

Intel attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year in Las Vegas, primarily to show off its latest Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processors — codenamed "Panther Lake." They'll appear in modern laptops, like ASUS' refreshed ZenBook S14 and ZenBook S16, but the topic of PC gaming was mostly subdued.

It wasn't entirely absent, as Intel even took a jab at its rival by calling AMD's gaming handheld chips "ancient silicon" — but desktop PC gamers were left without any new exciting announcements. That might not have always been the plan, as firmware for a long-rumored Intel Arc Battlemage B770 GPU has appeared inside a Panther Lake-based driver package for an HP laptop (via VideoCardz.)

Proof appeared on Reddit, under r/TechHardware, and the codenamed BMG-G31 GPU driver is listed alongside drivers understood to be compatible with Intel Arc B570 and B580 Battlemage GPUs from last year. Sadly, the hints stop there, as Intel's Tom Petersen was understandably unable to elaborate when quizzed in an interview by Digital Foundry: "I cannot comment on unreleased products or unannounced products, but it's an excellent question, and I know a lot of people are curious."

TechHardware Exclusive: Intel Battlemage G31 "B770" Firmware Shows Up In Intel Driver Package! from r/TechHardware

Curious indeed. I'm a long-standing advocate for Intel Arc discrete graphics, as they're affordable yet performant cards that have significantly improved since their broad introduction with the codenamed Alchemist series, like the Arc A770. I had my fingers crossed to see the B770 appearing at CES 2026 in Nevada, but it never showed.

If nothing else, it's a tiny shred of hope that we might see an official confirmation of the Battlemage B770 before Intel moves on to its Celestial cards — if any discrete GPUs are even planned for that. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for a new affordable desktop Arc GPU, especially after rumors that even the prices of AMD Radeon cards could creep up, while surging prices still affect RAM.

Do you think the fabled Arc B770 is on the horizon, or will Intel quietly cancel it and move its focus elsewhere?

At CES 2026, Intel showed off its next-gen Core Ultra Series 3 chips (Panther Lake) and explained that these latest AI chips will be the company's platform of choice for laptops, tablets, mini PCs, and handheld gaming PCs going forward.

Of course, Intel plans on challenging AMD's dominance in the handheld gaming space with its newer SoCs (system on a chip) integrated with Intel ARC B390, which the company says offer better performance and features than its rival's; some are referring to this competition as the handheld war.

In an interview, Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of product management client for Intel, reportedly stated that AMD is "selling ancient silicon, while we’re selling up-to-date processors specifically designed for this market" (thanks, PC World). Apparently, the company is returning to low-power E-cores that are "particularly appropriate for gaming."

In other words, we can expect Intel to have a larger and louder presence in premium handhelds this year and next.

RELATED: Here's how to understand Intel Core Ultra Series 3 models

As part of Intel's plan to steal AMD's handheld crown, Team Blue is working with several other companies to create new handhelds. After all, you can't fully challenge the market king if it doesn't have consumer products for people to choose from.

Some of those companies include Acer, MSI, Compal, Pegatron, GPD, Quanta Computer, H Foxconn, Wistron, NexPlayer, and Microsoft.

As a reminder, AMD Ryzen Z1 and Z2 chips power most mainstream handhelds, including ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X, Legion Go 2, and many more devices. Even the Steam Deck has a custom AMD APU (accelerated processing unit), basically an AMD SoC.

Meanwhile, the only major OEM to have Intel-powered handhelds is MSI with its Claw lineup. I've personally been able to get my hands on one of these devices, as seen in my MSI Claw 8 AI+ review, and it truly impressed me with its impressive performance.

If Intel wants to get consumer attention as the best handheld chip manufacturer, it first needs to get its SoCs into more devices. I guess that means we'll be hearing about some new handhelds in the coming months.

It seems the handheld war is ramping up between Intel and AMD this year. Are you more interested in getting an Intel or AMD-powered handheld, and why? Tell us in the comments.

Intel has a huge presence at the Consumer Electronics Show, and it makes sense — Intel's next-generation silicon will power millions of brand-new Windows laptops this year.

Those chips fall under the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 umbrella, which Intel officially unveiled at CES 2026. Previously known as "Panther Lake," the latest from Intel represents a massive leap forward for the company in performance, efficiency, graphics, and AI.

We already knew about all of that, though. I wrote extensively about all there is to know about Intel Core Ultra Series 3 late last year, so Intel is focusing on the branding and the newly announced laptops from its partners at CES. You can check Windows Central for the latest news on the latter; this article will explain everything you need to know about the former.

Naming is simplified, but can still be confusing

Intel Core Ultra Series 3 will be the Intel platform of choice for laptops, tablets, handhelds, mini PCs, and more for manufacturers in 2026, and it's all designed to be scalable and modular. Of course, Intel is also competing with AMD's new Ryzen AI 400 series and Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 series.

I won't deep dive into Panther Lake and why this generation is so big for Intel, but the focus on disaggregation means Intel can be a lot more flexible. Broadly speaking, Panther Lake is divided into three tiers: low core count, high core count, and high core count with a powerful GPU.

That flexibility also gave Intel an opportunity to somewhat simplify its naming with this latest generation. Intel Core Ultra Series 2 was actually split between the cutting-edge V-series Lunar Lake released in the first half of the year, and the more traditional H, HX, and U-series Arrow Lake released in the latter half of 2025; in 2026, it'll all be Panther Lake.

Intel will likely release more configurations as the year progresses, but right now, there are 14 confirmed Intel Core Ultra Series 3 SKUs. Here are some tips to navigate the new naming scheme.

• Intel Core Ultra Series 3 is still divided into the classic 5, 7, and 9 families, with each family going up in price, performance, and features. For example, the Core Ultra 5 322 would be found in entry-level, value-driven devices, while the Core Ultra 9 386H would be found in high-end laptops that need top-notch performance.
• Family numbers will be followed by a 300 number, with higher numbers usually notating faster clock speeds, more cache, or other improvements. For example, the Core Ultra 5 325 and Core Ultra 5 335 are both 8-core chips, but the latter is clocked higher.
• Within each family, you'll see no suffix or an H suffix, with the H suffix being for SKUs with higher core counts. For example, the Core Ultra 7 365 and Core Ultra 7 366H are very similar overall, but the former has 8 cores while the latter has 16 cores.
• It's worth mentioning that Intel has confirmed the HX suffix isn't dead, and will likely be used with even more powerful configurations for gaming laptops and high-end workstations later this year.
• Finally, Intel is introducing a new X prefix for its most powerful configurations with the latest 12-core Intel Arc B390 GPU. For example, there's the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, which you'll find in premium devices that don't have discrete GPUs.

It may seem confusing at first glance, but this is definitely a far more straightforward naming scheme than last year. If you're comparing the Intel Core Ultra 5 332 to the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, you can tell that the latter is a more capable, higher-end chipset with a powerful GPU and more CPU cores.

Stay tuned for more coverage on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (especially as we actually begin getting these laptops in our hands).

What do you think about Intel Core Ultra Series 3? Is Intel onto a real winner with this generation? Let us know in the comments below!

In two recent public Geekbench listings, we’ve finally got a glimpse at Intel’s Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake chips running in real laptops. The entries were spotted and reported by VideoCardz, which highlighted the two different Geekbench result pages. One shows an AI test using the ONNX CPU backend, and the other shows an OpenCL test focused on GPU compute.

The laptops in question are the unreleased Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro (likely an update of our reviewed Galaxy Book5 Pro) with the Core Ultra 5 338H, and the refreshed ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 with the Core Ultra X7 358H.

These listings give us the first proper confirmation of Intel’s naming scheme, core layouts, and Xe3 integrated GPU configurations for the upcoming Panther Lake lineup, aka Core Ultra Series 3.

Before getting into the details, it’s worth explaining how Intel’s hybrid cores work in simple terms. P-cores are performance cores for heavy workloads, E-cores are efficiency cores for lighter or background tasks, and LP-cores are low-power cores designed to save battery during basic everyday use.

Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro leak confirms the Core Ultra 5 338H

The Core Ultra 5 338H is a 28W-class chip with 12 cores total (4P + 4E + 4LP). The Geekbench listing shows two clusters as 4 cores and 8 cores, and it reports a base clock of 1.90 GHz.

The test was run using the ONNX framework on the CPU backend, so the AI results come from CPU processing rather than the NPU. The scores include 4,136 for single precision, 1,764 for half precision, and 7,612 for quantized workloads in Geekbench AI 1.4.

The system was equipped with 32 GB of memory and was running Windows 11 Pro. These results give an early look at CPU-side AI behaviour for Panther Lake, but they don’t reflect NPU or GPU performance. AI benchmarks are also difficult to compare across devices, so this is best seen as an early snapshot rather than a complete performance picture.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 leak reveals the higher-end Core Ultra X7 358H

The Core Ultra X7 358H is a beefier 28W-class chip with 16 total cores (4P + 8E + 4LP). The boost clock is listed as up to 4.7 GHz, with a base of 1.90 GHz. The GPU details show a Xe3 iGPU with 12 graphics cores, and Geekbench reports 96 compute units, which lines up with 12 Xe3 cores multiplied by 8 units each. The iGPU can also access up to 16 GB of system memory in the test, which is common for integrated graphics.

We've previously written about Intel's ongoing ARC graphics and how it'll change with Panther Lake.

The only performance results available for this listing come from the OpenCL GPU compute test, not the CPU. The OpenCL scores vary across the different runs, with results of 52,014, 51,968, 51,331, and 46,171. These numbers give a general idea of where the new Xe3 iGPU lands in Geekbench’s compute test.

VideoCardz also compared the scores against other entries in the same benchmark. In this specific OpenCL test, the results place the X7 358H’s integrated GPU close to the RTX 3050 Laptop. It also comes in above the Intel Arc A550M, and ahead of the Arc 140T integrated graphics listed for Arrow Lake. These comparisons reflect only the scores reported in Geekbench.

FAQ

Intel Tech Tour 2025 has wrapped up, and with its departure comes the reveal of Intel's biggest plans for the next year. Panther Lake is on the way as Intel Core Ultra (Series 3), and it's easily the most advanced platform Intel has put out.

I learned a lot about Panther Lake, Intel Arc graphics, semiconductor fabrication, and more during my time with Intel in Chandler, AZ, but a single, random statement during one of the keynotes grabbed my attention: gaming handhelds with Panther Lake inside are on the horizon.

PC gaming handhelds, like the upcoming Xbox Ally, are all the rage in some circles right now, but they're dominated by AMD silicon. Companies have attempted Intel-powered handhelds, like the MSI Claw, but they've either been lackluster or frustratingly difficult to obtain. Next year, though, we could see more powerful and more efficient handhelds powered by Intel Panther Lake, and I can't wait.

Intel Panther Lake could be incredible for handheld gaming

If you want all the details, I did a deeper dive on what makes Intel's Panther Lake chips so exciting. I even dedicated separate posts to the Intel 18A technology behind Panther Lake and everything you need to know about the latest Intel Arc GPUs inside these chips.

There's a lot of information there, but I'll summarize the most important points here. Panther Lake is the latest generation of mobile Intel chips, and it'll release under the Intel Core Ultra brand. There are some major upgrades across the board, including to memory bandwidth, which give Panther Lake the efficiency of 2024's Lunar Lake and the performance of 2024's Arrow Lake.

More firepower and less power draw are obviously great for handheld gaming, but the real star of the show is the Intel Arc B-Series integrated graphics. Brand-new Xe3 cores and upgraded ray tracing units deliver the usual next-gen improvements alongside support for XeSS 3 — Intel's suite of AI-powered gaming features that now includes Multi-Frame Generation.

Intel also focused a lot on platform tuning with Panther Lake, making this platform far smarter at allocating resources across the chipset. With intense workloads (like gaming), Panther Lake will enjoy fewer CPU spikes and GPU stutters, ensuring more stable performance across long sessions.

With up to 16 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, Intel Panther Lake could put up a stellar fight against AMD's Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, the current flagship chipset inside handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 and Xbox Ally X.

Intel teased that we will see gaming handhelds powered by Panther Lake next year, too, so we'll be able to pit this platform against AMD's best. I haven't been sold by previous Intel-powered gaming handhelds, though, and AMD is showing no sign of slowing down with handhelds.

Panther Lake could be the future, but the Xbox Ally is here today

AMD may be the de facto choice for silicon with gaming handhelds right now, but Intel showed its usually laptop-bound processors can make for a mean handheld with the MSI Claw 8 AI+.

The problem with that handheld is two-fold, though. On one hand, Intel hardware helps make the MSI Claw 8 AI+ absurdly expensive — on par with more established and less quirky AMD alternatives. On the other hand, the MSI Claw is also frustratingly difficult to even find in stock.

The potential is there, though, and everything I've heard and seen about Intel's Panther Lake chips screams "much better for handheld gaming." Is it worth waiting to see if Panther Lake leaps far enough ahead to put Intel on even footing with AMD in this category, though?

After all, MSI is the only major brand to embrace Intel in handheld devices... and even then, MSI recently announced an AMD version of the Claw handheld. We won't see any other company announce a Panther Lake handheld at least until January of 2026, too.

In the meantime, the Xbox Ally and Ally X are right around the corner, and we more-or-less know exactly what to expect — some of the best PC gaming handhelds you can buy right now. I'm optimistic that Intel could become a far more competitive option for handheld manufacturers in 2026, but AMD can give you a sure thing right now.

Intel maintains a sizable presence in the United States, especially in Oregon and Arizona. I travelled to the latter for Intel Tech Tour 2025, where Intel shared a bevy of announcements near its absolutely massive Ocotillo campus.

I was able to take a tour of this campus, and most notably Fab 52 — the latest (and largest) addition packed with the most cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication technology in the world. It's this foundry that will produce Intel's next-gen processors using the new 18A processing node.

2026 could be a big year for Intel if its ambitions with Fab 52 are realized. Here's what you should know about Intel 18A, and I'll also share my experience strolling through the impressive Fab 52.

The heart of Intel Panther Lake is 18A

I've spent some time breaking down Intel's next-gen Panther Lake mobile chips, and explained what you need to know about the new Intel Arc graphics being paired with them. I skimmed over Intel 18A, though, and why exactly it's important.

If you weren't aware, one of the most important metrics for gauging the progression of semiconductor fabrication is the size of individual transistors, measured in nanometers. The smaller the size, the more densely you can pack transistors. The more densely you can pack transistors, the more transistors you can have. The more transistors you can have, the better your chip's performance and efficiency (largely speaking).

Intel 18A is a 2nm-class processing node, which is on the cutting edge of what modern semiconductor fabrication can achieve. That's important, but Intel 18A is special because it finally debuts two unique technologies in chips that are actually going to reach consumers — RibbonFET and PowerVia.

First, RibbonFET is set to replace the "FinFET" transistor design that has been the standard for over a decade. While the latter uses vertical "fin" transistors with the gate (which controls the flow of electricity through the transistors) set on top, RibbonFET uses a new, flexible and scalable "ribbon" design with a gate that wraps completely around the transistors. This design allows for more precise control, less power leakage, superior performance-per-watt, and helps support more densely packed transistors.

PowerVia is a similarly crucial advancement. Traditional chips weave together signal and power routing for transistors through the front of the chip die, but this can lead to congestion and performance degradation as transistors become more densely packed. With Intel 18A, chips can now route power to transistors through the backside of the die, leaving the front reserved just for signal input/output.

The result of these two technologies is significantly improved performance, efficiency, and consistency with intense, high-power workloads (like artificial intelligence). Intel 18A can also be paired with other Intel processing nodes thanks to Intel's more modular Foveros-3D advanced packaging, which can stack multiple, separate chiplets on the same die.

Intel Panther Lake is the first platform to be built using Intel 18A, and takes full advantage of these upgrades. As production scales up, too, we could see other partners turn to Intel for their semiconductor needs — and it's all happening inside Fab 52.

Fab 52 is alive, and I went aside to see what it's all about

Intel's Ocotillo campus is massive. Constantly growing since it first opened in the 1990s, this campus is built on over a square mile of land with its own 12-acre water treatment and recycling plant, and Fab 52 — the latest addition — is large even by Ocotillo standards.

Four years of construction required thousands of workers and tens of billions of dollars of investment. Intel had to excavate the equivalent of over 400 Olympic pools filled with soil and rock, and poured over 600,00 cubic meters of concrete — so much concrete that Intel built its own mixing plant on-site — reinforced by over 75,000 tons of steel.

It wasn't just about erecting the largest building possible; Intel had to carefully plan how and where to reinforce the ground to support the impossibly heavy Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUV) machines that are crucial for Intel 18A. These machines are so heavy it apparently takes three Boeing 747 cargo planes to transport just one to Arizona, and Fab 52 uses moveable bridge cranes built into its ceiling for construction and maintenance.

I got to see these EUVs in person, but I couldn't just stroll in. I had to leave my phone and all electronics behind (not just for Intel's security, but also because any wireless signal can interfere with the absurdly precise and delicate tools inside the foundry), and I had to don a hair net, gloves, and shoe covers before I was even allowed to enter the clean room where I was properly gowned in a full-body suit, hood, boots, protective goggles, and a second pair of gloves.

Enter the foundry, and you may note the aggressively "average" feeling of the air, as Intel carefully manages the temperature, humidity, and even air mixture. Dedicated air extraction towers cycle the air in the foundry six times a minute, apparently, and the air is thousands of times cleaner than even your average surgery operating room. You may also note the strange, yellow-green hue of the lighting, which is apparently an additional precaution to protect Intel's chips from the effects of some spectrums of light (similar to a dark room for developing older film).

I remember being mesmerized by the literal miles of track suspended from the ceiling, on which hundreds of automated robots carry silicon wafers and dies from tool to tool and building to building, the rows of extraordinarily advanced equipment, and the knowledge that the foundry is constantly under construction inside and out. Intel carefully considers which tools to replace or upgrade on a daily basis, ensuring that every foundry and building plays a role.

I won't even pretend to fully understand how exactly humanity managed to make rocks think, but I did learn a lot about semiconductor fabrication during my time with Intel in Arizona. I'm excited to see just how good Panther Lake ends up being, and it'll be especially interesting now that I've seen where Panther Lake chips are born.

I recently enjoyed a trip to Arizona for Intel Tech Tour 2025, a sizable event pulling together dozens of press members, analysts, and content creators to witness the unveiling of Intel's next generation mobile chips.

Intel Panther Lake is here, and it's the first platform built on the 2nm Intel 18A processing node — made possible by the cutting-edge tools and equipment inside Fab 52, the latest addition to Intel's massive Ocotillo campus in Chandler, AZ.

Panther Lake promises to bring the fight straight to AMD and Qualcomm with faster, smarter, longer lasting, and more modular chipsets than ever — able to scale across workloads and hardware form factors like never before. Here's everything you need to know about what will be known as Intel Core Ultra (Series 3).

More modular and scalable than ever before

Intel is clearly betting big on Panther Lake, which lays the foundation for the direction all of Intel's products are heading in the future. But what makes Panther Lake special?

A new, more modular and scalable packaging, next-gen compute cores built on Intel's latest process, more capable Intel Arc Xe3 integrated GPUs, and upgrades across the board to Intel's AI engine, image signal processing and media engines, memory bandwidth, and connectivity.

I'll dedicate separate articles to my tour of Fab 52 and in-depth breakdown of the Intel 18A processing node, and to my detailed explanation on Panther Lake's graphical capabilities with Xe3 and new XeSS 3 features. For now, let's focus on Panther Lake itself.

Intel's Panther Lake uses an advanced System-of-Chips (SoC) design that embeds and stacks multiple interchangeable chiplets, allowing Intel to support a multitude of configurations on the same platform. This generation is even more modular thanks to a separated GPU tile.

Panther Lake's greatest upgrades are due to Intel 18A, which Intel claims is one of the most advanced semiconductor processing nodes on the planet thanks to two new technologies. RibbonFET and PowerVia fundamentally change how the transistors and the chips themselves are laid out to massively improve efficiency and scalability, and Intel is the only company delivering both — right here in the United States.

Intel detailed three different configurations, but didn't share exact specs like clock speeds or individual SKUs. The 8-core configuration is almost certainly intended for portable ultrabooks, while the standard 16-core configuration seems geared toward powerful laptops with discrete GPUs (thanks to the extra PCIe lanes). Finally, the 12Xe configuration feels aimed at users who need as much graphical oomph as possible without relying on a discrete GPU.

Whatever configuration or SKU Intel releases, though, every Intel Core Ultra chip built on this platform will benefit from the same suite of improvements and features.

The best of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake in one

Intel impressed us with Lunar Lake, or Core Ultra 2V-series, an 8-core x86 platform that delivered stellar efficiency and reliable performance to thin and light Windows 11 laptops. Intel then followed that with Arrow Lake, a diverse family spanning mobile and desktop form factors.

We've been a big fan of Lunar Lake, which sits nicely between Qualcomm's efficient Snapdragon X series and AMD's highly capable Ryzen AI series, and the Arrow Lake series offered much more computational power at the expense of AI smarts (with a considerably weaker NPU).

Panther Lake aims to combine the best of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, at least with mobile hardware, scaling from ultraportable notebooks to powerful gaming laptops and creator workstations — all connected by Intel's growing artificial intelligence ambitions.

Major semiconductor advancements and a plethora of microarchitecture improvements lead to more than 10% improved single-thread performance versus Lunar Lake and more than 50% improved multi-thread performance versus Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake with similar power draw (or more than 30% lower power with similar performance). In general, Intel promises up to 10% lower power consumption compared to Lunar Lake and up to 40% lower power consumption compared to Arrow Lake.

Intel even hinted that these gaps may be even larger once Panther Lake devices actually hit users' hands, thanks to ongoing improvements to features like Intel's Thread Director and Power Management.

All I can say for certain is that Panther Lake will have to compete with Qualcomm's newly announced Snapdragon X2 series, which boasts even greater gen-over-gen improvements. It'll be interesting to see if Intel's 18A investments will pay off with Panther Lake, which is expected to start appearing in new hardware in early 2026.

For desktop users, you'll have to wait longer for Intel Nova Lake, the desktop counterpart to Panther Lake that we're expecting to see later in 2026. Intel is confident about Nova Lake after the disappointing launch of Arrow Lake on desktop, as it'll benefit from all the same 18A node advancements as the mobile-oriented Panther Lake.

If you're affected by Windows 10's imminent end-of-life and are considering a new laptop, it may be worth waiting a few more months to see what Intel, Qualcomm, and (possibly) AMD will accomplish with their next-gen chips.

Intel Tech Tour 2025 may have been all about new mobile chipsets and artificial intelligence on the surface, but dig a little deeper, and you'll uncover Intel's ambitions for more capable integrated GPUs in our laptops.

I spent time with Intel in Chandler, AZ to learn more about the upcoming Panther Lake family of next-generation chips, including the brand-new Intel Arc B-Series iGPU that's being paired with them.

Intel isn't just touting a sizeable performance increase year-over-year when gaming or spinning up sizeable AI LLMs with Panther Lake — it's also debuting new features and advancements as part of XeSS 3, which also debuts with Panther Lake. Here's what you need to know.

Intel Arc B-Series comes to mobile hardware

I've already broken down everything you need to know about Panther Lake itself, and I even got a tour of the factory that's making it possible. It's worth taking some extra time to highlight the GPU-specific improvements Intel is delivering with Panther Lake.

For one, Intel has detached the GPU tile from everything else, allowing the company to scale up the graphics independently of the rest of the chipset. Intel is going to refer to Panther Lake's GPU as "Intel Arc B-Series," which may sound familiar — because that's the current generation of Intel's desktop-bound GPUs.

Panther Lake utilizes brand-new, third-generation Xe cores, though, so it's actually a new architecture. Intel even admitted during its keynote that it knows the naming scheme is a little odd, but it's the end result that matters.

With Xe3, Intel focused on end-to-end optimization for consistency and efficiency. The new Xe3 cores aren't a massive departure from the last generation, but you do get upgraded ray tracing cores, improved vector engines, increased memory bandwidth and reduced memory bottlenecks, massively enhanced platform tuning to better allocate and use GPU resources, and other advancements.

You'll be able to get Panther Lake with up to 12 Xe3 cores and 12 ray tracing cores, and Intel promises more than 50% greater performance compared to Lunar Lake and more than 40% improved performance-per-watt than Arrow Lake. Microarchitecture improvements mean you can see even greater gains with some games or artificial intelligence workloads, with less stuttering and faster load times.

Throw in an upgraded media display engine with support for more codecs, Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) 1.5 support, and other AI-specific optimizations that result in up to 120 TOPS of computational power, and Intel Arc is looking pretty good inside Panther Lake. Intel teased during the Tech Tour that Panther Lake (and the new Arc GPU) is going to appear in PC gaming handhelds, too, so I'm excited to see what that looks like.

Intel also told me it's still committed to Arc moving forward, even with the news that Intel and NVIDIA are teaming up to jointly develop x86 processors fused with RTX GPUs.

New XeSS features that take advantage of Xe3 cores

Intel Panther Lake isn't just about the hardware, as the supporting software, firmware, and other platform features are also expanding, and that includes the arrival of XeSS 3. The equivalent of NVIDIA DLSS but for Intel Arc graphics, XeSS 2 already offers AI-powered Super Resolution upscaling, single Frame Generation, and Low Latency features.

Now, XeSS 3 is here with Intel's take on Multi-Frame Generation, which can use one natively rendered frame to generate up to three additional, artificial frames. We've already seen this feature with NVIDIA's DLSS 4, and can as much as quadruple your framerates without a significant decrease in visual fidelity or stability.

I saw XeSS 3 Multi-Frame Generation in action with Painkiller and was even able to play myself, and I found myself more impressed than with NVIDIA's implementation of the feature. Multi-Frame Generation inherently introduces additional motion latency (because each artificial frame is created ahead of time), and it's most noticeable with high-speed games that require fast movements and reactions, like competitive shooters.

Just in my limited hands-on, though, it felt to me like Intel's Multi-Frame Generation was slightly more responsive than NVIDIA's. More than that, though, is the fact that all XeSS 2-supported games will immediately support Multi-Frame Generation through XeSS 3, which will be controlled independently through the Intel Graphics Software app.

Intel's latest Arc GPUs also support Cooperative Vectors through DirectX XII Ultimate, an AI-accelerated rendering technique that can use small neural networks (powered by Intel Xe3's upgraded AI engines) across shading stages and reduce the load on the GPU.

Finally, Intel is debuting Precompiled Shader Distribution, an automatic service that collects and compiles the latest shaders for games, stores them in the Intel cloud, and then loads those shaders seamlessly when you boot up a game — ideally saving you time and GPU resources.

You can't shop for a new PC or components these days without tripping over some sort of AI branding or feature, but actual customers might not be as interested as you expect.

A recent report from Digitimes seems to confirm that, at least when it comes to desktop PC users, Intel's newer AI processors equipped with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) aren't as popular as older models lacking any built-in AI abilities.

The report, which mentions "supply chain sources," says that Intel plans to increase the prices of its 13th Gen Raptor Lake chips by "more than 10%" due to continued demand, even as Intel's newer Core Ultra processors are readily available.

Intel's Raptor Lake desktop chips debuted in 2022 with six initial chips, and the company continued to populate the list of processors up until 2023 with the Core i9-13900KS.

These price changes are expected to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2025. The report doesn't specify exactly which chips will see the price increase, but it does mention a price range of about $150 to $160, which will climb to about $170 to $180.

Looking at Raptor Lake prices at the time of writing, that price hike will likely fall on 13th Gen Core i3 and Core i5 desktop CPUs.

Should Intel decide to raise prices on the more powerful hardware, something like the Intel Core i7-13700K currently sells for about $345, while the Core i5-13400 sells for about $199. Those could climb to about $380 and $220, respectively, if the particular chips are included in the hike.

Why is Intel raising prices of its older CPUs?

Intel's decision to raise prices of its aging 13th Gen desktop CPUs might come as a surprise, but it makes more sense within the scope of the company's entire CPU portfolio and the current consumer market.

The Digitimes report suggests that the consumer reception to AI PCs hasn't been nearly as hot as expected. Intel put a lot of emphasis on AI and productivity performance for its newer "Arrow Lake" chips, and it didn't exactly work out as expected.

Intel execs haven't been shy about calling out the failures of the Arrow Lake generation. Intel CFO David Zinsner stated recently that the company "fumbled the football" with Arrow Lake:

Even Intel's CEO Lip-Bu Tan has publicly stated that the Arrow Lake processors aren't competitive, aligning with Zinsner's acknowledgement that the chips fell short in terms of both pricing and performance.

With Intel's older Raptor Lake chips offering such a solid value and a familiar "Core i" branding, it's no wonder that more people are turning away from Core Ultra and its AI enhancements.

Intel's troubles have escalated to the point that the US government recently purchased a 9.9% stake in Intel in exchange for an $8.9 billion investment.

Are Intel's 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" chips still relevant today?

Intel definitely cooked up some magic with its 13th Gen processors, and I'm not exactly shocked by the confirmation that there's such high continued demand as Intel's newer CPUs fail to offer substantial improvements to gaming performance.

As I mentioned, Intel went all-in on productivity performance and AI for its Core Ultra chips, so those who are gaming or who simply don't care about AI should find that the Raptor Lake hardware is still totally relevant (aside from the lessened iGPU support, which matters less for gamers with a discrete GPU).

Windows Central Editor-in-Chief reviewed the Core i5-13600K, calling it at the time "the best mid-range desktop CPU, without question."

Former Windows Central Senior Editor Rich Edmonds reviewed the Core i7-13700K, stating at the time that it's "a workhorse for gaming and getting all your work done on time."

(via Tom's Hardware)

Apple and Intel were once closely tied. Intel powered Apple’s line of Mac devices, and for years, the partnership looked solid.

Their history actually dates back to the 1990s with the secret Star Trek project, an early attempt to get Mac OS running on Intel processors. That effort never launched, but the two companies finally came together in 2005 when Steve Jobs announced at WWDC that Apple would transition from PowerPC to Intel chips. At the time, Intel’s processor roadmap looked far stronger, marking a major shift in Apple’s computing strategy.

Now, years after their split, Intel appears to be seeking Apple’s help once again.

In 2006, Apple launched its first Intel-based Macs. The iMac and MacBook Pro both shipped with Intel’s Core Duo processors, and by August of that year, Apple had already completed the transition across its entire Mac lineup.

Things looked strong for the partnership, but Apple was already planning ahead. In 2008, it acquired P.A. Semi for $278 million to develop custom ARM-based chips for mobile devices. This move marked the start of Apple’s long-term strategy to reduce its reliance on external chipmakers.

By 2010, Apple had introduced the A4 processor in the original iPad. It was a single-core chip running at 1GHz, a modest start that would see rapid improvement in the years that followed. By 2015 and 2016, Apple’s A9 series had arrived, and this is where the relationship with Intel began to show strain.

The relationship strain and the final break

Apple had already begun looking elsewhere to meet its LTE demands, turning to Qualcomm for support. By 2018, Intel struggled to keep up with Apple’s performance requirements.

In 2019, Apple acquired the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion. The deal gave Apple control over a key iPhone component, and later that year, Intel sold the rest of its modem business to Apple.

The real breaking point came in 2020 with the announcement of the M1 chipset. It was Apple’s first ARM-based processor for Macs, and it proved to be a breakthrough. The M1 was so successful that Apple fully discontinued the use of Intel processors in 2021.

Investments offer hope for Intel’s future

It’s no secret that Intel has struggled in recent years. Between 2021 and 2024, it lost market share to AMD and missed out on the AI boom dominated by Nvidia. During this period, Intel’s stock declined by more than 30%.

Even Intel’s leadership has been blunt about the situation. CFO David Zinsner admitted the company “fumbled the football” with its Arrow Lake CPUs, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan has warned there are no quick fixes for Intel’s problems.

Still, it’s not all bad news. SoftBank recently invested $2 billion in Intel, while the U.S. government acquired a 9.9% stake worth $8.9 billion. Nvidia has also invested $5 billion, giving it a 4% share in the company.

Now, according to reporting from Bloomberg, Intel has even approached Apple about a potential investment and closer collaboration. Talks are still in early stages, and there’s no guarantee of a deal, but it shows how far Intel is willing to go to secure its future.

In a surprise move, long-time rivals Intel and NVIDIA have announced a joint partnership that will see both companies build new x86 products that fuse Intel CPUs with NVIDIA GPUs dubbed "Intel x86 RTX SOCs."

NVIDIA says the partnership is still in early stages, but that it includes a roadmap with multiple new generations of chips in the works. The partnership will also see NVIDIA buy $5 billion in Intel stock at $23.28 per share, which should help the company in its foundry ambitions against TSMC.

The new Intel x86 RTX SoCs will come with an x86 CPU that is tightly integrated with NVIDIA's RTX GPUs via NVLink. This means the processor will have both CPU and GPU units merged into one compact chip package, similar to AMD's APUs.

In fact, this isn't the first time Intel has partnered up to make CPUs fused with GPUs. In 2017, Intel partnered with AMD to create something similar with its Kaby Lake-G chips, which were fused with an AMD Radeon GPU. The difference is that this time, the chips will share the same memory pool for increased performance.

These chips will benefit power users and gamers who are looking for smaller PCs or laptops for creative or gaming tasks. AMD has taken the handheld and laptop gaming market by storm in recent years, and today's partnership announcement between Intel and NVIDIA seems like an attempt to fight back against AMD's popular and powerful APUs that have made gaming on the go viable.

In addition to the consumer chips, NVIDIA also says that the partnership will also see Intel fabricate custom x86 data center CPUs for NVIDIA, which will aid them in their AI and enterprise efforts. NVIDIA also says this partnership does not impact its work on Arm-based chips.

Intel is yet to comment on the partnership, but NVIDIA says that there's no timeline for when the first Intel x86 RTX SoCs will be on the market. Given the usual long lead times for CPU and GPU development, it will likely be at least a year before we hear anything more about a real-life product that consumers can buy.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan are expected to hold a press conference later today, where they will discuss the partnership in more detail.

via Tom's Hardware

Over the summer, I took a trip to London, England, to visit MSI's UK offices and see what kind of tech it was cooking up — besides the usual gaming hardware that I'm used to. As much as I'm a fan of the MPG motherboards and Ventus graphics cards that have featured in my custom desktops over the years, I'm also a giant advocate for mini PCs, something I hadn't expected from MSI.

After going hands-on with the MSI Cubi NUC AI 1UMG, a relatively standard offering in the same vein as Intel NUC mini PCs you might have seen in the past, I was more intrigued by a variant that wasn't currently available at the MSI office for me to tinker with right away. I'd touched on some light details, but later got my hands on it: the Cubi NUC AI+ 2M, previously seen at CES 2025 — with Copilot+ PC certification.

Yes, most Copilot+ PCs have existed as laptops, but there has been an ultra-tiny category of Copilot+ mini PCs like the previously reviewed Beelink SER9 that launched before Microsoft ever released local AI tools like my favorite, Click to Do, and the controversial Windows Recall. These Cubi NUC variants are firmly in the enterprise space, advertised specifically towards businesses, but I still jumped at the chance to try one now that Microsoft's local AI tools are live, and here's what I found.

It's not that a regular consumer wouldn't be able to buy the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG; on the contrary, they're listed on standard retailers like Amazon.

The real caveat to the Cubi NUC series is its target audience: these mini PCs are designed for anything from a working office sprawling with monitors to touchscreen interfaces in fast food restaurants.

Now, obviously, the Copilot+ functions of the NUC AI+ 2MG are designed for traditional workloads, but there's still an obvious focus on the enterprise market.

PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled) materials are used in its construction and security-first offerings, like a fingerprint reader, surround more professional considerations like dual RJ45 Ethernet ports, which are generally more useful in offices. Finally, a built-in microphone and speaker alongside a VESA monitor mount make the business-centric appeal quite obvious.

Physically, the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG is almost indistinguishable from the AI 1UMG, its slightly more slimline sibling that lacks Copilot+ PC certification. That also explains the missing Copilot button on the AI 1UMG, but it's here on this taller variant and mirrored by a power button that now comes with a built-in fingerprint reader. Still, some tradeoffs make this Intel Lunar Lake-based mini PC 'different' rather than simply 'better' than its Meteor Lake counterpart.

Port selection is the most obvious divider between the two Cubi NUC AI mini PCs, as this AI+ 2MG Copilot+ PC comes with two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the front panel, surrounded by a combo audio jack and a micro SD card reader, whereas the AI 1UMG offers a forward-facing USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port instead, ditching the 3.5mm audio and card reader.

It's not a total deal breaker, as either Cubi NUC model gives you two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the rear side, but I'd still prefer at least one option on the front panel now that most of my peripherals have adopted the modern connector. Besides, this is aimed at the business sector, not at me and my collection of gaming-centric accessories. A little cable management (or a Thunderbolt docking station) could make use of the entire I/O offering.

There's a similar example of trade-offs around the rear side of the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG, as it ditches the secondary HDMI 2.1 port in favor of two USB-A 2.0 ports. You have to presume that this pairing is intended for basic peripherals like a mouse and keyboard, because anything else would be seriously stunted by the outdated 2.0 standard.

Both of the Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports support DP (DisplayPort) 2.1 output anyway, so there are other options for additional screens. Without a dedicated docking station, you could connect three separate monitors to the AI+ 2MG via one HDMI cable and two Thunderbolt-to-DP equivalents. It's a little more finicky than hooking up two standard HDMI-supported displays, but it's not a bad thing.

By far, the most surprising (and invisible) addition to the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG, at least over its AI 1UMG sibling, is the built-in speaker and microphone. Admittedly, I had forgotten about both until I heard the Windows 11 boot sound. This speaker certainly isn't designed for listening to music, that's for sure. Almost entirely devoid of low-end bass frequencies, this is more of a dialog-only offering, better suited to narrating documents or listening to virtual meetings.

So, is it any good? The Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG features the same Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor as MSI's Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld, which I already showered with praise for its stellar performance, but I still tempered my expectations. Out of the box, the MSI Center companion app is pre-installed, housing a power meter to monitor average and total wattage over a selected time period (nice). Sadly, Norton 360 antivirus is also installed alongside a 'Dropbox promotion' (boo).

Regarding performance, the CPU in the AI+ 2MG ranks just above Acer's Swift 14 AI laptop with the same Core Ultra 7 258V processor but below the previously reviewed MSI Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld and even further down from my current favorite Copilot+ PC, the ASUS Zenbook S 14. It isn't terrible for a mini PC running at 17W TDP, but I don't think it'll have the same appeal as some mass-produced office desktops do to retro gaming enthusiasts for their surprisingly capable components.

The memory-on-package (RAM) isn't upgradeable like the SO-DIMM RAM in the Cubi NUC AI 1UMG, but you could replace the standard M.2-2280 SSD yourself here, if you ever needed to. Again, you'll have access to Microsoft's latest Copilot features, but I doubt you'll ever be reaching for that physical Copilot button. At least teardowns are as easy as ever, totally on brand for a NUC.

It's a capable little mini PC, and a refreshing Copilot+ alternative to a laptop, but I still think AMD chips in dominant competitors like the Geekom A8 Max on my desk will stay as my top recommendation for everyday consumers. I'm a big fan of what Intel achieved with Lunar Lake chips, but there's little for your average Windows user to benefit from here — the Cubi NUC range is better for enterprise customers, which is exactly what MSI itself already says.

A new trend in PC gaming was popularized by Valve's excellent Steam Deck, a handheld option that brought console-style convenience to the masses who wanted to play titles locked to the platform, whether that's via Steam or any other storefront. I have my own, and it remains a huge part of my almost-daily gaming routine, but its Linux-based presentation is starting to be overshadowed by Windows-based alternatives.

First, the ASUS ROG Ally showed promising signs of supporting Microsoft's operating system in a package that could challenge Valve's leading handheld. It was even one-upped internally by its bigger brother, the highly praised ROG Ally X. However, the original, with its AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, stuck with me for months as a viable Steam Deck alternative. That is, at least, until I got my hands on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and fell in love with it.

MSI dared to pass on AMD's offerings as it already enjoyed total domination, its earlier chips appearing in the Steam Deck, and Ryzen Z1 variants appearing in Lenovo's 'Nintendo Switch-esque' Legion Go. Instead, the Claw would use Intel's mobile chips, starting with codenamed Meteor Lake processors in the previous generation Claw 7 A1M and refreshed with Lunar Lake versions in the Claw 8 AI+. It all sounds fantastic, but there's a glaring issue — you'll hardly ever find the thing in stock.

It's an axe I'll grind down to the handle, because it'll always frustrate me. The high-scoring MSI Claw 8 AI+ should have seen a few price-reducing deals by now, bringing it to a more realistic cost that resembles the post-$100 savings that ASUS has previously bestowed upon the ROG Ally X — but that's not the case — in fact, it's much worse than that.

Every week, I'll check on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ at Best Buy to see that its $999.99 price tag hasn't budged. Not only that, but the availability tracker sticks with an unmoving "Sold Out" message despite a handful of user reviews that suggest people have been lucky enough to bag one from this prominent retailer in the past, and they seem similarly happy with it.

Then again, if you pay over the odds, Walmart might hook you up for a Claw 8 AI+ at $1,249, but it's via a third-party seller, not the store itself. It's the same story at Amazon US; either it's stocked with an inflated price by a third-party seller, or it's completely invisible. Even a $999.99 listing at the official MSI US digital store can offer to notify you of restocks, but it can't sell you a Claw 8 AI+ today. At this point, it's a struggle to recommend it.

Now, sometimes you might see something in stock alongside the elusive Claw 8 AI+, and it might seem like my complaints are unnecessary when you see it. However, the "MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM Polar Tempest Edition" (yes, it's a mouthful) is little more than a white recolor with a higher price tag. It was supposed to launch with a 2TB variant for more game storage, but at least for now, it's just a $25 price hike to replace the unique "Sandstorm" shade of the original.

Price and availability problems keep coming back to the topic of tariffs, which has probably been the hottest topic in tech throughout 2025. We already saw the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and the Claw 7 AI+ increasing their price by $100 back in April this year, and neither has dropped back to their previous MSRP listings since. Raising the price is one thing, but if it isn't paired with any solutions for issues surrounding supply and demand, then what's the point? Even if the Claw returned to its previous price, there's no guarantee that any stock would follow.

It's mostly frustrating because I see a lot of generic, boilerplate responses from brands when inquiring about sudden component changes or reductions in their hardware categories, never wanting to point the blame directly at import/export tariffs. That, and I have to temper my expectations for modern-day gamers who are constantly mocked by gaming hardware that bloats its prices far above any intended MSRP, particularly with GPUs. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is not a budget handheld gaming PC by any stretch of the imagination.

On the other hand, the Claw 8 AI+ is the best Windows handheld I've ever used. It ran everything; I couldn't find anything in my Steam library (or GOG, Epic Games Store, etc) that it wouldn't shred. That, and it did it all without raising the fan noise, an ode to Intel's success with Lunar Lake's much-professed efficiency bump for its mobile processors.

Sure, it had its downsides, mostly related to software gripes and other issues that could be fixed with patches, but none of them detracted from my gaming enjoyment.

I could spend all day praising MSI and Intel's partnership, but again, if you can't buy the thing, then who cares? I wanted to see Lunar Lake devices thrive, and some may have, but it still feels like the Claw 8 AI+ redeemed all of its predecessors' missteps for ultimately no reason. These days, I'm more eagerly awaiting the AMD-based ROG Xbox Ally X and its (presumably) similarly premium price point — which is fine, but it's still a shame to see a competitor fall off.

I've been a little busy working through the gaming backlog and, well, working, to spin it up in a while, but one of my favorite competitive multiplayer shooters is VALORANT. So, when I learned that HP was making a limited-edition VALORANT PC, I leapt at the chance to be among the first to get their hands on it.

This is the HP OMEN 35L VALORANT Limited Edition, a pre-built tower based off the HP OMEN 35L (2024) I reviewed and praised. It's the introductory fanfare for the OMEN 35L Stealth Edition coming later this year as the official PC for Riot Games' VALORANT and League of Legends esports tournaments.

Yes, I have the OMEN 35L VALORANT Edition on my desk, and I'm honestly impressed by all the detail in this design throughout the case and internal components. This isn't some unobtainable showpiece, either — the HP OMEN 35L VALORANT Limited Edition is now available for preorder for $1,829.99 at BestBuy.com, and you can even configure your own from $1,672 at HP.com.

A capable pre-built tower with an even sleeker design

To the surprise of absolutely no one, this desktop is based off the standard HP OMEN 35L, and that's a good thing. It's one of the better pre-built towers for gamers and creators, with a beautiful design, excellent performance, and a wide range of available configurations.

Being a limited-edition variant, though, this OMEN 35L makes some notable changes to the design. I'm honestly surprised by how in-depth this collaboration is, because few elements seem to remain untouched.

The matte black case is marked by various red accents and details, and the glass side panel is adorned with various etched symbols. There's also a new glass front panel, with a tasteful gap behind it to allow for airflow. Even the internal components enjoyed the VALORANT treatment, with color-matched elements and subtle details throughout.

HP and Riot Games also include a magnetic VALORANT Gun Buddy accessory in the box, which can attach to any of the metal panels of the OMEN 35L... or anywhere else you want, honestly. No one is going to buy this PC just for this little accessory, but it's still a fun addition.

A lot of licensed limited editions would only ever appeal to hardcore fans of that franchise, but this PC looks great even if you're not a VALORANT fan. It also helps that there's a really capable desktop at the center of it all, although this OMEN 35L is far from the most powerful you can actually buy.

It's powered by an Intel Core i7-14700F, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 (16GB), up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 4TB of PCIe Gen4 SSD storage. It may not be the cutting edge on every front, but that's more than enough power to compete with the best in VALORANT.

The configuration that I think will appeal to most people is the one offered for $1,829.99 at BestBuy.com, with an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB), 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage under the hood.

HP and VALORANT are going hand-in-hand from now on

The VALORANT Edition is obviously the news of the day, but HP previously announced an OMEN 35L Stealth Edition that's coming in the near future. Riot Games chose HP as its partner for its esports tournaments, and it's the sleek, matte black Stealth Edition that professional VALORANT players will be using to compete with each other.

I'm planning to review that Stealth Edition, and I'm probably more excited than I should be for it, but I also didn't expect HP to release a separate VALORANT Edition targeting hardcore fans outside of esports tournaments. The former is meant to blend into the background, so everyone focuses on the match, but the latter is perfectly over-the-top and just as capable.

HP isn't gatekeeping either version, though. You can actually preorder the HP OMEN 35L Stealth Edition for $2,589.99 at HP.com right now, and the fact the VALORANT Limited Edition is available at HP and Best Buy in multiple configurations reassures me stock isn't too limited (but you probably shouldn't wait too long, regardless).

It's tiring to see one-of-one special edition PCs that no normal person will ever be able to have, so it's refreshing to see HP put in the work to make a proper limited-edition design and offer it to the masses. The HP OMEN 35L VALORANT Limited Edition honestly does look awesome, too; it's a little on the pricey side, but it is a custom licensed design, so I expected as much.

Intel has announced major leadership changes as CEO Lip-Bu Tan pushes ahead with efforts to transform the struggling chipmaker. The most notable departure is Michelle Johnston Holthaus, whose career at Intel has spanned more than 30 years.

The shake-up comes just as Intel admitted its Arrow Lake processors failed to live up to expectations. All eyes are now on the upcoming Nova Lake architecture, which it hopes will restore competitiveness against AMD. This rivalry continues to gain ground with users and across the industry.

Holthaus’s departure after 30 years at Intel

Holthaus joined Intel in 1996, a year before I was even born, which makes me feel old. Anyway, starting as a program manager in the OEM Platform Solutions Division. Holthaus went from there, and she moved steadily through leadership roles in sales, marketing, and product development.

Between 2013 and 2017, she managed Intel’s partnership with Microsoft, coordinating sales, product roadmaps, and technical support. This role kept Intel’s CPUs and Microsoft’s platforms closely aligned across Windows, Surface, Xbox, and cloud services.

In late 2024, Holthaus stepped into the spotlight as interim co-CEO alongside CFO David Zinsner following Pat Gelsinger’s departure. She was later appointed CEO of Intel Products but held the position for only 9 months before resigning. Intel said the decision was due to “a material reduction in her duties, responsibilities, salary, and target annual bonus,” which matched the “Good Reason” clause in her contract.

Thanks to this clause, Holthaus will receive full severance benefits and remain with Intel in a non-executive advisory role until March 1, 2026.

New leadership team takes shape

Kevork Kechichian has joined Intel from Arm as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Data Center Group. He brings more than 30 years of semiconductor experience and previously managed Snapdragon SoC teams at Qualcomm.

Another addition is Jim Johnson, a 40-year Intel veteran, who has been confirmed as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Client Computing Group. Over his long career, Johnson has worked across Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Networking and Communications, and global operations.

Intel has also formed a new division in 2025, the Central Engineering Group, which will be led by Srinivasan “Srini” Iyengar. This team will focus on custom silicon design for external customers. Iyengar, who spent over 25 years at Cadence Design Systems, brings deep expertise in silicon engineering and design automation.

Lastly, Dr. Naga Chandrasekaran’s responsibilities have been expanded to include Foundry Services, alongside his existing role as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology and Operations Officer of Intel Foundry. Before joining Intel, he spent 16 years at Micron, where he led advanced memory technology development.

Together, these appointments show Tan’s push to blend long-time Intel leaders with external expertise from companies like Arm, Cadence, and Micron. It may take time before the results are clear, but the changes highlight Intel’s willingness to act boldly as it struggles to compete.

Tan’s strategy and vision for Intel’s future

Tan is aiming to cut back on bureaucracy by eliminating redundant management layers and creating a flatter, more focused structure. The goal is to speed up decision-making and bring more direct accountability. A clear example is that Holthaus’s position will not be replaced, with key groups now reporting directly to Lip-Bu Tan.

He is also pivoting Intel toward custom silicon and foundry services, areas where the company hopes to become a leader. The newly formed Central Engineering Group is central to this effort, with a focus on building chips for external customers instead of just Intel’s own products.

Of course, no turnaround story in 2025 would be complete without AI, and Tan’s plans touch on that too. Still, the real test will be whether this strategy helps Intel compete with rivals like AMD. Rebuilding trust with users and partners will take time, but Nova Lake may give us the first glimpse of what Tan’s reshaped Intel can deliver.

Recently, at the Deutsche Bank 2025 Technology Conference, Intel’s CFO David Zinsner admitted that it had “fumbled the football” with its Arrow Lake CPUs, particularly on the high-end desktop side.

So, what exactly went wrong with Arrow Lake? Let’s break down what Zinsner was referring to and whether Intel’s next generation of CPUs, Nova Lake, could turn things around.

Intel’s candid admission at Deutsche Bank 2025

At the conference, Zinsner candidly acknowledged the company’s missteps with its Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, particularly in the high-end segment. He admitted the lineup fell short on both pricing and performance, leaving Intel trailing behind expectations.

Despite that, Zinsner shared cautious optimism for Intel’s next generation of CPUs, Nova Lake. He suggested it will be a more complete lineup, with stronger offerings at the high end to make up for Arrow Lake’s shortcomings.

It was refreshing to see him take the criticism on the chin and acknowledge that Intel made mistakes with Arrow Lake. Whether Nova Lake delivers on his optimism, though, remains to be seen.

Arrow Lake’s rocky launch and the fixes that followed

Arrow Lake launched in October 2024 as Intel’s first full desktop lineup under the new Core Ultra branding. But it didn’t take long for the name to feel like just branding, as reviews reported inconsistent performance. In some cases, Arrow Lake even fell behind the previous generation, Raptor Lake, especially in gaming benchmarks.

The problems ran deep. Arrow Lake was Intel’s first desktop chip to use a multi-die configuration, and it dropped simultaneous multithreading from its P-cores (performance cores responsible for handling demanding tasks). This change reduced efficiency in multithreaded workloads, and the limited lineup of chips only added to the disappointment.

Intel attempted to patch things up with BIOS updates and Windows fixes. While these updates brought some improvements, they were small and inconsistent. By the time the fixes landed, the damage to Arrow Lake’s reputation had already been done.

Pricing, SKUs, and AMD’s competitive edge

One of the biggest problems was pricing. Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 285K launched at $589, while AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D came in at $479 and still outperformed it in gaming. The Ryzen 9 9950X also matched the 285K in productivity but cost less, making Intel’s top-end chip difficult to recommend.

The Core Ultra 5 245K was underwhelming, and there was no direct Core i3 replacement for budget buyers. The only bright spot was the Core Ultra 7 265K, which came close to 285K performance at a noticeably lower price.

Against AMD, the gap was clear. The Ryzen 9000 series (Zen 5) delivered better performance-per-dollar in both gaming and productivity, while AMD’s X3D models dominated gaming thanks to 3D V-Cache. For many buyers, it was the obvious choice.

Intel’s Arrow Lake launch ended up offering fewer options, weaker performance, and ongoing issues. Even after price cuts, the damage was already done, and most people had an easier time recommending AMD.

Looking ahead to Nova Lake

It’s worth taking with a grain of salt, but Intel’s CFO David Zinsner has said that Nova Lake will be a more complex set of SKUs, with a focus on high-end desktops.

Zinsner appears determined to challenge AMD directly, especially around its 3D V-Cache advantage. The challenge is timing. By the time Nova Lake arrives, AMD’s Zen 6 CPUs could already be around the corner, making it harder for Intel to close the gap.

That doesn’t mean the effort isn’t worthwhile. Strong competition keeps the industry moving forward, and with U.S. government investment backing Intel, it could still find new ways to surprise AMD and the broader market.

Despite Intel and the US government working out the details of their landmark deal, billions of dollars have already changed hands. Intel Finance Chief David Zinsner shared that the US government recently paid $5.7 billion to Intel.

Last week, Intel and the US government reached an agreement that sees the government invest $8.9 billion into the chipmaker. As part of the deal, the government will hold a 9.9% stake in Intel.

The exact terms of the deal are still being determined, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. She said on Thursday that details are "still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce. The t's are still being crossed. The i's are still being dotted. These — you know — it's very much still under discussion."

With deals of this magnitude, it's normal for two sides to announce an agreement and then sort the exact details in writing.

One part of the deal is a five-year warrant that allows the government to obtain an additional 5% of Intel at $20 per share if Intel gives up control of its foundry business. That outcome is unlikely, according to Zinsner:

"I don’t think there’s a high likelihood that we would take our stake below the 50 percent, so ultimately I would expect [the warrant] to expire. I think from the government’s perspective, they were aligned with that: they didn’t want to see us take the business and spin it off or sell it to somebody.”

The Financial Times reported on Zinsner's comments, which were made at a Deutsche Bank conference last week.

Intel Foundry failings

The structure of the deal between Intel and the US government encourages the former to retain control of its manufacturing business. Intel Foundry Services is part of Intel's IDM 2.0 vision. The company began down the path of making chips for other companies in 2021, though the strategy has not proven profitable.

Intel Foundry Services lost $13 billion last year. Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who was instrumental in Intel's push for third-party chip manufacturing, abruptly left the company last year.

Gelsinger's goal was to have Intel compete with the likes of TSMC and Samsung. Intel Foundry Services was not expected to break even until 2027. Gelsinger's comments following his departure suggest confidence Intel would have righted the ship if given more time.

"The decision to step down from Intel was an extremely difficult one," said Gelsinger.

"I wanted to finish what I started, but as you know, I was not given the opportunity" (quote translated from Japanese text originally shared by PC Watch).

The current CEO of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, discussed the restoration of the chipmaker to dominance shortly after his appointment.

"Together, we will work hard to restore Intel's position as a world-class products company, establish ourselves as a world-class foundry and delight our customers like never before," said Tan (emphasis added).

Due to the struggles of its foundry business, Intel announced plans to spin off Intel Foundry Services into a standalone subsidiary. But that was under previous leadership. Between the company appointing a new CEO and the government acquiring a 9.9% stake in the chipmaker, it's safe to say plans have changed.

Acquiring a large stake in Intel is part of the government's push to ensure domestic chip manufacturing. The structure of the deal suggests that Intel maintaining majority control of Intel Foundry Services is desired by the government.

Intel could still seek strategic investments for its foundry services without losing majority control. The warrant in the deal between the government and Intel applies if Intel's ownership falls under 51%.

Despite the sizable investment of the US government, Intel still finds itself in a state of flux. As of July of this year, the chipmaker planned to lay off 24,000 employees in 2025 and reduce its total employee count to 75,000. The company also plans to step back from several projects and reduce spending.

We'll have to wait to see the finalized details of the agreement between Intel and the government to see if plans will change.

The T500 is a gaming PC unlike any I've ever tested. While it comes with a desktop-class graphics card — in the case of my review unit, an NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti — it relies on a mobile processor and RAM installed on a specialized laptop motherboard.

ASUS designed it as a way to offer "lower power consumption than a typical desktop machine" while avoiding some of the performance drawbacks due to the constraints of laptop hardware design.

It's certainly an interesting idea, although one of my biggest complaints with many prebuilt gaming PCs has always been a lack of upgradeability; the T500 solves none of those issues and, if anything, causes more problems than it solves.

ASUS TUF Gaming T500 Review

Design & build quality ⭐⭐⭐½

I'm no stranger to ASUS TUF Gaming products, and the T500 follows the usual industrial-esque aesthetic that suggests additional durability. Love it or hate it, it certainly makes a bold impression.

Indeed, ASUS says it meets MIL-STD-810H certifications for things like drops, extreme temperatures, and vibrations.

The case is custom-made to fit tightly around the internal hardware. The front panel, with its stylized plastic covering and built-in lighting, has limited air intake vents on either side. There are dual USB-A 3.2 (Gen 1) ports at 5Gbps, one USB-C 3.2 (Gen 1) port also at 5Gbps, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.

It's nice to have USB-C on the front of the PC, but Gen 1 at 5Gbps seems rather outdated at this point.

The side panel has a raised tempered glass pane that's slightly tinted, surrounded by more of the TUF Gaming branding. Below the pane, there are some cutouts for extra airflow.

Aside from a bit of venting on the bottom of the case for the PSU, there's no other venting for air intake on the PC. It sort of makes sense when you consider the CPU is designed for a thin laptop, but there's still a chunky GPU in there that needs to keep cool.

Unfortunately, the tinted glass panel is the only one that's easily removable with thumb screws. The side panel covering the back of the motherboard is riveted into place.

The back of the PC has four expansion slots, with two used for the RTX 5060 Ti. The custom motherboard features DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 1.4, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio, and four USB-A 2.0 ports.

The PC seems like it's built well, with what I'd consider average cable management. The non-modular PSU certainly adds a lot of unnecessary cabling, but it's mostly hidden away below the GPU.

Upgradeability ⭐⭐½

ASUS uses a custom motherboard that accepts a mobile CPU and RAM. While you can easily access the SODIMM RAM — there are two slots available, but ASUS only fills one on the 16GB configs — the CPU is permanent. You'd have to replace the entire motherboard, if that's even possible, should the chip fail.

What would most likely happen if the CPU failed out of warranty is a complete trashing of the PC, aside from the GPU and storage.

Even the CPU's cooler is a custom piece that uses heat pipes to direct CPU heat to an air-cooled block mounted on the back of the PC. Good luck replacing it should it fail.

The 500W 80+ Platinum PSU from LiteOn is classic OEM fare, with a rectangular shape that won't be easily replaced, either.

Basically, you can upgrade or replace the GPU, the SSD (there's a second free M.2 slot on the board), the RAM, and the M.2 Wi-Fi card. I'd consider everything else off the table unless you're an experienced PC builder, and in that case, you already know that this isn't the PC for you.

Performance & cooling ⭐⭐⭐

The compact case and lack of system fans had me worried about the T500's cooling potential. The CPU has a dedicated cooler that exhausts out the back of the PC, but the heat created by the GPU is mostly free to fill the chamber.

I ran a 10-minute system stress test to check heat and power. Unfortunately, the CPU throttled up to 18% while in Turbo mode, dropping to 0-2% throttling after that. So, no matter what, the chip is going to throttle.

The maximum operating temperature for the Core i7-13620H is 100 degrees Celsius — the chip topped out at 96 degrees Celsius but leveled off at about 88 degrees Celsius in my stress test.

I next ran some benchmarks to check performance and system noise. Running DOOM: The Dark Ages resulted in the most noise, at about 55.4dB. That's about the same volume as a quiet office. Testing Black Myth: Wukong, system noise hit 55.3dB. It seems that ASUS has put a cap on fan speeds to keep the PC under a certain level of noise.

However, there's an awful rattle that starts up when the fans reach a certain speed. The ticking is enough to make me want to unplug the PC, and I can't figure out exactly which piece inside is making the noise. Not good.

Here's a look at the results from my benchmark testing. Note that I tested at a 3440x1440 resolution with relatively high in-game settings. There's plenty of room to crank things down to achieve higher frame rates, especially if you're at a more reasonable 1080p resolution.

I also ran Cinebench 2024 to test the CPU's productivity abilities. In multi-core, it hit a score of 858, putting it roughly on par with a Ryzen 7 5800X. In single-core, it hit a score of 107, which again is quite close to the Ryzen CPU.

Elsewhere, Wi-Fi 6 is fast and reliable, and I had no problems connecting accessories with Bluetooth.

Value ⭐⭐⭐

The ASUS TUF Gaming T500 model I tested runs for $1,299.99 at Best Buy. As usual, I put together a similar build on PCPartPicker to see what sort of price I'd pay if I built a system myself.

With an Intel Core i5-13600KF CPU, an MSI B760 Gaming Plus motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill Flare X5 DDR5 RAM, a Crucial P3 Plus 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, and the same ASUS Dual RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) GPU, you're looking at spending about $1,150. Add a case of your choice, and you're close to hitting the same price that ASUS asks.

Of course, the PC you assembled yourself would be upgradeable in the future, and it also wouldn't suffer from the same thermal throttling as the mobile Core i7-13620H.

ASUS also sells a more affordable version of the T500. For $959.99 (at the time of writing, discounted to $899.99), you can get an Intel Core i5-13320H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, an NVIDIA RTX 5060 GPU, and 1TB SSD.

Value isn't terrible, but it's not great, either. It's about what I'd expect from a prebuilt system.

ASUS TUF Gaming T500 review: My final thoughts

✅You should buy this if ...

• It's available at a steep discount.

You should not buy this if ...

• You're expecting a PC that's easily upgradeable.
• You want a CPU that doesn't throttle.
• You have some experience with PC building.

ASUS says it designed the T500 for gamers who want lower power consumption than a desktop but better performance than a laptop.

However, with a mobile CPU that throttles, a desktop GPU sucking up just as much power, and a severe lack of upgradeability, the T500 doesn't really offer any benefits over alternatives.

Unless the T500 is seriously discounted, I recommend instead opting for the mobility of a gaming laptop or the true power of a real desktop gaming PC. This sort of hybrid setup is a neat idea, but it's not something I'd ever tell a friend to buy.

Intel's yearly Gamer Days event is currently underway for 2025, running until September 7 with some tasty deals on PC gaming hardware.

For those looking to upgrade their PC on the cheap, Intel's Core i5-14600K has dropped to the lowest price I've ever seen following a 30% discount. That pushes it to $149.99 at Newegg.

Best part? Attached is an Intel Gamer Days Platinum bundle, containing a free copy of Battlefield 6, as well as subscriptions to popular creator software. Intel pegs the complete bundle at a $195 value.

Even if you only want Battlefield 6, that's still a $70 bonus on a CPU that only costs $150.

Intel's Core i5-14600K remains a top option for gamers

The Intel Core i5-14600K CPU is a couple of years old at this point, but it remains a relevant chip for PC gamers. That's especially true if you're interested in putting together a budget build or want to upgrade your existing CPU.

When Intel launched the 14th Gen Core i5-14600K, it was met with a lukewarm reception due to its similarities to its predecessor, the 13th Gen Core i5-13600K. The issue reviewers had with the chip was that it cost a lot more than the 13th Gen CPU while only offering mild performance gains.

👉 Related: Best motherboard for the Intel Core i5-14600K

That's been solved with this mega bundle deal at Newegg, which drops the price of the Core i5-14600K to $149.99. The best price I can find for the Core i5-13600K at the time of writing is $322.30 at Newegg, so it's not even close.

We didn't review the Core i5-14600K here at Windows Central, but we did review the Core i5-13600K, handing it a full five stars and a Best Award in the process. In his Core i5-13600K review, Windows Central Editor-in-Chief Daniel Rubino said:

Considering the Core i5-14600K is practically the same chip as the 13600K, albeit with minor performance improvements, you can get a good idea of what to expect.

The craziest metric is how the Core i5-14600K continues to compete with Intel's newer Core Ultra desktop CPUs. When gaming, the Raptor Lake chip can outperform the newer Core Ultra 5 245K, which is two generations newer and far more expensive.

And the Core i5-14600K isn't only a capable gaming CPU; it'll also handle productivity quite well, as you can see in the graphs below.

Intel's Core i5-14600K far surpasses the recommended CPU requirement for Battlefield 6, which DICE has set at either a Core i7-10700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. Indeed, despite its age, the Intel CPU should remain relevant for years to come.

Considering the cost of Battlefield 6 cuts the discounted price of the CPU in half, this was a deal that I couldn't help but recommend.

How to redeem your free copy of Battlefield 6

Upon purchasing the discounted $149 Core i5-14600K, you should receive proof of purchase from Newegg.

Once received, you can head over to Intel's software offer promotion page to sign in or create a new account. From there, you'll be able to complete the steps to redemption.

Just be sure to redeem the offer before October 31, 2025. That shouldn't be a problem, as Battlefield 6 is set to launch on October 10.

Intel Gamer Days is live, and this year, it's a free copy of Battlefield 6 that's drawing a lot of attention. At Walmart, several gaming laptops are enjoying deep discounts, and you can get a free copy of the upcoming first-person shooter from DICE with your purchase.

There are two MSI Thin 15 models currently on sale that I'd like to highlight, as well as an HP OMEN 16.

The most affordable features an Intel Core i5-13420H CPU, NVIDIA RTX 3050, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It's down to $499 at Walmart from the regular $799.99, which is about a $301 discount.

Walmart has also dropped the price on an MSI Thin 15 with the same Core i5-13420H CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and 15.6-inch FHD IPS display with 144Hz refresh rate; however, this model makes the jump to an NVIDIA RTX 4050 Laptop GPU.

Rather than paying the full $899.99 price, Walmart has it discounted to $549. That's about a $351 savings. And although Walmart hasn't made it explicitly clear on the product page, this laptop is included in the Intel Gamer Days promo that lands you a free copy of Battlefield 6.

Last but not least is an HP OMEN 16 Slim with an Intel Core Ultra 5 225H CPU, NVIDIA RTX 5050 Laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and a 16-inch 2K display at 165Hz.

This is, by far, the most modern choice, capable of delivering the best performance out of the three laptops I've highlighted here.

It regularly costs about $1,399, but it's now down to $849 at Walmart. That's a savings of $550, and it comes with a free copy of Battlefield 6.

Battlefield 6 is free, but will it run on these laptops?

Battlefield 6's minimum PC requirements aren't technically that demanding, although, as with any game, the better hardware you have, the better the game will look and perform.

Unfortunately, the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU in the most affordable MSI Thin 15 I highlighted doesn't make the cut, coming in behind the RTX 2060. You'll be able to play the game, but it won't likely perform that well.

Moving up to the discounted $549 model with an RTX 4050 Laptop card, this model surpasses the minimum CPU and GPU requirements, if only just.

As you likely already know, bumping the GPU up to an RTX 5050 Laptop will only improve your experience in Battlefield 6, especially with DLSS 4 ready to go. The HP OMEN 16 is easily the most powerful laptop of the bunch, and at $550 off the regular price, it's also the best deal.

How to redeem your free copy of Battlefield 6 via Intel Gamer Days

Once you've purchased an eligible gaming laptop from Walmart — these three are confirmed to be on the list — you should receive some form of purchase proof from the retailer.

With this in hand, just head to Intel's software offer promo page and sign in or create a new account. Once verified, you'll then be able to follow the redemption instructions that you received when you purchased the PC.

Be sure to redeem this offer before October 31, 2025! That's plenty of time to act; Battlefield 6 is set to launch on October 10.

In the US, Walmart is far from the only retailer in on Intel's promotion; Amazon, Antonline, Best Buy, B&H, Micro Center, and plenty of individual PC storefronts are also selling eligible products.

Razer's Blade 18 has never been marketed as a humble or even sensible gaming laptop; it's an extravagant powerhouse that claims to deliver "true desktop-level performance" in a chunky chassis. I should know, I've tested iterations of it throughout the past few years, where I've seen it shred through high-end benchmarks and leave almost nothing to the imagination.

Well, it's that time again, because the latest Razer Blade 18 (2025) upgraded itself with NVIDIA's RTX 50 Series graphics and Intel's monstrous Core Ultra 9 275HX (Arrow Lake) mobile processor, alongside options for either a lot of RAM or too much RAM. It's one of the most entertaining laptops to test, just because of its ridiculously powerful nature, but there's still value in showing what you'd actually get for your money.

This review was made possible thanks to a review unit provided by Razer. The company did not see the contents of this review before publishing.

Razer Blade 18 (2025): Price and availability

Razer sells the Blade 18 (2025) with selections for its GPU, storage, and RAM, normally starting at $3,499.99 at Razer.com with an RTX 5070 Ti. However, as of writing this review, a temporary 14% discount brings it down to $2,999.99 at Razer.com instead.

Upgrading the graphics card (GPU) makes the biggest difference to performance, and it'll cost you $500 to move up to an RTX 5080 L (laptop) variant at $4,099.99 MSRP, or $3,499.99 on sale.

Choosing the top-end RTX 5090 L GPU that matches my sample forces you to a 2TB SSD for extra storage, but RAM remains flexible at 32GB or 64GB. The former would cost you $4,899.99 at MSRP or $4,199.99 with the current discount.

Otherwise, an all-out maximum spec Blade 18 in 2025 would cost you $5,199.99 MSRP or $4,599.99 on sale, with 64GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage over two 2TB SSDs.

While it's often a middle-spec option that makes the most sense, the "entry-level" Blade 18 is still an extremely capable gaming laptop, and anything above the RTX 5070 Ti will have diminishing returns unless you're planning to utilize local AI on the extra GDDR7 VRAM or have a definitive need for the top-end RTX 50 Series GPUs.

My recommended configuration:

Razer Blade 18 (2025): Design and features

For the most part, the Razer Blade 18 retains the outward design of its predecessors, with the only "obvious" change found on its underbelly: a transparent panel lined with RGB lighting that casts a slight underglow on certain surfaces — yeah, you really have to look for it. Otherwise, the familiar three-headed serpent logo still glows with animated colors on the lid, and green USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports line the sides.

However, there are improvements to the per-key RGB keyboard that I can feel when I'm typing or gaming, and they wouldn't be so noticeable at a glance. For this 2025 model, each key on the Blade 18 has a 1.5 mm travel distance, an improvement over the shallow feeling of its earlier variants, but I'd still ask for even more depth. The number pad also benefits from this change, though its inclusion still feels like an excuse to include macro keys rather than to placate numpad fans.

My favorite aspects are still present on the keyboard, like holding the function (Fn) key to exclusively highlight the shortcuts on each key, and the colors all change to fit the theme of certain games like Cyberpunk 2077, with WASD keys standing out alongside common game actions. All of this is customizable via the Razer Synapse and Chroma apps, but the default setup is great — I'll just never care about numpads on gaming laptops. Give me uniform arrow keys instead.

For something more exciting, the Blade 18 is still one of the only laptops with a functional Thunderbolt 5 USB-C port. It's the latest standard, offering the fastest speeds and broadest compatibility with the best docking stations and everything that connects to them, like certified monitors. Razer even makes its own, the highly praised Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma, but this port is still (so far) one of the more underdeveloped technologies on offer here.

On the other side, you still get a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port and an HDMI 2.1 output to connect more traditional gaming monitors, if you'd rather hook up something bigger than the 18-inch panel.

Then again, you'll probably get the most enjoyable experience with the dual-mode 240-440Hz IPS screen that's built into the Blade 18, even if it's now missing the mini-LED configuration, but external monitors make sense for a 'desktop replacement' laptop.

2.5Gb Ethernet is here too, as it well should be on any gaming laptop, ready for wired networking to avoid any Wi-Fi latency. Well, that's the concept anyway, but Razer has Wi-Fi 7 built into the Blade 18, which is similarly cutting-edge and likely wouldn't cause you any lag issues unless you were in a house full of running microwaves or other wireless-nerfing nuisances.

Otherwise, an audio jack sticks around in 2025 for wired headphones and gaming headsets, alongside a proprietary port for the monstrous 400W GaN power brick. There's also an SD card reader — huzzah (are gamers using these?)

Mercifully, the gigantic touchpad is center-aligned and performs serviceably. Serious gamers won't use it for much more than navigating Windows 11 before switching to an external mouse or joypad to actually play their games, but it's still a gorgeous example. There aren't any invisible edges or ham-fisted holograms; it just sticks to being a great precision glass touchpad.

At this point, Razer has refined its laptop chassis to near perfection, and tweaks to the 3-fan internal vapor cooling chamber are an absolute necessity as it pairs this year's Blade 18 with outrageous mobile NVIDIA GPUs like the 175W RTX 5090 L with Intel's 105W Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU — components that run hot, but are ultimately the selling point of this ultra-premium laptop.

Not to disregard the 6-way THX-certified speaker setup, as it sounds great when I crank it loud enough to offset the fans when they're under stress, and other niceties like a physical webcam shutter over the 5MP IR webcam with its Windows Hello support are totally welcome — I just doubt you're here to hear about those, so let's dig into some performance insights.

Razer Blade 18 (2025): Performance and benchmarks

Generationally, the Intel Core i9-14900HX from the Blade 18 (2024) was around 2.39% faster in Geekbench 6's multi-threaded CPU testing than the Core i9-13950HX from the Blade 18 (2023). This time, the Core Ultra 9 275HX in the Blade 18 (2025) is around 20% faster than last year's sample, so the processor offers a significant step-up in raw performance.

On the GPU side, the Blade 18 (2025) scored around 13.37% better with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 L than last year's Blade 18 (2024) with a RTX 4090 L, though itself was outranked by its own Blade 18 (2023) predecessor by around 2.56% — it's not quite the same leap as the CPU side, as I'd half expected after hearing some rumors of underwhelming RTX 5090 L performance in laptops, but it's still the world's best consumer mobile GPU.

So, to keep it simple: this year's Blade 18 comes with around a 20% increase in CPU performance and 13% on the GPU. However, this is the highest graphical option of all, and the RTX 5090 L will remain a pipedream for many. Do I think you'd be missing out if you 'downgraded' to an RTX 5080 or 5070 Ti model? Absolutely not — this is the upper echelon of graphics that borders on placebo.

It would be strange to test a gaming laptop without mentioning the games themselves, but I don't want to insult your intelligence. This is the world's most powerful mobile hardware, so the question will never be "Can the Blade 18 run [insert game name here]?" — the answer is always yes, of course it can. The more interesting question is whether you can utilize that UHD+ (3840 x 2400) screen at 4K+ in modern titles.

So, NVIDIA's RTX 50 Series GPUs come with DLSS 4 and MFG, which translate to 'Deep Learning Super Sampling' and 'Multi-Frame Generation', a pair of image upscaling and framerate-boosting techniques. The GeForce RTX 5090 L inside this Blade 18 (2025) sample is the most powerful card in its category, and it'll run most games on max settings around 1080p without assistance, but 4K+ needs a little help.

I had Cyberpunk 2077's built-in benchmark running at an average of 227 FPS with ray tracing enabled, set to 2400p with the DLSS 4 'Transformer' model on 'Ultra Performance' and MFG at 4x. Yes, this is using "fake frames" to get close to the Blade 18's native resolution, and running the benchmark without DLSS or MFG results in a brute-forced average of 22 FPS (up to 26 FPS maximum).

You can switch the display to FHD+ (1920 x 1200) at 440Hz instead, but I still only managed a 70 FPS average in Cyberpunk 2077 without any upscaling or frame generation assists — switching to DLSS 4 (Quality) and MFG 4x hits 319 FPS average on Ray Tracing Ultra at 1200p, which is nice, but I preferred the results of the first test. 440Hz really does feel excessive, but it's a rising refresh rate trend that won't stop.

The RTX 5090 L inside the Blade 18 (2025) is exactly that: a laptop GPU. It won't stand up to the same outrageous performance as the desktop RTX 5090, and performs at about 68% as well as a desktop RTX 4090 from the previous GeForce generation. So, while this is the highest-end consumer GPU you can get in a laptop, there will always be a disparity between desktops and laptops, as many PC gamers already know, but it's worth clarifying.

Again, even the 175W 5090 L is still a drop in the ocean compared to the 450W desktop RTX 4090 and 575W RTX 5090 — but this is the best you can currently get in a gaming laptop, and that's on AC power with a 440W adapter. On its battery, the Blade 18 (2025) lasts around 1 hour and 25 minutes in gaming, but I wouldn't recommend playing anything away from a dedicated power source.

Just be ready to put on a headset or a pair of headphones if you're playing anything demanding, because the trio of fans inside the vapor chamber gets loud, which isn't new for the Blade 18. Otherwise, the performance matches the similarly overpowered specs all over this beast of a gaming laptop, with color-accurate display profiles and luxuries like upgradeable SODIMM RAM lurking inside a heavy (3.10 kg / 7.06 lbs​) slab.

Razer Blade 18 (2025): Should you buy it?

You should buy this if ...

✅ You want the best gaming laptop available.

✅ You're planning to do your gaming at home, near AC power.

✅ You want the biggest portable screen with high refresh rates.

You shouldn't buy this if ...

❌ You want a lightweight gaming laptop.

❌ You'll play demanding games without headphones.

❌ You want to do all of your gaming on battery power.

For the most part, the Razer Blade 18 in 2025 is the same as it ever was: a heavy beast with options for the best mobile GPU in the world. However, that comes with some of the same downsides, like 'fingerprint-resistant' coating still proving a bit ineffective.

Nevertheless, there's very little on the market that could ever touch it, and Razer has refined its companion apps to make Synapse and Chroma worth running in the background.

Yes, it's still the best gaming laptop in my eyes, purely because it's balls-to-the-wall insanity. How could it not rank so highly with such high-end hardware? It was inevitable, really.

In the same vein, the RTX 5090 variant remains a choice that goes beyond premium and into the realms of silliness, but the more affordable configurations with sensible NVIDIA GPUs will stand as hearty recommendations to anyone who wants a full-size gaming laptop to replace a desktop PC — stick with the RTX 5070 Ti, or push for the 5080 as its top-end if you must.

Ditching the Mini-LED screen option was a shame, but it's not like the dual-mode IPS of this year's model is dim. I still think 2400p at 240Hz is a better experience than 1200p at 440Hz, because fidelity is more exciting than framerates, but it's nice to have an option for the esports crowd. The Blade 18 remains a champion in 2025, like a mad king on a throne made of high-end graphics cards.

• Back to the top ⤴

The United States government is expected to announce the purchase of a 10% stake in Intel today, according to Bloomberg. The news broke on August 22, 2025. Details have not yet emerged.

Discussions between the government and Intel are said to have focused on a 10% stake being sold in exchange for funding previously allocated to Intel through the CHIPS Act.

Josh Wingrove from Bloomberg broke the news on X. Wingrove worked with Liana Baker from Bloomberg on the story, which is still developing. Bloomberg's Dina Baas assisted on the report.

According to Wingrove, President Trump said there is a deal in place between the government and Intel. Trump recounted an interaction with Intel to the press, stating, "You should pay us 10% of your company, and they said, 'yes.'"

Trump added that "They've agreed to do it and I think it's a great deal for them, and I think it's a great deal."

Trump vs. Intel

The US government acquiring a 10% stake in Intel would be the next major step of a dramatic saga involving the President and the chipmaker.

Just over three weeks ago, Trump took to social media to demand the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

"The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem," said Trump on Truth Social.

That accusation centered around Tan's relationship with Cadence Design Systems, of which Tan used to be CEO. That company recently pled guilty to "unlawfully exporting semiconductor design tools to a restricted PRC military university," though Tan was not listed in the indictment.

Tan has also reportedly invested in hundreds of Chinese companies, though that fact on its own is not necessarily indicative of a problem. People in Tan's position are often invested in a wide portfolio of companies.

The next day, Tan responded to Trump's letter and reaffirmed his love for the United States. He also discussed his relationship with Cadence Design Systems. The CEO also expressed a desire to meet with Trump.

On August 11, Tan and Trump met and the meeting appeared to go well.

"The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story," said Trump. "Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week."

Tan also spoke highly of the meeting.

Bloomberg had previously reported that the Trump administration was interested in purchasing a stake in Intel. That interest now appears to be taking shape, as the chipmaker and the government approach a deal.

Why is Intel selling a stake to the US government?

Intel has had a rough few years. The chipmaker saw its stock drop massively in 2024 and the company reported a net loss of $1.6 billion in a single quarter in that same year.

Former CEO Pat Gelsinger left the company abruptly. During his tenure, Gelsinger pushed a major strategy shift for Intel that focused on manufacturing chips for competitors and other chipmakers. That plan did not pan out, though it's worth noting the IDM 2.0 strategy was cut short.

Following his appointment as CEO, Tan discussed a desire to "restore Intel's position as a world-class products company."

Intel is key to the US government's push for domestic chipmaking. Acquiring a stake in Intel could help secure domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, which are a vital for several industries.

Selling a stake could result in more financial security for Intel while simultaneously providing a way for the US government to better ensure stability of a major chipmaker.

Confirmed details of deal

Late into the night of August 22, Intel confirmed an agreement that sees the US government acquire a stake in Intel. The deal includes the government making an $8.9 billion investment in Intel stock.

The funding consists of $5.7 billion in grants that had previously been awarded to Intel through the CHIPS Act but that have not been paid. A separate $3.2 billion that had been awarded through the Secure Enclave program brings the total to $8.9 billion.

The Secure Enclave program is a national security initiative. The $3.2 billion in funding awarded to Intel was allocated during the Biden administration.

“Intel is excited to welcome the United States of America as a shareholder, helping to create the most advanced chips in the world,” said United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

“As more companies look to invest in America, this administration remains committed to reinforcing our country’s dominance in artificial intelligence while strengthening our national security.”

The terms of the deal see the government purchase 433.3 million primary shares of Intel common stock, resulting in a 9.9% stake in the company.

The government's partial ownership of Intel is passive. The government will not hold a board seat and has agreed to vote in line with the company's Board of Directors on matters that require shareholder approval. Intel notes that there are "limited exceptions" to that agreement, but does not specify further.

AMD has had a feature on its APUs for a while now that's attractive not just to gamers, but also local AI users; Variable Graphics Memory. Now, Intel is following suit, by adding a similar feature to its Core Ultra chips.

It was revealed by Intel's Bob Duffy (via VideoCardz), with the new Shared GPU Memory Override feature tagging along with the latest version of the Arc drivers.

So, what is it?

In simplest terms, just as on AMD's recent APUs, you will now be able to decide how much of your total system memory is reserved for the GPU. This can help with gaming, but it's especially useful if you're using local LLMs on your machine.

Ollama doesn't currently support integrated GPUs, but something like LM Studio does, and allows you to load up even fairly chunky models such as gpt-oss:20b onto the GPU instead of the CPU.

Such models will work without manually selecting larger amounts of memory for the GPU, but there are benefits to doing it. Intel's Core Ultra chips aren't yet using true Unified Memory, such as you find on an Apple Mac or on AMD's latest Strix Halo chips. It sounds the same, but it isn't. This feature would be redundant on Unified Memory.

In my own (albeit brief) testing on an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 which doesn't utilize Unified Memory, setting a large amount for the GPU to use has performance benefits.

In gpt-oss:20b, performance is around 5 tokens per second higher with a 4k context window when the model is able to load fully into dedicated GPU memory, versus when everything is just overall system memory.

You can leverage the GPU still for compute and just use the 'RAM' but it performs slower. The best overall scenario is siloing enough dedicated GPU memory to load the model into.

This is what Intel is now allowing Core Ultra users to do, though it's still a little unclear as to whether it's all Core Ultra or just Core Ultra Series 2. In the Intel Graphics Software, a simple slider has been added that allows you to choose how much memory you want reserved for the GPU.

To go back to my own system as an example, when I'm using a larger model like gpt-oss:20b, I set an even split of the 32GB I have available. 16GB for the GPU, 16GB for everything else. This allows me to load the model entirely into the GPU portion of memory, leaving the reserved pool for the rest of the system well alone.

This is how I extract the best performance from the LLM, because why wouldn't you leverage a GPU if you can instead of using up all of your CPU? Even an integrated GPU can give you better results over using the CPU in this instance.

Of course, it's all still relative. If you have 16GB of total system memory, you can't go throwing it all at the GPU to run an LLM. The PC still needs memory for all the other stuff going on in Windows. Ideally, you want to have enough to be able to leave at least 8GB for the rest of the system.

To get the new Shared GPU Memory Override feature, you'll need to be on the latest Intel drivers. Note, it only applies if you only have integrated Arc graphics on your PC. Dedicated GPUs with their own VRAM don't need this feature and will still be a better performer, in any case.

But if you're using local LLMs on your Core Ultra system, this is a nice addition that should help you squeeze a little extra performance from your AI workloads.

A stake in Intel could soon be owned by the United States government. The Trump administration is reportedly considering purchasing part of the chipmaker following a meeting with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

The news, first reported by Bloomberg, comes only one week after Trump said Tan is "CONFLICTED and must resign." At the time, Trump said there "is no other solution to this problem." That turned out not to be the case, however, as Trump has since met with Tan, praised the Intel CEO's "success and rise", and called Tan's journey an "amazing story."

In a post on Truth Social, Trump stated that US cabinet members and Tan will make suggestions over the next week. Intel also issued a positive statement regarding the meeting, referring to the interaction as a "candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership."

The statement also shared plans to work with the Trump administration, though Intel did not share any details.

Bloomberg's information regarding the US government potentially purchasing a stake in Intel comes from unnamed sources. There is no guarantee that an agreement will be made. As seen over the last two weeks, the thoughts of the Trump administration can change quickly.

“Discussion about hypothetical deals should be regarded as speculation unless officially announced by the administration,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai to Bloomberg — Intel declined to comment on the discussions.

A lot has happened recently regarding Intel and the Trump administration. Here's a quick rundown of the key events.

August 7, 2025: Trump says Intel CEO is "conflicted," calls for resignation

Trump took to social media to express concern regarding Intel's CEO.

"The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem," said Trump on Truth Social.

Trump's accusation that Tan is "conflicted" referred to Tan's relationship with Cadence Design Systems, of which Tan used to be CEO.

Cadence Design Systems recently pled guilty to "unlawfully exporting semiconductor design tools to a restricted PRC military university." With that plea came an agreement to pay over $140 million in penalties. Notably, Tan was not listed in the indictment.

Reuters reported earlier this year that Tan invested in hundreds of Chinese companies between 2012 and 2024, some of which had military ties.

August 8, 2025: Intel aims to clear up "misinformation"

Tan shared a letter responding to Trump's call for the CEO to resign. The message reaffirms Tan's love for the United States, discusses his relationship with Walden International and Cadence Design Systems, and expresses a desire to meet with the Trump administration.

"Let me start by saying this: The United States has been my home for more than 40 years. I love this country and am profoundly grateful for the opportunities it has given me. I also love this company," said Tan.

"Leading Intel at this critical moment is not just a job – it’s a privilege. This industry has given me so much, our company has played such a pivotal role, and it's the honor of my career to work with you all to restore Intel's strength and create the innovations of the future. Intel's success is essential to U.S."

He went on to say that he has built relationships with a diverse range of companies over his 40+ years in the industry.

August 11, 2025: Trump meets with Intel CEO

Trump met with Tan to discuss the chipmaker's future.

"The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story," said Trump. "Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week."

Intel also discussed the meeting, stating, "Earlier today, Mr. Tan had the honor of meeting with President Trump for a candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership."

The company's statement expressed appreciation and stated plans to work with the administration.

August 14, 2025: Trump reportedly considers US buying stake in Intel

Bloomberg reports that the Trump administration is in talks to have the US government purchase a stake in Intel.

Earlier this year, Intel appointed Tan to "restore Intel's position as a world-class products company," Tan's appointment came after the sudden and surprising departure of former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.

During Gelsinger's tenure, Intel was named as one of the largest beneficiaries of the CHIPS Act. Intel broke ground on an Ohio plant in 2022 that would be one of the largest in the world when completed.

But construction on that plant has since slowed under Tan's leadership. The Ohio plant has faced repeated delays, even before Tan's appointment, with the first unit now expected to be operational around 2030–2031.

The US government's purchase of a stake in Intel could change plans for the Ohio plant and significantly alter the future of Intel.