Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 financial results. The company also announced that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.365 per share on the company's common stock, which will be payable on March 1, 2023, to shareholders of record as of February 7, 2023.

"Despite the economic and market headwinds, we continued to make good progress on our strategic transformation in Q4, including advancing our product roadmap and improving our operational structure and processes to drive efficiencies while delivering at the low-end of our guided range," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "In 2023, we will continue to navigate the short-term challenges while striving to meet our long-term commitments, including delivering leadership products anchored on open and secure platforms, powered by at-scale manufacturing and supercharged by our incredible team."

EK, the premium liquid cooling hardware manufacturer, is launching the Direct Die product series aimed at delidding and achieving the ultimate cooling of the LGA 1700 socket-based Intel CPUs from the 12th generation Alder Lake and 13th gen Raptor Lake families. Kitguru teamed up with EK to investigate the potential benefits of direct die cooling for Intel's Alder Lake CPUs to achieve the best possible thermal performance on a daily basis. After publishing the first video announcing this collaboration, EK was overwhelmed by the response from Kitguru's audience. In order to bring these products to market, EK reached out to Der8auer, a renowned expert in delidding and direct die applications.

EK has prepared a total of four products to start this Direct Die series: two CPU water blocks (one Limited Edition), a delidding tool, and an upgrade kit for existing EK-Quantum Vector² LGA1700 water blocks. So far, these products are aimed at Intel's LGA1700 socket and 12th and 13th-generation Intel Core CPUs. Delidding is the process of removing the integrated heatspreader (IHS) to reduce the distance between the CPU core die and the coldplate of the CPU cooler. Another benefit involves the removal of an entire layer of thermal transfer from the CPU die to the IHS. The delidding process enables a direct heat transfer from the CPU core to the water block. All this results in a significant reduction in overall thermals and less thermal difference between CPU cores. The procedure is typically performed by experienced enthusiasts because it involves a physical modification of the product that voids the CPU warranty. For a more in-depth explanation, please refer to this EK's blog post on delidding.

With everyone busy enjoying the announcements of new shiny toys at CES, Intel has taken the opportunity to jack up the prices on its older 12th Gen Core processors by around 10 percent. This wasn't entirely unexpected though, as Intel announced back in June of last year that it was going to increase the MSRP of its 12th Gen Core processors. The price increase affects different SKUs wildly differently, as the Core i9-12900K for example, is seeing a US$59 price increase and its new MSRP is now US$648, which is more than the Core i9-13900K which has an MSRP of US$589. On the other hand, the Core i3-12100 only gets a $12 price increase, which puts its new MSRP at US$134, which places it in the same price bracket as the Core i3-13100.

This is a very unusual move by Intel and it affects all of its 12th Gen Core desktop processors and possibly some other SKUs as well. Considering the 13th Gen Core parts are either priced cheaper or fall in the same price bracket, it's hard to see how Intel is going to see any sales of its older 12th Gen Core processors, especially as the two share the same socket. It's highly unlikely that this move will affect its shareholders in a positive way either, as Intel is likely to see lower sales with this price increase of its previous generation of processors, which in turn will result in even lower revenue. That said, it's unclear if this will affect retail pricing or not, as it's possible that many stores won't replenish their stock of 12th Gen Core CPUs once their current stock sells out.

Intel today expanded its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" Socket LGA1700 desktop processor family with several new 65 W mainstream models. These include all the SKUs that lack an unlocked multiplier, aren't meant for CPU overclocking, and come with slightly lower frequencies and tighter power-management than the unlocked K-series SKUs the company debuted the series with in 2022. The retail packages of these processors include stock Intel fan-heatsinks similar to those the company includes with its 12th Gen "Alder Lake" 65 W processors.

The series is led by the Core i9-13900, an 8P+16E core processor with P-core base frequency of 2.00 GHz, P-core maximum boost frequency of 5.60 GHz, E-core base frequency of 1.50 GHz and 4.20 GHz; and the full 36 MB of L3 cache available on the silicon. The processor base power value is 65 W, and the maximum turbo power is 219 W. Intel lists the MSRP of these processors at $550, a variant without integrated graphics, the i9-13900F, can be had for $524. The Core i7-13700 positioned a notch below, is an 8P+8E processor, with a P-core boost frequency of up to 5.20 GHz, a slightly better 2.10 GHz E-core boost, 30 MB of L3 cache, and the same 219 W MTP value. The i7-13700 is priced at $384, and the iGPU-disabled.

Intel's "Raptor Lake" microarchitecture will go mobile this 2023 International CES, with the company planning to substantially expand its 13th Gen Core processor family for notebooks, ultraportables, convertibles, tablets, and pretty much any PC form-factor that you can carry around. The high-end enthusiast mobile parts see processors in the 55 W to 65 W (or higher) TDP range, and with the same 8P+16E core-configuration as the desktop Core i9-13900K, including support for enthusiast features such as overclocking.

The leaky taps on social media are ready with some of the first benchmarks of Intel's new mobile flagship, the Core i9-13900HX. The Geekbench score of the chip puts it faster than the desktop Core i7-13700K (8P+8E) and Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake" (8P+8E), which enjoy power limits of up to 251 W, base power of 125 W, and a much more relaxed power-management scheme compared to a mobile chip like the i9-13900HX. The processor scores 2039 points in the single-threaded test, and 20493 points in the multi-threaded one, which puts it ahead of the desktop i7-13700K (which in turn is faster than the i9-12900K). Geekbench detects the processor to feature a maximum P-core boost frequency of 5.40 GHz, which isn't too far from the 5.60 GHz of the 65 W desktop i9-13900 (non-K). CES promises to be action-packed with Intel expected to announce dozens of 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" mobile processor SKUs, and NVIDIA expected to announce the first mobile variants of its GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" GPUs.

AMD is firing full cylinders to release a new line of Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" Socket AM5 desktop processors featuring 3D Vertical Cache, at the earliest. Faced with a significant drop in demand due to the slump in the PC industry, and renewed competition from Intel in the form of its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors, the company is looking to launch the Ryzen 7000X3D desktop processors within January 2023, with product unveiling expected at AMD's 2023 International CES event. The 3D Vertical Cache technology had a profound impact on the gaming performance of the older "Zen 3" architecture, bringing it up to levels competitive with those of the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, and while gaming performance of the Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" processors launched till take match or beat "Alder Lake," they fall behind those of the 13th Gen "Raptor Lake," which is exactly what AMD hopes to remedy with the Ryzen 7000X3D series.

In a report, Korean tech publication Quasar Zone states that AMD is planning to release 16-core/32-thread, 12-core/24-thread, and 8-core/16-thread SKUs in the Ryzen 7000X3D series. These would use one or two "Zen 4" chiplets with stacked 3D Vertical Cache memory. A large amount of cache memory operating at the same speed as the on-die L3 cache, is made contiguous with it and stacked on top of the region of the CCD (chiplet) that has the L3 cache, while the region with the CPU cores has structural silicon that conveys heat to the surface. On "Zen 3," the 32 MB on-die cache is appended with 64 MB of stacked cache memory operating at the same speed, giving the processor 96 MB of L3 cache that's uniformly accessible by all CPU cores on the CCD. This large cache memory positively impacts gaming performance on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in comparison to the 5800X; and a similar uplift is expected for the 7000X3D series over their regular 7000-series counterparts.

A reliable source with CPU and platform leaks, ECSM_Official, made some new predictions about release timelines of upcoming desktop processors, and how 2023 could play out for Intel and AMD. 2022 is done, with no new desktop processor SKUs expected to launch from either brands. Intel is expected to flesh out its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processor family in Q1 2023, with the addition of "locked" non-K SKUs spanning all four brand extensions (i3/i5/i7/i9). Besides these, Intel is expected to launch its new flagship, the Core i9-13900KS, with boost frequencies hitting the 6 GHz mark, in an attempt to ward off the threat from "Zen 4" with 3D Vertical Cache, a technology that springboarded "Zen 3" gaming performance to match that of "Alder Lake."

Both the i9-13900KS and AMD Ryzen 7000X3D processors are expected to launch toward the middle of H1-2023 (March-April). AMD is only expected to launch 6-core/12-thread and 8-core/16-thread SKUs with the 3DV cache technology. These would be single-CCD packages. There's no word on dual-CCD ones with 12-core or 16-core counts, so a Ryzen 9 7950X3D is not on the horizon. AMD is expected to debut its entry-level A620 motherboard chipset in Q2-2023. This chipset reportedly lacks CPU overclocking capability, is expected to lack PCIe Gen 5, and caps memory speed to DDR5-4800.

Nfina Technologies has upped its game in the small form factor PC market with the new 112-i9 NUC. This Mini-PC with the Intel Core i9 Extreme Edition processor, up to 64 GB of RAM, and a choice of integrated or full-length discrete GPU is one powerful package. Originally geared towards gaming, many businesses are finding the intensive operations of the 112-i9 NUC as an attractive solution for business computing, including applications like engineering, content creation, edge computing, and surveillance. This NUC is slightly larger than previous versions, but for important reasons.

Axiomtek, a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted to the research, development, and manufacturing of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency—is glad to introduce the IMB540, a superior industrial ATX motherboard featuring the LGA1700 socket for the 12th generation Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 processors (code name: Alder Lake-S). In addition to providing high computing performance, the IMB540 ATX motherboard features quad displays and dual GPU expansion, delivering intelligent workload optimization and highly scalable graphics for next-gen edge AIoT applications.

he Axiomtek's IMB540 is built with Intel R680E chipset and features ranging CPU options with the 12th generation Intel Core, Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron processors. In addition to this, it is equipped with four DDR4-3200 ECC/non-ECC un-buffered Long-DIMM slots with a total capacity of 128 GB. This motherboard has a total of five PCIe slots—two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots and three PCIe x4 slots—for GPU, AI acceleration, frame grabber, NIC, and motion control card configurations. The networking interfaces consist of a 2.5 GbE LAN port with time sensitive networking (TSN), a GbE LAN port, as well as a PCIe Mini Card slot with SIM slot for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/LTE connectivity. Featuring Intel Iris Xe Graphics, the IMB540 supports up to four independent displays via HDMI, DVI-D, VGA, and DisplayPort.

Intel Alder Lake source code for BIOS/UEFI building and optimization has been leaked in a massive 6 GB leak that appeared on 4chan and GitHub. While this number may seem small, it is a colossal codebase, given that the regular code files take up small space. We assume that the documentation is bundled there as well, however, we can not check ourselves as the repository has been taken down. Tom's Hardware has contacted an Intel representative to talk about the code leak and the rep issued a statement for the website.

Intel SpokespersonOur proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party. We do not believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as we do not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure. This code is covered under our bug bounty program within the Project Circuit Breaker campaign, and we encourage any researchers who may identify potential vulnerabilities to bring them our attention through this program. We are reaching out to both customers and the security research community to keep them informed of this situation.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announces a list of 600 series motherboards ready to support the latest Intel 13th Gen processors. Codenamed 'Raptor Lake,' the latest 13th generation Intel processors are designed to be far superior to their predecessors. With Intel announcing 15% better single-threaded performance and 41% better multi-threaded performance over the 12th generation processors, user expectations are high for the latest Intel variants with extra emphasis on supported motherboards.

BIOSTAR is proud to announce their list of the previous generation 600 series motherboards ready to support the new Intel processors. This is great news for consumers currently using this platform with an Alder Lake CPU because the latest 13th gen processors support both DDR5 and DDR4 with extremely impressive performance improvements.

An alleged AMD client product roadmap slide leaked to the web confirms the Ryzen 7000X3D series. This also builds on a confirmation by Robert Hallock that 3DV Cache technology remains a continued part of the company's client processor roadmap. The 3DV Cache tech played in instrumental role in shoring up gaming performance of AMD's previous-generation "Zen 3" microarchitecture to levels matching or exceeding those of the Intel "Alder Lake," with a performance uplift in the range of 10 to 25 percent. The expectations for 3DV Cache to work a similar miracle with "Zen 4" are set rather high.

While "Zen 4" has achieved gaming performance parity with "Alder Lake," Intel's next-generation "Raptor Lake" is right around the corner, with the company claiming 10-15% single-threaded performance uplifts that should restore the its gaming performance leadership over AMD. The alleged AMD roadmap does not specify when exactly the Ryzen 7000X3D comes out, but is part of the block that spans Q3-2022, deep into 2023. Rumors are abuzz that the company could unveil the 7000X3D in the first half of 2023.

The upcoming Intel Core i3-N300 is an upcoming entry-level mobile processor that only has "Gracemont" E-cores, no P-cores, and yet somehow isn't branded under Atom or Pentium Silver. This isn't just because Intel retired the entry-level brands in favor of a generic "Intel Inside" brand to be used on entry-level notebooks; but very likely because of the way these chips are architected.

The i3-N300 and i3-N305 were spotted in separate Geekbench submissions discovered by Benchleaks. The chip is identified as having 8 cores and 8 logical processors (threads), but its cache is identified as being 4x 64 KB L1I, with 4x 32 KB L1D, 1x 2 MB L2, and 1x 6 MB L3. It's possible that the chip's design is very similar to a conventional "Alder Lake" processor—with a centralized L3 cache and client interconnect fabric, an uncore, and an iGPU; but with no P-cores, just the two "Gracemont" E-core clusters, each with 2 MB of L2 cache shared among 4 cores.

With the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors, Intel on Tuesday launched its companion motherboard chipset, the Z790. Since "Raptor Lake" desktop is based on the same LGA1700 package as 12th Gen "Alder Lake" desktop; the two are intercompatible—you can use 12th Gen processors with Z790 chipset motherboards out of the box; and you can use 13th Gen processors with Z690 or other 600-series chipset motherboards with the latest BIOS. Z790 chipset essentially sees a re-balancing of the downstream PCIe connectivity, resulting in more PCIe Gen 4 downstream lanes. Besides more downstream connectivity, you get one additional 20 Gbps USB 3.2x2 port.

While the Z690 put out up to 12 downstream PCIe Gen 4 lanes and up to 16 downstream PCIe Gen 3; the new Z790 puts out up to 20 downstream PCIe Gen 4 lanes, and up to 8 downstream PCIe Gen 3. Both chipsets use DMI 4.0 x8 as the chipset bus (connection between the processor and chipset), with bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 4.0 x8 (128 Gbps per direction). Z790 allows motherboard designers to wire out up to five M.2 NVMe Gen 4 slots attached to the chipset, or deploy more numbers of high-bandwidth onboard devices than those possible with Z690; devices such as discrete USB4 host controllers, Thunderbolt 4 80 Gbps controllers, etc, besides a handful PCIe Gen 4 slots. The 8 PCIe Gen 3 lanes should be enough for lower-bandwidth onboard devices, such as WLAN cards, onboard 2.5 GbE NICs, or even a 10 GbE NIC.

EK, the premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a unique pump-reservoir-water block combo for Intel 12th Gen Core CPUs and LGA 1700 socket-based motherboards. It features the latest socket-specific EK-Quantum Velocity² cooling engine, while the CPU water block has an integrated DDC 4.2 PWM pump that is cooled by the metal part of the water block acting as a heatsink. The combo is the perfect companion for ITX (SFF) builds where space for a dedicated pump and reservoir is an issue. This product effectively combined four different products into a single small enclosure for ultimate space-saving.

The product combines a Velocity² CPU water block, a genuine DDC 4.2 PWM pump with a reservoir, and a DDC heatsink. All this is contained in an assembly significantly smaller than the sum of its parts. A total of four products in a footprint of a hefty CPU water block that fits perfectly. EK-Quantum Velocity² series CPU water blocks embed the next-generation cooling engine. They use a specific combination of mounting pressure and coldplate geometry tailored for the IHS and die layout of Intel LGA 1700 socket processors. Low hydraulic flow restriction enables these products to be used in setups with weaker water pumps or lower pump speeds for added silent operation while still being able to easily achieve top performance. The lathe-turned coldplate is made with precision to cover the IHS effectively and put pressure on the die area.

MSI tweeted a teaser of a few unnamed motherboards with a launch date of September 27. One of the shots in the teaser picture reveals "Z790," confirming that the next wave of Socket LGA1700 motherboards based on the Intel Z790 chipset will debut alongside 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors. This could be the day on which motherboard vendors formally launch their Z790 motherboards, although availability should be in-sync with that of the 13th Gen processors. Although we know from earlier leaks that September 27 could be the launch date of "Raptor Lake," there have been no leaks about market-availability. Intel's 700-series chipset motherboards support not just 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors, but also current 12th Gen "Alder Lake;" and you can use "Raptor Lake" processors with current 600-series chipset motherboards by simply updating their BIOS.

Intel's latest NUC 12 Extreme desktops, codenamed "Serpent Canyon," are up for pre-order. These are the company's first gaming-grade NUCs to pack all-Intel hardware, including the GPU. "Serpent Canyon" combines 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-H" processors with Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, with options going all the way up to the Arc A770 for graphics, and a Core i7-12700H (6P+8E) for the CPU. In its base configuration with 8 GB (2x 4 GB) DDR4 memory, 256 GB M.2 NVMe storage, i7-12700H processor and Arc A770 graphics; the NUC 12 Extreme can be pre-ordered for £1,499 excluding VAT.

OneRaichu, who has access to engineering samples of both the AMD "Raphael" Ryzen 7000-series, and Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake," performed IPC comparisons between the two, by disabling E-cores on the "Raptor Lake," fixing the clock speeds of both chips to 3.60 GHz, and testing them across a variety of DDR5 memory configurations. The IPC testing was done with SPEC, a mostly enterprise-relevant benchmark, but one that could prove useful in tracing where the moderately-clocked enterprise processors such as EPYC "Genoa" and Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" land in the performance charts. OneRaichu also threw in scores obtained from a 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processor for this reason, as its "Golden Cove" P-core powers "Sapphire Rapids" (albeit with more L2 cache).

With DDR5-4800 memory, and testing on SPECCPU2017 Rate 1, at 3.60 GHz, the AMD "Zen 4" core ends up with the highest scores in SPECint, topping even the "Raptor Cove" P-core. It scores 6.66, compared to 6.63 total of the "Raptor Cove," and 6.52 of the "Golden Cove." In the SPECfp tests, however, the "Zen 4" core falls beind "Raptor Cove." Here, scores a 9.99 total compared to 9.91 of the "Golden Cove," and 10.21 of the "Raptor Cove." Things get interesting at DDR5-6000, a frequency AMD considers its "sweetspot," The 13th Gen "Raptor Cove" P-core tops SPECint at 6.81, compared to 6.77 of the "Zen 4," and 6.71 of "Golden Cove." SPECfp sees the "Zen 4" fall behind even the "Golden Cove" at 10.04, compared to 10.20 of the "Golden Cove," and 10.46 of "Raptor Cove."

ASRock will announce no fewer than thirteen motherboard models based on the upcoming Intel Z790 chipset, the top chipset option for the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors. "Raptor Lake" is backwards-compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards; and the Z790 is expected to support 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, since both generations share Socket LGA1700. ASRock's lineup is led by the Z790 Taichi, and its variant that features a white-marble finish, the Z790 Taichi Carrara, several models in the Phantom Gaming (PG) series, including the PG Riptide, PG-ITX/TB4, and new extensions including the PG Sonic, and PG Lightning. The Sonic Mixer brand that's making a debut with the AMD X670 chipset is also to be seen here. There's just the one Steel Legend SKU, and a couple of PRO series. The list also mentions one model based on the mid-tier B760 chipset.

With Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" facing stiff competition from AMD's Ryzen 7000 series, and the "Zen 4" series being augmented with 7000X3D series in early-2023, it's becoming a foregone conclusion that Intel will launch a possible "Core i9-13900KS" SKU, which is on its way to being the world's first desktop processor that can boost up to the 6.00 GHz mark. The processor should be able to boost its 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores to the 6.00 GHz mark, given that the maximum boost frequency of the stock i9-13900K is already rumored to be at 5.70 GHz.

At its Tech Tour event in Israel, Intel confirmed that "Raptor Lake" brings a 15% single-threaded, and 41% multi-threaded performance gain over "Alder Lake." The single-threaded gain is from the higher IPC of the "Raptor Cove" P-core, coupled with its frequency set as high as 5.70 GHz; whereas the multi-threaded performance gain is a combination of increased IPC of the P-cores, and increased frequencies for both the P-cores and E-cores. The E-core clusters get more shared L2 cache, which should improve their performance, too.

Remember how 12th Gen Core i5 non-K was vastly different in performance from the Core i5 K/KF on account of being 6P+0E processors in comparison to more L3 cache and a 6P+4E core-count of the i5-12600K/KF? Intel is doubling down on creating architectural confusion in the mid-range, according to a 3DCenter.org article citing a leaked slide from Intel's 13th Gen Core launch press-deck.

We had earlier thought that the 13th Gen non-K Core i5 will have a 6P+4E core-config, but still be based on "Raptor Lake" (i.e. "Raptor Cove" P-cores + "Gracemont" E-cores), in comparison to the i5-13600K/KF, which are confirmed "Raptor Lake" chips with 6P+8E configuration; but it turns out that Intel is basing the non-K 13th Gen Core i5 on the older "Alder Lake" microarchitecture. These chips will be 6P+4E (that's six "Golden Cove" P-cores + four "Gracemont" E-cores), which make them essentially identical to the i5-12600K, but without the unlocked multiplier, and a lower 65 W processor base power.

The most juicy bits of the Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" launch press-deck just leaked, courtesy of Igor's Lab. They reveal the six SKUs Intel will debut the 13th Gen Core desktop processor series with, highlight key differences with the previous-gen "Alder Lake," and also detail what the new Intel Z790 chipset brings to the table. To begin with, the first-wave of 13th Gen Core processors will include six SKUs—the Core i9-13900K, i9-13900KF, i7-13700K, i7-13700KF, i5-13600K, and the i5-13600KF. The -K and -KF parts are identical to each other, spare for the lack of integrated graphics with the -KF ones.

Many of the key specs of these six SKUs were already leaked to the web along with those of several SKUs from future waves of 13th Gen SKUs, but this slide confirms a handful interesting specs related to power. The slide confirms 125 W as the Processor Base Power value for all six SKUs, 253 W as the Maximum Turbo Power value for the Core i9 and Core i7 K/KF SKUs; and 181 W as the Maximum Turbo Power for the Core i5 K/KF SKUs. This is a definite step up from the 241 W MTP for the previous-gen Core i9, 190 W MTP for the Core i7, and 150 W MTP for the Core i5. Of course, these limits are like a hedge blocking your path, you can relax them in the motherboard BIOS.

A user named "orangezone" submitted a CPU-Z validation for an alleged retail AMD Ryzen 7 7700X processor, revealing its key specs that include 5.425 GHz clocks at 1.152 V core-voltage. The submission includes a CPU-Z Bench run for the processor, which puts the single-threaded performance at 774 points, and the multi-threaded performance of the 8-core/16-thread processor at 8381 points. The single-threaded performance is around 20% higher than that of the previous-gen flagship Ryzen 9 5950X, and about 1% faster than the Core i9-12900K ("Golden Cove" P-core). This particular bench run was performed on a Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master motherboard, with DDR5-6400 CL30 memory.

In separate news, BenchLeaks spotted a Geekbench run of the Ryzen 7 7700X (by a different user); on an ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and DDR5-6000 memory. Here, the processor scored 2209 points in the single-threaded test, and 14459 points in the multi-threaded one, in Geekbench 5.4.5. This is a surprising result, as it puts the single-threaded performance of the 7700X at about 16% higher than the Core i7-12700K, and a fascinating 2% higher than the 8P+4E "Alder Lake" chip in multi-threaded tests. The 7700X launches in the same market segment as the i7-12700K, when it goes on sale this September 27.

Intel is preparing to announce a mega games+software bundle for prebuilt-desktops and notebooks that combine 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors and Arc "Alchemist" graphics. The bundle covers select models of 12th Gen Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9 processors, along with Arc A500-series and Arc A700-series graphics. The total retail value of the bundle can be as high as $370.

Among the premium games bundled are "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II" (2022), "Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed," "Gotham Knights," and "Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodhunt." The Featured Software bundle, from which you can choose 3 out 5, include PowerDirector 365, D5 Render (limited subscription), MAGIX Video Pro X14 (limited subscription), Topaz Gigapixel AI, and XSplit Premium Suite. All the games in the bundle either are or will be optimized for Arc "Alchemist" graphics, and will feature XeSS. All the productivity software included takes advantage of the AI-acceleration capabilities and Hybrid architecture of 12th Gen Core processors. The list of eligible processors and graphics cards are tabled below.

An AMD Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" 16-core/32-thread processor was put through the Geekbench 5.4.5 benchmark, and it's becoming all too clear that AMD has a highly competitive product on its hands. The 7950X yielded a single-threaded score of 2217 points, and 24396 points in the multi-threaded tests. With these scores, the 7950X is about 14% faster than the "Golden Cove" P-cores of the i9-12900K "Alder Lake" processor in the single-threaded tests, and comes out as being 41% faster than it in the multi-threaded test. Against the leaked i9-13900K "Raptor Lake," the 7950X is shown being about 4% slower in the single-threaded test (against the "Raptor Cove" P-cores); and about 7.8% slower in the multi-threaded test.