It looks as though the upcoming Intel Nova Lake-S CPU family will launch soon, headed-up by a 28-core Core Ultra 9 CPU. A new PassMark benchmark spotted by VideoCardz now purports to show expected performance of that 28-core Nova Lake-S CPU in two separate benchmark runs. The CPU, which is listed as "Nova Lake Client Platform," with the motherboard model giving it away as "NVL-S Embedded CRB 1 Fab2 Board," appears alongside an eight-core NVL-S CPU, and both CPUs achieve decent scores in the single-threaded performance benchmarks.

According to the PassMark database scores, the eight-core NVL-S scores up to 5,085 points, while the 24-core variant tops out at 5,210 points. Meanwhile, the 28-core—ostensibly the Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC—scores as high as 61,509 points in the multithreaded CPU test, and the eight-core variant, likely a Core Ultra 3 or 5 CPU, scores 23,478 points. If these PassMark scores are accurate, this puts the Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC at around 85% of the performance of an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D in multicore performance, while the CPU beats out the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K on single-threaded performance but misses out on matching the outgoing Intel chip by 5,721 points or around 8.5%.

Intel has released its latest Arc GPU graphics drivers, version 101.9033 beta, which brings day-one support for the new game CONTROL Resonant. We conducted an in-depth review of the game's performance on both traditional discrete GPUs and handheld devices with integrated graphics, including Intel's. In addition to adding support for this game, the GPU driver still contains a range of issues from previous releases that have not been fixed in this beta version. While the beta release focuses on game support, issues like Mafia: The Old Country crashing on "Panther Lake" and Arena Breakout Infinite potentially crashing on Arc "Battlemage" and Arc "Alchemist" remain. Check out the full list of known issues that persist in this driver, but expect a fix in the upcoming WHQL driver update.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.9033 Beta

Hardware Unboxed and Toasty Bros have both tested the mysterious Radeon RX 9050 4 GB, and the results look rough. AMD only sells this version in OEM systems, so both channels had to buy CyberPowerPC prebuilts to get one. In Hardware Unboxed's 18-game test at 1080p Low, the 4 GB card averaged 78 FPS with 55 FPS 1% lows, against 107 FPS and 78 FPS for the RX 9050 8 GB. That makes the 8 GB model about 37% faster. At the lowest settings tested, it was still around 32% ahead, at 147 FPS versus 111 FPS. Both cards share 1,024 Stream Processors and up to a 2.6 GHz boost clock, so the difference comes from memory. As AMD confirmed, the 4 GB model has a 64-bit bus, 144 GB/s of bandwidth, and 16 MB of Infinity Cache, exactly half of what the 8 GB model has.

Toasty Bros opened their prebuilt and found an XFX dual-fan card with a single 8-pin connector, so it looks like ASRock is not the only partner making one. AMD has said it developed the Radeon RX 9050 4 GB version for a specific partner system aimed at entry-level gaming customers, and that it has no plans to sell it outside that OEM PC. The card was first spotted in a CyberPowerPC Gamer Master prebuilt at Best Buy, which was listed at $889.99. Keep in mind that this is still a small sample, with only two outlets testing the card so far, so it's important to wait for more independent results before drawing firm conclusions. Still, AMD launching a card with only 4 GB of VRAM in 2026 is not looking like a great decision so far.

Apple officially announced the M5 Ultra in late August 2026, alongside the new Mac Studio desktop PC, claiming that it would offer significant increases in both AI and GPU-accelerated workloads. A new leaked set of Geekbench scores seems to validate many of Apple's claims in the GPU performance department, with the new GPU in the M5 Ultra coming out around 41% faster, on average.

The Apple M5 Ultra GPU scored a total of 360,019 points in the Geekbench 7 GPU benchmark, while the M3 Ultra only clocked in with 255,009 points in the same benchmark. Even compared to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, the Apple Silicon SoC's GPU impresses, trading blows with the 5080 in creative workflows, physics simulations, and photo editing, in some cases, beating out the gaming GPU by as much as 22%—while also losing by as much as 100% in some cases.

AMD's new Ryzen 5 5500F is turning out to be more than just a rebadge of the standard Ryzen 5 5500 in gaming. New benchmarks from YouTuber RandomGaminginHD show the $99 chip pulling ahead of its non-F sibling by up to 16% in CPU-bound titles, even though both processors share the same core count and land at roughly the same price. Do note that the testing is done by a mostly unknown third-party reviewer, and we don't have solid data track to back the claim, but for now it remains as a reference for future independent reviews from traditional sources.

The testing paired both chips with an RX 9060 XT 16 GB graphics card and ran through seven games at 1080p. Battlefield 6 showed the biggest gap at 16% in favor of the new 5500F, followed by Cyberpunk 2077 at 11%, GTA V: Enhanced at 9%, and Counter-Strike 2 at 8%. Titles that leaned more on the GPU, like Crimson Desert and Red Dead Redemption 2, saw that gap shrink to single digits or vanish once the RX 9060 XT became the bottleneck instead of the CPU. Of course, these are early numbers from one single test system. The reviewer also does not have a perfect track record when it comes to quality of testing, so it's important to wait for further testing to form a concrete verdict either way.

With the advent of the Steam Deck and the bump in Linux adoption that we've seen since then, a number of Linux distributions have appeared that make tweaks to the Linux kernel in the hopes of gaining performance. CachyOS is one such Linux distribution, and it appears that those kernel performance tweaks are paying off, according to some recent testing by Phoronix.

In a comparison between CachyOS, AlmaLinux 10.2, Ubuntu 26.04, Fedora Workstation 44, and Windows 11, CachyOS consistently performed at or near the top of the list, with CachyOS in performance mode claiming first place in the geometric mean of the results of a workstation benchmark. Windows 11 Pro was right at the bottom of the chart, coming in 14.9% slower than CachyOS in performance mode.

Geekbench 7 has officially launched as the newest stable release of the cross-platform CPU benchmarking tool, which last saw a full release in 2023 with Geekbench 6. It is available for download for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows, and the release notes detail a handful of new benchmarks that have been added to measure more diverse workloads.

Geekbench 7 continues the modernization of the Geekbench benchmarking tool, adding a new game physics benchmark, which relies on the Jolt physics engine, currently in use in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Horizon Forbidden West, and War Thunder's Dagor Engine. Game physics will test rigid body physics and collisions in a 3D environment. There are also new media benchmarks: video encode is tested with the AV1 codec and the AOM library; audio encoding is tested on music and speech using the Opus compression codec to compress data; and the video decode test uses the AV1 video codec, the Opus audio codec, and the Whisper speech recognition model to test video and audio decoding, audio resampling, and speech recognition.

KDE and Gnome are by far two of the most popular Linux desktop environments, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages that may sway users in either direction. Gnome is less customizable but widely recommended to Linux beginners, while KDE goes all-in on GUI-based customization and a smorgasbord of features. However, recent testing by Phoronix reveals that there may be an objectively better desktop environment for gaming on Linux.

In a comparison between Gnome 50.3 (technically Gnome Shell 50.3), KDE Plasma 6.7.2, and Xfce 4.2.0, Gnome surprisingly held a small, but measurable lead over KDE in the performance division. Both Gnome and KDE were running on the Wayland display protocol, while Xfce was running on X11, and that difference alone led to Xfce falling far behind the Wayland alternatives, especially in Vulkan rendering applications. The testing was all conducted on CachyOS and with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 GPU graphics, and each desktop was tested with default configurations.

Valve recently released Windows drivers for the new Steam Machine living room console, and it turns out the drivers are pretty good, given recent benchmark results from ETA Prime. The notorious YouTuber and gaming hardware reviewer installed Windows 11 on the Steam Machine, noting that the process was fairly painless, and that all the hardware worked flawlessly. It's both notable and somewhat comical that the GPU shows up in both Windows Task Manager and AMD's Radeon Adrenaline driver as an AMD Radeon RX 7600.

The Steam Machine in question has been upgraded to have 64 GB of memory, so there may be slight differences in performance, especially once the Windows installation starts to accrue more and more programs. In terms of actual gaming and productivity performance, SteamOS and Windows mostly trade blows, but Windows does have a few notable performance wins over SteamOS.

It seems as though the launch of Valve's Steam Deck has resulted in an almost non-stop slew of comparisons between Linux and Windows as a gaming operating system. In one recent test, Meta PCs sought out to test the two operating systems head-to-head to get some hard numbers and potentially settle the debate, however, the results brought up an interesting debate about what makes one operating system better than another.

Benchmarks were conducted on an all-AMD system running an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, an XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB, and 16 GB of RAM, with the AMD Linux drivers effectively making this a best-case scenario for Linux. The benchmarks were run on the latest version of Windows 11 and Fedora Linux 44, games were tested at the same resolution, and results were an average across three runs. All games tested were also the Windows versions running via Valve's Proton compatibility layer.

Another Geekbench entry for AMD's Medusa Point APU has been spotted by a well-known hardware leaker, HXL. This time, the submission lists the identifier 100-000001713-33_N on the Plum-MDS1 FP10 platform and is a step up from the previous leak in terms of performance, despite the chip reportedly running at just over 2.0 GHz. What we have there is listed as a Ryzen 9 part with 10 cores and 20 threads, 10 MB of L2 cache and 32 MB of L3; however, the L3 is likely misreported. The core layout is believed to follow a 4 + 6 configuration based on Zen 6/6c. Scores indicate 3,174 single-core and 15,092 multicore, roughly 29% and 22% higher than average Ryzen AI 9 365 Strix Point results, which is interesting given the low clock speeds in play. Engineering samples at this stage typically run below final frequencies, so the actual performance gap at launch could look quite different.

According to previous leaks, AMD's upcoming Medusa Point lineup could scale up to 22 CPU cores on the flagship Ryzen 9 model by combining a 10-core APU die with a 12-core desktop CCD. Integrated graphics are expected to have eight RDNA 3.5+ (RDNA 4m) compute units, with the lineup remaining unchanged despite the higher CPU core count. Another interesting new detail in this Geekbench submission is that we can see listed the FP16 AVX-VNNI support for a Zen 6 chip, pointing to expanded FP16 instruction handling in AMD's next-generation architecture. This is mostly relevant for AI and machine learning tasks. However, as with any early ES benchmark, take the numbers with a grain of salt. Pretty much everything from clock speeds, firmware, and platform tuning is a work in progress at this point. AMD Medusa Point is expected to arrive sometime next year with a likely initial launch at CES 2027 in January.

AMD recently released FSR 4.1 for its RDNA 3 GPUs, which demonstrated a handy performance increase over native rendering on RDNA 3, but a recent comparison by German outlet, ComputerBase, has revealed that there are noticeable performance regressions when comparing FSR 4.1 to FSR 3.1 on RDNA 3 GPUs. The publication tested FSR 4.1 and FSR 3.1 on the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7800 XT, and RX 7600, and FSR 4.1 on the Radeon RX 9070 XT. In geometric mean results of nine tested games, the 9070 XT scores an identical frame rate to the RX 7900 XTX in 4K native resolution, but the RDNA 3 flagship scores 52.6 FPS when using FSR 4.1 Quality settings, compared to 56.5 FPS on the 9070 XT—a 7% performance penalty. Looking at FSR 4.1 Performance, the gap grows, with the 7900 XTX serving 65.2 FPS in the test, while the 9070 XT scores 71.9 FPS, making the 7900 XTX 9% slower than the 9070 XT at FSR 4.1 compute.

The comparison between FSR 4.1 and FSR 3.1 on RDNA 3 is where it becomes even more interesting, with the geometric mean reflecting an 11% performance penalty for FSR 4.1 in Quality mode and a 14.5% regression in Performance mode. AMD previously explained in an interview with TechPowerUp that there were notable differences between the implementation of FSR 4.1 on RDNA 4 and RDNA 3, specifically that the older hardware uses 8-bit integer (INT8) data, while the RDNA 4 implementation uses the built-in FP8 support in the 2nd-generation AI accelerators in RDNA 4 GPUs. Despite this, AMD claims that it aimed for quality parity across different RDNA generations, which may partially explain the bigger performance penalty on RDNA 3 GPUs. FSR 4.1 support has yet to make it to RDNA 2 GPUs, with official support for the RX 6000-series graphics cards planned for early 2027, so we have yet to see what sort of performance penalty will be incurred there, however, AMD also commented that supporting that older hardware is even more complex, since there are no dedicated AI accelerators. This means RX 6000 GPUs will need to rely on Stream Processors to compute FSR 4.1 upscaling.

Since the news broke that the Valve Steam Machine would be delayed, there have been countless conversations online about how the Steam Machine would be dead on arrival because of its expected pricing and aging internals—a six-core Zen 4 CPU and a RDNA 3 Radeon Navi 33 GPU with 8 GB of VRAM—but a recent set of leaked Geekbench 6 benchmarks, labelled "Valve Fremont," have reignited these concerns. The Geekbench 6 result, shared by @Olrak29_ on X, show the Steam Machine scoring 7,316 points in the multicore test and 2,334 in the single-core test.

As a point of comparison, the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H in the ASUS VivoBook S16 managed to score a multicore score of 16,104 points and a single-core score of 2,868 points. There are no GPU test results available on Geekbench yet at the time of writing, although estimates based on the hardware of the Steam Machine's GPU put expected performance around the level of an AMD Radeon RX 7600, which is, based on Geekbench's GPU tests, around 50% faster than the iGPU in the Core Ultra X7 358H. For its part, Valve expects the Steam Machine to handle upscaled 4K gaming at 60 FPS with ray tracing and FSR support, to boot. What's perhaps more important to glean from these Geekbench scores is that the Steam Machine now appears to be in the hands of at least one hardware reviewer, suggesting that the Steam Machine may be launching sooner rather than later.

With retail leaks revealing a new MSI Claw handheld slated to arrive soon with Intel's Arc G3 Extreme dedicated handheld CPU onboard, it's no surprise to see the CPU, and its Arc B380 iGPU, appear in early benchmarks. According to a recent PassMark run, the Intel Arc G3 Extreme will put up impressive numbers in terms of both CPU and GPU performance, with multicore CPU tests resulting in 29,622 points and single-core tests coming in at 4,288 points.

In comparison, the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that has become ubiquitous in the handheld gaming space, manages 23,649 in multicore CPU testing and 3,964 points in single-core tests—just over 20% slower than Intel's upcoming chip. To be fair, the TDP of the 14-core Intel chip during the test is unknown, and performance at lower power has been one of Intel's weaknesses when it comes to gaming handhelds. GPU tests have not yet been recorded by PassMark, but the Arc B380 is slated to be built on the same 12-core Xe3 silicon with a minor 200 MHz decrease in GPU clock, so performance is expected to be quite similar to the Arc B390, which we tested to be significantly faster than AMD's Radeon 890M.

Following the recent early performance benchmarks of the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, Intel's Arrow Lake-S Core Ultra 3 205T has broken ground on PassMark, and it's giving the Core Ultra 5 255 and Core Ultra 5 255T a run for their money, at least in single-core benchmarks. Multithreaded benchmarks paint something of a grimmer picture for the Core Ultra 3 205T, though—likely due to the reduced core and thread count of the 205T, which features just eight cores and eight threads, likely four P-cores and four E-cores.

The Core Ultra 3 205T scored a respectable 4,561 points in the single-core benchmark, beating out the Core Ultra 5 255 and 255T by 3.2% and 6.6%, respectively. When it comes to multithreaded tasks, however, the Core Ultra 3 205T falls behind. In PassMark's benchmarks, the 205T was nearly 15% behind the Core Ultra 5 225. Still, the Intel Core Ultra 3 205T comes in ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 5 435 by a significant margin in both single- and multi-core tests, and the Core Ultra 3 205T seems to have been tested at a peak TDP of 35 W, all of which may make it worth considering for lower-end office builds.

ASRock, the global leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, mini PCs, gaming monitors, power supply units and AIOs, proudly announces a new overclocking World Record achieved with its flagship X870E Taichi OCF motherboard.

Professional overclocker Alex2305 successfully pushed system performance to a new level using the ASRock X870E Taichi OCF paired with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor, achieving an incredible PCMark 10 Express score of 14290 marks, securing the World Record 1st Place on HWBOT.org.

Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus was recently leaked in an upcoming HP prebuilt desktop PC, ostensibly once more confirming the imminent launch of the new Arrow Lake Refresh desktop CPUs. Now, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has appeared in PassMark's benchmark charts, potentially both confirming the specifications of the mid-range Arrow Lake Refresh and setting expectations of performance for the new CPUs. According to PassMark, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus scored 50,478 points in the CPU benchmark, coming out around 16% faster than the 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 5 245 KF that preceded it.

That benchmark score, although based on a single benchmark, puts the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus almost exactly halfway between the Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K, which is not a terrible place to be. According to previous leaks, now somewhat validated by this benchmark score, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will add four additional E-cores over the original 14-core Core Ultra 5 245 CPUs, for a total of 18 cores and 18 threads—6 P-cores and 12 E-cores.

Chinese company Loongson has been developing custom processors based on the LoongArch instruction set, a new design initiated in 2020. Phoronix reviewed the company's 3B6000 processor, which has 12 cores supporting simultaneous multithreading (SMT2), resulting in 24 threads. The platform is compatible with DDR4 memory, with a controller targeting speeds up to 3,200 MT/s and ECC support, and the CPU runs at 2.4/2.5 GHz base frequency. In testing, the 3B6000 processor achieved about one-third the performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X in aggregate benchmark testing. However, it outperformed the Raspberry Pi 500+ by a factor of 2.5, placing it between single-board computers and entry-level desktop systems.

For testing, Phoronix used the 3B6000x1-7A2000x1-EVB evaluation board, which appears dated compared to current motherboard designs, especially in terms of component selection and the cooling solution for the chipset. Expansion options include two PCIe x16 slots, one PCIe x4 slot, an M.2 connector, and four SATA ports. The integrated graphics unit supports both HDMI and VGA outputs. While the LoongArch64 architecture represents China's effort to develop an independent instruction set with the ability to tune features like security and specialized workloads, these benchmarks suggest the hardware execution still lags several generations behind x86-64 designs from AMD and Intel. Significant, multifold improvements are needed before it can match the performance of Western CPU makers.

Intel's Core Ultra 356H is an upcoming 16-core (4 P-cores, 12 E-cores) mobile Panther Lake CPU. Although official review embargoes for the rest of Intel's Panther Lake CPUs are said to be right around the corner, supposed performance benchmarks for Intel's latest have already started to leak, with Cinebench R23 and 3DMark Steel Nomad Light results coming by way of @realVictor_M on X. The results indicate strong multicore performance but stagnant single-core scores compared to Intel's last-generation chips. The iGPU is also notably slower, since the Arc 140V iGPU in the outgoing Core Ultra 7 255H has significantly more cores than the new Intel Graphics 4 Xe3 iGPU in the Panther Lake chip.

According to the leaker, whose results are so far unverified, the Core Ultra 7 356H scored 2013 points in the Cinebench R23 single-core benchmark and 20,721 points in the Cinebench R23 multicore test. For reference, this is slightly ahead of the outgoing Core Ultra 7 255H, which features two more P-cores and two fewer E-cores and averages around 18,679 points in the Cinebench R23 multicore benchmark. Single-core scores, for their part, are about dead even, with the 255H averaging around 2060 points in the R23 single-core benchmark. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad Light test, the Panther Lake iGPU scored 2,110 points. By comparison, its predecessor's average score in the same benchmark ranges between 3,279 and 3,532 points, depending on whether the benchmark is running in DX12 or Vulkan mode. The upcoming laptop CPUs will have to contend with AMD's new Ryzen AI 400 APUs, which have already started showing up in laptops and have shown to perform admirably in comparison with current-gen Intel CPUs.

Samsung presented its brand-new Exynos 2600 application processor just before Christmas—this big announcement followed many months of leaks, throughout 2025. Weeks later, a mysterious follow-up model—dubbed "Exynos 2700" by South Korean industry insiders—was tentatively linked to an allegedly more refined 2 nm GAA node process. Officially, Samsung has opted into using its own foundry's SF2 production line for the imminent Exynos 2600 SoC-powered Galaxy S26 smartphone series. Lately, the more advanced "SF2P" node process has been uttered in the same sentence as possible AMD, Qualcomm, and Tesla chip making deals. The South Korean megacorporation is very likely keen to drum up interest from new and returning clients, and their latest Exynos mobile chip is being used as a proof of concept for the regular SF2 node (2 nm GAA), along with proprietary "Heat Path Block" technology.

Unsurprisingly, as the Exynos 2600 AP closes in on its release period, pre-launch samples have posted benchmark data. Last week, TechPowerUp covered this next-gen chip's Geekbench 6 OpenCL score of 24,964 points—achieved by the onboard Xclipse 960 iGPU (aka "JUNO"). Earlier today, a slightly mysterious "Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Full Android on S5E9975 ERD" test device posted a not-so-impressive OpenCL score of 15618, in Geekbench 6.2.2 for Android AArch64. A Geekbench browser database entry details a 10-core processor candidate that packs a Samsung Xclipse 970 integrated graphics solution. Presumably, the numerical model climb—from 960 going up to 970—implies the "S5E9975 ERD" validation platform hosting an "Exynos 2700" mobile chipset. At first, Ice Universe—a self-described tech expert of global renown—was excited by the seemingly premature appearance of an "Exynos 2700" engineering sample. A lower than expected benchmark score was blamed on the test setup being an "ERD engineering board."

Intel revealed the Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 mobile CPUs headed up by the Core Ultra X9 388H, at CES 2026 earlier this year. Intel promised that the flagship CPU would deliver up to 60% better multi-thread performance than the predecessor. While laptops with the Core Series 3 CPUs are only slated to arrive on January 27, some early benchmarks have appeared online ahead of the official launch date, courtesy of x86 is dead&back on X. According to the PassMark benchmark results, the Core Ultra X9 388H scored 37,904 points in the multi-thread benchmark and 4,451 points in the single-thread benchmark. This is a good 10% faster than the Core Ultra 9 285H (34,436 points) it is replacing and a solid 29% faster than the aging Core Ultra 9 185H in the multicore benchmarks. When it comes to single-core benchmarks, the Core Ultra X9 388H is basically only on-par with the 285H, but around 20% faster than the Core Ultra 9 185H.

It is, however, worth noting that these numbers are based on the average between two benchmarking runs, which varied greatly. During one benchmarking session, the Core Ultra X9 388H scored a whopping 40,523 points, although the hardware configurations don't seem to have changed from run to run. The test laptop, memory, and CPU clocks all appear to be the same, suggesting that environmental differences or software configuration may be to blame. The high score was actually the second one registered, so while these early benchmarks should still be taken with a pinch of salt, the numbers indicate that the new Intel Panther Lake CPUs might be impressive performers. For reference, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 470 scored 36,591 points in the PassMark multicore tests and 4,216 points in the single-score tests. The iGPU in the X9 388H was also previously benchmarked in Cyberpunk 2077, effectively doubling the performance of AMD's Strix Halo Radeon 890M iGPU. These latest results show reasonable performance gains, although we have yet to see the mid-range Panther Lake CPUs, which showed middling results in early benchmarks in late 2025.

Intel's "Bartlett Lake-S" (Performance) P-Core-only processor design has made a surprise appearance, after a long period of developmental silence. Earlier, today X86 is dead&back put a spotlight on the intriguing entry of Team Blue's unreleased "Core 7 253PE" SKU within PassMark's CPU benchmark database. The keen watcher of not-yet-released PC hardware believes that this particular unit is possibly the first sample of Team Blue's 10-core "Bartlett Lake-S" variant to appear in the wild. This further refinement of 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" tech popped up a few times last year, but the TechPowerUp news archive shows a dry period during third and fourth quarters. An August report alluded to an embedded market target, the existence of a flagship 12 P-core model, and a potential launch under the "Intel Core Series 2" banner—minus an Ultra tag, due to lack of onboard NPUs.

All P-Core configurations could appeal to budget-conscious PC gamers. Efficiency-oriented (E and LPE) units are considered superfluous for these purposes. X86 is dead&back was pleased to find PassMark data that signalled improved multicore performance over the related Core i5 14400 "Raptor Lake-R" processor. They exclaimed: "Core 7 253PE (has) more MT performance than Core i5 14400 (6P + 4E)!" Their comparison shows a 20.6% uplift here, but a slight regression in terms of single-core scores (-2.73%). The sole "Core 7 253PE" sample's PassMark multi-thread rating, of 31802, closes in on the 14-core (6P + 8E) Core i5-14500 model's tally (31121). According yesterday's PassMark diagnostic, the newer chip utilizes Intel's UHD Graphics 770 integrated solution (akin to Core i5-14500), whilst the Core i5 14400 makes do with the UHD 730 iGPU. There are apparent differences across the various levels of cache, but the "Core 7 253PE" SKU seems to enjoy a larger overall pool—36 MB—when cross-examined with its older relatives.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 processor has taken on a mythical status in the CPU world, as it has been rumored for some time without any commercial release. Recently, the CPU appeared in the online database of the Geekbench CPU benchmark, showing a slight performance improvement over its predecessor—the regular Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. A Geekbench v6.5 test revealed scores of 3,553 for single-core performance and 24,340 for multicore performance. This represents about a 7% improvement for the X3D2 model over the X3D in both single and multicore scores. Initially, CES 2026 was expected to be the announcement date for this processor, but after the show we got more hints that the SKU will perhaps appear later in the year.

Reportedly, the SKU features 16 cores and 32 threads, with 3D V-Cache on both chiplets, hence the name X3D2, totaling around 192 MB of L3 cache. It operates at a base frequency of 4.30 GHz, with boost clocks reaching up to 5.6 GHz. Compared to its predecessor, it sacrifices a modest 100 MHz in peak speed for significantly greater cache capacity. This configuration is expected to benefit cache-sensitive workloads and gaming, while also appealing to workstation users and content creators handling memory-intensive tasks. However, this enhanced capability comes with a thermal cost, as the rumored TDP increases to 200 W from the 9950X3D's 170 W, potentially pushing PPT values close to 250 W. With 3D V-Cache on both CCDs, the overall performance appears to be boosted by about 7%, so its appearance is justified in some workloads that enthusiasts would appreciate.

Recent Geekbench Browser database entries have outed test scores and basic specifications for two of Intel's upcoming "Arrow Lake Refresh" flagships. On January 13, a not-yet-launched Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus mobile unit was tracked in a new Acer Predator Helios gaming laptop. A few hours earlier, Team Blue's Core Ultra 9 290K Plus desktop chip entered the fray onboard a test rig built around Gigabyte's top-level and world record-holding Z890 AORUS TACHYON ICE mainboard configured with 48 GB DDR5-8000 of system memory. This leak shows the future 24-core "Arrow Lake Refresh" range topper posting overall scores of 3456 single-core and 24610 multicore points in Geekbench 6.5 test scenarios. Naturally, news reports have quickly compared the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus to a nearby non-refreshed "Arrow Lake" part—Core Ultra 9 285K.

The newcomer managed to build upon the current flagship's officially ranked achievements (based upon multiple entries); doing 7% better in single-core stakes, and 9% in multicore tests. When compared to AMD's fanciest "Granite Ridge" desktop offering—Ryzen 9 9950X3D—the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is 2% faster in terms of single-core results, and 11% above in multicore. Interestingly, the lesser Core Ultra 9 270K Plus model was Geekbenched in December—producing 3235 (single-core) and 21368 (multicore) tallies. The flagship "Arrow Lake-S Refresh" SKU is about 7% and 15% faster (respectively) than its (also) 24-core sibling. According to Geekbench diagnostic data and other specification leaks, the two (8P + 16E) siblings feature minor differences in core clock speeds, so it is possible that Team Blue engineers have tuned the more expensive option to a greater degree. Golden Pig Upgrade has proposed a March/April launch window for the Core Ultra 200 Plus desktop family, consisting of the two aforementioned models and an 18-core (6P + 12E) Core Ultra 5 250K Plus SKU.

The first benchmark results of AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 392, part of the Strix Halo family announced last week at CES 2026, have surfaced and are looking good. Quick recap on this particular SoC from AMD designed for more accessible gaming laptops. The Ryzen AI Max+ 392 is a 12-core/24-thread CPU using two CCDs, clock speeds of 3.2 GHz base and boost clocks reaching 5.0 GHz, a full-featured Radeon 8060S iGPU with all 40 CU enabled, a 50 TOPS NPU, and a configurable TDP range of 45 W to 120 W. The platform supports LPDDR5X memory speeds up to 8533 MT/s and configurations with up to 128 GB of memory.

Performance data comes from an ASUS TUF Gaming A14 (TX Air FA401EA) laptop running the Ryzen AI MAX+ 392 with 64 GB of LPDDR5X memory at 8000 MT/s. In Geekbench 6, the system achieved scores of 2,917 points (single-core) and 18,071 points (multicore). That multicore result slightly edges out the desktop Ryzen 9 7900X and comes close to newer Zen 5 desktop parts. These early results suggest that more affordable AMD Strix Halo SKUs still deliver strong CPU throughput while maintaining a high-end iGPU configuration. Laptops based on Ryzen AI MAX+ 392 and Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (8-core/16-thread CPU, single CCD, 3.60 GHz base with 5.00 GHz boost) are expected to arrive in retail during the first half of the year.