Intel and AMD are integrating their CPU optimizations for PyTorch into a unified library, offering tuning for both AMD and Intel chips through the oneDNN library. AMD has maintained a downstream version of oneDNN called ZenDNN, which is now moving into the open-source oneDNN, published by the UXL Foundation and driven by Intel. AMD also announced it's joining the UXL Foundation as a "steering member," which "influences the future of the UXL Foundation" in exchange for a contribution of $20,000 per year.

AMD says the move to unify these efforts under oneDNN was recommended by the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group (EAG), which is a joint initiative that primarily exists between Intel and AMD and was established in 2024. The two companies have collaborated through the EAG previously, such as with the ACE extensions for x86 that we learned about earlier this year.

The oneDNN backend is used for CPU inference, and it's built to accelerate that workload for the latest Intel (and now AMD) chips in frameworks like PyTorch. When oneDNN was added to PyTorch as a backend in late 2023, it showed a 1.24x improvement with the Float32 data type, and 2.21x for the BFloat16 data type.

From the oneDNN GitHub, the library "detects hardware features at runtime" to generate optimized kernels for the platform, as well as provides low-precision data types. It also features optimized instructions for common AI and machine learning operations, such as matrix multiplication and convolution.

For developers, the move simplifies working with PyTorch across different systems, ensuring a single backend provides the proper optimizations for whatever hardware you're running. Although the news here is focused on the x86 guard, oneDNN is a cross-platform library that works on Arm and RISC-V architectures as well.

Intel originally developed oneDNN, built on top of previously deep learning libraries, before it was folded into the UXL Foundation. Intel was among the founding members of the UXL Foundation, alongside Arm, Qualcomm, Google Cloud, and others.

An AMD engineering sample has made an appearance in a listing on OpenBenchmarking. According to a report by TechPowerUp, the chip could potentially be a part of AMD’s upcoming Gainsborough family and a possible candidate for the next-generation Steam Deck handheld console. As per the OpenBenchmarking listing, the chip comes with a six-core, 12-thread processor paired with 24GB of high-speed LPDDR5 memory.

The engineering sample with part number 100-000001930-12_Y was tested on an AMD GBR-FF6-SKT validation board, with the CPU running at clock speeds of 2.4 GHz. The system also features four 6GB SK Hynix memory packages, resulting in 24GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 9,600 MT/s. That’s a big jump when compared to the current Steam Deck, which comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 6,400 MT/s, alongside a four-core, eight-thread AMD Zen 2 processor.

The benchmark listing also provides some clues about the processor’s underlying architecture. As per Notebookcheck, the sample’s CPU microcode revision corresponds to AMD’s Family 1Ah, model DCh. Linux kernel changes indicate that this model falls within the range reserved for newer Zen 6 processors, suggesting that Gainsborough could use AMD’s next-generation CPU architecture. However, there is no clarity or any confirmation whether it will use standard Zen 6 cores or the denser Zen 6C variant.

The integrated GPU is listed with a clock speed of 2,400 MHz, although its architecture and compute unit count remain unknown. The sample was tested using the GpuTest benchmark suite on Ubuntu 24.04 at 1024 x 768 resolution, resulting in scores of 3,871 in GiMark, 3,508 in FurMark, and 9,319 in TessMark. While the FurMark score is comparable to the original Stam Deck, we can’t really come to any conclusions at this point, as the tests were conducted on an engineering platform using development software rather than a finished handheld. For now, the results do not establish how the chip would perform in games, as power limits, cooling, driver maturity, and the final GPU configuration all contribute to the performance in a compact gaming device.

If these specifications carry over to a future Steam Deck, the additional CPU cores along with the larger and faster memory would provide a meaningful hardware upgrade. That being said, neither AMD nor Valve have confirmed a connection between the Gainsborough family and a future Steam Deck. Thus, it is best to take this with a grain of salt and wait until there is more concrete information in the future.

Nvidia has earned billions selling AI accelerators, but with the emergence of agentic AI, CPUs are going to play a considerably more significant role than before, which creates new opportunities for the company. Reuters reports that Nvidia has secured a major design win with its Vera CPUs with AI cloud provider Modal. According to Modal, preliminary evaluations showed that Vera could deliver twice the throughput of its existing AMD and Intel processors, although the company does not intend to cease using CPUs from its current suppliers.

Modal provides cloud infrastructure that enables AI developers to deploy AI agents that can perform complex operations autonomously over extended periods. Such workloads require substantial CPU resources for software execution, data processing, and other tasks that cannot be efficiently handled by GPUs. Modal currently relies exclusively on AMD and Intel processors for these operations, but its tests indicate that Nvidia's new Vera CPUs could significantly improve performance in its specific workloads. Of course, since Vera is based on an Arm instruction set architecture, Modal's decision to adopt Vera will require substantial modifications to its software. Nevertheless, Modal believes that the potential performance improvements justify the additional engineering effort.

The reported 2x throughput advantage is particularly interesting because agentic AI workloads can involve numerous independent tasks that compete for CPU cores, cache capacity, and memory bandwidth. However, Modal has not disclosed detailed benchmark configurations it used, specific AMD and Intel processor models, or performance-per-watt figures. Consequently, it remains unclear whether Vera's advantage is enabled by advantages of its Arm v9.2-based Olympus CPU cores that can decode and execute up to 10 instructions per cycle, its memory subsystem with 1.2 TB/s of bandwidth, or other architectural characteristics. Also note that tests compared Vera against currently available AMD and Intel processors rather than their upcoming generations that will compete against Vera in the coming years.

Since Modal cannot port all of its software to Arm ISA overnight, the company will continue using x86 CPUs from AMD and Intel, according to Modal chief executive Erik Bernhardsson. Rather than sticking to one ISA for everything, Modal intends to operate a heterogeneous server fleet and select the most suitable processors for each workload. Naturally, the company intends to evaluate upcoming AMD and Intel processors once they become available to make its choices in the future.

For Nvidia, the agreement represents a major step toward making Vera a standalone server processor that commands a major share of the server market. The company expects Vera sales to generate at least $20 billion during its current fiscal year and estimates the potential total available market for these CPUs is approximately $200 billion. The company is on track to sell at least four million Vera CPUs in fiscal 2026.

The announcement comes shortly after Modal secured $750 million in financing led by Accel, which valued the company at $15.75 billion. Modal expects its annual revenue to reach $1 billion within the next year. The company's service consumption has increased 3X in the last 12 months, while revenue has surged more than 15 times compared with the previous year, Reuters reports.

Arm announced last week that its AGI CPU, the company's data center CPU for agentic AI workloads, delivers twice the performance per rack as AMD EPYC 9755, calculated from chip performance and server-power assumptions measured across seven workloads. The claim stems from modeled rack results from tests aligned with Arm’s new CPU evaluation methodology, developed with support from Fujitsu, Meta, and OpenAI.

The results — verified in an Arm-commissioned independent analysis by Signal65 — do not establish the AGI CPU as the overall leader for agentic AI, as they apply to the selected processors, workloads, and configuration. They also use the specific Arm-developed evaluation methodology that Arm says should be the new standard for assessing performance. However, other chipmakers like AMD and Intel make performance claims based on different benchmarks. So, how is Agentic AI evolving CPU performance benchmarks, what does Arm propose to measure, and how do the different approaches compare?

Arm’s new CPU evaluation methodology

Agentic AI is changing the role of CPUs in modern AI data centers, requiring them to handle complex, multi-step workflows. Beyond inference, which the accelerator handles, AI agents execute tools, retrieve data, and maintain state within isolated environments, acting like virtual users. The CPU handles these critical surrounding workloads, from running those tools and serving database or API requests to preparing data and coordinating work for accelerators.

As these workloads scale rapidly with agentic capabilities, it becomes increasingly important to gauge CPU performance not just by how many agents can run concurrently, but also by how much useful work gets done. Arm argues that CPU performance is increasingly defined by how much useful work a system can sustain while staying responsive. Supporting more agents simultaneously offers limited benefit if their executions throttle or accelerators have to sit idle waiting for the CPU. Power, cooling, and physical space also limit how much hardware operators can deploy, extending the performance question to the rack.

Arm’s proposed methodology for evaluating CPU performance, developed with support from Fujitsu, Meta, and OpenAI, centers on representative agent workloads, repeatable CPU measurements, and validation against end-to-end task outcomes. In practical terms, the methodology identifies the tools and services an agent uses, measures their CPU performance under controlled conditions, and checks whether improvements help the agent complete its task. For example, a database test can establish how quickly a system handles transactions. An end-to-end evaluation would then examine whether faster database access actually improves the workflow that depends on it.

Executing the second aspect of the methodology, making these comparisons repeatable, presents another challenge, as an agent might choose different commands or take a different route through a task each time it runs. Model inference and remote services also introduce delays. Arm proposes replaying recorded agent actions to separate CPU performance from this variability, allowing different systems to execute a consistent sequence of work. Its whitepaper sets out a framework for selecting and interpreting these measurements, leaving the industry to develop an agreed benchmark suite and scoring approach.

To evaluate the CPU work described in its framework, Arm ran seven workloads — spanning tooling, agentic workflows, and reasoning/planning, plus Sandbench, which measures sandbox-creation overhead for agent execution — on its AGI CPU and AMD’s EPYC 9755. The tests combine established server applications with benchmarks focused on agent workflows.

The vLLM result measures the CPU work around model execution, not GPU inference throughput. Similarly, the report’s “reasoning/planning” category groups supporting CPU workloads and does not assess how intelligently a model reasons.

ARM AGI CPU vs AMD EPYC 9755

For the tests, Arm used two AGI CPU configurations because of hardware availability: a 128-core chip at 2.8 GHz with DDR5-7200 for Terminal-Bench 2 and SWE-bench replay, and a 136-core chip at 3.2 GHz with DDR5-8000 for the other five workloads. The AMD comparison used one socket of the 128-core EPYC 9755 with DDR5-6400. Both platforms ran the same benchmark scripts but used different software environments. Arm used custom Linux 7.1.3 builds, with Ubuntu 24.04 for most tests and Ubuntu 26.04 for SWE-bench, while AMD’s main recorded configuration used Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux 6.8, with settings varying by test.

At the chip level, Arm’s AGI CPU won the majority of comparisons when compared to its AMD counterpart in five of the seven tests. With the EPYC 9755 as the baseline, Arm led by 9% on Terminal-Bench, 13% on SWE-bench, and 97% on fastText, but lagged by 12% and 5% in MySQL and Milvus throughput, respectively. On average, the AGI CPU led by 20% (1.20x) per-chip advantage, calculated across the seven normalized performance ratios.

At the rack level, Arm’s modeled performance averages 1.99x AMD’s, with a lead in all seven workloads. The model uses rated server-power estimates of 950 W for the 128-core Arm configuration, 1,050 W for the 136-core version, and 1,700 W for AMD, including memory and other system components. After reserving about 8% of a 24 kW rack budget for networking and power distribution, this leaves room for 23 or 21 Arm servers versus 13 AMD servers.

For SWE-bench, the 2.00x per rack result was obtained by multiplying the roughly 1.13x chip result by 23/13. The larger gain comes from fitting more servers into the same power budget. Furthermore, these projections use modeled whole-server power, not throughput measurements from two fully populated racks.

Arm’s model also gives the AMD servers about twice as much RAM: roughly 2 TB against 1 TB for Arm. It allocates 4 GB per hardware thread, with each AMD core supporting two threads while each Arm core supports one. This puts the memory-power allowance at 336 W for AMD and 192 W for Arm. Signal65 also calculated what happens when memory is allocated per physical core. In this setup, AMD’s memory and power allowance falls, and Arm’s average modeled rack advantage drops from 1.99x to approximately 1.81x. The usefulness of the 2 TB AMD configuration depends on how much memory the workloads actually need, as SMT does not inherently require twice the memory.

To verify the findings, Signal65 remotely observed Arm’s test runs and examined the original logs, result files, scripts, and configuration records. A separate review team rebuilt the calculations with its own code and reproduced all seven results within 0.5%. However, Signal65 did not run a separate hardware rerun in its own lab. In addition, Signal65 could independently confirm BIOS and memory settings for only the EPYC 9965 system. These settings were unavailable for independent verification on the Arm and EPYC 9755 systems. Along with the software differences, these gaps slightly affect the certainty with which the results can be attributed to the processors themselves.

Arm’s approach vs AMD and Nvidia

While Arm believes its methodology should be the standard, it does not hold a monopoly on how the industry evaluates agentic CPU performance. For example, AMD promotes agents per watt, dollar, and rack. Footnotes on its EPYC 9006 page identify available CPU threads as a proxy for agent capacity, with actual throughput depending on the workload and system. Its separate workload analysis models a 100 kW rack and claims 2.37× performance for EPYC 9965 over Nvidia's Vera, using a geometric mean across six infrastructure workloads.

Nvidia, on the other hand, emphasizes Vera’s single-thread performance and memory bandwidth, and says a 256-CPU rack supports more than 22,500 concurrent CPU environments. These numbers describe different things and do not directly imply any specific advantage. Methodologies vary across manufacturers by workload, power assumptions, and aggregation methods, making direct CPU comparisons complex. The current comparison is against AMD's fifth-generation “Turin” processor with 128 cores. The company launched its latest sixth-generation EPYC 9006 “Venice” family this year, dedicated to agentic AI.

Intel won't launch a Nova Lake-S SKU with 12 Xe3P graphics cores, according to tipster Jaykihn, who originally flagged a beefed-up APU design with the Nova Lake architecture. The original SKU was said to come with 4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores, along with the 12 Xe3P cores, presumably offering an inexpensive onramp to a gaming desktop without a discrete GPU. Now, the leaker says that design is cancelled, and Intel intends to pick it back up with Razor Lake, the generation that will follow Nova Lake.

Originally, Intel's 12 Xe3P Nova Lake SKU was said to require 65W of dedicated power to drive the iGPU, necessitating the use of two VCCGT phases on the motherboard for integrated graphics. Intel's Arc B390 GPU, which is the 12 Xe3-core model available in Panther Lake and Arc G-series processors, has a thermal design that can sustain up to 80W. However, it's currently being used in Panther Lake machines and handhelds like MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ that have lower power targets.

The Xe3P architecture is slotted for use in Intel's Crescent Island AI accelerator, but it hasn't been announced for any other products yet. Xe3P supports a wide deployment of Xe cores (up to 32), a deeper XMX engine with support for low-precision data types like FP8 and FP4, an increased 512KB L1 cache per Xe core, and a new unified L2 cache (32MB on Crescent Island).

Even by desktop APU standards, an 80W iGPU is a beefy accelerator to have on the same package. In addition, Intel's Nova Lake stack is said to extend up to a 175W TDP with the rumored top-end 52-core SKU, meaning the full 12 Xe3P iGPU would likely only be possible lower down the stack (and maybe only in the 4 + 8 + 4 + 12 Xe design originally suggested).

Earlier in the year, rumors suggested Intel was working on a mobile APU to counter AMD's Strix/Gorgon Halo products, featuring a large pool of unified memory and a large iGPU, dubbed Nova Lake AX. Now, the rumor mill suggests Intel will recycle the Nova Lake CPU cores for Razor Lake AX on mobile while pushing a larger iGPU.

*Specs rumored, unconfirmed by Intel

Intel has told us that Nova Lake is one of the most important desktop CPU launches for the company ever, following on the heels of the mediocre Arrow Lake rollout. Perhaps the biggest addition to the lineup is rumored to be bLLC, or big last-level cache, which is said to show up on select SKUs to counter AMD's X3D assault among the best CPUs for gaming. The company has yet to confirm that bLLC is even possible with its current packaging capabilities, though enthusiast channel VP Robert Hallock hinted to Tom's Hardware that Intel has plans to address X3D in the next generation.

The main stack is rumored to climb up to 28 cores, with two additional dual-tile SKUs that can go as high as 52 cores. The dual-tile models look like a bid for HEDT, perhaps competing with AMD's Threadripper CPUs, though it's not clear how Intel will position its dual-tile models yet.

Earlier this month, a leaked slide gave us a glimpse into Intel's launch plans for Nova Lake. The slide suggested Intel will announce the main stack (up to 28 cores) in Q4 of this year, with the chips arriving in Q1 2027. Intel will apparently follow up later in the year with the 52-core model. This aligns with what we've heard from our sources about Intel's Nova Lake rollout.

Alongside Nova Lake, Intel will introduce the new LGA1954 socket, along with the flagship Z990 chipset. We've already seen multiple Z990 motherboards in the flesh, suggesting Intel is preparing for a Nova Lake release in short order.

For those seeking the highest performance for gaming, AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D is currently the best CPU money can buy. If you’re planning to upgrade or build a new PC, now might be a good time to pick one up, as Newegg is selling the 9850X3D for $484, around $15 less than its launch price. The deal also includes a 240mm Cooler Master AIO liquid cooler, valued at $79.99, along with a copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword worth $69.99, both included as free gifts.

• Check out the deal on Newegg

Announced at CES 2026, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is essentially a higher-binned version of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It retains the same 8-core, 16-thread configuration and 4.2 GHz base clock as its predecessor, but gets a higher 5.6 GHz boost clock. The chip comes with the same 104MB of total cache, including 96MB of 3D V-Cache, which is the key ingredient behind its strong gaming performance. It also shares the same 120W default TDP and uses the AM5 platform with DDR5 memory support, making it compatible with a wide range of existing 800- and 600-series AMD motherboards.

In our in-depth testing of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, we found that it was only 3.3% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. But a win is a win, and that performance edge puts the CPU at the top of our 16-game 1080p FPS performance geomean, beating the more expensive Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 9950X3D. Although it loses out to Intel in some productivity workloads, the less complex 8-core configuration packed into a single CCD results in lower power draw. As you can see from our results, the peak power consumption is around 170W, making it much easier to cool.

With the included 240mm AIO liquid cooler, you should be able to keep the Ryzen 7 9850X3D well under control during gaming and moderate workloads, although it may run warmer under heavy multi-core workloads. At its sale price of $484, you’re paying less than its actual launch price while getting two useful extras at no additional cost. That makes this a worthwhile deal for anyone looking to build a high-end gaming PC around AMD’s gaming-focused platform.

AMD has officially launched the Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500, two strong contenders for the best CPUs on the market if you're on a budget. Both are hexa-core chips, with the Ryzen 5 5500F featuring AMD's Zen 3 execution cores and the Ryzen 5 7500 using the newer Zen 4 execution cores. The Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500, priced at $99 and $189, respectively, are available at U.S. retailers starting today.

The Ryzen 5 5500F, despite its similar model name to the Ryzen 5 5500, belongs to a different family in AMD's portfolio. The Ryzen 5 5500F hails from the Ryzen 5000 series (codenamed Vermeer), which uses a multi-chiplet architecture. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5500 comes from the Ryzen 5000G series (codenamed Cezanne), which uses a monolithic die design.

Therefore, it is more sound to call the Ryzen 5 5500F a lower-binned version of the Ryzen 5 5600, rather than an iGPU-less variant of the Ryzen 5 5500, which lacks integrated graphics to begin with. The distinction matters because the Ryzen 5 5500F is closer to the Ryzen 5 5600, albeit with a 500 MHz lower boost clock speed and half the L3 cache.

The Ryzen 5 5600, which launched at $199, now retails for around $159, making the new Ryzen 5 5500F approximately 38% more affordable. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5500, which debuted at $159, has lost substantial value over the years. OEM tray versions of the Ryzen 5 5500 now start at just $74, so it is still the most cost-effective entry point into the AM4 ecosystem. Compared to the Ryzen 5 5500, the Ryzen 5 5500F carries a 34% price premium. The latter justifies its higher cost with a slightly higher boost clock speed, which translates to better gaming performance, and support for PCIe 4.0, unlocking faster SSDs and graphics cards.

Ryzen 5 5500F and Ryzen 5 7500 Specifications

When it comes to the Ryzen 5 7500, little mystery surrounds its place in AMD's product stack. True to its name, the Ryzen 5 7500 is the same processor as the Ryzen 5 7500F, which launched three years ago, but with integrated Radeon graphics. This small addition suits users who need basic display output and do not plan to spend money on a discrete graphics card. Apart from the integrated graphics, all core specifications remain identical between the two models.

As a result, the difference between the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Ryzen 5 7500 stands. The former boasts a 100 MHz higher base and boost clock, so performance is somewhat better in certain processor-intensive workloads or gaming scenarios. However, most users may not notice the difference.

The Ryzen 5 7500F hit the market at $179, but over time its retail price has dropped to about $157. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 7600 has held its value over the years, falling only slightly from its original MSRP of $229 to around $226. As a result, the Ryzen 5 7500 positions itself as a mid-point option, priced 16% lower than the Ryzen 5 7600 and 20% above the Ryzen 5 7500F.

The Ryzen 5 7500 makes sense in this market because not everyone is a gamer, so integrated graphics mean you do not have to spend a fortune on a discrete graphics card at today's ridiculous prices. However, because it runs on AMD's AM5 platform, the Ryzen 5 7500 is still bound by the sky-high cost of DDR5.

We reported on the new Apple A20 Pro system-on-a-chip (SoC) for smartphones yesterday, an integral attraction within Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, and in the iPhone 18 Pro devices. Now the first A20 Geekbench 6 benchmark results are starting to pop up online, and they’re very impressive, particularly in single-core performance. If the result spotted by Longhorn is a typical one, the 4,719 single-core and 12,677 multi-core scores mean the new A20 is around 25% faster than its predecessor. Its single-core score can also make some of the best PC CPUs look anemic.

Apple’s official performance claims are interesting, as usual, but we’re always happy to see the third-party performance indicators start to emerge ahead of independent reviews. Heralding its new 2nm silicon yesterday, Apple might have actually understated the boost the A20 can deliver, with the official line about this “desktop-class” processor being the “fastest CPU in a smartphone,” and a claim that it is ‘just’ 20% faster than the previous gen. However, Geekbench isn’t the best indicator of real-world performance, and this is just a sample of one to sprinkle salt upon.

What are numbers without relevant comparisons, though? For more perspective on Apple’s newest silicon, which might also be thrown into a new Neo laptop (or desktop) in the coming months, check out the table below.

Above, we’ve pitted the Apple A19 Pro from last year’s iPhone 17 Pro as the second comparison column entrant. Apple has worked on multiple angles to deliver improvements over last year. It says that it has both new super-cores and efficiency cores in play. Then there’s the refined 2nm process and the faster clocks, too.

For some wider context, we’ve also tabulated one of Apple’s newest M5 computer chips, a modern Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X2 laptop chip, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, for a fun desktop PC angle. Less fun is the comparison with the Asus Zephyrus G16 2024 laptop I’m using now, with an AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 chip. Its Geekbench 6 scores of roughly 2,800 / 14,500 are easily outclassed by Apple’s new smartphone processor in 1T tests, but retain a little dignity by winning by ~1,800 points in nT tests.

Apple is opening up pre-orders for its new iPhones with A20 silicon shortly, with retail release on Friday, September 18. It usually lifts review embargoes a few days before retail. We should therefore see a broader range of benchmarks and tests from good sources in the coming week.

Apple has a new top system-on-a-chip for smartphones, the A20 Pro. The new processor debuted at Apple's iPhone event today — the first event led by newly minted chief executive officer John Ternus — alongside a new in-house modem (the C2).

The A20 Pro is Apple's first 2-nanometer chip in an iPhone. (Its first-ever 2 nm chip is the M6, which the company announced in August and which will debut in the Mac Mini later this month). Like the M6, the A20 features dual neural engines, new CPU and GPU cores.

The A20 Pro will power the new foldable iPhone Duo, along with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.

The new SOC boasts a 6-core CPU with two of the company's super-cores (20% faster than last generation), and there are also four efficiency cores with neural accelerators. Apple is calling this a "desktop-class" processor and the "fastest CPU in a smartphone."

The 7-core GPU has a 40% boost gen-over-gen with increased bandwidth, along with new neural accelerators that the company says allows for twice-as-fast FP8 compute.

The two neural engines have a combined 32 total cores. There's a 50% increase in memory bandwidth on the chip, which Apple says is the widest memory interface in an iPhone.

Apple has also changed the packaging, with the silicon dies placed in a way that removes memory from the thermal path of the SOC, allowing the silicon to attach directly to the vapor chamber. That vapor chamber has a three times larger surface area over the 17 Pro, and also includes more graphite and copper along with 80% recycled stainless steel.

The company claims that this will allow for up to 40% sustained performance over the iPhone 17 Pro and 2x sustained performance over the 16 Pro.

Apple says that A20 Pro's efficiencies and new battery designs allow for better longevity. The company claims the Pro will get 36 hours of video playback, and 45 hours on Pro Max video. Using a proprietary test based on data from how people use their phones, Apple claims 24 hours per charge on the 18 Pro and 30 hours on the Pro Max.

Beyond the SOC, Apple is also using a new C2 cellular modem, replacing Qualcomm. Apple claims that C2 "delivers meaningfully faster uploads when compared to C1X while consuming 15 percent less energy," and also adds mmWave support in the United States. Both phones also feature the N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.

The iPhone 18 Pro will start at $1,199, while the Pro Max will start at $1,299. The phones will be available on September 18. The phones also feature an updated Dynamic Island and a 48-megapixel fusion camera with a variable aperture, plus customizable settings such as white balance and cinematic effects that can be added after capture.

Apple's other new silicon was the S11, a chip for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.

iPhone Duo

The iPhone Duo, Apple's long-awaited foldable phone, will also use the A20 Pro.

The foldable will be Apple's first phone with a FaceTime camera behind the display, and Apple detailed the hinge and aerospace-grade titanium construction. The Duo is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance. It comes in "star white," as well as "night sky" (a dark blue).

The OS, iOS 27, will allow for docks and controls to live on the sides of the system, putting them near your hand. When opened, it's the thinnest iPhone ever and has the largest screen on an iPhone at 7.6 inches. Later this year, Apple Pencil will be supported on the Duo on both screens.

Apple will use Touch ID for biometrics, jettisoning the Face ID from more recent slab-style phones. Apple said this is the best way to go because it's available whether open or closed, and you can enroll multiple fingers.

The phone supports multiple "poses," including partial folds, and a standby mode when used in a tent-style pose — even when it's not charging.

Apple's internal display has an anti-glare display to "minimize crease visibility," which the company also claims feels premium under your fingers, with a titanium plate supporting the panel, along with a hinge with over 100 components. Samsung also released a phone with a minimal crease in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 earlier this year, but we'll have to see how reviewers compare the two screens.

A20 Pro has a new display engine that supports both displays. Like the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, Apple is using the C2 cellular modem over Qualcomm's in the iPhone Duo.

The iPhone Duo is eSIM-only everywhere in the world, maximizing battery space. Each side of the phone has its own battery, which operates as one with software. Apple is claiming up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display and 44 hours on the outer display. Using its own model, Apple claims 24 hours when using "both screens equally."

The phone has a two-camera system. The main camera is a 48MP lens with up to 2x telephoto, while the other is an ultrawide lens. The 48MP camera is the same one on the 18 Pro, though without the variable aperture. The center-stage camera on the front is a 12MP camera. The inner display has an under-screen FaceTime camera.

The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 for 256GB, and goes up to 2TB. Pre-orders start on October 16, and the phone will launch on October 23.

Following an early access period that included over 60,000 participants, auto-overclocking tool Hypertune has released its Gaming Performance Engineering platform, which is built on top of Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) SDK and developed in partnership with Intel. The company claims the utility can boost frame rates by up to 60%, though you shouldn't expect that as the norm. The tool includes automated CPU and GPU overclocking, as well as customizable Windows features, network optimization, and game-specific optimizations.

Hypertune partnered with Intel to build the tool, which the company says "evaluates each supported system individually" before optimizing rather than relying on generalized profiles. In its press release, Hypertune says it collaborated with famed overclocker SkatterBencher (Pieter Plaisier) to refine the software. We've reached out to Plaisier to confirm their involvement.

Automated tuning programs usually don't work as well as advertised, and we haven't had the chance to test Hypertune ourselves yet. Especially on more recent hardware, expect performance gains to be minor. Hypertune shared some of its internal benchmarks to back up the claim, showcasing the actual test systems it used, the numbers it gathered, and what each step of Hypertune contributed to the performance increase.

Hypertune tested two systems: one with a Core Ultra 9 285K and an RTX 5090, and another with a Core i7-14700K and an RTX 3080. For the 285K system, the team saw an 18.9% improvement in Homeworld 3 and a 28.2% improvement in Tomb Raider. For the 14700K system, the boost was up to 9.8% in Rainbow Six Siege and 4.3% in Marvel Rivals.

Notably, these results are with Hypertune's Game Hub disabled. Game Hub automatically applies a graphics settings profile to select games, leading to massive increases in performance. Naturally, tweaking your own graphics settings in the same way leads to the same result.

In Homeworld 3, you can see how each step in the process impacted performance, with CPU tunning contributing the single biggest increase in performance. As shown by Marvel Rivals in Hypertune's data, some games will see little to no benefit from Hypertune, though select titles with certain hardware may see a significant performance increase. In this case, the Core Ultra 9 285K has plenty of room for overclocking, and Homeworld 3 is particularly sensitive to the CPU, so the uplift makes sense.

Elsewhere, the gains aren't as pronounced. In Rainbow Six Siege, you can see that Hypertune contributed about a 9.8% jump in performance, though the vast majority of the improvement comes through Game Hub, where Hypertune changes in-game settings.

In a press release, Hypertune founder Austin Copeland wrote that the team was "not trying to build a tool for overclockers," suggesting it's aimed toward users who may not know about specific settings (i.e., the Balanced power plan on dual-CCD X3D CPUs, or HAGS for DLSS Frame Generation). Copeland was previously a coach for eSports organization TSM, coaching Valorant teams under the name "Apex."

Hypertune works through Intel's XTU SDK, and the company says its optimizations are non-destructive and fully reversible. The software is mainly targeted toward competitive titles (naturally, given Copeland's background), but it can apply optimizations globally across the system. Hypertune says it's safe to use with anti-cheat software, including Riot Vanguard, Easy Anti-Cheat, and BattlEye.

Although there are plenty of free tools that claim to optimize your system, Hypertune isn't among them. It's a subscription service, available for either $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year. In addition to software, Hypertune offers its "expert tuning" service for $80, where a technician will remote into your machine and manually tune it. On the subscription front, Hypertune offers a 7-day free trial.

Hypertune looks like one of the more robust automated overclocking tools we've seen, but it's worth highlighting that, in most cases, these tools don't do anything you can't accomplish yourself. If you're looking for a starting point, make sure to read our guides on how to overclock your graphics card and how to overclock your CPU.

Intel is reportedly set to hike CPU prices by 10%, according to a new Digitimes report. Citing supply chain sources, the outlet says the increase follows two others, one in the first quarter of 2026 and another in July, among some server and client CPUs. Notably, the sources didn't say which products the price increase applies to, though presumably, the increases would come through Intel's mobile and server businesses before desktop client. Citing industry sources, DigiTimes also reports that Intel is set to launch "major annual products" in March 2027, with AMD following up with launches of its own between June and July.

The increases come on the back of Intel seeking higher gross margins for its products as the PC market shrinks. This is a story we've heard directly from Intel in the past. In its most recent earnings call in July, Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner attributed a 13% YoY increase in Intel's client revenue to higher average selling price, not a higher volume of sales.

Although the Digitimes report doesn't clarify which products will see a price increase, server and mobile seem like the most likely candidates. Intel's most recent Panther Lake calls for high-speed LPDDR5X-7467 memory as a minimum, and last-gen Lunar Lake CPUs have on-package memory. Naturally, higher memory prices put more pressure on fully built systems like laptops more so than socketed, standalone desktop processors.

On the server end, there's been an unprecedented increase in demand for server CPUs on the back of agentic AI workloads. That demand led to several consecutive records for Intel's share price, even without any major product announcements. Earlier in the year, Wall Street estimated the server CPU market would rise to around $120 billion by 2030 (currently around $30 billion). Now, those projections go up to as high as $220 billion.

According to the report, Intel is set to launch a major new annual product in March 2027, followed by AMD between June and July. Last week, a leaked Intel roadmap showed the company's next-gen Nova Lake desktop CPUs entering mass production in Q4 2026 with a release in Q1 2027, lining up with DigiTimes' report.

Although the timelines line up, the rumor mill has suggested an early Q1 launch for Nova Lake. It's worth noting that the DigiTimes report doesn't make mention of which product Intel will launch in March. This year, for instance, Intel launched its Xeon 600 CPUs for HEDT in March.

Perhaps more interesting is the AMD timeline. We already know of one major AMD product launch in the second half of 2027, which is Venice-X. Those are Zen 6 server CPUs with AMD's 3D V-Cache, packing up to 1,152 MB of L3 cache on the chip. Otherwise, that timeframe seems to point to AMD's next-gen desktop CPUs with the Zen 6 architecture, codenamed Olympic Ridge.

AMD launched its Venice server CPUs earlier this year, the first sporting the Zen 6 architecture. We haven't heard anything official about Zen 6 in the desktop yet. That's strange given AMD's last several releases. There was about a two-year gap between Zen 3 and Zen 4, as well as Zen 4 and Zen 5, on desktop. We've just crossed the two-year mark for Zen 5, so assuming AMD keeps a similar launch cadence, we'd expect to hear something sooner than June or July or next year.

That same explosive demand in server CPUs could have changed AMD's launch plans, however. Given that we haven't heard anything official about Olympic Ridge at this point, a launch in June or July isn't out of the question.

Arm is bringing its next-gen Neoverse CSS N4 platforms to the cloud, sporting up to 128 cores per die, built on TSMC’s N3P process. Arm’s Compute Subsystem, or CSS, is a semi-custom program that allows customers to design a chip based on Arm’s IP, configuring components like core count, cache size, I/O, and connectivity to fit their specific needs. It’s the same platform we’ve seen at work everywhere from CPUs at Azure and Google Cloud to DPUs at Nvidia and Intel.

Arm says Neoverse CSS N4 supports between eight and 128 Neoverse N4 cores, running up to 3.8 GHz. Presumably, the clocks drop as the core count rises; Arm didn’t clarify the maximum clocks for each possible configuration. At a system level, Neoverse CSS N4 can scale beyond 128 cores, with support for multi-chiplet and multi-socket designs, and with support for UCIe through chip-to-chip interconnects, as well as “partner-specific PNYs.”

The platform supports either DDR5 or LPDDR6, and features up to 256 MB of L3 cache per die. For local cache, Arm includes up to 2 MB of L2 per core, as well as 64 KB of L1 instruction cache and 64 KB of L1 data cache per core. For I/O, Arm supports up to 128 lanes of PCIe 7/6 and CXL 4.0.

It’s a significant upgrade over the Neoverse CSS N2 platform, which topped out at just 64 cores, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 64 MB of L3 cache, paired with either DDR5 or LPDDR5 and 64 PCIe 5.0/CXL lanes.

With 128 cores running at 3GHz and 2MB of L2 cache per core, Arm says Neoverse CSS N4 delivers twice the socket performance of Neoverse N3, 1.25x performance per watt, and 1.75x the memory bandwidth.

Arm’s N-series cores are optimized for performance per watt, while its V-series cores are targeting maximum performance. For instance, Arm used the Neoverse CSS V3 building blocks for its own AGI CPU, and Nvidia used Neoverse V2 for its last-gen Grace CPU (the Vera CPU uses a custom core). AWS has also used Neoverse V-series cores for its own Graviton chips, as does Google Cloud for Axion.

N-series cores aren’t usually deployed in high-performance CPUs. Rather, they fit into less-performant accelerators, such as Intel’s IPU Adapter E2100, which is built on Neoverse N1 cores. We’ve also seen it deployed in less-demanding, cloud-based workloads, such as through Microsoft’s Azure Cobalt 100, which is built on Neoverse N2. Cobalt 200 moved onto Neoverse V3.

We don’t know much about the Neoverse N4 cores, codenamed Dionysus. Arm’s 2024 roadmap indicated we’ll see Arm Neoverse CSS V4, as well, codenamed Vega.

Unlike a traditional announcement from Intel, AMD, or the various partners that build on Arm, we won’t see Neoverse N4 cores in the wild for a while. The announcement Arm is making is for those who are building on the CSS platform, leveraging Arm’s validated building blocks to create semi-custom silicon quickly. Arm has yet to announce any partners, though traditionally, only a few large CSS contracts are needed.

Additional Arm AGI CPU deployments

Alongside the announcement of Arm Neoverse CSS N4, the company revealed additional deployments of its own AGI chip, which is built with Neoverse V3 cores. The company revealed that Oracle and ByteDance will deploy AGI chips, alongside previously announced deployments at Meta, Lenovo, SAP, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and others.

Although Arm has talked a lot about AGI, including a deep dive into the chip’s architecture at Hot Chips, we’ve yet to see real-world performance numbers. That’s not uncommon, especially among more recent Arm-based chips. For instance, we only have gen-on-gen comparisons for Microsoft’s Azure Cobalt 200 and AWS’ Graviton5. Arm has vaguely referenced performance by saying AGI offers “more than 2x the performance per rack compared to the latest x86 systems,” though those claims are based on internal estimates, not real benchmarks.

AGI is a dual-die CPU with up to 136 Neoverse V3 cores and up to 272 MB of L3 cache that can clock up to 3.7 GHz. It has the specs to match any high-end x86 design currently on the market, built on a 3nm node and packing up to 6TB of memory capacity per chip, running at up to DDR5-8800. Perhaps the biggest difference compared to AMD and Intel was Arm’s decision to include the memory and I/O on the same die as compute, which it says leads to sub-100ns memory latency.

It’s Arm’s first attempt at its own production silicon, though it’s also been positioned so far as a vehicle for the broader applications of Arm in the data center. Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Google Cloud, and others build custom chips based on Arm IP, which still seems to be the primary goal, even with AGI in the mix.

The AMD BC-250 has taken on a new life. It’s a PS5 APU that was repurposed for mining during the crypto boom, and now it’s being repurposed once again as a Linux gaming board. The BC-250 has seen some coverage in years past. It was originally a board you could pick up for less than $100, but now you’ll likely spend over $200 on one. We’re taking a closer look at the board and the performance it offers now for a few key reasons.

First, we have the Steam Machine. Valve’s long-awaited console-like PC is here and much more expensive than anyone expected at over $1,000. You can easily put together a BC-250 build for around $400 or $500, and even less if you have a power supply and SSD lying around. If you can get in the realm of Steam Machine performance for half the price (and the BC-250 can, based on our testing), that’s pretty compelling.

There have also been some significant developments among the BC-250 community. The board only works in the first place due to a community-developed BIOS and GPU driver, and developers have continued to experiment with what’s possible with the hardware. Now, there are tools that enable all 40 Compute Units (CUs) on the board (it defaults to 24 CUs), as well as tools to enable the two disabled Zen 2 cores, taking the six-core CPU to an eight-core CPU.

Now, the BC-250 isn’t a cut-down PS5 APU, at least from a hardware perspective. It actually patches two more graphics CUs compared to the PS5. Though, as should become clear throughout this story, relating the BC-250 to the PS5 on anything but the silicon on the board isn’t the best idea.

All in, we spent about $350 on the BC-250, with around $200 of that going toward the board (it’s currently listed for around $175 on eBay) and the additional budget going toward a 3D-printed case, fans, and a power supply. You could spend as little as the cost of the board if you can 3D print a case, bring your own fans, and repurpose an old PSU and NVMe SSD. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll spend between $400 and $500.

Even for “full” price, the BC-250 is significantly cheaper than what you can get elsewhere. The PS5 digital edition is now $600, while the Pro will run you $900. The newly-released Steam Machine starts at $1,050, and that’s with just 512 GB of storage. The BC-250 is significantly cheaper and offers performance that can rival these platforms. What you save in money, however, you spend in time.

The BC-250 is a great project if you like tinkering, but it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it gaming device, even after the initial setup. After a few weeks of using the board, that much became clear.

A PS5 APU, not a PS5: BC-250 specifications

The BC-250 is described as a cut-down PS5 APU, and that’s exactly what it is, but the “cut-down” portion of the description carries a lot of weight. It comes with eight Zen 2 cores, but two of them are disabled, and a 40-CU RDNA 2 GPU, though only 24 of those CUs work out of the box.

The community has been able to unlock all 40 CUs with good success. Ultimately, your mileage with unlocking all 40 CUs will vary; some boards will work just fine with all 40, others with 32 or 36, and some with the base 24. As I’ll dig into more later, I was able to unlock all 40 CUs and run them stably up to 1,850 MHz, much higher than the recommended 1,500 MHz max frequency.

Out of the box, both the CPU and GPU run at locked frequencies of around 3.5 GHz and 1,500 MHz, respectively. You’ll need to separately install a GPU and CPU governor for dynamic frequency scaling (a necessity in the case of the GPU, though optional for the CPU). Achievable frequency on the CPU and GPU is entirely determined by your thermals. Both governors allow for overclocking, but the BC-250 is thermally constrained, even with active airflow, so don’t expect to push far beyond the stock frequency, particularly on the CPU.

Unfortunately, storage is a big bottleneck for the BC-250, and one of the biggest points of divergence compared to a PS5. The M.2 runs at just PCIe 2.0 x2 speeds, delivering about 1 GB/s of maximum performance with an NVMe SSD. The good news is that, due to how slow the interface is, you can save some money and get a less-performant but larger drive for storage.

As of a few days ago, at the time of writing, some initial fixes to unlock the extra two CPU cores have rolled out, which I was able to get working after a bit of trial and error. Outside of the GPU and CPU, the BC-250 has a bit less L3 cache. The APU, from a hardware perspective, is very similar to the PS5. Though that ignores the complex I/O system present in the PS5, not to mention the various layers of software that Sony runs on the APU.

Given that the BC-250 wasn’t designed for gaming, it’s important to keep that context in mind. You could just as easily describe it as a crypto mining board that’s been repurposed for gaming as you could a PS5 APU that’s been repurposed for mining. The BC-250 is a mining board, and the only reason it works is due to a large number of enthusiasts trying to get the damn thing to work and sharing their advancements along the way.

Although Linux gaming broadly has made a ton of advancements over the past few years, the BC-250 has unique hurdles you need to overcome. It needs fixes to scale the frequency on both the CPU and GPU; otherwise, it’s locked at a fixed frequency. It needs a custom BIOS image to even boot, and a specific configuration in the BIOS to avoid immediately crashing. Those are all steps you need to take to get the BC-250 to work in the first place, let alone start optimizing it to squeeze out the best performance.

There is extensive community documentation for the BC-250, which I referenced ad nauseam throughout this process. It’s an excellent resource, but even still, I had to search out solutions outside of the documentation. This is cobbled together from community fixes, and the documentation seeks to cover as many distros as possible. But it’s nigh impossible to have complete documentation on the BC-250, as valiant as the effort linked above is.

Expect a bumpy (but rewarding) road. It’s better to think of the BC-250 as a project, rather than a commodity like the PS5. Yes, you can play games on it and get surprisingly good performance, but you’ll spend a good amount of time simply tinkering with the machine, at first to get it to work, and later to optimize it. And you will inevitably run up against games that either don’t work or have poor performance, prompting another investigation and optimization cycle. I find the process rewarding; others will find it frustrating.

Setting up and configuring the BC-250

Getting the BC-250 is only one part of the process here. At the least, you need a power supply that can deliver at least 20A on the 12V rail. A standard PSU will work, but FlexATX power supplies are a better fit. I ended up purchasing a 3D-printed case, along with a power supply, from eBay. The BC-250 documentation includes several PSU recommendations, along with case designs, if you want to go about choosing your parts piecemeal.

Here’s what I’d recommend at minimum:

• BC-250
• 300W+ PSU (at least 20A on 12V rail)
• 2x Arctic P12 high-pressure fans (if using CU unlock)

Regardless of the route you choose, double-check fan mounting points (there aren’t any mounts on the BC-250 itself) and case/PSU compatibility. Many small form factor BC-250 designs you can 3D print are designed around a FlexATX PSU. Before booting, verify your 8-pin pinout against the community documentation. If the 12V pins are in the wrong position, you can fry your board.

With the board ready, the first step is to flash a new BIOS from the shell. It’s straightforward enough, though without the modern conveniences of firmware flashback in the event of a failure. If you lose power, you’ll brick your board and need a hardware controller to reset it, so I recommend connecting to a UPS during the flashing process. You can grab the correct files from the documentation.

From there, you need to clear your CMOS by removing the battery and configure a few BIOS options to force the integrated graphics, set the UMA frame buffer size, and disable IOMMU. From there, you need to choose which Linux distro you’re going to use, which is very important. I’d recommend experimenting with a few different distros, especially if you’re new to Linux.

For gaming, the go-to options are Bazzite and CachyOS, the former of which I originally went with. There are some “optimized” images floating around for the BC-250 that supposedly rope in all of the configuration and fixes you need into a fresh OS image. I wouldn’t recommend using those. Setting up the BC-250 is getting easier by the day (I have found new fixes and scripts that automate installing several fixes just in the time I’ve been testing the board), so these optimized images are, at best, out of date, and at worst, not actually optimized at all. Tread carefully.

You don’t need an optimized image because, at least for Bazzite and CachyOS, scripts exist that can automate the entire setup process. Strictly speaking, the only thing you need is the GPU governor. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but a GPU governor via an SMU now exists and is what I used. The governor is what allows dynamic frequency scaling on the GPU, as well as overclocking.

You’ll also need a compatible kernel, which is easier to manage on rolling distros like CachyOS. 6.18.18 LTS is the recommended kernel at the time of writing, but 6.17.11+ works, along with 6.12.x to 6.14.x LTS. Other kernels may work, though some (such as 6.15.0) are broken and will trigger a kernel panic.

With your distro chosen and a correct kernel working, here are the optimization steps I took:

• Install GPU and CPU governor
• Unlock 40 CUs
• Setup Zswap with 32GB swap page
• Install ACPI fix
• Configure PWM sensors

Again, scripts exist for these patches, the most critical of which don’t even require kernel patching any longer. The exact fixes you need and the method to install them will depend on the distro you choose, however, so make sure to keep the setup documentation handy.

The list above is in order of importance. Once you have the GPU governor, the next step is to try to enable the full GPU. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but the bc250-cu-live-manager utility can enable the CUs via a User Mode Register (UMR) without the need for a kernel patch. Not only is this easier to do, but it also persists across updates, unlike a kernel patch, where new kernels will force you to go through the unlock process again. The end result is identical regardless of the path you choose.

I spent a good deal of time testing the 40 CUs before doing any other optimizations, and I’d recommend you do the same. Just because the board has 40 CUs doesn’t mean you can use all of them. I was able to unlock all 40, though not at the frequencies some others have reported. And some users aren’t able to use all 40, rooting out bad clusters for a 32-CU or 36-CU configuration. Overclocking-like trial and error is necessary here, though, as we’ll get to in the performance section later, experimenting is worth the hassle. Using all 40 CUs, even at suboptimal clock speeds, offers much better performance.

Although setting everything up on Bazzite should be easy, I ran into issues numerous times. It’s an immutable OS image, which can cause problems depending on the fixes you’re trying to apply. It’s a great choice if you want to quickly set up the BC-250, but it became clear that an immutable image isn’t optimal if you want to get the best performance. Further, some newer fixes simply wouldn’t work, such as unlocking the extra two CPU cores.

The CachyOS pivot

After a few days of optimizing, testing, and troubleshooting Bazzite, I made the hard decision to wipe the machine and start fresh with CachyOS. In hindsight, I should have started with CachyOS from the beginning for numerous reasons, but mainly because it’s a rolling Arch-based distro. Bazzite is a Fedora Atomic-based distro. It’s immutable, adding guardrails to make it difficult to break anything, but in the process, making it much more difficult to apply low-level changes like kernel patches.

If you’re not familiar with Linux and don’t care to become familiar, Bazzite is your best bet. It’s convenient, and it includes a ton of small community fixes right in the startup menu, such as the LSFG-VK project for Lossless Scaling. It became clear, however, that you’re trading performance for convenience with Bazzite. CachyOS is more hands-on, but it’s much easier to actually accomplish what you need to with the BC-250.

Most notably, CachyOS (and other rolling release distros) allow you to easily manage your kernel. There are alternative methods for critical setup items like the GPU governor and CU unlock that don’t require a kernel patch. However, having the ability to easily patch your kernel helps when you run up against compatibility or performance issues, allowing you to try alternative installation methods or community fixes.

Further, CachyOS has access to yay, or Yet Another Yogurt, the simple command-line call to search and install packages from the Arch User Repository (AUR). It takes some time getting used to living in the command line as often as you do on any Arch-based distro. But even knowing just a few basic commands allows you to accomplish what you want much faster than fumbling around with flatpaks, at least in my experience.

Getting set back up was simple thanks to a community script that automates nearly all of the configuration and optimization for the BC-250. The BC250-Toolkit script brings together all of the various community patches, including optional optimizations, and it just worked. Coming off of Bazzite, it was a treat to run up against the immutable walls of the distro. I was able to accomplish in a few hours what took me more than a day with Bazzite.

CachyOS specifically has a few optimizations for gaming, as well. First, there’s the BORE, or Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer, scheduler that, as the name implies, is optimized for bursty workloads (Michael Larabel over at Phoronix has a great writeup on that). CachyOS also includes packages for x86-64 v3 and v4, the latter of which is relevant to the BC-250.

These optimizations represent a substantial performance improvement. In Forza Horizon 6, for example, I went from 61 FPS at 4K with the Low preset to 72 FPS on CachyOS after it was configured properly (with 40 CUs in both cases). In Cyberpunk 2077, I went from 74.7 FPS on Bazzite to 82.2 FPS at 1080p with the Steam Deck preset, and perhaps more impressively, from 47.8 FPS to 56.5 FPS at 1440p.

I saw higher peak performance on Bazzite in Unigine Superposition, though that’s likely due to more thermal headroom for the GPU, as I wasn’t able to enable the extra CPU cores on Bazzite. I mainly wanted to show this chart to bring the “optimized” Bazzite image into the fold, which was supposedly an image that was already configured for the BC-250. Using a script to automate the installation of several tools (like the one available for CachyOS) is one thing. Using an entirely custom image is another. I’d suggest starting with a clean, official image regardless of the distro you choose.

Testing performance on the BC-250

The best touchstone for comparisons with the BC-250 is the Steam Machine. The Steam Machine is more powerful simply based on the spec sheet. I ran a truncated list of benchmarks to see how the BC-250 stacks up, as well as several additional benchmarks on the BC-250 alone. Performance here is tough to compare fairly. Even just with CachyOS and Bazzite above, we see large performance differences. And, as will become clear in this section, there were numerous tests that either showed performance issues inconsistently or simply failed to run at all.

Our best point of comparison between the Steam Machine and BC-250 comes in Cyberpunk 2077. Neither machine is capable of achieving a playable frame rate at 4K, but the fully-optimized BC-250 is just 6.7% behind at 1440p. At 1080p, however, the performance drop is 16.1%, exposing perhaps the biggest performance issue with the BC-250.

Forza Horizon 6 also highlights this issue; the CPU in the BC-250 is very weak. It’s not only weak because it’s using the aging Zen 2 architecture, but it also has only six cores (or eight, if you can enable them). It’s such a hurdle because the clock speed is severely limited to just 3.5 GHz, the same as the PS5. We are completely CPU-bound at 1080p and even 1440p in Forza Horizon 6, and then miraculously, at 4K, the larger GPU of the BC-250 is able to take over and actually beat the Steam Machine.

A system so hamstrung by the CPU makes sense in the context of a console. Sony has a performance target, and it makes sense to opt for a weaker CPU and a more powerful GPU. The CPU can reach that performance target. But in the context of a PC where you’re given more options, resolutions, and performance-enhancing features, the limitation of the CPU becomes clear. There’s an obvious performance wall you’ll run into with the BC-250 that no amount of tweaking can solve.

For a clear view of the CPU limitation here, look at the Forza Horizon 6 benchmark above. Running at 1080p with Low graphics is going to induce a CPU bottleneck in most systems, but the gap between GPU render performance and CPU render performance here is massive. According to the game’s benchmark, we were bottlenecked by the CPU entirely throughout the run.

Even at 4K, you can see that the CPU is still a significant influence on performance in this game, showcasing just how unbalanced this system is. Again, that imbalance makes sense for the PS5, but it’s a critical caveat with the BC-250.

In the gallery above, you can browse our other comparative results to get an idea where the BC-250 lands. I’m going to move past comparisons and look at the BC-250 in isolation. An apples-to-apples comparison really isn’t possible (nor fair) with the BC-250. That’s not only due to the wide performance window depending on your specific board and software stack, but also the clear performance limitations of the BC-250 that require certain workloads that wouldn’t make sense with other machines.

Chief among those limitations is VRAM, and memory in general. You have just 16 GB of GDDR6 for the whole system, which is much less of an issue on the PS5 where there’s careful memory management. As you can see in the chart above, I don’t have 4K results for Spider-Man 2 or Doom: The Dark Ages, and that’s due to a lack of VRAM.

In both cases, the games crashed at 4K, but worse, they wouldn’t start back up. I made the mistake of flipping to 4K before turning FSR on, which locked me out of starting the game until I manually edited the settings file prior to launch. 4K is possible on the BC-250, though it has a very narrow performance window considering the VRAM limitations and CPU performance.

Although FSR Performance mode is ideal for 4K (50% scaling, 1080p input resolution), I opted for Balanced to avoid the CPU bottleneck we can see present in other games (you can even see it here in some games, such as Spider-Man 2). However, turning up the input resolution also puts a greater strain on VRAM. You’ll need time and patience to experiment with these more demanding titles to find the ideal balance of settings on the BC-250; of course, if you’re just playing Silksong, none of this matters much.

The VRAM limitation is also relevant for frame generation. With such a narrow memory footprint, you’ll struggle to use frame generation at 4K if you’re already pushing the VRAM to its limits (those buffered frames need to live somewhere). Thankfully, Lossless Scaling is an option on Linux with LSFG-VK, which doesn’t strain your VRAM like in-engine tools.

An important aspect of performance with the BC-250 is cooling. Most governor profiles cap temperature at 80 degrees for multiple reasons. First, the heatsink of the BC-250 is closed on top. You can sit and rip apart the top of the heatsink for direct airflow with a pair of tweezers, but I left the heatsink on my board intact for now, using two Arctic P12 fans to assist with cooling.

Cooling is all the more important with the 40CU unlock and enabling the extra two Zen 2 cores. Stress-testing in Furmark over a 20-minute run, you can see how quickly the GPU throttles from 1,850 MHz back down to 1,500 MHz as it reaches the temperature cap of 80 degrees.

Remember, however, that Furmark is a stress test. I wasn’t thermal throttling in games, with the CPU and GPU settling around 70 degrees in Doom: The Dark Ages. I’ve included CPU and GPU power in the chart above, as well, and you can see that, combined, they rarely poked over 100W. Keep in mind that we’re exclusively looking at GPU and CPU power here, not whole system power. Whole system power can peak above 225W.

The stock heatsink and dual Arctic P12S do a good job keeping the BC-250 chugging along, even with all of the silicon unlocked and a moderate overclock on the GPU. However, Furmark makes it clear that this current iteration of the system can’t sustain its performance over long periods of time. It would take longer for that drop to show up in the most demanding games, unlike in Furmark, where we can see the drop in just 20 minutes. But I plan on revisiting the cooling solution in this BC-250 build. Maybe I can even raise the temperature limit closer to the 100-degree TJmax.

The bad and the ugly of BC-250 gaming

Although the BC-250 offers compelling performance for the price, I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight the numerous quirks I ran into while testing. There are performance issues and limitations with the board that you can explain with hardware, and further compatibility issues that you can explain away with Linux. Then, there’s everything else: the weird bugs, quirks, and oddities that pop up when running a largely community-developed software stack on unofficial hardware that wasn’t built for this purpose.

The above image of Resident Evil 9 is a microcosm of what I’m talking about. The RE Engine is remarkably scalable, and that was on full display with my BC-250 testing. Requiem offered excellent performance, even all the way up to 4K. It didn’t feel like I was compromising much of anything with the BC-250. But then I turned on the “hair strands” setting, and the result is what you can see above.

No, it’s not due to the CU unlock, any overclock, or even the overlay you can see. It’s just something with this set of hardware, this software stack, and the hair strands setting in Resident Evil Requiem.

Similarly, in Doom: The Dark Ages, any resolution change I would apply necessitated a restart of the game. Otherwise, I’d get the ghostly streaking you can see in the image above. On one of these reboots, the game suddenly stopped rendering reflective surfaces, resulting in the strange black voids you can see below.

This isn’t a criticism of the BC-250, and certainly not of the remarkable work of the passionate developers and enthusiasts who’ve created fixes and workarounds for the hardware. The fact that this board boots at all and runs games is a minor miracle. The context of what the board is, however, is important.

You will, inevitably, run into strange issues that aren’t documented anywhere. These are two examples, but I also ran into strange problems elsewhere. The widely used MangoHUD overlay, for example, didn’t pull in my GPU’s clock speed correctly after an update, even after ensuring I applied the community fix through the GPU governor to map the reporting correctly. And once you add external devices, compatibility gets even more complex. The board doesn’t have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, for example, and an external adapter should work (this UGreen Wi-Fi 6 adapter I purchased does), but it’s just as likely that a driver for another adapter doesn’t work or isn’t available.

I don’t have an issue with these quirks, but the BC-250 also isn’t my primary gaming machine. You should just be aware of them. And, if you’re going to invest in a BC-250 build of your own, be ready to encounter some strange issues that you might not be able to easily troubleshoot.

What’s next?

The BC-250 is a project, and like any good project, it isn’t done here. Now that I’ve messed around with the configuration, tried out different distros, got the critical mods working, and measured performance, I want to actually use the BC-250 long-term. Maybe I can find some additional optimization steps I can take, or workarounds for some of the strange issues that I noticed during testing. Regardless of what it is, I’m confident that I’ll mess around with the BC-250 more outside of just playing games on it.

My clear next step is to work on cooling. I kept things conservative here in order to get valid data in a timely manner, but I want to dig deeper into what I can do on the thermal front, not only to raise the temperature limit, but also to push the GPU overclock further. That may involve some CU tinkering, as well; if I can get similar performance at 36 CUs and better thermal headroom, I may be able to push higher overall performance.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is down to its lowest price ever, with Amazon slashing 30% off the list price to bring it down to $154. That's even cheaper than the lowest price we've seen on the Core Ultra 5 250KF, which sells for about $20 less. Despite being priced like an entry-level CPU, the 250K Plus ranks among our best CPUs for gaming.

• Check out this Core Ultra 5 250K Plus deal on Amazon

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus originally launched for $200, but it didn't take long for its recommended price to climb to $220. That's because it punches far above what its price would suggest, even at full MSRP. It, along with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, was framed as a last-ditch effort to bring Arrow Lake to the masses after the failed launch of the original range.

And the refresh worked. The Ultra 5 250K Plus is a 18-core CPU with a split between six Lion Cove P-cores and 12 Skymont E-cores. As with all Arrow Lake CPUs, the 250K Plus doesn't have Hyper-Threading, so it comes with 20 threads, as well. The chip comes with a maximum boost clock of 5.3 GHz, and a PL1/PL2 power of 125W/250W. As it's an unlocked K-series processor, you can overclock the chip, though you'll need to pair it with a Z-series chipset.

Although we almost always recommend a Z-series chipset with a K-series SKU, there actually isn't a locked version of the 250K Plus. Further, many of the OC improvements are baked into the chip, including a 900 MHz bump in die-to-die frequency and a 400 MHz increase in memory fabric speed. Overclocking is a big upside, though it's not strictly required, especially when we're looking at a $154 CPU.

Although the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is priced like an entry-level CPU, it performs much better than its current sales price would suggest, particularly in productivity workloads. You can see the results for the 250K Plus from our CPU benchmark hierarchy in the gallery below.

The 20 cores and threads help it to punch up in multithreaded performance. The chip is 33% faster in our multithreaded geomean compared to AMD's competing Ryzen 7 9700X, despite Team Red's chip costing twice as much right now. Compared to the Ryzen 5 9600X that's around the same price, Intel is a massive 80% ahead.

The multithreaded performance isn't a result of simply throwing a ton of weak cores at the problem. As you can see from our single-threaded rankings, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus came out ahead of every AMD offering we tested, including the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. Last-gen's Core i9-14900K is slightly faster, though it also costs nearly three times as much.

Gaming is where Intel has started to take a backseat to AMD, and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus slips some rankings. On average, the chip is about as fast as the Core i5-14600K. That's marginally faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X and about 3% behind the Ryzen 7 9700X. AMD's Ryzen 5 7600X3D is about 10% faster, though in this current Core Ultra 5 250K Plus sale, Intel's CPU is about $100 cheaper.

At $150, just getting a competent CPU is tough — just see our list of the best budget CPUs — and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is more than competent. Don't miss this deal on Amazon.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, gaming chair, or CPU Deals pages.

Two new Geekbench listings for Nvidia's upcoming RTX Spark laptop superchip have surfaced, confirming a second, cut-down SKU exists with 18 CPU cores, at least in the testing phases. Both parts score remarkably close to each other, posting impressive multi-core numbers, but their single-core performance isn't special. Still, these are preliminary results on unreleased hardware, so take these numbers with a grain of salt.

The model name for the 20-core (10+10) SKU was shown as "OEMQAJ 766_MIS Product Name DV" with its clocks reported at 4.0 GHz. This chip scored 2,570 points in the single-core test and 23,126 points in the multi-core test. The second listing showed up as "OEMQAJ OEMQAJ Product" with this SKU's 18 cores divided across 10+8 core clusters, clocked at 3.9 GHz. It scored 2,541 points in the single-core test, so within 1% of the 20-core part, while the multi-core was 21,776 points, which is about 6% faster than the full-fat chip.

When you compare these numbers to other Windows-running SoCs on the Geekbench database, these multi-core numbers are among the best. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme currently holds the record for the highest multi-core score with 25,075 points, so both SKUs of the RTX Spark lose to it. But when we switch to the AMD AI Max+ 395, which scores 20,609 on average in the same test, even the 18-core Nvidia chip is 5.6% faster here, and the 20-core variant is about 12% faster.

Compared to Apple's lineup, the 20-core RTX Spark is 3.3% faster than the 14-core variant of the M3 Max, which scores 22,385 points in the multi-core bench. Considering that this is pre-release hardware with unoptimized drivers, we can expect it to even beat the maxed-out M4 Pro and the base M4 Max (which hover around 25,000 points) when it officially launches. Moreover, the 18-core SKU's 21,776 points are equal to, if not more than, the base M4 Pro, which also nets around 21,700 points in the multi-core test.

That being said, the swan song falls apart when we bring up the single-core numbers. Every Apple Silicon chip from the base M3 onwards beats the 2,570 points the 20-core RTX Spark achieved in this run. Only the M2 Max with its 2,477 points is bested by the Nvidia offering, and that too by just 3.75%. Apple's current-gen base M5 is a whopping 41% faster here. On the Windows side, the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme score roughly 3,000 points, but AMD and Intel's top-end models take a beating.

The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 only achieves 2,429 points in the single-core test, making the 20-core RTX Spark 5.8% faster, and the 18-core variant 4.6% faster. The same goes for the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 because its 2,432 points are within the margin of error of the Strix Halo chip. Intel's highest single-core score is achieved by the Core Ultra 9 275HX at 2,467 points, making it 3% slower than the 18-core RTX Spark and 4.2% slower than the 20-core SKU. However, Intel's actual fastest chip, the Core Ultra X9 388H, scores 2,767 points, making it about 7% faster than even the 20-core RTX Spark.

All in all, this is a much better showing for Nvidia's upcoming laptop Superchip than previous leaks. It's clear that driver optimization is slowly unlocking the full potential of the silicon, and by the time RTX Spark is in the hands of reviewers, we expect it to compete fiercely with every Windows machine. Nvidia is working hard to ensure a proper launch with a commitment to making DRM and anti-cheat work on day one.

The mid-range CPU segment has become more competitive than ever, with both Intel and AMD refreshing their lineups and pushing aggressive pricing. In one corner, we have the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, an important reset for Intel that prioritizes class-leading productivity performance over efficiency, while also offering solid value. In the other corner is AMD's newly launched Ryzen 7 7700X3D, a more affordable, slightly lower-clocked alternative to the 7800X3D.

This faceoff is particularly interesting because the two chips take very different approaches despite costing about the same price. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus packs 24 cores and excels in productivity workloads, while also delivering Intel's strongest gaming performance in years. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D, meanwhile, relies on AMD's proven 3D V-Cache technology to deliver gaming performance within 5% of the 7800X3D, although it trails significantly in single- and multi-threaded workloads.

While the Ryzen 7 7700X3D is aimed at gamers looking for X3D performance at a lower price, it faces stiff competition from Intel's aggressively -priced Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, as well as its own sibling, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which is often available for only a little more.

So, is AMD's gaming-focused approach enough to beat Intel's well-rounded Arrow Lake Refresh processor, or has Intel finally found the right balance of price and performance to reclaim the mid-range crown? In this six-round faceoff, we compare these two sub-$350 CPUs to find out which one comes out on top.

Features and Specifications: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Taking a look at the technical specifications, it's clear that each chip adopts a distinct strategy for the mid-range market. While Intel has optimized its architecture for a higher core and thread count along with improved interconnect speeds, AMD continues to leverage its stacked cache to maintain gaming dominance on a long-lived platform.

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is based on the original Arrow Lake-S family, utilizing the same microarchitecture that we saw on the 265K, built using TSMC’s 3nm process. It matches the flagship 285K with a 24-core configuration (8 Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores) and operates with a 125W TDP. The chip can scale to a 250W Maximum Turbo Power (MTP), which is the maximum power limit that this CPU can consume for short periods when running at maximum turbo boost frequencies

Intel has also standardized several enthusiast-level performance tweaks for Arrow Lake Refresh, most notably a 900 MHz increase in die-to-die frequency and a 400 MHz fabric speed boost. It also officially supports faster DDR5-7200, along with 20 lanes of PCIe Gen 5 and 76MB of total cache. Possibly the only major concern with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the LGA 1851 platform. With Intel's next-generation Nova Lake processors expected to launch later this year, the current platform will have a relatively short lifespan, restricting any future upgrade options.

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D serves as a more affordable, lower-clocked variant of the 7800X3D, featuring the same eight Zen 4 cores with a peak boost clock of 4.5 GHz. Its primary architectural strength is its 104MB of total cache including 64MB of vertically stacked L3, which is specifically tuned to eliminate memory latency bottlenecks.

The chip is rated at a 120W TDP with a 162W Package Power Tracking (PPT) limit, though it frequently operates well below these levels during gaming. A major selling point for Team Red is motherboard flexibility as the 7700X3D can be used with existing AM5 motherboards (600 and 800-series chipsets), and AMD has committed to supporting the socket through at least 2029.

⭐ Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

While AMD offers a more stable platform and superior gaming efficiency thanks to its large cache size, Intel’s hardware package is more comprehensive for the price. The 270K Plus offers triple the core count, significantly higher frequencies, and faster memory support.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Ryzen 7 9700X

To evaluate the gaming performance of these two chips, we conducted our testing at 1080p resolution using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090. We used this setup to prevent the GPU from becoming the bottleneck, allowing each CPU's gaming performance to shine through. By removing the graphics card as a limiting factor, we can see exactly how the 7700X3D’s 3D V-Cache stacks up against the higher core count and clock speeds of the 270K Plus.

We used identical systems for testing. You can read more about our full system configuration in our Ryzen 7 7700X3D review and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus review.

Across a comprehensive 16-game geomean, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D holds its position as the superior gaming chip, delivering a 174.3 FPS average. This represents a 5.3% performance lead over the 270K Plus, which produced a 165.6 FPS average. While Intel's latest flagship has significantly narrowed the gap compared to the original Arrow Lake silicon, AMD’s 3D V-cache architecture continues to provide a higher performance in the majority of tested titles.

Even when examining the 1% low frame rates, which is the perceived smoothness while gaming, the 7700X3D maintains a slight edge with a 118 FPS average compared to the 115 FPS from the 270K Plus.

AMD's stacked cache gives the 7700X3D a clear edge in games that are sensitive to memory latency. For instance, in Minecraft RT, the 7700X3D delivered 144.5 FPS average, dwarfing the 89.7 FPS produced by the 270K Plus for a massive 61.1% performance advantage. We see similarly dominant leads for AMD in F1 2024, where it leads by 30.4% (201.8 vs. 154.7 FPS), and in Final Fantasy XIV, where it holds a 21.7% lead (177.7 vs. 146.0 FPS). Even in esports titles like Counter-Strike 2, the 7700X3D maintains a comfortable 7.3% lead with 707.9 FPS over Intel’s 660.0 FPS.

Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is no slouch, however, as it leverages its higher boost frequencies and the new iBOT runtime translation layer to take the lead in several games. Intel manages a win in Hogwarts Legacy, producing 135.3 FPS for a 9.1% advantage over AMD’s 124.0 FPS, a result directly attributed to iBOT. Team Blue also edges out victories in The Last of Us Part 1 with 175.6 FPS (6% lead) and Spider-Man 2 with 207.2 FPS (5% lead).

In many other modern titles, the two processors are essentially locked in a dead heat. For example, in DOOM: The Dark Ages, the 270K Plus delivers 200.4 FPS while the 7700X3D is right beside it at 200.0 FPS. The story is similar in Flight Simulator 24, where Intel's 120.5 FPS and AMD's 114.9 FPS result in a negligible difference during actual gameplay. These results indicate that while the 7700X3D is the more consistent gaming choice, especially in cache-heavy titles, the 270K Plus is a highly competitive gaming chip that delivers impressive results for its $300 price tag.

The biggest difference between these two architectures is noticeable when analyzing power consumption and efficiency metrics. Based on our 16-game CPU power geomean, the 7700X3D is clearly way more efficient, drawing an average of just 60.9 watts while gaming. In comparison, the 270K Plus consumed 107.3 watts on average, which is a significant 76.2% increase in power. This results in a massive gap in gaming efficiency where the 7700X3D delivers 2.86 FPS per watt, making it roughly 85.7% more efficient than the 270K Plus, which trails at 1.54 FPS per watt.

Intel does take the lead when it comes to raw frequency, with the 270K Plus maintaining an impressive 5,247 MHz average clock speed across our gaming suite. This is over 700 MHz faster than the 7700X3D, which averaged 4,505 MHz. Despite the much higher clocks and power draw of the Intel chip, its thermal management remains surprisingly competitive when paired with the right cooling solution. The 270K Plus averaged 59°C during gaming, though it still runs warmer than the 7700X3D, which stays at a cooler 55°C average.

When factoring in the cost of the silicon, the competition for the best bang for your buck is incredibly tight. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D provides a value of 0.53 FPS per dollar, narrowly edging out the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which sits at 0.52 FPS per dollar.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The 7700X3D’s overall higher average frame rates and excellent efficiency makes it the more attractive option for a dedicated gaming build. Since raw gaming performance, efficiency, and thermals all favor Team Red in this category, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D takes the win for this round.

Productivity Performance: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

AMD's X3D processors are widely known for their gaming prowess. However, they have historically struggled to maintain the same level of dominance in productivity performance. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D is no exception, as its cache-focused architecture and lower clock speeds result in relatively weak single- and multi-threaded results.

In contrast, Intel has managed to maintain its standing in the productivity segment even when its gaming performance faced challenges. The 270K Plus is a productivity workhorse that is capable of delivering excellent productivity performance making it a standout choice for users who need a balanced system for both work and play.

In multi-threaded workloads, the performance gap between these two processors is pretty massive, primarily driven by Intel's higher core count advantage. Across our multi-threaded performance ranking geomean, the Intel chip delivers a score of 626 compared to the 272 produced by the 7700X3D, representing a staggering 130% performance lead for Team Blue. This level of parallel processing power places the 270K Plus in a completely different performance tier, making it more comparable to much more expensive flagship processors.

Individual benchmarks further highlight this lopsided victory for Intel across various professional tasks. In Cinebench 2024’s multi-core test, the 270K Plus scores 2,509 points, which is roughly 135.6% faster than the 1,065 points achieved by the 7700X3D. This trend continues in POV-Ray, where Intel leads by approximately 169.5% (15,697 vs. 5,823 PPS), and in V-Ray 6, where it maintains a massive 129.5% advantage (45,016 vs. 19,615). Even in intensive video encoding tasks via HandBrake x265, the Intel chip more than doubles the performance of its AMD rival, delivering 29.9 FPS compared to just 14.3 FPS for the 7700X3D. These results demonstrate that for heavy rendering or data-crunching workloads, Intel is the undisputed leader in this price bracket.

A similar trend can be seen when examining single-threaded performance, a crucial metric for general system responsiveness and applications that do not scale across multiple cores. In our single-threaded geomean, the 270K Plus scores 278 points, which is 42.5% faster than the 195 achieved by the 7700X3D. Specific tests like Cinebench 2024’s single-core benchmark show the 270K Plus maintaining a 39.7% lead over the 7700X3D (145 vs. 103.8 points), while the lead grows to a staggering 82.6% in POV-Ray’s single-core test (1,138 vs. 623 PPS). Even in audio encoding, the Intel chip finishes the Lame Extended task in 68.61 seconds, whereas the 7700X3D trails at 91.53 seconds.

⭐Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

Ultimately, the 270K Plus simply blows the competition out of the water when it comes to productivity. While the 7700X3D is a highly efficient and specialized CPU for gaming, it cannot match the raw horsepower that Intel offers. For any user whose daily routine involves video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy multitasking, the 270K Plus is the obvious choice and should be the clear favorite for a multi-purpose system.

Overclocking: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

While both manufacturers provide tools to squeeze extra performance from their silicon, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is built as an enthusiast-friendly, fully unlocked processor. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, on the other hand, is a more restricted processor designed primarily for out-of-the-box gaming efficiency.

For the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, overclocking is a centerpiece of the experience. As a fully unlocked K-series SKU, it offers users granular control over per-core voltages, power limits, and clock speeds via an unlocked multiplier. While these changes can be done by entering the BIOS, one can also download the Intel XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) software to fine tune the CPU.

One of the most significant changes seen on Arrow Lake Refresh is that Intel has standardized several high-end performance tweaks including the 900MHz die-to-die frequency bump and the 400MHz fabric speed increase. This means users receive enthusiast-level interconnect performance without necessarily needing a premium Z-series motherboard. That said, Z890 boards are still necessary as they offer sophisticated tools for manual tuning and pushing the CPU to its limits.

In contrast, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D follows the same path as previous Zen 4 X3D processors including a locked multiplier, which prevents traditional manual overclocking. Users are instead limited to automated and semi-automated features like Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) and Curve Optimizer. PBO2 allows the CPU to dynamically adjust its frequencies based on available power and thermal headroom, while Curve Optimizer enables more advanced fine-tune voltage offsets for each of the eight Zen 4 cores.

While these tools can lead to sustained higher boost clocks, the sensitive nature of the 3D V-Cache stack leads to thermal challenges that limit frequency headroom. Thus, overclocking gains on the 7700X3D are often minimal compared to the flexibility offered by the Intel chip.

⭐Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

The 270K Plus is a far more overclocking-friendly product. It offers a vast suite of features that AMD simply cannot match due to its architectural restrictions and locked multiplier.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

This is a crucial section of the faceoff as it highlights the most significant architectural divide between these two processors. While the 270K Plus prioritizes raw performance throughput, the 7700X3D focuses on extreme efficiency. This is immediately evident in their official power ratings where Intel specifies a 125W TDP with a massive 250W Maximum Turbo Power (MTP), while AMD utilizes a 120W TDP with a 162W Package Power Tracking (PPT) limit.

In synthethic multi-threaded workloads, the difference is quite evident. While running HandBrake x265 10-bit encode, the 270K Plus consumes an average of 226W, which is more than triple the 72W required by the Ryzen 7 7700X3D. A similar trend appears in VP9 encoding, where Intel draws 184W compared to AMD’s efficient 65W. Even in lighter tasks like single-threaded y-cruncher AVX workloads, the Intel chip requires 55W while the AMD chip stays at a modest 32W. Idle power consumption also favors Team Red where the 7700X3D idles at 19W and draws 22W during YouTube playback, whereas the 270K Plus sits higher at 29W and 38W, respectively.

When we translate these power figures into efficiency metrics, AMD’s lead tends to stay ahead in most traditional benchmarks. In Cinebench 2024, the 7700X3D produces 14.4 points per watt, significantly outperforming the 10.4 points per watt from the 270K Plus. In HandBrake x265, AMD achieves a superior efficiency rating of 5W per FPS , while Intel trails at 7.56W per FPS.

However, the efficiency scatter plots provide a more nuanced look at how performance scaling impacts total energy consumption. In the Blender Classroom scatterplot, the 270K Plus delivers a much higher performance of roughly 135 samples per minute, but it consumes over 33,000 kJ of task energy. In contrast, the 7700X3D finishes with only around 60 samples per minute but uses significantly less total energy at roughly 4,500 kJ.

The HandBrake x265 scatterplot shows a similar trade-off where Intel reaches 30 FPS but consumes over 55 kJ, while AMD provides 14 FPS at roughly 36 kJ. Interestingly, the Linpack scatterplot shows the 270K Plus reaching over 850 GFLOPS with roughly 11WHr of energy, making it slightly more efficient in terms of performance-per-energy than the 7700X3D, which delivers roughly 340 GFLOPS for 10Whr.

From a cooling perspective, the 250W MTP on the 270K Plus means that it requires a robust cooling solution, like a 360mm AIO, to avoid thermal throttling during extended all-core loads. The 7700X3D is far easier to manage, remaining remarkably efficient and manageable with a mid-range air cooler. While the 270K Plus delivers class leading performance, it does so by significantly compromising efficiency in heavy workloads compared to AMD.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Pricing: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus was initially introduced with a justified $300 price tag, but you'll now find it between $300 and $320. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D made its debut just last month and carries a $330 MSRP, placing it right under the 7800X3D. Essentially, there is not a major difference when it comes to the chips themselves, however, the true financial divide becomes apparent when we look at the total platform cost.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus demands a more substantial investment to reach its full potential. While one can opt for a B860 motherboard, a compatible Z890 motherboard is necessary in order to access premium overclocking and tuning features. These typically start around $150-$200, and can go as high as $600 packed with premium features. To handle the processor′s 250W Maximum Turbo Power(MTP) during heavy productivity tasks, a high−end 360mm AIO liquid cooler ($100-$150) or a dual-tower air-cooler ($50-$100) is recommended.

In contrast, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D offers a much more budget-friendly entry point. A solid B650 motherboard can be found for around $120-$150 and the chip can be effectively cooled with a modest $50 air cooler.

Unfortunately, both platforms are held back by the ongoing global shortage of memory, which has caused prices to shoot up significantly. Since both CPUs require DDR5 RAM, builders are stuck in a RAMpocalypse where a basic 32GB kit costs over $400. This extra cost is bad news for both sides as it cancels out any price advantage.

Overall, the lower upfront platform cost makes the 7700X3D a slightly more attractive option for users prioritizing their budget. Furthermore, the AM5 socket offers a clear upgrade path through at least 2029, ensuring that your motherboard investment remains viable for future CPU generations. That is not the case with Intel, as the LGA 1851 socket is expected to be replaced once the next-generation of Nova Lake CPUs arrive.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Ultimately, while both the chips are available at a very similar price range, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the smarter financial play for a majority of users. Its significantly lower platform costs, superior gaming efficiency, and guaranteed platform longevity provide a level of value that the more power-hungry Intel refresh cannot quite match.

Bottom Line: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus are designed for very different users, even though they sit in roughly the same price range. Like previous X3D chips, AMD's latest processor is built with gaming in mind, using its large 3D V-Cache to deliver excellent frame rates while keeping power consumption impressively low. Intel, on the other hand, combines a 24-core design with higher clock speeds and platform improvements to create one of the strongest productivity processors in its class without giving up much gaming performance.

The final score is tied at three rounds apiece. AMD comfortably wins gaming performance, power efficiency, and platform value, three factors that matter a lot for buyers shopping in this price segment. The AM5 platform also provides a significantly longer upgrade path, allowing users to drop in future processors without replacing their motherboard.

Intel, however, deserves recognition for what it has accomplished with the 270K Plus. It delivers outstanding single- and multi-threaded performance, offers a fully unlocked overclocking experience, and narrows the gaming gap to just a few percentage points in many modern titles. If your workload includes video editing, software development, 3D rendering, or other heavily threaded applications, the 270K Plus is the obvious choice and justifies its higher power draw.

For everyone else, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the more compelling CPU. It offers faster gaming performance, exceptional efficiency, lower platform costs, and a future-proof AM5 ecosystem. Unless your workload regularly extends beyond gaming into demanding productivity applications, AMD's latest X3D chip is the easier processor to recommend.

⭐ Winner: Tie

More CPU Faceoffs

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• Intel Core i5-14400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Intel Core i9-14900K
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D

The owner of what is claimed to be “the original engineering copy of the Intel 8080 rubylith mask” has shared a social media shout-out, looking for a skilled restorer. From the shared photograph, this important artifact from the history of computing looks like it would benefit from remounting and reframing. Hopefully, the hand‑crafted, large‑scale sheet of red film (Rubylith) has remained in good condition under glass, though. The framed artifact is likely genuine and original, as its current owner is thought to be related to Internet Hall of Fame inductee Dan Lynch, a pivotal figure in the early Internet’s success.

In you unfurl the tweet above, you can see Tom Lynch, a self-described arborist and the owner of an AI infrastructure startup, standing behind the framed chip artwork. Folks comment on the Rubylith looking just like the one that the Intel Trinity: Andy Grove, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore, were photographed beside in 1978.

Rubylith is simply an adhesive, peelable red film that found favor in graphic arts and chip design before designers went digital. Engineers could cut away parts of the film to define where light would be exposed during photolithography processes. Rubyliths would often be marked with pens, tape, and overlays, especially as designs were iterated and refined ahead of tape-out.

The Intel 8080’s primary architect was Federico Faggin, and it was manually drafted in the age before modern CAD. This human-scale draft is likely 100x magnification compared to the finished processor die. Even scaled this large, it would still be quite an intricate drawing as it had to map around 5,000 transistors, traces, etc., into an approximate 20- x 16-inch sheet. The commercial Intel 8080 release ended up being manufactured on a 6 μm silicon gate process. It originally ran at 2.0 MHz clocks, but later revisions would boast clock speeds up to 3.125 MHz.

Intel’s 8080 was an important 8-bit microprocessor for both the company and the advancement of personal computing. This 8-bit CPU was the one chosen for the Altair 8800, was the original target architecture for the CP/M operating system, and would be a big influence on the later x86 architecture. We also recently wrote how the 8080 bottlenecked the Space Invaders arcade design, unintentionally resulting in the space shoot-em-up’s thrilling increase in pacing as aliens were zapped from the sky.