Intel is aiming to deliver the performance of Arrow Lake-H with the efficiency of Lunar Lake with its new Panther Lake family. It looks as though the company is well on its way to meeting that goal.
Intel doubles down on gaming with Panther Lake, claims 76% faster gaming performance — new X-series chips can match discrete RTX 4050
There’s a new top dog in AMD’s desktop gaming processor family: the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. AMD claims this is the “new fastest gaming processor,” offering a 400 MHz clock-speed advantage over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. This is good enough for an average 7 percent uplift in gaming performance for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.
The company also announced the Ryzen AI 400 “Gorgon Point” family, which uses a refreshed Zen 5 APU. There are seven SKUs in the family, topped by the Ryzen AI 9 HX 474, which features 12 cores, a 5.2 GHz max boost clock, 36GB of L2+L3 cache, and 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores.
Intel CES 2026 keynote live blog: Panther Lake debuts in Core Ultra Series 3 laptop CPUs, Arc B390 IGP announced
AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D promises 7% uplift over Ryzen 7 9800X3D – AMD fights itself with ‘new fastest gaming processor’
AMD's Ryzen AI 400 series includes the first Copilot+ desktop CPU — Team Red refreshes Zen 5 APUs and Strix Halo
AMD unwraps Instinct MI500 boasting 1,000X more performance versus MI300X — setting the stage for the era of YottaFLOPS data centers
With AMD and Intel both announcing new mobile processors at CES, new laptops are, of course, incoming as well. Asus, for example, has announced that its new laptops use a mix of Ryzen AI 400 and Core Ultra Series 3 processors, while MSI’s latest laptops are strictly Intel-only. HP even showed Qualcomm some love with its new OmniBook Ultra 14 that supports the Snapdragon X2.
Asus launches two new ROG Zephyrus laptops at CES — 14 and 16-inch models come with latest AMD and Intel CPUs, and up to RTX 5090 GPU
Alienware brings OLED to its gaming laptops for the first time in years — anti-glare OLED display boasts 240Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms response time
Acer updates Predator, Nitro gaming laptops at CES 2026 – Panther Lake finds its way across the lineup
MSI’s newest 16-inch Raider and Stealth gaming laptops debut — Panther Lake options, OLED panels, and familiar RTX 50 GPUs
Acer refreshes Swift laptops with Panther Lake — claims 'world's largest haptic touchpad' on Swift 16 AI
HP puts HyperX name on Omen gaming laptops — new systems get Intel and AMD's latest processors
MSI’s Prestige ultra-thin laptops and convertibles embrace Panther Lake – up to Core Ultra X9 with standard OLED panels
Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models
HP's new OmniBook Ultra 14 gets Panther Lake and Snapdragon X2 options inside — exclusive variant of Qualcomm chip has 85 TOPS
Just when we were getting comfortable with Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 8 is currently testing in the prototype stage. However, we’re not expecting any big performance boosts with Wi-Fi 8 (unlike what we saw with Wi-Fi 7). Instead, Wi-Fi 8 is focused on improving reliability, improving short- and mid-range performance, and leveraging technologies like AI to better connect devices (and keep them connected).
MediaTek has announced its new Filogic family of Wi-Fi 8 chips that we can expect to see in various consumer electronic devices and networking products, and Asus had its prototype Wi-Fi 8 routers on hand to show real-world performance gains over Wi-Fi 7.
MediaTek unveils Filogic 8000 Wi-Fi 8 family at CES 2026 – new chipsets expected to arrive later this year
Here's all the rest of the hot tech that was either announced, or that we got to have some hands-on time with at the start of CES 2026.
Gigabyte's Aorus RTX 5090 Infinity takes aim at Asus' ROG Matrix
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/ces-2026-day-zero-nvidia-debuts-dlss-4-5-ryzen-7-9850x3d-aims-for-desktop-gaming-glory-intel-panther-lake-arrives#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Beijing tells companies to pause H200 purchases — China govt deliberating terms for letting local tech companies buy US chips while still growing homegrown semi
- Hands-on with Asus’s ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE: Premium gaming, with an emphasis on physical adjustments and web-based configuration
- NVIDIA RTX Accelerates 4K AI Video Generation on PC With LTX-2 and ComfyUI Upgrades
- Grab DDR5 RAM and a motherboard for as little as $219.99 in these Newegg bundles — 16GB memory ships with Asus and MSI boards for AMD and Intel gaming PC builds
- Marine Biological Laboratory Explores Human Memory With AI and Virtual Reality
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.