It looks as though we’ll soon get a glimpse of what Intel has in store for its next generation desktop CPUs, as the company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger will be taking the stage to deliver a keynote speech at Computex this summer. Importantly, the announcement states that Gelsinger will “showcase Intel’s next-generation data center and client computing products,” and we expect the latter to involve the forthcoming Intel Arrow Lake CPUs.
Intel has been stuck in a rut on the desktop recently, and while you can find the Core i9 14900K on our best gaming CPU guide, it’s based on the same architecture as the Core i9 13900K that came before it, with the same number of cores and a small bump in clock speed. Comparatively, when it comes to gaming, AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D is faster, cheaper, and much more power efficient.
Gelsinger will be giving his Computex keynote on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, the day after AMD CEO Lisa Su delivers the opening keynote at the convention, meaning we could be getting a good look at some of the new AMD Zen 5 and Intel Arrow Lake CPUs that are waiting in the wings. If we’re lucky, and the two chip makers allow the likes of Asus and MSI to do it, we may get a glimpse of some of the new LGA1851 and AM5 motherboards that are in the works as well.
According to the announcement, Gelsinger will be focusing heavily on AI as a priority for Intel’s next generation products, specifically including Intel’s Core Ultra processor families, as well as its Xeon and Gaudi chips. There’s currently no dedicated AI hardware in its 14th gen CPUs, such as the Core i5 14600K, but Intel’s latest Meteor Lake chips for laptops have dedicated neural processing units (NPUs), and Arrow Lake is expected to bring Intel’s AI hardware to the desktop.
Early Intel Arrow Lake specs leaks have shown that the company, unsurprisingly, looks set to drop support for DDR4 memory with its new CPUs, but that the chips could officially support DDR5 memory running at up to 6,400MHz. The chips are also rumored to be dropping support for Intel’s Hyper-Threading tech, which currently enables its P-Cores to execute two concurrent threads, rather than just one.
It looks as though we won’t have long to wait before we understand more about Intel and AMD’s next gen CPUs, but if you’re looking to make a new gaming rig in the meantime, make sure you check out our guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we run you through every step of the process.