Gear Information of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple May Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month

Intel’s future has by no means appeared so unsure. But many of the firm’s roller-coaster journey of a 12 months has been a lead-up to its next-gen CPU launch, introduced this week. The chips shall be often known as Intel Core Ultra Series 3, codenamed Panther Lake, and so they’re being manufactured in its new Arizona-based fabrication plant.

Intel claims the primary configurations will ship earlier than the tip of the 12 months after which extra broadly beginning in January 2026. We haven’t got an entire lineup but, however Panther Lake will embody as much as 16-core CPUs with a “more than 50 percent faster CPU” efficiency over the earlier era. Intel claims that the brand new built-in GPU with have as much as 12 GPU cores which are additionally 50 p.c quicker than the prior era, boosted by a brand new structure.

Intel is preventing again towards the stiff competitors. Qualcomm dramatically entered the Windows laptop computer race in 2024 with its Arm-based, highly-efficient Snapdragon X chips, doubling the battery lifetime of present Intel-powered laptops in some circumstances. While Intel was in a position to reply to the battery-life competitors with its Core Ultra Series 2 V-series chips in late 2024, efficiency took a success on these laptops, and the effectivity solely utilized to flagship, skinny, and light-weight laptops. Budget-level and high-performance laptops used a unique structure and subsequently did not get that very same bump in effectivity.

That made purchasing for a laptop computer in 2025 much more head-scratching than regular. These subsequent chips will try to repair this downside, with the company promising “Lunar Lake–level power efficiency” and “Arrow Lake–class performance.” Intel actually wants to realize that promise, as a result of with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite having simply been previewed and the Apple M5 on the way in which, the stakes preserve rising. —Luke Larsen

Apple’s Next Hardware Launch Is Coming Soon

Tim Cook on stage through the Apple Keynote on September 9, 2025.Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

If you are considering, did not Apple simply have an occasion? Yes, the corporate debuted new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods simply final month. But rumors are heating up that the corporate will announce extra merchandise this month, centered on iPads and MacBooks. That’s commonplace, as the corporate has held October occasions for the previous few years, normally for the pill and Mac lineups. It’s unclear whether or not this shall be an precise occasion or a silent launch through press launch. The firm has performed each previously.

So what are you able to anticipate? The marquee announcement will revolve across the anticipated M5 chipset, which can debut inside a brand new MacGuide Pro and the iPad Pro. The flagship pill seemingly will not look or really feel too completely different from the prior M4 model. MacBooks are a bit extra up within the air on launch timing; it may very well be at this occasion or early in 2026. If they’re introduced, it’s going to be a brand new 14- and 16-inch MacGuide Pro with an M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chip. Apple has additionally reportedly been gearing up for a funds MacGuide launch powered by an iPhone processor, however this will likely arrive early in 2026 as a substitute.

Other {hardware} which will debut at this October occasion features a new Vision Pro powered by an M4 or M5 chip with a comfier head strap, although it is in any other case the identical as the unique headset. There could also be a brand new Apple TV with a quicker chipset, the brand new model of Siri (although this would possibly not come till 2026), and Wi-Fi 7 help. And we might lastly see a second-gen AirTag, with an extended vary.

The PlayStation 6 May Arrive in a ‘Few Years’

Sony revealed a video to its PlayStation YouTube Channel this week that includes Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5, and Jack Huynh, AMD’s senior vice chairman. It’s largely technical, digging into graphics know-how that the 2 firms are collectively creating.