Chip wars: What to expect from Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Snapdragon at CES 2026

Each new CES is an opportunity for a glimpse at the processors and platforms coming for the new year, even if they have been previously announced. This year is no different.

Two of the three major arrivals have already been disclosed, both for notebooks. Intel has revealed its next-generation Core Ultra platform, “Panther Lake,” and Qualcomm has announced that its next-generation mobile Windows on Arm processor will be the Snapdragon Elite X2. Only AMD has yet to reveal what its upcoming chip for laptops will be, though its customers published a projected roadmap some months ago.

But what’s happening with desktop PCs? And could Nvidia have something up its sleeves for the big show?

Right now, it’s impossible to know what PC makers are going to announce at CES 2026. Still, we can make some guesses. Here’s what we expect may be revealed by Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia.

Intel: It’s all about Panther Lake

Clearly, Intel will launch its Panther Lake (Core Ultra 300) processors at CES 2026. Intel has already revealed some of the deep-dive details of the Panther Lake architecture: a return to the efficiency and low-power efficiency cores as well as the performance cores alongside the Xe3 graphics core and an upgraded NPU. Normally, we stop there and begin wondering about clock speeds and pricing.

But wait! Intel really has three designs to think about: an 8-core and a 16-core chip, and than a version of the 16-core chip with 12 Xe3 graphics cores inside it. Naturally, we’d assume the 12-Xe version would be the premium offering, but will PC vendors consider this version as a challenger to the AMD Ryzen Max? I tend to doubt it, but it’s possible.

Intel still has a stranglehold on the laptop market. Its previous chip, the Core Ultra 200, was excellent, offering a potent mix of long battery life and decent computing power. Typically Intel gives us a chance to do a little benchmarking at the show, then allows journalists to test the platform shortly thereafter. I think that will probably continue to be the case.

In recent years, Intel has also showcased a few applications that take advantage of local AI. My guess is that we’ll see something in this regard, as well, possibly focusing on agentic AI.

It’s likely that Intel will also set the stage for “Nova Lake,” its next desktop processor platform that the company has already disclosed for 2026. Before that, however, the so-called “Arrow Lake Refresh” chips are expected to debut, with minor tweaks to the clock speeds and a slight upgrade to the core count (8 performance cores, 12 efficiency cores), especially in the lower tiers. But with Arrow Lake’s reception being just lukewarm and with small gains attached to the refreshed parts, I wouldn’t expect that Intel pays this a lot of lip service.

Qualcomm: Selling Windows on Arm

No real surprises here, either. Qualcomm has already announced its Snapdragon X2 Elite platform with a variety of internal processor cores that together push towards 5GHz and an industry-leading 80 TOPS.

Nobody really expects Snapdragon PCs to be gaming machines…and yet Qualcomm can never quite exclude gaming from the conversation, either. Qualcomm says the X2 Elite’s gaming performance has doubled, so expect to see more games being played on Snapdragon laptops. The big mystery, though, is how many laptops OEMs will design around the Snapdragon X2 Elite chips. the uptake of Snapdragon X Elite laptops wasn’t outstanding. But Microsoft and Qualcomm are determined to make Windows on Arm happen.

Will we see desktop announcements from Qualcomm? Almost certainly not as a separate chip, but the company has teased a radically small mini PC reference design as part of the Snapdragon XE2 reveal, as well as an all-in-one desktop with a XE2 system built into the base of the monitor stand, so anything is possible.

AMD: the one gamers want to buy

For gamers and enthusiasts, AMD clearly won 2025, at least from a CPU perspective. Sure, you can focus upon the Ryzen 9000X and its initial performance hiccups. But AMD instead won big with its Ryzen 9000X3D parts, specifically the Ryzen 9 9950X3D: gobs of V-cache equated to gobs of performance, too. Remember when Threadripper was the chip AMD fans couldn’t stop talking about?

What impressed me, however was how good AMDs mobile Ryzens were. AMD’s mobile processors were crap for years (good riddance, A-series) but the Ryzen AI 300 checked the NPU box while delivering leading performance with good battery life, too. Now AMD is ready to pass the torch from “Strix Point” to the Zen 5 “Gorgon Point” processor: the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 has already leaked via Geekbench, running at 3.1GHz with a total of 12 cores. That’s a very good start, though I’m just as interested seeing how this chip handles the challenges of maintaining performance as well as long battery life. TechPowerUp noted that there’s an AI 5 430 floating out there, too.

The wild card? The Ryzen AI Max and Max+, which also uses gobs of cache, a wide, fast memory bus, a super-sized integrated Radeon GPU, and addressable memory of up 96GB. “Strix Halo” combines all three to allow the chip to serve as both a moderately powerful gaming processor as a vehicle for running local LLMs.

I tested the Framework Desktop PC with a Ryzen AI Max+ chip inside, and loved it.

If AMD is just now debuting Gorgon Point (and no other processor) I wouldn’t expect an upgraded AI Max chip quite yet, though I would look to the Gorgon Point chip for hints in that eventual direction. AMD has been making a lot of noise upgrading its associated ROCm software, which can boost the performance of applications through software improvements alone. This is an easy win, and a hand AMD will keep betting on for months to come.

Swinging back to the desktop front, rumors suggest we’ll see AMD reveal a new Ryzen 7 9850X3D chip with 400MHz faster clock speeds than the baseline 9800X3D, as well as a new generation of APUs with beefy integrated graphics, dubbed the Ryzen 9000G series. These would bring the excellent “Strix Point” technology found in current AMD laptops to home PCs. We’ve also heard whispers of a new high-end Ryzen 9 X3D chip, which may happen, but feels much less certain.

Nvidia: Don’t expect new consumer GPUs

The chip company with the murkiest outlook is Nvidia, hands-down. Earlier this year, rumors of an “RTX 50-series Super refresh” with more memory and other tweaks swirled before dying down a couple months back. The recent extreme RAM crunch probably put an end to those ambitions, and we don’t expect Nvidia to announce any new desktop or laptop GPUs at CES — especially considering the entire RTX 50-series launched just last year.

Nvidia often brings flashy new technology and features to CES that have nothing to do with chip launches, like ACE AI companions for video game NPCs, Half-Life 2 RTX Remix, and yesteryear’s “BFD” monitor push, so there may be relevant news from Team Green. Surprises happen on the Las Vegas strip daily. We’ve heard scuttlebutt that Nvidia may have something up its sleeve surrounding monitor technology this year.

As CES 2026 nears the opening week of January, PCWorld will be there. Stay tuned: the curtain is rising on 2026.

Brad Chacos helped contribute to this report.