At this point, AMD has been on top when we’re talking about the best processors for gaming, but it still took CES 2025 to do a victory lap and extend its lead. Opening up the keynote address, AMD revealed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, both of which will be available in the first quarter of this year.
The performance here doesn’t sway things much, as AMD has already claimed the top slot for gaming processors with its wildly popular Ryzen 7 9800X3D. As you can see below, however, AMD claims an 8% lead over last-gen’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D on average after testing 40 games. Unsurprisingly, graphically intensive games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Black Myth: Wukong see little benefit, but AMD is claiming a lead as large as 58% in a game like Counter-Strike 2.
An 8% lead is fine, but AMD really shows its gaming prowess against Intel. Compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD says the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is 20% faster on average at 1080p. There are still those graphically demanding games, but AMD is claiming boosts as high as 40% in Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 and 64% in Watch Dogs: Legion.
It’s no surprise that AMD’s new CPUs dominate in games considering they pack AMD’s second-gen 3D V-Cache. However, unlike the Ryzen 7 9800X3D that’s already available, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D are angled toward both gaming and productivity workloads with 12 and 16 cores, respectively. On that front, the margins are a bit more tight.
Compared to Intel, AMD says it’s around 10% faster across productivity workloads. The battle is close in rendering applications like Blender and Cinebench — an area where Intel’s latest CPUs are particularly strong — but AMD comes out ahead by margins of 14% in Premiere Pro and a massive 47% in Photoshop.
For the gen-on-gen comparison, AMD is claiming a 13% lead, though with far fewer peaks and valleys than what you can see in the Intel comparison. That’s not too surprising. As you can read in our Ryzen 9 9950X review, AMD’s latest Zen 5 desktop CPUs don’t claim huge leaps over last-gen Zen 4 options, but they’re consistently faster in nearly every application.
As is always the case, it’s important to treat these performance numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism. I saw some pretty large performance gaps between AMD’s claims and real-world performance with chips like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X — an issue AMD eventually addressed through several updates. Regardless, I’m withholding judgement until I have the chips in hand to test myself.
AMD hasn’t provided a firm release date for its new X3D options, but they should arrive soon. With clear performance comparisons, they’ll likely be among the first AMD products to hit store shelves in the first quarter of this year.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.