In a blog post highlighting how advances in its processors have helped gamers, Intel announced that its next-generation desktop processor will be coming in early 2021. The 11th-gen processor is also known by its Rocket Lake code name, and will include some of the key features that Intel introduced in its 11th-gen laptop Tiger Lake processors, such as support for the faster PCIe 4.0 specification, and Wi-Fi 6 for wireless connectivity.
“I’m also happy to confirm that the next generation 11th-gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named “Rocket Lake”) is coming in the first quarter of 2021 and will provide support for PCIe 4.0,” Intel vice president and general manager of the VR, gaming, and e-sports group John Bonini wrote in a blog post on Medium, noting that “gaming is in Intel’s DNA.”
The company’s announcement that Rocket Lake will make its way to gaming desktops comes in the middle of partner Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference and ahead of rival AMD’s scheduled launch event for its next-generation Ryzen processors. Intel’s 11th-gen desktop processor will likely have to compete in the same space as the rumored Ryzen 5000 processors.
Neither Intel nor Bonini gave specifics about what to expect for its 11th-gen processors, but the company did highlight processor frequency for its 10th-gen lineup, so its next-generation silicon could once again offer faster base and clock speeds along with support for overclocking in a bid to appeal to gamers and creatives.
This would reinforce Intel’s lead in high-end gaming, as per-clock performance tends to matter more than the extreme core counts AMD provides. On the other hand, it doesn’t address AMD’s core count lead, which often makes AMD hardware a better value for productivity — and sometimes in midrange gaming rigs, too.
“Processor frequency remains a key consideration because many popular apps and high-performance games scale with frequency,” Bonini stated. “Intel’s current generation of processors — led by the Core i9-10900K on desktop and the Core i9-10980HK on mobile — achieves an industry-leading 5.3GHz.”
In addition to revealing a launch timeline for the 11th-gen desktop silicon, Intel highlighted its partnerships with “world-class developers and publishers” as part of its gaming focus. These partnerships, the company claimed, helps to optimize the performance of games and allows developers to build in new features ahead of a title’s release.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
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.