It finally happened. Intel killed Hyper-Threading on its desktop CPUs. The new Arrow Lake range, called Core Ultra 200S, ditches the simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) feature that Intel has held onto for more than a decade. And according to Intel, it doesn’t need the extra threads to still deliver a generational performance improvement, even up against the best processors.
Intel says the new range, which we break down in detail in our post focused its gaming potential, can deliver an 8% performance improvement in single-threaded workloads over the previous generation, and a 4% uplift compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X. Those are pretty small margins, but the real impressive stuff comes in multi-threaded performance.
In multi-threaded performance, Intel says its new Core Ultra 9 285K delivers 15% higher performance than the last-gen Core i9-14900K, and 13% higher performance than AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9950X. That may not sound huge, but it is. Intel is delivering higher performance with 24 threads than AMD can deliver with 32, at least according to Intel’s own numbers. Moreover, Intel says it can deliver this performance while cutting power demands by up to 58%, as you can see in the chart below.
Arrow Lake is a big departure for Intel, but we already know quite a bit about how the processors work. They use the same Skymont and Lion Cove designs as Intel’s new Lunar Lake laptop CPUs, which we first saw in the Zenbook S 14. The architecture is the same, but Intel is bumping the core counts, feeding more power to them, and squeezing out higher clock speeds — up to 5.7GHz on the Core Ultra 9 285K.
Breaking out to more productivity apps, Intel says the Core ultra 9 285K will trade blows with the Ryzen 9 9950X, just with fewer threads. Video workflows will massively benefit from the new chips, however, showing up to a 7.3x improvement, according to Intel. That’s particularly due to support for Sony’s new 4K and 8K XAVC codecs. Intel says Arrow Lake chips are the first desktop CPUs to support the new codec.
Even a year ago, it was unthinkable that Intel would abandon the SMT feature that it spearheaded, but here we are. And based on Intel’s numbers, killing Hyper-Threading might’ve been the best choice, at least for productivity apps. We won’t know for sure until the processors arrive on October 24.
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.
Nearly a month after announcing the GPT-6.1 Sol model, OpenAI unveiled GPT-6.1 Terra today. The latest addition to the family focuses on computer use, visual reasoning, coding, and professional work, while costing 50% less through the API than GPT-5.6 Terra.
OpenAI says Terra can handle everything from filling out browser forms and working inside spreadsheets to interpreting technical drawings and editing videos. The company says it can also complete computer-based tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.