The Biggest Innovation in Desktop CPUs May Come to Gaming Laptops, Too

AMD remains the unquestioned king of gaming desktop processors, in large part thanks to an innovative way of stacking CPU memory to boost performance. A multitude of leaks suggests Intel is taking the same route with its next-gen desktop chip . Even if you’re a mobile-minded PC user, you still have a reason to care, since this same technology could give a massive boost to next-gen gaming laptops.

AMD’s X3D chips, like its top-end Ryzen 7 9850X3D gaming CPU and Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition creator chip, make use of what the chipmaker calls a “3D v-cache.” The cache is a chip’s dedicated high-speed memory. AMD essentially stacks one or more layers of memory cache on top of or below the processor cores, granting better performance for intensive graphics rendering tasks, like gaming. Intel is reportedly building its own version of the technology, known as “bLLC,” or “Big Last Level Cache.”

That bLLC tech is supposedly coming to Intel’s next-gen Nova Lake desktop chips. Intel VP and general manager Robert Hallock told Tom’s Hardware his company plans to reveal the consumer-level chips “on desktop first,” even before it showcases some of the same technology used for data centers.

The next generation after Nova Lake has attained the codename “Raptor Lake-HX” in several leaks from this year. That chip will reportedly steal the Nova Lake microarchitecture and some of its other features, too. According to the mostly reliable Intel leaker Jaykihn , Raptor Lake will also use bLLC.

What we’re more keen to see is if Intel can marry the efficiency of today’s current Panther Lake chips with the performance of these faster “HX” chips, which are supposed to be the chipmaker’s more powerful processors. Jaykihn suggests we may not see these new Raptor Lake processors until the start of next year.

Intel may finally be ready to square off against AMD. More rumors stemming from posts on Chinese social media (via Tom’s Hardware) report that Team Red is gearing up to launch a Ryzen 7 9800X3D chip for laptops. This rumored 8-core, 16-thread chip would support a 96MB L3 cache. The name itself suggests this chip series would be built on the company’s current Zen 5 desktop architecture. We may see it as soon as CES 2027, which starts the first week of January.

The 3D V-cache showdown may grant us even better performance on mobile chips, but it would have to come at a higher cost. Every major semiconductor company expects the RAMpocalypse to continue unabated into 2027. Your next-gen laptop will get more frames in your games, but they’ll likely be way more expensive.