AMD is stepping on the gas with its new Ryzen Pro 7040 processors for both business laptops and desktops, injecting Zen 4 CPU technology and RDNA 3 graphics architecture for increased performance. AI, too, will play a role, with some improvements for video calls to clients and partners. The fine print, though, reveals a small penalty: While last year's Ryzen Pro 6000 models were designed for both 35W to 45W laptops as well as thinner 15W to 30W and 10W to 25W thin-and-light laptops, AMD's latest chips require more power. The high-end 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS consumes 35W to 54W of power, and there's only a single second tier of chips for laptops that consume between 15W and 28W. Still, AMD claims that its new Ryzen Pro 7040 processors can actually outperform an Apple Mac not on performance, but on battery life.

Intel's 12th-gen Core i5-12600K offers stunning performance over its AMD Ryzen rival--and offers consumers unheard-of value too. If there was ever a CPU designed solely for revenge, Intel's 12th-gen "Alder Lake" Core i5-12600K would be it. Based on Intel's new--and surprisingly good--hybrid CPU design that includes a mixture of high-performance cores and high-efficiency cores, the Core i5-12600K deals a death blow to AMD's popular Ryzen 5 5600X in just about everything you can run on it. Looking at its superior performance over the Ryzen 5, we almost want to throw a penalty flag for unsportsmanlike conduct for way Core i5 chip runs up the score on to Ryzen 5. This is the new mainstream desktop processor to beat. Our previous Intel Alder Lake reveal coverage dug deep into the makeup of these radical new 12th-gen Core chips, as well as hard details about the individual chips in the lineup and platform/motherboard details. Be sure to check it out if you aren't up to speed on what's going on in Intel's new architecture yet.