Intel unveils its ultimate gaming processors

Flying through the air, using your grappling hook to gain purchase on one ledge before jumping to another, or just to wreak havoc, is what makes Just Cause 3 so awesome… except when the open-world system stutters on your underpowered PC, and your glides take a low-frame-rate-induced tumble. 

Graphically intense games like Just Cause 3, Doom, and Grand Theft Auto V are about to get some performance help thanks to Intel’s new 8th-Gen Core processors made specifically for big desktop machines (i.e. gaming rigs), which, the company claims, can boost frame rates by up to 25% over the previous 7th-Gen Core desktop CPUs.

“As gaming continues to expand to include a social audience while playing, performance while mega-tasking is critical so game + stream + record is now up to two times faster compared with a three-year-old machine,” said Intel in a press release.

The 8th-Gen Core family (AKA Coffee Lake), which follows last month’s reveal of the laptop CPUs, boasts up to six cores (two more than the 7th-Gen desktop family) and a max performance of 4.7GHz (when using the built-in Turbo Boost technology).

Designed for gamers and content creators, who could experience a 65% performance increase over systems at least three years old, these CPUs are also unlocked so system builders can squeeze maximum performance out of the processors, including something new: per-core over-clocking.

The 8th-Gen CPU is also designed to support 4K video, HDR, 360 video and immersive VR experiences.

Intel’s 8th-Gen Cores take on AMD’s 8-core (also over-clockable) Ryzen 7 desktop CPUs. Intel 7th-Gen Core have typically matched or slightly edged comparable Ryzen 7 CPUs. It’s possible the 8th-Gen Cores could leapfrog AMD’s desktop offering.

Available in Core i3, i5 and i7 models. Intel’s 8th-Gen Core CPUs go on sale Oct. 5, though the company did not announce pricing.