Rumor mill: Mere days after Intel unveiled a pair of refreshed CPUs clearly positioned opposite two of AMD's mid-range options, rumors indicate that Team Red plans to refresh those very processors. If the information is accurate, the new offerings aim to counter Intel by boosting clock speeds by a few hundred MHz and nearly doubling the TDP.
A well-known leaker recently shared basic specifications for two unannounced AMD desktop processors. The tentatively named Ryzen 7 9750X and Ryzen 5 9650X appear to be refreshes designed in response to Intel's recently unveiled Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus.
With 24 cores, 24 threads, a 125W TDP, a base clock of 3.4GHz, a boost clock of 5.5GHz, and a $300 MSRP, the Core Ultra 7 270K is an obvious counter to AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X. Specifications suggest the new Intel chip might excel where Team Red's current offering struggles, possibly doubling its multithreaded performance.
– chi11eddog (@g01d3nm4ng0) March 18, 2026
Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus's 18 cores, 3.7GHz base clock, 30MB of Smart Cache, and $200 price appear aimed at the Ryzen 5 9600X. Intel claims that the 250K Plus's efficiency cores propel multicore performance to 103% of AMD's chip.
In response, AMD appears to have slightly increased its clock speeds, bringing the 9750X up to a 4.2GHz base with a 5.6GHz boost clock, while the 9650X features a 4.3GHz base clock and a 5.5GHz boost clock. While the two processors retain their predecessors' core counts and L3 cache, their TDP envelopes have nearly doubled from 65W to 120W, nearly matching the Intel CPU's 125W rating.
Intel's recently introduced Arrow Lake Refresh lineup also includes two new Core Ultra 200HX Plus CPUs for use in high-end laptops. The Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus and the new flagship Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus promise improvements to single-threaded and gaming performance. Furthermore, they introduce the company's Binary Optimization Tool, a translation layer optimization feature designed to enhance performance even further. Several leading laptop manufacturers have already announced new models featuring the CPUs.
While AMD's Ryzen processors have dominated high-end desktop CPU sales for years, slowly chipping away at Intel's market share, Core Ultra 200 is an early step in Chipzilla's comeback bid. The Nova Lake series, set to launch later this year, aims to answer Ryzen's 3D V-Cache technology, potentially setting up a clash of flagship CPUs with monstrous L3 cache pools. Meanwhile, AMD Zen 6, also expected to arrive in late 2026, could push core counts higher than ever.