The big picture: A senior Intel executive has revealed that the company is making sweeping changes to its product roadmap over the next five years to better compete with AMD, especially in the client CPU segment across desktops, laptops, and handheld gaming devices. He also seemingly confirmed that the company is working on the rumored Arc G3 series of chips for next-generation gaming handhelds.
Speaking to the German media outlet PC Games Hardware about Intel's plans to compete with AMD's X3D line of gaming CPUs, Vice President Robert Hallock said that hardcore PC enthusiasts are "significantly underestimating" the importance of software to the PC experience, and that no amount of cores or cache can maximize gaming performance without optimized software.
He added that Intel is focused on delivering a strong gaming experience and is making several changes to its upcoming products to reduce latency. Hallock did not detail the specific changes, but noted that in chips with a high core count, "a thread director would be very, very helpful."
Addressing Intel's 3D V-Cache strategy, Hallock claimed that additional cache is only useful in applications that make a high number of random memory requests, such as older games built on DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. Newer APIs, he added, typically do not see as large a performance uplift from increased cache sizes, but instead benefit more from optimized software.
To that end, Intel is developing the Binary Optimization Tool (BOT), which reportedly delivers up to a 30% performance gain in modern games and other workloads, regardless of cache capacity. Hallock reiterated that the company is fully committed to improving gaming performance through software optimization, and is treating BOT and similar tools as a critical part of its future roadmap.
Hallock's comments suggest that Intel is prioritizing software over what he described as a "brute force hammer" approach to boosting gaming performance. However, the company is also expected to debut its 3D V-Cache competitor, dubbed Big Last Level Cache, with Nova Lake later this year, so it is not entirely abandoning hardware-based approaches either.
Hallock also briefly mentioned the Arc G3 series while answering a question about the company's plans for PC gaming handhelds. When asked about Arc G3 and G3 Extreme, Hallock said, "I actually don't work on Arc G3 all the time," seemingly confirming the existence of the rumored chips.