The dire state of desktop PCs: ‘If you’d like efficiency, you need to pay for it’

RAM shortages, SSD shortages, Nvidia shortages, doable shortages of Intel CPUs — 2026 is off to a tough begin, if that’s not sufficient, think about what AMD and Intel have to supply us in new desktop processors all through this yr. It’s not a lot in any respect.

After an exhilarating launch of its Core Extremely 300 (Panther Lake) chips, Intel is waiting for its upcoming “Arrow Lake Refresh” processors. However, because the identify suggests, there won’t be an entire lot there. Even AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 (Gorgon Level) chips, which embrace choices for desktop PCs, additionally seem like an incremental replace.

Now, rumors have surfaced that the chips shoppers ought to actually care about. The upcoming Intel “Nova Lake” desktop processor, which was initially due on the finish of 2026, in addition to AMD’s “Olympic Ridge” with Zen 6, may launch in 2027 as an alternative. That leaves DIY builders with what, precisely? Not a lot in the way in which of recent chips throughout 2026.

As a substitute, the vibe is wanting backwards. Intel has beforehand mentioned that customers have been searching for out older, extra highly effective chips. AMD’s AM4 platform is being requested to hold on for only a whereas longer, whereas shoppers scramble for (considerably) cheaper DDR4 reminiscence and mine yard gross sales for older onerous drives. To assume!

“My fundamental takeaway is that individuals have turn out to be very accustomed to the PC waterfall: getting extra efficiency yearly on the identical value,” mentioned Dean McCarron, principal at Mercury Analysis. “That’s not going to occur this yr. If you’d like efficiency, you’re going to should pay for it. And in the event you’re attempting to remain on the identical value, you’re not going to get the identical form of efficiency enhance.”

Does all of it depart you with a barely bitter style in your mouth? Let’s recap what we are able to count on in desktop PCs for 2026, primarily based on what we all know now.

Intel: Arrow Lake Refresh

Formally, Intel has not introduced something relating to the Arrow Lake Refresh. A key leak occurred earlier this month, when retailer Newegg reportedly revealed particulars of three Arrow Lake Refresh chips on its web site: the Core Extremely 7 270K Plus ($357.12), the Core Extremely 5 250K Plus ($245.92), and the Core Extremely 5 250KF ($227.38). (The “Plus” helps establish the brand new chips.) Whether or not these costs are correct or not stays to be seen.

We all know a bit extra concerning the top-end 270K Plus through a public Geekbench itemizing, as revealed by Tom’s {Hardware}. It’s a 3.70GHz chip with a complete of 24 cores, with (presumably) 8 efficiency cores and 16 effectivity cores. (Geekbench, a benchmark, usually requires anybody who makes use of its benchmark to publish outcomes to a searchable, public database.)

That’s barely greater than the prevailing Core Extremely 7 265K, the Arrow Lake processor, with 8 efficiency cores and 12 effectivity cores. It additionally has a prime (not base) clock velocity of 5.5GHz. Intel charged $394 for that chip at launch, by the way, although Amazon now sells it at a 30 % low cost (about $280).

The Geekbench benchmark signifies that Arrow Lake Refresh shall be a socketed processor appropriate with the Socket 1851 socket utilized by the unique Arrow Lake processor. Which means shoppers will be capable of change the older chip with the newer.

However will the efficiency justify the improve? Let’s take a look at what we’ve seen.

The primary Geekbench rating reported for the 270K Plus Arrow Lake Refresh chip was 3,235 for the single-core benchmark and 21,638 for the multi-core rating. Sadly, it’s doable to search out 265K scores which might be increased than this. Nevertheless, when evaluating a pattern 265K rating from about the identical timeframe because the 270K Plus submission (assuming comparable driver software program), two pattern programs utilizing the identical motherboard generated single-core scores of two,647 and three,081 and multicore scores of 16,632 and 21,592.

All this implies is that there could possibly be appreciable variance. That’s between a 5 and 20 % distinction within the single-core end result between the older Arrow Lake and the most recent Arrow Lake Refresh, and a 0.2 % to 26 % distinction within the multi-core rating. (This may be testing on wall energy versus battery.) That’s an enormous swing.

Adam Patrick Murray & Will Smith / PCWorld

You’ll have thought, as I did, that Arrow Lake bought poorly primarily based on the chip’s poor critiques and clients asking for older Raptor Lake chips as an alternative. That’s not true, McCarron mentioned. Arrow Lake was overshadowed partially by how profitable and worthwhile the older Thirteenth- and 14th-gen Core chips have been, however when Intel migrated the manufacturing node to its server chips, Raptor Lake went with it, leaving Arrow Lake as an alternative. And it bought, however not in addition to Raptor Lake.

“I don’t assume Intel actually must do something [with Raptor Lake Refresh],” McCarron mentioned. “I’m certain individuals would love the ability consumption to be totally different, or its efficiency to be totally different, however they don’t should do something, because it’s already taking place.”

Nonetheless, individuals apparently purchased Raptor Lake as a result of it was there. Twitter/X leaker @momomo_us places the launch date of Arrow Lake Refresh on March 23. We’ll see if the brand new chip is as profitable.

AMD: Ryzen AI 400, plus extra of the identical

AMD’s Ryzen 9000 sequence (each the 9000X chips in addition to the market-leading X3D sequence just like the Ryzen 9 9950X3D) aren’t going away; they’ll carry AMD by way of 2026 within the desktop house. They’re the clear chief in efficiency proper now, and one of many few dangers clients face is that for some cause they’ll promote out, as they did initially. In any other case, AMD’s market share has steadily risen thanks to those wonderful chips.

There’s only one factor: they’re outdated, comparatively talking. AMD launched the Ryzen 9000 X3D on the finish of 2024, and the killer Ryzen 9 9950X3D dropped a yr in the past. However only one chip, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, was introduced at CES, and it’s unclear if any extra will arrive anytime quickly. They’re all primarily based on Zen 5 and the scariest rumor of late has been that the “Olympic Ridge” desktop debut of Zen 6 must wait till CES 2027 for an introduction. That’s a loooong method away.

AMD

As a substitute, there’s the Ryzen AI 400, which additionally traverses the cellular house in addition to the desktop. AMD has confirmed that socketed Ryzen AI 400 processors for desktops would arrive as effectively.

Traditionally, this has been a little bit of a grey space. Intel promised us that we’d see a desktop model of its Core Extremely 100 sequence, Lunar Lake, then clarified that it will simply imply a soldered-down model for all-in-ones as an alternative. (And if there have been, there weren’t many.) AMD has mentioned the Ryzen AI 400 / Gorgon Level shall be accessible for conventional socketed desktops, particularly the prevailing AM5 socket.

AMD launched seven Ryzen AI 400 chips at CES 2026, together with a pair of HX processors on the prime finish. It’s not clear whether or not they’ll all be accessible on the desktop.

In any occasion, little has modified from the admittedly good efficiency of the Ryzen AI 300, which barely exceeded the remainder of its competitors within the cellular house. All of AMD’s Ryzen AI 400s embrace as much as 12 cores and 24 threads, and all use the Zen 5 structure. Save for a sooner reminiscence velocity and extra AI TOPS, there’s not a lot distinction from the sooner chip. Desktop PCs with a Ryzen AI 400 inside them will qualify for Copilot+ standing, however Microsoft has mainly granted Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite most-favored-nation standing in that regard.

From a efficiency standpoint, we all know one thing about these chips, too. The Geekbench database additionally contains quite a lot of benchmarks for the 10-core Ryzen AI 9 465, all operating on the Asus Zenbook S16. The scores suggest that the laptop computer was examined on battery and on wall energy: as excessive as 1,538 on single-core testing, versus 9,001 on multicore. On what seems to be wall energy, the latest rating at press time was 2,841 for single-core efficiency, and 13,705 for multi-core.

If true, that’s fairly unhealthy information for AMD on paper in comparison with Intel’s Arrow Lake Refresh: 2,841 vs. 3,041 (single-core) and 13,705 vs 21,592 (multicore). Ryzen would surrender a bonus in single-core purposes, reminiscent of operating the working system, unzipping recordsdata, and a few video games, in addition to a giant hole would exist in multithreaded purposes. It’s unclear, after all, if these numbers will maintain up in real-world testing.

On condition that AMD has already introduced the Ryzen AI 400 chips, we’d count on them to formally launch quickly.

The sleeper right here could possibly be one other AMD chip fully: the Ryzen AI Max+, which has appeared in each laptops and tablets in addition to desktops just like the Framework Desktop. Nevertheless, my overview of the Framework Desktop and its very good Max+ 395 chip inside it was carried out within the halcyon days of final August, when AI was taking maintain however there was nonetheless sufficient RAM to go round. The AI Max+ chip I reviewed was designed to gobble up RAM — 128GB (!) of LP-DDR5X (!) soldered to the motherboard (!) — which appears form of insane proper about now. The AI Max+ definitely wins on paper, however in the true world it suffers from the identical issues different desktop PCs do.

Are Qualcomm or Nvidia wild playing cards? Unlikely

Can Qualcomm zoom in and save the day? Properly, perhaps — however up to now, any guarantees it has made about socketed desktops haven’t materialized, and we’ve but to see the Snapdragon X2 Elite, both.

A giant wild card is the Nvidia N1 and N1X. Supposedly, the partnership with Mediatek and its Arm core will produce the primary laptops this yr, however each corporations have been very silent concerning the N1 and its high-performance offshoot, the N1X. It’s probably that Panther Lake was designed realizing the N1 would finally problem it. However nonetheless — laptops. An N1 mini PC sounds fairly cheap, however nonetheless isn’t the standard desktop you is perhaps hoping for.

In any other case, issues are nonetheless tough. The worth of DDR5 DRAM could have plateaued a bit, but it surely’s nonetheless roughly 5 occasions what it as soon as was. DDR4 isn’t significantly better and might range relying on capability and velocity.

SSD costs aren’t getting any higher, both. In line with PCPartPicker’s storage traits, you’re primarily paying double what you’ll have in November, once we warned that you simply had higher seize what offers you can discover on storage and reminiscence earlier than they disappeared. You’re most likely conscious that onerous drives are promoting out, too.

That’s to not say that desktop PC gross sales will endure. In actual fact, Mercury’s fourth-quarter information reveals that availability was higher in desktops than laptops, McCarron mentioned. Companies will nonetheless refresh their PCs, simply because they should. As a substitute, we’re transferring to a supply-constrained market, he mentioned, the place individuals will purchase what they will, not what they need. Grim.

Funds PCs shall be particularly weak, McCarron predicted, and somebody taking a look at a low-end PC ought to examine a refurbished pc as an alternative.

In a phrase, it’s bleak. Until you could have a few bitcoins burning a gap in your pockets, constructing a desktop PC in 2026 looks as if a misplaced trigger. With what’s happening within the cellular house — with Panther Lake, the Nvidia N1, and perhaps Qualcomm’s next-gen X2 Elite — perhaps it’s value calling 2026 the yr of the laptop computer, as an alternative.