Civil War Breaks Out in the US, Revealing 5-Year Power Struggle Tactics

A “civil war” between two US technology giants is escalating as they vie for dominance in the gaming processor market. Intel is undertaking a major strategic overhaul to counter pressure from AMD. Intel states it is preparing a significant revision to its product roadmap over the next five years, with a primary focus on enhancing client CPU performance in desktops, laptops, and handheld gaming devices. In an interview with German media outlet PC Games Hardware, Intel Vice President Robert Hallock said that the competition with AMD’s gaming processor line, particularly X3D, is not determined solely by hardware power. He believes that hardcore PC enthusiasts have long misunderstood the key factors influencing performance. “Hardcore PC enthusiasts significantly underestimate the importance of software in the PC experience,” Hallock stated, quoted from TechSpot on Thursday (30/4/2026). He emphasised that increasing the number of cores or cache will not automatically boost gaming performance without well-optimised software support. He added that Intel is currently focused on delivering a robust gaming experience and is making several changes to upcoming products to reduce latency. Hallock did not detail these changes but noted that on chips with a high number of cores, the thread director will be extremely helpful. In response, Intel is now changing its approach. The company is focusing on reducing latency and improving the overall gaming experience through a combination of hardware and software. On chips with high core counts, Hallock said the presence of the thread director will be extremely helpful. Intel also highlighted the limitations of cache-based approaches like those used by AMD with 3D V-Cache technology. According to Hallock, additional cache is only effective for certain types of applications. “Additional cache is only truly beneficial for applications with many random memory requests, such as older DirectX 9 and DirectX 11-based games,” he explained. In contrast, modern games with the latest APIs are deemed to benefit more from software optimisation than mere cache increases. To that end, Intel is developing the Binary Optimization Tool (BOT), which is claimed to improve performance by up to 30% in modern games and various other workloads, without relying on cache capacity. Hallock stressed that Intel is now positioning software optimisation as the primary key to its future strategy. He called this approach more effective than the “brute force” method that only relies on hardware specification increases. Nevertheless, Intel is not entirely abandoning hardware innovation. The company is reportedly preparing a competitor to 3D V-Cache called Big Last Level Cache, which will debut alongside the Nova Lake architecture at the end of this year. Intel also gave strong signals regarding the arrival of new chips for handheld gaming devices. Hallock indirectly confirmed the development of the Arc G3 series, which has been circulating as a rumour. “I don’t always work on Arc G3,” he said, indicating that the project is indeed underway.