Today at CES 2022, Intel announced the world's fastest mobile processor, bringing its performance hybrid architecture to mobile platforms for the first time with new 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors that are up to 40 percent faster than the previous generation mobile processor. Intel introduced 28 new 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors that deliver a feature-rich suite of capabilities to create laptops for people to compute whenever and wherever they need - without compromise.

With the introduction of the full 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processor lineup, the 12th Gen Intel Core processor family also represents the company's most scalable lineup to date, powering designs across consumer, enterprise, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other applications. "Intel's new performance hybrid architecture is helping to accelerate the pace of innovation and the future of compute," said Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Client Computing Group. "And, with the introduction of 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors, we are unlocking new experiences and setting the standard of performance with the fastest processor for a laptop—ever."

Colorful is well-known for its highly innovative graphics card designs, it is one of China's leading graphics card brands. Some of its graphics card designs have captured our imagination. Its latest creation is a DIY mini-ITX barebones system for gaming, called Desert Eagle. The package consists of Colorful's own-design slim-form-factor (SFF) chassis, which bears a swanky combination of red and black, with ample perforations and and top handles; a custom-design, low-profile Colorfire AMD Radeon HD 6750 graphics card (Colorfire is Colorful's Radeon-selling brand); a mini-ITX socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel H67 chipset (model: i-H67HD U3); and a 300W PSU.

Apart from novelty mini-ITX motherboards, ZOTAC wants to put the expertise in motherboard design it gathered to use by getting into value motherboards segment, probably targeting only emerging markets. A example of this would be the ZT-H67D3 Expreview got its hands on. This micro-ATX form-factor motherboard is based on the Intel H67 chipset, and takes in Core i3/i5/i7 processors in the LGA1155 package. It uses a generous 6-phase VRM to power the CPU, which is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory. The VRM uses basic DPAK MOSFETs, but doesn't skimp out on the capacitors.

Expansion slots include one each of PCI-Express 2.0 x16, legacy PCI, and two PCIe x1 slots. SATA ports include two SATA 6 Gb/s (blue), three SATA 3 Gb/s (yellow), and one eSATA 3 Gb/s. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI (surprisingly, no D-Sub). Other connectivity features include 8-channel HD audio and gigabit Ethernet. There are no USB 3.0 ports. This board is targeting a price point of 399 RMB (US $63).

Marking a major customer engagement with Intel, LucidLogix today announced that its Virtu GPU virtualization software will be integrated into various SKUs of Genuine Intel Desktop Boards based on the Intel H67 and Z68 chipsets. Virtu allows the systems to simultaneously take full advantage of both the low-power best-in-class media processing features of the 2nd generation Intel Core processor graphics and the 3D gaming performance of add-in cards with graphics processing units (GPU).

"Intel is the world leader in CPU technology and a globally trusted brand, therefore their choice of the Virtu solution is a testament to the quality performance and integration of the technology," said Offir Remez, president and founder of LucidLogix. "The best thing about this collaboration is that the end user is the real winner. Intel H67 and Z68 desktop board owners will enjoy both a media and a high end graphics platform that is more powerful than ever seen before."

Gigabyte sneaked in its latest motherboard for SFF (small form-factor) fans, the GA-H67N-USB3-B3. This mini-ITX motherboard supports socket LGA1155 Intel Core processors, and is based on the Intel H67 chipset (B3 revision). The board supports every LGA1155 Core processor released till date, its designers didn't have to worry much about its electricals since you're not going to overclock on H67. Yet, the board packs a 4+2 phase VRM for the CPU, that's compliant with Intel's VRD 12 specification. The socket is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory support, and a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot.

In the storage department, there are two SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the chipset, two SATA 3 Gb/s, and one eSATA 3 Gb/s, also from the chipset. Its display connectivity surprisingly includes two HDMI ports, and one D-Sub. Audio is care of the high-grade Realtek ALC889 HDA CODEC, which can deliver 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio, the board also provides coaxial and optical SPDIF output connectivity. Other connectivity includes two USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board features dual-BIOS with an EFI module that allows you to boot from a 3 TB+ volume. Gigabyte's H67N-USB3-B3 is expected to be priced around the $120 mark. This one for the HTPC.

MSI has been informed by Intel about the design issues in the Intel 6 series chipsets. According to Intel the performance of some of the Intel SATA ports on Intel 6 series products can degrade over time. MSI takes the quality of our products very serious, so at this moment we are investigating product batches that may be affected and, meanwhile, have stopped all shipments to our distributors and resellers. Additionally, we asked resellers to hold sales of the Intel 6 series based MSI products to customers until the issue can be resolved.

As of the 31st of January MSI informed all our distributors, retails and reseller to stop directly the sales of Intel 6 series based products of MSI and to hold any products pending shipments to customers. No need to worry in the case that you purchased an Intel 6 series based product form MSI after the 31st of January because we will take care for you. Consumers can check the section "How to get serviced".

As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.