The success of Clearwater Forest may play a pivotal role in Intel's future. Production challenges and recent financial struggles have put CEO Pat Gelsinger's efforts to revitalize the company under intense scrutiny. The new server CPUs will introduce Intel's 18A process node, which will determine whether Intel's foundry business can return to competitiveness with industry leader TSMC.
Meanwhile, AMD continues to promise further performance gains with future X3D processors, potentially including the 9900X3D and 9950X3D. While details remain scarce, possible improvements could involve varying SRAM stack sizes or increasing cache capacity on high-end models.