Report Intel and Nvidia's "Suspected Collaboration" Set to Arrive as "Serpent Lake" CPUs with RTX graphics at CES 2028

In the most recent Digital Foundry Direct Q&A show, supporter Spodlude asked us about Intel and Nvidia's "suspected collaboration". I love the suspicious phrasing, given that Nvidia has very publicly invested 5 billion dollars in Intel and announced their intention to co-develop next-gen PC chips, but it might not be until 2028 that we actually see the fruits of those labours.

That's according to Turkish analyst Erdi Özüağ, who posted his scoop on Twitter yesterday. Özüağ reports that Intel's current roadmap shows the first "Serpent Lake" next-gen processors with Nvidia RTX graphics as arriving in the first quarter of 2028, with CES in January of that year being mooted as a potential launch vehicle for the joint project.

Özüağ also mentions that Intel and Apple's new collaboration is also ongoing, with production of Apple chips using Intel's 18A process scheduled for Q4 2027.

While we don't have any firm information on how performant Serpent Lake will be or where it will be deployed, we can speculate that Nvidia's graphics expertise could allow it to offer a higher-grade alternative to integrated Arc graphics, which could make for some potent thin-and-light laptops. The same silicon might also end up in gaming handhelds, though Intel has only just launched its own Arc G3 and Arc G3 lineup at Computex a few weeks ago.

More importantly, an Nvidia RTX tile on an Intel SoC would allow for DLSS technologies to be used, particularly upscaling and frame generation, which ought to outclass Intel's equivalent XeSS techs given appropriate hardware support.

It's an exciting prospect, but both companies have plenty on their to-do list before we reach 2028.

Intel's aforementioned G3 handhelds are expected to arrive by the end of the year, while its next-gen Z990 desktop motherboards have already been showed (sans ID) at Computex and should accompany Nova Lake CPUs by the end of this year or the start of the next. We also expect revised 14th-gen Core silicon to turn up in early 2027, albeit under a confusing Core Ultra 200-series naming scheme.

Meanwhile, Nvidia is rumoured to be working on its long-awaited RTX 50 Super GPUs ahead of a launch later this year, and it also used Computex to announce its RTX Spark AI PCs and laptops.