Intel (INTC -3.67%) hosted a media event on Oct. 8 to announce a slate of new products for the desktop personal computer market. Those products included, among other things, a new line of processors marketed explicitly at gamers.
The gaming market is a market that Intel's seemingly paying more attention to these days. In the slide deck that the company provided to attendees of the event, the company said that retail gaming PC sales have grown at roughly a 29% compound annual rate between the first half of 2015 and the first half of 2018.
Gaming is also a segment that came up on the company's July 26 earnings call, with interim CEO and CFO Bob Swan saying that "consumer interest in gaming and our outright performance leadership are driving strength in the enthusiast segment, producing an outstanding quarter in gaming."
With that in mind, let's go over what investors need to know about Intel's new gaming chips.
Inside the next-gen chips
Intel's previous gaming-oriented lineup was sold under the company's 8th Gen Core branding, and this latest crop of chips is marketed as the company's 9th Gen Core processors. The gaming-focused lineup -- which the company is announcing first -- consists of three parts: Core i5-9600K, Core i7-9700K, and Core i9-9900K.
The "K" at the end of these model numbers designates that the chips are "unlocked," which means that Intel has made it so that end users can adjust the frequencies of the chips to levels beyond what the company has rated them at. The process of running chips at speeds beyond their rated specification is called "overclocking."
Here are the specs of the chips:
Image source: Intel.
