Dubbed “DG2”, will be made on a new chipmaking process at TSMC that has not yet been formally named but is an enhanced version of its 7-nanometer process.

This move is supposed to be over and above any rumoured plans to outsource flagship CPUs to TSMC and Samsung.

Intel wants to tap into the booming PC gaming market. Its DG2 chip is expected to be released late this year or in early 2022 and compete with Nvidia and AMD gaming chips that cost between $400 and $600, the sources said.

The chip manufacturing technology for the DG2 is expected to be more advanced than the Samsung's 8-nanometer process used in Nvidia’s most recent round of graphics chips released in the fall, the people said. They added it would also have a leg up on the Advanced Micro Devices graphics chips made on TSMC’s 7-nanometer process.

Intel officials last year said that it would outsource the DG2 chip but did not say which chip manufacturer had won the business or which chipmaking process it would use.