Broadly expected to report a new line of Mac PCs Tuesday morning at its most recent “event,” Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) could touch off a new battle over processors thusly.

That is the perspective on various pundits, who see the organization’s declaration that it would power the gadgets with a proprietary chip as a potential opening shot in such a contention. The organization had been using x86 chips from processor goliath Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) since 2006; in June it reported that it would change the full Mac line to its silicon chip in a two-year process.

In the heyday of the PC, Intel was a predominant player, in a near-constant fight with the perennial runner-up, Advanced Micro Devices. In any case, new competitors have been entering the field in the age of the cell phone.

One possible enormous adversary to Apple and Intel in this undertaking is cell phone component producer Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM). Likewise with Apple’s reported plans, Qualcomm makes chips dependent on ARM architecture from the eponymous U.K. organization that is set to be obtained by NVIDIA. Qualcomm co-developed processors with both AMD and Microsoft explicitly to power the last’s Surface line of laptop/tablet products.

Apple hosted vowed to get a third-party manufacturer to produce the silicon chips. Speculation is rife that this will be Taiwan Semiconductor, albeit neither Apple nor the Asia-based chipmaker has yet affirmed this.

While Intel doesn’t have the prominence it once delighted in the processor world, its chips actually power a large number of the world’s PCs, and it’s probably going to stay a significant player in the segment.