CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 1

AMD has one of the best mid-range processors on the market with its Zen 4-based Ryzen 5 7600X, but the next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 5 9600X looks to be a champion.

In some new leaks, we're seeing that a Ryzen 5 9600X engineering sample (ES) processor being overclocked to a very nice 5.7GHz across all cores, up 300MHz from its max CPU boost clock of 5.4GHz. AMD isn't just cranking the CPU clock speed by 100MHz from the Ryzen 5 7600X, but the internal Zen 5 CPU architecture will provide IPC improvements, and a much lower 65W TDP is welcomed (105W on the 7600X).

The leaker posted some CPU-Z benchmark results, where we can see single-threaded performance with 871 points, and multi-threaded performance at 7096 points at all-core 5.7GHz. This is compared to 776 points and 6201 points for single-threaded and multi-threaded performance, respectively, on the Zen 5-based Ryzen 5 9600X ES chip at its stock 5.4GHz.

AMD has one of the best CPUs for gaming with its current-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, but we're now expecting next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series, which will have SKUs that will be powered with 3D V-Cache technology.

But now AMD has spoken with PCGamer about some new CPUs, with AMD's senior technical marketing manager Donny Woligroski saying: "The X3D stuff, we have a lot to say about it. The best part about it is we're not just resting on laurels. We're improving what we can do with X3D, it's really exciting and I'm super looking forward to talking to people about that. It's not like, hey, we've also added X3D to a chip. We are working actively on really cool differentiators to make it even better. We're working on X3D, we're improving it".

If you were expecting to see AMD do what it did last time: slapping second-gen 3D V-Cache to its CPUs this time around, you'd be wrong. AMD has been making improvements to 3D V-Cache, and it seems that we're going to see just what those improvements are -- sorry, 'really cool differentiators' -- when the next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series X3D processors launch.

Intel has finally detailed its next-generation Lunar Lake architecture, with "breakthrough" x86 power efficiency, a "massive leap" in graphics performance for "great" mobile gaming, and unmatched future-ready AI compute.

The next-generation Lunar Lake architecture features 32GB of on-package memory, support for LPDDR5X DRAM, all-new Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores) that deliver a "significant performance and energy efficiency improvements".

The fourth-generation Intel NPU has up to 48 TOPS of AI performance, with Intel reiterating that the powerful NPU inside of Lunar Lake delivers 4x the AI compte performance over the previous generation (Meteor Lake). There's an all-new GPU design with Battlemage, combining two new innovations: Xe2 GPU cores for graphics, and Xe Matrix Extension (XMX) arrays for AI.

Intel's Arrow Lake desktop processors are going to be out in October, or at least that's the word from Computex 2024.

This comes from Wccftech which has been tapping motherboard makers at Computex, firms that are showing off their Z890 boards - and have inside info on the Arrow Lake release timeframe.

Note that the mentioned October date is for Arrow Lake CPUs to be on shelves, not just some kind of initial reveal. In fact, the announcement of the next-gen desktop processors is planned to happen at Intel Innovation in September (which has been previously mentioned via the rumor mill).

Qualcomm held its Computex 2024 keynote earlier today, hyping both the Copilot+ PC ecosystem and its new Snapdragon X Series processors.

In the Qualcomm Computex 2024 keynote YouTube video above, at the 11:34 mark Neowin reports that Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon said that these initial laptops being released are just the first wave of Windows PCs that will feature Snapdragon X Elite chips.

Qualcomm teased renders of PCs with Snapdragon X Elite chips inside, with Amon saying that the new Snapdragon X Series chips will be inside all sorts of form factor PC systems. The company had some slides up that showed off tablet designs, Mini-PCs, and even all-in-one PC systems.

Qualcomm has just hosted its Computex 2024 keynote, with president and CEO Cristiano Amon joined by tech industry leaders on stage, including from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Samsung for the industry shift in the PC space enabled by Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X series processors.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said: "The PC is reborn. Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built with AI integrated throughout the system and can deliver multi-day battery life. I am grateful to the partners that joined me on stage today to celebrate this industry shift that puts Snapdragon powered Windows Copilot+ PCs at the forefront of technology innovation. Together, we are redefining the personal computing experience, and enabling developers to efficiently create apps for this new generation".

The new Snapdragon X series chips were the big focus, with Amon highlighting the NPU inside of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processors as the "key differentiator and reason why performance of PCs powered by Snapdragon X Series is superior and makes Copilot+ experiences possible".

AMD has announced its new chips for Copilot+ AI PCs, the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series, at Computex. These chips deliver 50 TOPS of AI performance with next-gen Zen 5 CPU Cores and beefed-up RDNA 3.5 graphics. The latter will make these chips great for PC gaming on compact machines - especially handhelds!

As part of its presentation comparing the performance between the flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Snapdragon X Elite Arm-based SoC with built-in GPU, AMD notes a 60% performance increase in favor of Ryzen using the 3DMark Night Raid Graphics benchmark.

This is partly due to the fact that it's an x86 chip without an emulation layer, but the performance increase also comes from the 16 Compute Units, up from 12 CUs in the previous gen Ryzen 7040 Series and Ryzen 8040 Series.

AMD's AI processing for laptops and portable devices is leveling up big time with the new Ryzen AI 300 Series, powered by Zen 5, XDNA 2, and RDNA 3.5 graphics. Described as the 'World's Best Processor for Copilot+ PCs,' they launch in July with two models - the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Ryzen AI 9 365.

Yes, the new naming for AMD's SoCs is real and works like this: Ryzen AI is the new brand name denoting a powerful dedicated NPU (here, it's the third-gen XDNA 2), 300 is the series, and the 9 HX stuff is the model info that AMD traditionally puts at the end of Ryzen CPU model naming.

With AMD's third-generation XDNA 2 NPU technology, Ryzen AI 300 Series processors are Copilot+ ready. The impressive 50 TOPS of AI performance push them past the Snapdragon X Elite, Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake, and Apple's M4 chips. This is a massive increase from the 10 TOPS for the Ryzen 7040 Series and 16 TOPS for the Ryzen 8040 Series.

At Computex 2024, AMD has formally announced its next-generation desktop CPUs, the new Ryzen 9000 Series, which will launch in July with four models. Powered by the next-gen Zen 5 architecture, AMD noted in its presentation to the press that this was more than a "trivial update" for Zen but a "sweeping update" with advances that deliver 2X data and instruction bandwidth and, of course, big performance gains for AI.

AMD says there's an average 16% IPC uplift compared to Zen 4, with the chart outlining the improvement across a range of gaming, rendering, and other CPU workloads. Far Cry 6 sees a 10% uplift on the low-end, and Octane and Cinebench R23 are in the middle with 16% and 17%, respectively. On the high-end, you've got Blender with an impressive 23% uplift and Geekbench 5.4 with a massive 35%. Zen 5 is a definite step up from Zen 4.

The four models that are set to debut in July are AM5 ready: the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X. One of the other big things with Zen 5 is that the performance increases come with an improvement in power efficiency, with the Ryzen 9 9950X (16 Cores/32 Threads) featuring a 170W TDP, which is on par with the Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X.

AMD's Ryzen 9000 launch has been leaked ahead of Computex, although we should add a hefty helping of seasoning with this one.

The leak comes from Wxnod on X (formerly Twitter) and is supposedly a deck of presentation slides from AORUS (GIGABYTE), but separately, CodeCommando has also spilled the specs of AMD's initial Zen 5 desktop CPUs. (Hat tips to Wccftech and VideoCardz respectively here).

While the two leaks appear to match, and show an initial four chips that AMD is set to unleash, we should still be very cautious about all this.