CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 1

The big silicon fight is only just beginning, with the likes of Apple, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD, and many others fighting for supremacy -- but Samsung is reportedly making some big, and very interesting (but expected) news.

The latest is that ARM's next-gen Cortex X series CPU cores are reportedly not meeting Samsung's high expectations, with Samsung and Qualcomm "turning their plans to a custom architecture development". As it stands, Samsung and Qualcomm license the CPU cores designed by ARM -- but both companies would be silly to not design their own CPU architectures.

Samsung did precious have an in-house team designing custom CPU cores, this was codenamed Mongoose which I wrote about back in August 2015. Samsung shut this division down not long after that, licensing CPU cores designed by ARM again for all of its phones including the flagship Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Intel won't be launching its next-gen Alder Lake-S platform and new flagship Z690 chipset until later this year in Q4 2021, and then after that, we have Raptor Lake-S with the even more next-gen Z790 chipset.

Both of Intel's new Z690 and Z790 chipsets will have the same LGA 1700 socket, with the new Z790 chipset launching alongside the Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S CPUs dropping in Q3 2022. The new rumors are coming from PJ, an editor and reviewer with Uniko's Hardware.

The new Z790 chipset will support both the 12th Gen Core and 13th Gen Core CPUs, so if you buy a CPU later this year you'll be able to put it into a next-gen motherboard next year.

Up until now, we've been expecting AMD's next-gen Zen 4 architecture to have CPU cores topping out at the 96-core mark, but according to new rumors that's not the top -- 128 cores is the peak for Zen 4.

AMD's next-gen Zen 4 architecture will reportedly offer up to 128 cores and 256 threads, with the next-gen AMD EPYC "Genoa" CPUs offering up to 96 cores and 192 threads on the Zen 4 architecture. Genoa will still have 96 cores, but whatever this new CPU is, it won't be Genoa with its 128 cores and 256 threads.

A new Zen 4-powered EPYC or Threadripper CPU with 128C/256T will also support up to 12-channel DDR5-5200 memory. The current mockups of the AMD Genoa CPU have it with 12 CCDs, so a tweaked chip (and real, not the mockup) with room for 16 CCDs would unleash the 128 cores and 256 threads, up from the 96 cores and 192 threads with the 12 CCDs mockup of Genoa.

Intel's next-gen Alder Lake-S processors will reportedly be launching on October 25, 2021 according to the latest rumors.

The new "S1" processors will be launching first, with the Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" processors launching in full desktop form first -- with the new LGA 1700 socket, and 125W K-series CPUs. Most of these high-end Alder Lake-S processors will consume most of the volume "if not all" says Tom from Moore's Law is Dead, until 2022.

The flagship Core i9 processor will have 8 Golden Cove (GLC) and 8 Gracemont (GRT) cores for a total of 16 threads. The 8 Golden Cove cores are the high-performance CPU cores, while the 8 Gracemont cores are the high-efficiency cores.

Intel is working on its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU family for later this year, ushering in next-gneeration technologies like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 standards... right at the same time as Microsoft is hyping its next-gen Windows 11 operating system.

In the middle of these is Tom from Moore's Law is Dead, who has tweeted that Microsoft and Intel will be launching their new OS and CPUs "around a spooky time of the year" hinting at Halloween... which is October 31. The two companies are working closely together as they always do, with optimizations for Alder Lake built into the next-gen Windows 11.

Windows 11 will have huge scheduling upgrades, as well as many more tricks under its revised hood, that will be perfect for Intel's new Alder Lake CPUs. Intel's 12th Gen CPUs see the company moving into a new hybrid design, which will have two different architectures on the same package.

Intel's next-gen Alder Lake-S processors will arrive on the new LGA1700 socket, which is codenamed Socket V, with the new CPU package and the socket being thinner.

The new information is coming from Igor Wallossek who posted the schematics and drawings of Intel's new cooling for Socket V (LGA1700). Intel looks to be changing the z-height by at least 1mm for Socket V versus Socket H (LGA1200). The lowered z-height on Socket V will see lower loads compared to Socket H, but the new LGA1700 socket will have a new hole pattern.

There's also a tease of preliminary schematics of high-performance thermoelectric cooling, where we should expect similar for LGA1700. Intel worked with Cooler Master on the launch of its MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero cooling, which uses a Peltier effect to create a heat flux between two types of materials.

Intel has just confirmed that its next-next-gen 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" compute tile has taped in, meaning that the design is finalized and can be completed to tape out the whole chip.

Intel confirmed the news with Executive Vice President & GM of Intel's Client Computing Group, Gregory M Bryant, tweeting out that it was a "Great way to start the week! We are taping in our 7nm Meteor Lake compute tile right now. A well-deserved celebration by the team on this milestone".

The new Meteor Lake architecture should be powering Intel's next-next-gen 14th Gen Core CPUs which are expected in 2023, they will be following up the next-gen 12th Gen "Alder Lake" CPUs coming in 2022 with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support and the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs after that.

AMD has been ahead of the curve for a while now, with its chiplet-based Zen CPU architecture making waves through the industry... but the industry moves so fast it's always time for change. Well, that change comes in the form of "X3D" packaging, and it's coming to codename Milan-X.

Patrick Schur tweeted out today that AMD is "working on a new CPU" that is codenamed Milan-X that will use stacked dies. ExecutiveFix backed up the leak, saying that codename Milan-X will use X3D stacking technology and will feature the Genesis-IO die, which is the codename of the current-gen Zen 3-based EPYC architecture.

This won't be inside of your new Ryzen CPU, but rather it will be what AMD will use to fight its competitors in the data center market. AMD recently teased a simplified diagram during its Financial Analyst Day that packed four compute tiles in a 2 x 2 pattern, with stacked memory surrounding the chip. This hybrid approach is called X3D, as it combines Hybrid 2.5 and 3D stacking technologies.

AMD's next-gen Zen 4 "Raphael" LGA1718 package has been teased, this time through a new mockup that will eventually be what we'll see as the Ryzen 7000 series CPUs.

The new Raphael CPUs will reportedly have a flagship 170W TDP model, but for the most part will be 120W TDP designs. AMD will have DDR5 support with its new AM5-based motherboards, meanwhile, Intel will support DDR5 on its higher-end boards, but will offer DDR4 support on other Intel 600-series chipsets.

Zen 4 will have 28 PCIe 4.0 lanes on offer, an upgrade over the 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes on the Zen 3 series. Intel will have next-gen PCIe 5.0 connectivity on its upcoming 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" processors, which will be directly battling against AMD's new Zen 4 "Raphael" CPUs.

We last heard about AMD's next-gen Zen 4-powered EPYC processors a few months ago now back in February 2021, and now there's a new (but old) roadmap teasing Zen 4 embedded products.

The roadmap is sold old here that the Zen 3-based EPYC 7003 series processors are a "concept" yet they have already been released, so the roadmap is a few years old. On this roadmap, we can see the Zen 1-based EPYC 7001 series CPUs with their planned up to 32 cores and 64 threads meanwhile the Zen 2-based EPYC 7003 series had up to 64 cores and 128 threads.

But AMD wasn't finished there, as you can see the Zen 4-based EPYC 7004 series will have over 64 cores, with previous rumors pegging it to offer a monstrous 96 cores and 192 threads. You will also notice the new Zen 4-based EPYC 7004 series has a TDP of between 120W and 230W+ or more, while the other EPYC chips tapped out at 225W.