CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 1

You can already buy Intel's next-gen flagship Core i9-12900K processor on the black market for $1000+ but what about benchmarks? Another day has passed, and more news on Intel's next-gen "Alder Lake-S" CPUs are here this time in the form of benchmarks.

The new Core i9-12900K in its Qualification Sample (QS) form is already faster than AMD's current-gen Ryzen 9 5950X processor, with early benchmark results comparing Alder Lake vs Zen 3 in Cinebench R20. In the single-threaded Cinebench R20 benchmark, the new Core i9-12900K processor is 26% faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X, while in multi-threaded tests it's 11% faster.

This is super, super early so don't go judging the performance from these leaked benchmarks of a Qualification Sample CPU that is months away from being released. Intel's new Core i9-12900K will feature 8 high-performance "Golden Cove" cores and 8 high-efficiency "Gracemont" cores -- for a total of 16 cores and 24 threads. The smaller high-efficiency cores do not have Hyper-Threading (HT).

Intel has confirmed that its next-gen "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon CPUs would have HBM, and now we're hearing that AMD will be upgrading its Zen 4-based EPYC "Genoa" CPUs with HBM.

The news is coming from Inpact-Hardware, which is reporting that they've got sources that tell them an HBM-powered version of AMD's next-gen EPYC Genoa CPUs is being planned. Inpact-Hardware reports: "There is indeed a recurring question of an HBM version of Zen 4 among partners, but for the moment nothing seems definitively decided on this subject. The manufacturer could indeed reserve such a solution for certain customers or ultimately prefer a variation with 3D V-Cache".

Intel is still a few months away from unleashing its next-gen 12th Gen Core CPUs with the new Alder Lake-S platform coming in October 2021 according to the latest reports -- with qualifying samples leaking out onto the CPU black market for $1064.

The new Intel Core i9-12900K processor can be purchased for anywhere between $1064 and $1157 on the "Chinese black market". VideoCardz reports that it has confirmed these Core i9-12900K processors are indeed Qualification Samples and the major reason why sellers wouldn't want to post pictures of their super-secret CPUs.

The new Intel Core i9-12900K QS processor clocks in at up to 5.3GHz on its big cores and 3.7GHz on the small cores, with power limits of 125W for PL2 and up to 228W for PL2. Inside, the new Core i9-12900K will have 8 high-performance Golden Cove cores and 8 high-efficiency Gracemont mini cores.

AMD is reportedly going to unleash its new codename Chagall CPU later this year, a new Zen 3-based range of Ryzen Threadripper CPUs with up to 64 cores and 128 threads.

We've been hearing more and more on the new AMD codename Chagall lately, but now Tom from Moore's Law is Dead is providing some more detailed information on the new CPUs. Tom says that the new Chagall CPU will have up to 64 cores with the Ryzen Threadripper 5995X processor, and will launch in November 2021.

The new Ryzen Threadripper 5995X (and other Threadripper 5000 series CPUs) will have quad-channel DDR4-3200 RAM support, 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes in total, and should be more expensive than the Zen 2-based Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series CPUs but Tom points out that "exact pricing isn't finalized yet".

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) isn't stopping, with the latest news teasing the semiconductor giant would build even more factories in the US -- and a new fab in Japan.

TSMC confirmed it would be expanding its production capacity in China, but also teased that it could kick off a "second phase" expansion of its US operations, a new factory worth $12 billion in Arizona, USA. TSMC is also looking at the possibility of opening up a specialty technology wafter plant in Japan, which comes at a very interesting time.

China has said that it would take Taiwan by force if it needed to, and more recently the CCP military warned that it would drop nuclear bombs continuously on Japan if they interfered with China in any way, shape, or form. China could simply invade Taiwan and gain control of TSMC, something that was being discussed just a couple of months ago.

Intel is reportedly preparing a new family of Xeon CPUs with the new Xeon W-3300 series, with its flagship model packing 38 cores and 76 threads to better fight AMD's chiplet onslaught with the Ryzen Threadripper PRO family of processors.

The new Intel Ice Lake Xeon workstation CPUs would pack more CPU cores and threads, more cache, a new architecture that's based on the 10nm process node, more I/O and memory support, and more. We have the LGA 4189 socket, with Xeon W-3300 series CPUs coming in at up to 270W TDP.

We have 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes so you can throw in multiple Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer SSDs and a couple of high-end GPUs and still have PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare. There's also 8-channel DDR4-3200 memory support, which will offer support for up to 4TB of system RAM.

Samsung's next-gen Exynos 2200 mobile processor is in the works, and according to the latest leaks, we're to expect the next-gen SoC to use AMD's next-gen codename Voyager GPU based on the RDNA 2 architecture.

The new rumor is that Samsung's next-gen Pamir SoC will be built on the new 4nm process, with the GPU side of things in the form of the Voyager GPU built with Samsung and AMD working together on the mobile GPU based on the RDNA 2 architecture.

We're to expect Samsung's next-gen SoC with the mobile RDNA 2 architecture to debut in early 2021, which will compete against Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon 895 which is expected to use the ARM-based Adreno 730 GPU, and also made on 4nm node from Samsung.

AMD won't be offering more CPU cores on its next-gen Zen 4 desktop CPUs according to the latest leaks, with the flagship Zen 4 desktop processor having 16 cores max.

The current-gen Zen 3-based Ryzen 9 5950X processor has 16 cores and 32 threads, with previous rumors teasing a flagship Zen 4 desktop processor would have 24 cores and 48 threads. Patrick Schur on Twitter tweeting that Raphael would have up to 16 cores, up to 170W TDP, and made on 5nm.

AMD's next-gen Zen 4 processors will be made on TSMC's new 5nm fabrication node, with future Ryzen 6000 series CPUs support next-gen DDR5 memory as well as the first with the new IHS design for the LGA1718 socket codenamed AM5.

Intel has announced that it will be updating us on their process and packaging roadmaps, with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger set to provide more details on July 26 during the just-announced Intel Accelerated webcast.

The upcoming Intel Accelerated webcast will have Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joined by Senior Vice President and General Manager of Technology Development, Dr. Ann Kelleher, where we'll find out about Intel's process and packaging roadmaps. Intel will have its next-gen 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs on its in-house 10nm Enhanced SuperFin technology, but we'll know more details on this on July 26.

Intel's first 7nm CPU will be its next-gen Meteor Lake, which is the 14th Gen Core CPU -- we're at the 11th Gen Core CPU right now (with the flagship Core i9-11900K) while the Alder Lake architecture drops with the 12th Gen Core and then 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" will drop before the 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPUs on 7nm.

AMD launched the flagship Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3995WX processor earlier this year, with its 64 cores and 128 threads of CPU power costing $5489 -- but there's the new Ryzen Threadripper 5000 series "Monster Truck" CPUs now launching in August 2021 -- just weeks away.

The latest rumor teases AMD will launch the Ryzen Threadripper 5000 series codenamed "Chagall" CPUs in August, based on the new Zen 3 (possibly Zen 3+) architecture and some tweaks to its xGMI (Inter-Chip Global Memory Interconnect) speeds from 16GT/s to 18GT/s.

Other than that, we're still looking at the same CPU core count, the same N7 node over at TSMC, the same DDR4 memory support and TDP (280W max).