CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 1

AMD has been kicking all sorts of CPU ass in the desktop CPU market against Intel, but it is about to bring the Zen pain to the gaming notebook world this year... and even coronavirus can't stop it.

Now we have some leaked goodness on an upcoming ASUS TUF Gaming notebook, which packs the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 4900H processor (45W TDP), while another option is on the table for the Ryzen 9 4900HS (35W TDP). Both of these laptops with the Ryzen 9 4900H/HS processors will have 8 cores / 16 threads of Zen 2-based CPU goodness at up to (around) 4.2GHz boost. But now, we have some pictures to share thanks to our friends at VideoCardz.

This isn't the first time we've seen the Ryzen 9 4900HS on leaks, with the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 notebook leaked, packing the Ryzen 9 4900HS processor, a 14-inch QHD display, 16GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics card with 6GB of GDDR6 memory, and a 1TB SSD.

AMD talked about its next-gen Zen 3 architecture during its recent Financial Analyst Day, which will be followed up by the Zen 4 architecture the year after.

AMD has promised that its Zen 3 architecture be introduced later this year, while consumer CPUs powered by the Zen 3 architecture will arrive in March 2021. After that, we can expect the Zen 4 architecture in 2022, where I presume we'll see them introduced sometime in 2021 after Zen 3 has been firmly planted into our hearts.

The new Zen 3 processors will arrive as next-gen Ryzen 4000 series CPUs and on the 7nm node, while the Zen 4-based Ryzen 5000 series CPUs will arrive on the newer, and smaller 5nm process. We should expect a pretty big increase in performance with the new Zen 3 architecture, unlike the upgrades over the Zen architecture with the new Zen 2 architecture.

AMD knocked Intel for a six with its 7nm node in 2019, but don't worry -- Intel has a plan up its sleeve, it just won't be able to get there until 2022 or so.

Intel CFO George Davis said during a recent conference that Intel's 10nm productivity will be less than its 22nm and 14nm nodes. But don't worry, as there is a good side to this as Intel plans to hit process parity in late 2011 with its 7nm node, while making a "stronger" process node than AMD.

Intel is aiming for 2022 where it'll have process leadership again, as it has promised 5nm chips without the +++ attached to them, at least at first. Intel says that it will be shifting from 10nm to 7nm, which is a total shocker (sarcasm) and that the jump down from 7nm to 5nm will most likely hurt Intel's gross margin, but the process leadership must be worth it for Intel to do this.

We are still just getting our toes dipped in the waters of PCIe 4.0 thanks to AMD's recent launch of the X570 chipset, and Ryzen 3000 series processors -- but PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0 are also on the way. You know the story, technology never slows down.

PCI-SIG has officially announced version 0.5 of the new PCIe 6.0 standard -- yeah PCIe 6.0, not PCIe 5.0 -- which will have an insane 8x the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 that most people are using today. PCIe 3.0 starts things off with 32GB/sec of bandwidth on a full PCIe 3.0 x16 port, while PCIe 4.0 x16 offers up to 64GB/sec.

Things start to really ramp up with PCIe 5.0 x16 with a huge 128GB/sec, but PCIe 6.0 takes things to the stars with 256GB/sec on a PCIe 6.0 x16 port. This means we're looking at a huge 8Gbps per lane of bandwidth with PCIe 6.0 -- crazy stuff, and while graphics cards won't benefit too much from it (unless things change in a big way), next-gen NVMe SSDs, networking controllers, and other technologies will suck up all that additional bandwidth easily.

AMD launched its insane Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor recently, rocking 64 cores and 128 threads but what operating system do you need to squeeze everything out of the 128-threaded CPU? AMD has the answer.

Now that reviewers have had their time with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor, a few questions have been raised -- something that saw the 128 threads on the CPU being split into two groups of 64 threads each which saw a hit on performance. This is where reviewers and enthusiasts recommended higher-end versions of Windows 10 (Windows 10 Pro for Workstations and Windows 10 Pro for Enterprise) as well as Linux.

But now AMD has come out and addressed it, saying: "We wanted to clarify that AMD officially recommends Windows 10 Professional or Linux for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. Higher editions/versions of Windows 10 confer no additional performance or compatibility benefits to the processor. We do understand that this suggestion has been made in some articles, and our team is presently testing this further, but this is the official recommendation".

A mysterious new APU from AMD has been discovered by '_rogame', with the new APU packing 8 CPU cores (no SMT so we have 8C/8T) at 4GHz and 16GB of shared memory between the RAM and VRAM (12GB RAM and 4GB VRAM).

As for the GPU that remains a total mystery for now, but what we do know is that this new APU could be anything -- anything from the Xbox Series S (Lockhart) APU for the mid-range next-gen Xbox, or it could be a successor to the Fireflight APU which powered the Subor Z+ console.

Even in its leaked form we still have benchmark scores to share, where the new APU has a 3DMark Time Spy score of 7.1K which is pretty good -- it keeps up with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X + overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics card which scores 7.3K. So while it won't blow the socks off of the Xbox Series X in terms of performance, we're looking at maybe this being the non-SMT version (whereas the Xbox Series X has the full 8C/16T chip) and thus powering the Xbox Series S / Lockhart console.

A slew of new leaks are teasing that AMD's next-gen Zen 3 architecture, Ryzen 4000-series CPUs, and new 600-series chipset are all ramping to launch towards the tail end of 2020.

Electronic Times is reporting that AMD's new 600-series chipset will support both USB 3.2 and USB 4.0, with AMD's new chipset designed to support the next-gen Zen 3 architecture and Ryzen 4000 series processors. We should expect large IPC gains with the new Zen 3 processors, which will continue to see AMD excel in the CPU market.

AMD will have a flagship X670 chipset, something that will continue to support he AM4 socket and PCIe 4.0 standard, but we could also see native Thunderbolt 3 support included. Other rumors do state that AMD could shift away from the AM4 socket, but that would be a big shift -- it would end backwards compatibility, but it could introduce new tech like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 standards going forward.

Intel is reportedly preparing a monster new HEDT processor on its 10th-gen Copper Lake family of CPUs, but this is heavy rumor territory folks.

The new CPU would be a monster 22-core/44-thread processor with an even more monstrous 380W TDP, with ComputerBase reporting from their sources that Intel is considering the use of XCC-Die on the LGA2066 socket (Xtreme Core Count).

LGA2066 has (at least until this new mysterious CPU arrives) had HCC (High Core Count) dies, but this could all change with a huge 22C/44T chip. Motherboard manufacturers also reportedly confirmed the rumors on the show floor of CES 2020, but once again -- this is all just rumor mill chatter, for now.

It looks like Intel will be finding itself in some (extremely) hot water with its upcoming Comet Lake-S family of CPUs with the new flagship 10-core/20-thread model packing some heat.

ComputerBase sat down with motherboard makers on the CES show floor, talking about Intel's upcoming 14nm-based Comet Lake-S processors. The site was told that motherboard makers have their Z490 boards ready to go, but Intel is holding everything back.

Intel's new Comet Lake-S will span an entire range of processors from Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and the flagship Core i9. But it's the high-end model that might be in serious trouble, with ComputerBase: "Several motherboard manufacturers revealed that the 10-core breaks the 300-watt mark at maximum load. Not surprisingly, the 9900KS already exceeded the 250-watt mark in scenarios of this kind".

CES 2020 - Intel didn't have too much to show during its CES 2020 keynote compared to AMD, which came out swinging with its 64-core/128-thread Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor, super-powered Ryzen 4000 series mobile CPUs, and the new mid-range Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card.

But what Intel did have to show off was a new range of next-gen Tiger Lake CPUs, new chips that will be made on the 10nm node and pack twice the graphics power of the previous-gen offerings from Intel. Intel teased a Tiger Lake-powered thin-and-light gaming laptop playing some games, but weren't detailed in what resolution, or detail level it was playing in.

We do know that Tiger Lake CPUs will have Intel Xe GPU cores -- and while we're talking about Xe, Intel showed off some Destiny 2 gameplay on its DG1 discrete graphics card. It was very brief, and had even less detail than the Tiger Lake show off -- but there we have it. Tiger Lake CPUs teased for later this year, and our first 'demo' of DG1 at CES 2020.