AMD only just announced its next-gen EPYC 'Rome' CPU last week in San Francisco during its Next Horizon event, with the new EPYC Rome CPU packing a huge 64C/128T of processor performance on the next-gen 7nm process node.

But during the Supercomputing 2018 event, the US Department of Energy announced it was working with Cray on their new Shasta Computer Blade server which will be inside of the US DoE's upcoming new supercomputer.

This new supercomputer will pack 8 of AMD's next-gen EPYC Milan CPUs on the even newer 7nm+ node, with the system broken into dual-section design with one feature copper water blocks on the EPYC Milan CPUs, while the other four EPYC Milan CPUs are on an inverted PCB, which is also water cooled. The new supercomputer will feature 64 DIMMs that can be watercooled, too.

AMD unveiled its new EPYC 'Rome' CPU last week during its Next Horizon event in San Francisco, but was silent on its CPU clock speeds at the time. But now more details have surfaced through a new presentation on the next-gen 'Hawk' supercomputer that is being co-developed between HLRS and HPE.

The new Hawk supercomputer will be one of the first to market powered by the next-gen AMD EPYC 'Rome' CPUs on 7nm, offering a huge 64C/128T at a purported base clock of 2.35GHz. If this is true, it's a decent bump from the 2.2GHz base CPU clock of the first-gen EPYC 'Naples' CPU which offered 'just' 32C/64T in comparison. The EPYC 7601 has a base CPU clock of 2.2GHz across all CPU cores, 2.7GHz boost on all CPU cores and up to 3.2GHz on single-core loads.

We could expect CPU base clocks of higher than 2.35GHz on other designs, with AMD having wiggle room moving down to the 7nm node for the second-gen EPYC 'Rome' CPUs compared to the 14nm node on the first-gen EPYC 'Naples' CPUs. The new EPYC 'Rome' CPU is also using the new Zen 2 architecture, which has its own room for improvements in IPC performance, and more over the previous-gen Zen+ architecture.

AMD has just started providing details on its next-gen EPYC processor codenamed 'Rome', which will be the industry's first server processor on the new 7nm node.

The new EPYC 'Rome' processor will be one of the first to use Zen 2 CPU cores with up to 64C/128T of CPU power at its disposal. It'll also be the first server CPU with PCIe 4.0 connectivity, which is a big deal when it can be matched with the new 7nm-based Radeon Instinct MI60.

EPYC 'Rome' will work on the existing Naples platform, meaning EPYC customers can swap out their 32C/64T first-gen EPYC and throw in a next-gen EPYC 'Rome' processor with up to 64C/128T.

We have 2x performance per socket compared to the previous-gen EPYC processor, and this is an insane leap in performance. When it comes to floating point per socket performance, it's a gigantic 4x leap over the previous generation EPYC processor.

AMD has been kicking some serious ass in the CPU world in the last couple of years leaving Intel lagging behind, until now. Intel has just announced its new Cascade Lake-powered Xeon CPUs with up to 48 cores of performance.

Intel is launching the new Xeon E-2100 processor and it comes with up to 48 cores and can be used in dual CPU configurations for 96 cores of huge performance for HPC/AI workloads. Intel is including 12 DDR4 channels for mass amounts of RAM, with 24 DIMMs on dual CPU motherboards supporting up to 3TB of RAM.

You can even configure the new Xeon CPUs with Intel Optane memory, filling 24 DIMMs of this would allow for 12TB of system memory which is just ridiculous. 96 threads of CPU power with 12TB of RAM is just... incredible. Intel is still using its 14nm process for the new Cascade Lake-based Xeon processors, while AMD is about to hit 7nm with its upcoming EPYC 'Rome' CPUs.

Update: Intel emailed me overnight, pointing me to a tweet where they said: "Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process are untrue. We are making good progress on 10nm. Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report".

Intel has been having troubles with its new 10nm process node for years and years now, and in the days after the launch of the Core i9-9900K, a new report has surfaced saying that Intel has killed off its 10nm process.

SemiAccurate is reporting that they have just learned "Intel just pulled the plug on their struggling 10nm process". The full story requires a professional level subscription to the website, but Charlie does tease us with "The knifing of 10nm shows that Intel is finally willing to do the right things for the right reasons even if it costs them some short term pain, it is the first adult decision we have seen from the company in several years. Let us walk through the reasons why it is a good thing, from cost to timetables to competitiveness to management changes to potential product roadmaps. It is not a clean, easy or pithy story to pull a sound bite from but it is interesting".

Until now, Intel was expected to launch its 10nm back in 2015, but delay after delay saw the rise of the 14nm, then 14nm+, then 14nm++, and then the quick release of mobile SKUs of 10nm CPUs. The full consumer push for 10nm was then pushed back every few months by another 6-12 months, with an eventual launch in late-2019. Charlie's new report sees Intel abandoning 10nm altogether, which makes sense considering the number of issues they're having getting it up and running.

AMD will be launching its huge 7nm launch with new EPYC processors in 2019, and a next-gen Zen 2 architecture right around the corner, all while 7nm GPUs will be unleashed in the form of Vega 20 inside of the new Radeon Instinct accelerator. AMD is about to jump leaps and bounds ahead of Intel when it comes to process node leadership, but with Intel's 10nm node reportedly axed... what's next?

AMD is expected to ramp up its fight against Intel in 2019 and beyond with the next-gen Zen 2 CPU architecture, with a fresh rumor regarding IPC improvements from Bits and Chips on Twitter.

They tweeted that the IPC improvement between the first-gen Zen+ and upcoming Zen 2 architecture, with a 13% average increase in IPC performance in "scientific tasks" with "no gaming data" provided right now. AMD would have early samples of 7nm-based Zen 2 processors right now, with data intensive applications being tested and these CPUs not being ready for gaming it makes sense for no gaming data right now.

AMD enjoyed an IPC improvement of 3% between the Zen and Zen+ refresh, but the new Zen 2 architecture takes things to the next level... so too does the 7nm process node that AMD is making the new Zen 2 chips on.

AMD's next-gen EPYC 'Rome' CPU is being made on 7nm, where we could see a huge 64C/128T that would blow Intel out of the water since their best offering is a 28C/56T processor on the 14nm++ node. We should see the next-gen Ryzen 3000 series using the new 7nm Zen 2 CPU architecture, as well as the next-gen Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series when it's announced and released in 2019.

The price of AMD's current Ryzen 7 2700X continues to get slightly cheaper with Amazon listings at $290-$295, while Intel's upcoming Core i9-9900K sits up at a huge $530... 83% more expensive. It was only yesterday that I wrote it was 66% more expensive, but now that the 2700X has dropped in price slightly, the headline has changed.

You can't buy the Ryzen 7 2700X until October 31 as it's out of stock at that price, but even Microcenter is offering the 2700X for $280. Considering the Core i5-8600K is $260, the Ryzen 7 2700X is offering some insane value for money at $290. Newegg has Intel's upcoming Core i9-9900K listed for an even more expensive $580... which is ridiculous.

AMD's current Ryzen 7 2700X at $290 (or so) means you can buy the CPU and a motherboard, and even some RAM for the cost of the 9900K. Sure, the 9900K might be the "best gaming CPU" but how many gamers really care about that when you're getting far better value for money from AMD? If you're buying a gaming machine and don't care about the cost then the Core i9-9900K is what you're going to buy, nothing will change your mind.

Intel is in the middle of a gigantic misfire in its marketing for the Core i9-9900K, something you can read about here - but what about the mainstream Core i5-9600K? This is going to be a processor that will be long debated, as it's a 6C/6T design that has some great overclocking headroom.

Chinese video streaming site bilibili has both stock and overclocked CPU performance from the upcoming Core i5-9600K under various benchmarks, with some interesting results. The Core i5-9600K is a 6C/6T processor with 9MB of L3 cache, and clock speeds that reach 4.6GHz boost under 1-core CPU loads. Intel's upcoming Core i5-9600K rocks a TDP of 95W and a retail price of $262.

Here's the rest of the CPU clock speeds:

• Base: 3.7GHz
• 1-core: 4.6GHz
• 2-core: 4.5GHz
• 4-core: 4.4GHz
• 6-core: 4.3GHz

I'm sure you've probably been reading the drama from Intel's who-knows-WTF-they're-doing benchmark data that was completed (paid job from Intel) by Principled Technologies.

PT provided benchmarks between Intel's new Core i9-9900K processor and ran them against a few of AMD's best CPUs in the form of Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, Ryzen Threadripper 2950X and the 8C/16T competing chip against the 9900K in the form of the Ryzen 7 2700X.

But what happened is that PT's data was beyond ridiculous, with the company disabling half of the Ryzen 7 2700X processor cores, destroying the memory controller with a bad RAM configuration (ridiculous timings, which drags performance down on Ryzen) and more. But the data PT provided gave Intel the marketing bragging rights of the Core i9-9900K "being up to 50 percent faster than 2700X at gaming".

Intel unveiled its next-gen 9th generation CPUs barely over 24 hours ago, in a release that includes the new Core i9-9900K and Core i9-9980XE processors as well as the new 28C/56T beast in the Xeon W-3175W processor.

But... the company contracted out the benchmarks of its new CPUs to a company called Principled Technologies, which created a white paper comparing the performance of the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-8700K, and a bunch of AMD processors including the high-end Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, 2950X, and Ryzen 7 2700X processors.

The bad thing here is that Intel is showing the AMD processors in a really bad light, where it is downright playing consumers and the world for a fool. There are multiple issues with what Intel is trying to hustle here, where it has run the Ryzen systems without XMP enabled for starters... but it gets worse from there:

• XMP disabled on Ryzen - reduces performance anywhere between 5-15%
• All benchmarks were run at 1080p on a GTX 1080 Ti, where the Ryzen CPUs don't perform well
• PT enabled "Game Mode" in AMD Ryzen Master utility - very bad for Ryzen, AMD doesn't recommend enabling it AT ALL unless its for Ryzen Threadripper