Processors - Page 104

While we've been distracted with news of AMD's upcoming Zen architecture changing up the CPU game in 2017, we're hearing more about Intel's next-gen Kaby Lake architecture and how its flagship Core i7-7700K hits 5GHz without much volts, but also reaches 100C under load.

Well, it looks like the Core i3-7350K processor could be the one to look for, with the unlocked Core i3 processor easily hitting 4.2GHz. In leaked benchmarks, the new Core i3-7350K scores 5137 in the single-core performance run of Geekbench, while it reaches 10,048 in multi-core testing. This might not sound like much, but it's Intel's new dual-core processor, beating the current-gen quad-core processor - and that's freakin' awesome.

Intel's upcoming unlocked Core i3 processor is something we've been wanting for a while, a cheaper CPU that overclocks well - giving me the feels of the Celeron 300A days. The new Core i3-7350K has a default clock of 4GHz, while it will boost up to 4.2GHz, sporting 4MB of cache and a 91W TDP.

We've been hearing a fair bit about Intel's upcoming Core i7-7700K processor, which is the first Kaby Lake CPU everyone thinks of as it's the enthusiast SKU - but we don't have much in the way of performance numbers, until now.

There are now engineering samples and compatible 200-series motherboards floating around, with 'Zolkorn' leaking out some details on the 7700K. The 7700K processor in question was overclocked easily to 4.9GHz, requiring just 1.29V of power - but when you consider the Kaby Lake enthusiast CPU was hitting 100C... you might think twice before throwing down the OC gauntlet.

You can see in this screenshot the Core i7-7700K was hitting 4901.18MHz (49 x 100), while using just 1.26V of power.

We've reported about AMD's next-gen Zen CPU that will outperform Intel's high-end Core i7-5960X, but it looks like the 8-core Summit Ridge SR7 flagship processor will be priced at $499.

AMD will launch 3 different Summit Ridge product tiers, with the high-end/enthusiast SR7 SKUs while the mid-range SR7 and entry-level SR3 SKUs will help out other markets. AMD will launch the higher-end Zen SKUs in January 2017 at CES, while the SR5 and SR3 SKUs will launch two months later in March 2017.

The next-gen SR7 will reportedly have core/turbo clocks of 3.2GHz and 3.5GHz, respectively - while we have 8 CPU cores, with 16 threads in total. There's 16MB of L3 cache joined by 4MB of L2 cache, while we have a 95W TDP. The second member in the SR7 family has the same CPU core count and TDP, but drops the clocks down to 3.0GHz and 3.2GHz for core and turbo clocks, respectively.

Intel has its exciting Core i7-7700K on the way early next year, arriving with the Kaby Lake architecture, but for the super-enthusiasts and workstation crowd, the upcoming Skylake-based Xeon family is where the fun really begins.

Intel's upcoming Skylake-EP Xeon E5 processor lineup is now being teased, with higher-end SKUs ready to blow not only your minds, but your wallets. The massive Skylake-EP Xeon E5-2699 V5 processor has 32 physical CPU cores, and a total of 64 threads. The previous-gen Xeon E5-2699 V4 processor had 22 physical CPU cores, and 44 threads.

We should expect the Skylake-EP processors to launch at around Computex 2017 (late May, early June next year). Intel will include their new Advanced Vector Instructions-512 that will increase floating point calculations and encryption algorithms, but the company has also integrated Omni-Parth Architecture that will see high-speed network and interconnects enjoy much higher speeds.

Much of the internet has rumored about what the next chip from Qualcomm might be, many people guessed it would be the Snapdragon 830, they were wrong.

The new chip from Qualcomm is a processor designed with 10nm in mind. This is the first 10nm SoC in the world, from any manufacturer, which means that Qualcomm's chips are using the leading process from their manufacturing partner. Until today, we did not know who that partner might be, but now we do.

Qualcomm has announced that they are partnering with Samsung to build their new Snapdragon 835 processor using Samsung's 10nm manufacturing process. This means that Samsung is the first in the world to hit 10nm and that they have a lead on others.

Alright... most of you will know that I'm beyond pumped for AMD and their next-gen Zen architecture, but there are some new details that have surfaced on the /r/AMD subreddit, and it has me even more excited.

Intel has been dominating the CPU world for what feels like forever, but when AMD does throw down - Thunderbird, Duron, Athlon X2 - it does it in a big way. Zen is the biggest stomping yet, with multiple things to be excited about. It looks like we can expect an 8-core/16-thread Zen CPU at around $300, which would be freakin' amazing.

Some of the bigger notes from the post is that Zen will arrive in a purported 6850K with 8 CPU cores/16 CPU threads for around $300. This is amazing if it's true, and I believe we are looking at this price bracket for Zen's higher-end SKUs. But then the tease that AMD's Hyper-Threading equivalent is something called SMU and that it's "******* good" with the "same efficiency as Intel's HT", should have everyone excited.

2017 is going to be one of the biggest years in the CPU war for the last decade, with AMD preparing its first real monster in forever with its next-gen Zen architecture, while Intel is preparing their new Kaby Lake architecture - and it looks like Intel might have a sub $180 processor up its sleeve that could really change things up.

Intel's upcoming Core i3-7350K is an entry-level processor that is unlocked and ready for some overclocking fun, but how much will the chip overclock past its 4.2GHz default clock speed.

The Core i3-7350K will feature 4.2GHz boost clocks, 4MB of L3 cache, and will be the only K-series processor in the Core i3 Kaby Lake family. We're looking at a TDP of 91W, the same as the higher-end Core i5 and Core i7 models. We should expect the Core i3-7350K to rock 4 threads of CPU power, with 2 physical cores and 2 cores courtesy of Hyper-Threading.

Intel's next-gen LGA 2066 socket has been detailed, with a tease of the upcoming Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors, which will arrive in the second half of 2017.

Both of the new CPUs will support quad-channel DDR4, and while the Kaby Lake-X processors will take care of the mid/high-end markets, the Skylake-X is going to be a new beast. Intel's Skylake-X processor will be a huge 10-core/20-thread processor with undefined clock speeds for now, and 13.75MB of L3 cache.

Not only that, but Skylake-X is expected to support 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes for multi-GPU/enthusiast systems with add-on cards for RAID, 10GbE, etc. The Kaby Lake-X PCH itself has 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 10 x USB 3.0, and 8 x USB 2.0 - but the price of the Skylake-X is expected to reach around $1500, or more.

There are a few retailers leaking the price of Intel's next-gen Kaby Lake processors, detailing the cost of the upcoming Core i7-7700K and Core i5-7600K CPUs.

Intel's flagship Core i7-7700K should be priced at $349 in the US, clocking in at 4.2GHz/4.5GHz for base/boost, respectively. We should find 8MB of L3 cache, and a TDP of 91W, with Intel tapping its 14nm Plus process.

The fastest Core i5 processor in the Kaby Lake family is the Core i5-7600K, a quad-core CPU without Hyper-Threading, still baked on the new 14nm Plus process node, with base/boost clocks of 3.8GHz and 4.2GHz, respectively. There's 6MB of L3 cache, and the same 91W TDP, while the price of the Core i5-7600K should hit $239.

AMD has an exciting year ahead of itself in both the CPU and GPU divisions, with their next-gen Vega GPU architecture set to be unveiled soon, and their upcoming Raven Ridge APU that has some surprising tech inside of it.

According to the latest report from Bitsandchips.it, AMD is working on a few Raven Ridge APUs - with the higher-end model featuring a 1024-core Vega GPU with HBM2, 16 CUs, DDR4 support, with Zen CPU cores (4 x CPU cores, 4 x - and it all arrives in TDPs of between 35-95W.

The lower-end version loses the HBM2 technology and kicks the Vega GPU from 16CUs on the high-end model, to 12 CUs on the lower-end model. The 170mm² part will have a TDP of 4-35W, with both versions of the Raven Ridge APUs being made on the 14nm FinFET process.

Intel has announced its two new Atom processor lines, with the E3900 series aimed at connected devices and wearables, while the A3900 series is for smart auto apps, reports Engadget.

Intel's new E3900 will be the main member of its IoT products, aimed at applications in many different industries, which is capable of prioritizing which processes to perform itself and which to send over to the datacenter, a strategy that's called fog computing. Intel will have its Atom E3900 series in quad-core form at up to 2.5GHz, and these chips will handle graphics on up to three screens at once.

The A3900 series has Intel aiming at the automotive industry in wide-ranging areas from in-car entertainment, digital instrument clusters, and even advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Intel won't be launching the Atom A3900 series until Q1 2017.

AMD has confirmed it will be launching its next generation Zen CPU architecture in early 2017, during the company's Q3 2016 earnings call.

Chris Hemmelgarn from Barclays asked: "With Summit Ridge launching in Q1 of 2017, I guess how would you expect the channel to ramp that? Do you see it ramping pretty fully in the first couple of quarters of the year, or are you looking for more normal PC seasonality?", to which AMD CEO Lisa Su replied: "You know, I would expect that there will be a relatively good initial demand for Summit Ridge that may be you know, not quite at the seasonal patterns".

Su added: "From where we see, Summit Ridge is playing in a space in the high-end desktop that we currently aren't offering a product. So we believe we'll be competitive certainly with Core I5 as well as Core I7 and we will be launching in those areas".

Intel's next generation Kaby Lake architecture has been teased, but we haven't seen CPUs in the wild just yet - even though there are countless leaks on the new Core i7-7700K, and the latest one is the best.

The upcoming Core i7-7700K has been overclocked on a 100-series motherboard, with it hitting 6.7GHz thanks to LN2 cooling - and considering its stock 4.2/4.5GHz clocks for base and boost, respectively - this is the fastest Core i7 CPU from the Kaby Lake family.

HKEPC is behind the Core i7-7700K overclocked to 6.7GHz, where he used an ASRock Z170M OC Formula motherboard and GALAX HOF DDR4 RAM. The multiplier on the 7700K was upped to x67, while the bus speed wasn't touched. We don't know what voltage was used, but with HKEPC using LN2, we're sure it was pretty high.

Samsung is dealing with massive issues with the halt of sales of its Note 7 smartphones after a handful of them had battery-related issues, with the number meant to not just stop with the purportedly fixed Note 7, except it didn't. Now we're hearing about the future of SoCs from Samsung, as they've just announced mass production of their 10nm FinFET process.

Executive VP and Head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics, Jong Shik Yoon announced: "The industry's first mass production of 10nm FinFET technology demonstrates our leadership in advanced process technology. We will continue our efforts to innovate scaling technologies and provide differentiated total solutions to our customers".

How does 10nm benefit us? The new 10nm FinFET LPE process uses an advanced 3D transistor structure that includes new process technology and design compared to the previous node. With Samsung shrinking down to 10nm, we'll see a 30% increase in area efficiency, as well as a 27% higher performance ratio, and 40% lower power consumption. 10nm isn't easy, with the new node being one of the smallest in mass production, Samsung used "cutting edge techniques such as triple-patterning to allow bi-directional routing are also used to retain design and routing flexibility from prior nodes".

Intel has something truly monstrous with its upcoming Knights Landing LGA 3647 socket, with Serve the Home teasing us with some pictures of the gigantic LGA 3647 socket.

The upcoming Knights Landing platform will support 6-channel DDR4 support, as well as no dual-latch system that is used on the LGA 2011 platform. Serve the Home explains that the socket and thermal designs that they have seen "do not have latching mechanisms", and instead they're seeing "solutions that secure the CPU to the heat sink".

Here we have a comparison shot of Broadwell-EP, LGA 3657 (Knights Landing), and Broadwell-DE.

Update: It seems that the benchmarks results of the Core i7-7700K might have been overexaggerated, with WCCFTech noticing that the clock speeds seem to be "completely wrong". The performance gains of the new Kaby Lake-based Core i7-7700K are much harder to put down on paper - or, er - your LCD screen - because we don't know the exact clocks. Expect more news on the 7700K as it breaks.

Intel is very close to the release of its Kaby Lake architecture, arriving in the form of the Core i7-7700K, but first we have some leaked benchmarks that tease the improvements of Intel's new 14nm+ architecture.

The upcoming Core i7-7700K performance is shaping up well, with leaked Geekbench 4 results showing that Intel has managed to pull off some great single-threaded performance improvements over Skylake, but the multi-threaded performance isn't left out in the cold. Intel's upcoming Core i7-7700K arrives with a base clock of 4.2GHz, while boost clocks will have it driving up to around 4.5GHz. Intel has slapped a 95W TDP on the Core i7-7700K, and it still uses the LGA 1151 socket.

AMD has so many different great things going on at once, with the upcoming Zen-based Snowy Owl due for consumers early next year on the Zen architecture, but the upcoming Naples CPU is shaping up well and reportedly due for a launch in Q2 2017 for the enterprise market.

The upcoming 32-core processor is based on Zen CPU cores, with 32 of them pumping away, capable of executing two threads simultaneously - so we're talking about a 64-thread CPU for the enterprise market, based on Zen CPU cores. Beasty. Leaked benchmarks of AMD's upcoming monster CPU have arrived, with an engineering sample of Naples teasing some impressive performance.

AMD's upcoming Naples engineering CPU had a base clock of 1.4GHz, boosting up to 2.9GHz, while it features an absolute titanic amount of L3 cache. AMD is throwing 512MB of L3 cache, something that is a first for the CPU industry. But does this translate into monster performance? Well, benchmarks from a few weeks ago have been improved, with the Naples CPU performing 13% better in just a few weeks.

AMD is rounding out 2016 with some big teases of its next-gen APU architectures, with Zen ready to launch in 2017, we've been hearing rumbles about the next step in their APU dominance: Gray Hawk. Gray Hawk is expected to hit the 7nm node using the Zen+ architecture, and will be released on the AM4+ socket in 2019 - but we're now hearing about the APUs that will be released between now and then.

AMD will reportedly launch Snowy Owl early next year, with the APU being aimed at the server market, based on Zen CPU cores and on the AM4 socket. After that, Horned Owl will be released into the mainstream consumer market on the same 14nm FinFET node, but on the FP5 BGA / AM4 packaging, and will arrive in 2H 2017. Banded Kestrel (seriously, these are awesome codenames, AMD) will succeed Horned Owl, and will be released in the first half of 2018 for the mainstream consumer market, using the same Zen cores as Horned Owl and Snowy Owl.

Horned Owl and Banded Kestrel are part of the mainstream APU roadmap, being manufactured by GlobalFoundries and Samsung on the 14nm FinFET process, with the Horned Owl APU succeeding Raven Ridge. Banded Kestrel is a lower tier platform that will have half the specifications and power that Horned Owl will have, but both platforms will be aiming at the embedded market on the FP5 BGA socket.

AMD has been all over the next-gen CPU game, which seems to be looking to really take off with Zen launching in 2017, but the processors that will follow in the years after will be beyond impressive.

We're now hearing about CPUs that will arrive all the way out in 2019, with a 4-core/8-thread CPU on the 7nm FinFET process using Zen+ cores would use just 10W. The graphics side of these new codenamed Gray Hawk processors will be courtesy of the next-gen Navi GPU architecture due out in 2019, which was reportedly delayed from 2018 just recently.

Gray Hawk will be released after Raven Ridge, with Raven Ridge made on the 14nm process and due sometime in mid-2017. The new Gray Hawk architecture will be used in desktops, notebooks, arcade gaming systems, embedded devices, automation, retail signage to medical imaging and industrial control systems.

Intel's new Kaby Lake architecture is so close I can smell it, with the upcoming Core i7-7700K processor already up for pre-order on an Estonian online retailer website for what equates to $402.

The specs listed on the website state the Core i7-7700K is a quad-core processor with 8 threads at 4.2GHz, but it'll hit 4.5GHz under Turbo Boost, a higher frequency than previously reported. Intel's upcoming Core i7-7700K should rock 8MB of L3 cache, and a 95W TDP, while slotting into the LGA1151 socket.

Kaby Lake will work on some current Z170-based motherboards, while newer Z270-based boards should be launching in the near future. The new Kaby Lake architecture is made on Intel's latest 14nm+ node, which provides up to 12% more performance over the older Skylake architecture made on 14nm.