CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 141

Intel took everyone by surprise when they launched the Broadwell 5775C and 5675C desktop SKUs around Computex. The CPUs not only took the crown with the fastest desktop integrated graphics, but they also were able to overclock.

Building upon the success of their Iris Pro line with integrated eDRAM, Intel is adding eDRAM to their more affordable Iris lineup as well. For Skylake, both GT3 and GT4 integrated graphics will feature 22nm eDRAM. The eDRAM will be treated as normal system memory (instead of cache), but should prove to be beneficial for graphics performance.

While the 5775C and 5675C were both launched months ago, only recently did they start to sell. Their prices are also sky high, but we hear that there is demand for desktop CPUs with strong integrated graphics. The overclocking potential of the "C" SKUs was also low, the CPUs didn't overclock well. Intel told us that this was due to the mobile nature of Broadwell; transforming the BGA CPU to an LGA CPU proved to be cumbersome because of the eDRAM implementation and expected overclocking capabilities.

As of August 9th Intel had shipped 1 million Skylake CPUs worldwide. The new CPUs will go on sale on September 1st in Asia and in 6 weeks will be available worldwide. While Intel already launched their K series Skylake desktop SKUs last month, they are now announcing the launch of their entire introductory Skylake lineup including both desktop and mobile segments.

Intel predicts that Skylake will last approximately 4 years, meaning that we should expect even more SKUs in the future. A lot of microarchitecture information was disclosed during technical sessions at IDF and I already wrote that up here.

Skylake features a broad range of designs. The microarchitecture can scale all the way from Y-Series mobile chips (SoC) all the way to Xeons and powerful desktop models. The new lineup will feature a Y-Series for tablets and compute sticks, a U-Series for mini PCs and notebooks, an H-Series for more powerful mobile devices, and the S-Series for desktop. The desktop SKUs will maintain the same Core i3/i5/i7 naming scheme. The CoreM lineup has been further segmented into Core M3/M5/M7 to better identify performance and power packages.

Intel is about to drop the rest of its Skylake processors into the market, after the release of the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K just recently. There will be eight more processors released, but the rest of them will not be unlocked models for overclocking.

The chipmaker will be offering up 10 total SKUs, with two of them already in the wild. The remaining 8 processors will be made up of four 65W, and four 35W low TDP chips. All of these processors will slot into the new LGA 1151 motherboards using the Z170, H170 and B150 chipsets. The new Skylake-S processors are as follows:

The most noteworthy chips out of the Skylake-S lineup are definitely the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K as they are the unlocked, overclocking ready CPUs. But, the Core i7-6700 will feature a 3.4GHz frequency with 4GHz boost making it a viable alternative to the 6700K if you don't want to overclock. The 'low TDP' chips in the form of the Core i7-6700T, and the three other Core i5 processors with the 'T' moniker will be decent processors for low-power devices.

IDF 2015 - One of the new features of Intel's Skylake architecture is that it is always listening for your voice, ready for voice commands to wake your PC up, similar to how Cortana works in Windows 10, or Google's various voice-controlled features in Android.

Intel has packed a new digital signal processor (DSP) into the Skylake processors, where you can wake your PC up by talking to it. The feature was shown off at the Intel Developer Forum, where you can wake your PC up from sleep, or have a program launched - all with your voice. The chipmaker hasn't mentioned if any additional hardware will be required, obviously outside of a microphone, but integration of this technology will work perfectly in most laptops.

The question is, will people want this feature turned on by default? Do you want your Skylake-powered PC to be always listening out for your voice? What type of security is there? There are more questions being raised over security, than it being just a cool feature for Intel's new processors.

Intel only launched its Skylake-based Core i7-6700K processor just recently, with a professional overclocker already pushing it up to just under 7GHz, sitting at 6998.88MHz.

The achievement was done using an ASRock Z170 OC Formula motherboard, where Hong Kong overclocker Chi-Kui Lam used an engineering sample of the Core i7-6700K, an overclock of 74.9% from its stock frequency of 4GHz. G.SKILL provided the RAM chops with Ripjaws 4 DDR4 RAM, alongside a 1300W PSU. The processor was keeping cool under LN2, which is normally required for these insane CPU overclocks.

The Core i7-6700K at 6.9GHz was only on a single core, with the other three physical cores and the four Hyper-Threaded cores being disabled. So we're looking at a single-core 6.9GHz, which had its voltage cranked up to 1.88V, compared to the 1.2V on the stock CPU.

Samsung has been catching up and beating the likes of Qualcomm in the mobile processor race for the last year or so, but its upcoming SoC codenamed Mongoose, is shaping up to be quite the winner.

Benchmark results of the new Mongoose have leaked, making the 8-core Exynos 7420 from Samsung look like nothing in comparison. Mongoose has each of its four cores clocked at 2.4GHz, down from the eight cores on the Exynos 7420 clocked at 2.1GHz. Mongoose was run in Geekbench, where it scored 2136 in the single-core test, and 7497 in the multi-core test.

If we compare this against the Exynos 7420 with its 1486 in the single-core test and the 4970 from its multi-core test, Mongoose has some serious power to throw around. Even in its 'power-saving mode', Mongoose still beats the Exynos 7420, with 1698 and 5363 in the single- and multi-core benchmarks, respectively. We should expect Mongoose to be unveiled in the coming months, while it should be found in Samsung's handsets sometime in 2016.

Qualcomm isn't doing too well at the moment, and Samsung hasn't had a good time with its new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge sales, leaving the window open for LG to come through and dominate with its upcoming NUCLUN 2 processor.

LG's refreshed NUCLUN 2 processor is being baked onto the 16nm FinFET process and hitting mass production in 2016. But now we're got some very early performance numbers to share with you courtesy of Weibo, where it dominates the 8-core SoC from Samsung in the form of the Exynos 7420. The NUCLUN 2 scores 1796 in the single-core test versus the 1486 from the Exynos 7420. When it comes to the multi-core test, the NUCLUN 2 is capable of 5392 while Samsung's chip manages 4970.

LG's NUCLUN 2 chip has two quad-core CPUs inside of it, with one of them being a quad-core Cortex-A72 clocked at 2.1GHz while the other is a quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5GHz.

Qualcomm has been down in the dumps lately, but it looks like the Snapdragon 820 could be something exciting for the company. The upcoming chip is promising a new GPU from Qualcomm, as well as a new image signal processing (ISP) unit.

The Snapdragon 820 should pack an Adreno 5xx GPU which will offer up to 40% more performance while using 40% less power compared to the previous Adreno 430 GPU. The new 500 series GPU will also have support for 4K video at 60FPS through HDMI 2.0, meaning you can stream 4K 60FPS video to your compatible TV or monitor.

The new Spectra ISP is capable of supporting up to three cameras simultaneously and mixed with its best-in-class image quality, we can expect big things for cameras. The new ISP will see images with more natural skin tones, and a wider range of colors at up to 25-megapixels at 30FPS with no shutter lag.

Today's laptops are pretty damn powerful, where personally I use the ASUS ROG G751 gaming laptop as my personal workstation (heck, I'm typing on it right now) with a 34-inch 3440x1440 UltraWide display and a Acer XB270HU 2560x1440 144Hz G-Sync display plugged into it. But the CPUs inside are about to get a heck of a lot faster.

Intel has just unveiled the very first Xeon processor family for laptops, the E3-1500M v5, which is based on the Skylake architecture. These Xeon-powered laptops will also introduce some enthusiast and professional technologies, such as the new Thunderbolt 3 connector which supports dual 4K displays, USB Type-C, and much more from a single port.

The chipmaker isn't talking about all of the capabilities of its E3-1500M, but we do know that laptops using the Xeon processors will arrive in the fall.

We knew it was coming, but the retail packaging for Intel's upcoming Skylake processors have leaked online. We now have a legitimate look at the Core i7-6700K, and Core i5-6600K processors.

The Core i7-6700K will feature 4 physical cores and 4 HT cores to make up an 8-threaded CPU, while boasting a 4GHz clock speed, support for dual-channel DDR4 and DDR3L memory, as well as Intel HD Graphics 530. The Core i5-6600K on the other hand, features just four physical cores at 3.5GHz, without Hyper-Threading the same dual-channel DDR4/DDR3L RAM support, and Intel HD Graphics 530.