CPU, APU & Chipsets - Page 144

Computex 2017 - AMD might not have Radeon RX Vega anywhere near ready for consumer and gamers' consumption, but that didn't stop them from unleashing their new ThreadRipper CPU at Computex.

AMD detailed their new ThreadRipper in Taipei, announcing it has a whopping 16C/32T of CPU performance, 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes (more on why this is the most important part in a minute), quad-channel DDR4 support, and their new X399 chipset for HEDT.

The new X399 chipset supports 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes which is perfect for 2/3/4-way GPU setups (4-way Radeon RX Vega anyone?!) and the world of M.2 SSDs that use those precious PCIe lanes. Not only that, but we have quad-channel DDR4 support with up to 8 x DIMMs on high-end motherboards.

Computex 2017 - Intel has just launched its new HEDT offensive with the introduction of the new Core i9-7980XE processor offering 18C/36T of CPU performance for a whopping $2000.

Intel's upcoming Core i9-7980XE will have 18C/36T of CPU performance at a yet unknown frequency, but their new 10C/20T chip in the Core i9-7900X sees a base clock of 3.3GHz, Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.3GHz, and scales right up to 4.5GHz under Turbo Boost Max 3.0 tech.

The new Core i9 Extreme processor will feature support for Intel's AVX-512 instruction set, Turbo Boost Max 3.0, 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes, quad-channel DDR4 support at up to DDR4-2666, rebalanced Intel Smart Cache hierarchy, and support for Intel's Optane memory.

At Computex 2017, ARM announced two new CPUs and a new GPU to update their product line for devices coming in 2018. ARM always announces their newest processors ahead of time because their customers, the chip makers, need to build the chips with those new processors.

The two new CPUs that ARM has announced are the Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 which are supposed to replace the Cortex-A73 and A53 in smartphones today. ARM says that their 'big' processors like the A75 will get refreshes once every year while the smaller or 'LITTLE' CPUs will get refreshes every 2-3 years, like we are seeing now with the A55.

The interesting part about these new processors other than the obvious performance and power improvements is that ARM's CPU cores can now be configured in a single cluster in odd numbers like 1 + 7 or 2 + 5 which wasn't possible before. ARM's new DynamIQ technology helps to make these new cluster combinations possible. These combinations can also be made within a single cluster of cores rather than multiple clusters as long as they are under 8 cores total. More clusters are possible, but most people will rarely see over 8 in a smartphone.

When we first reported that AMD would be calling its now current-gen processors Ryzen, the name just didn't stick at first - but here we are, with a slew of Ryzen processors that are starting to make Intel squirm.

But according to a new trademark filing, it looks like AMD is working on new products called Kyzen, Aragon, Pharos, Promethean, Zenso, and CoreAmp. All of these product names were trademarked in March, with a few of them already released. What can we expect from these new, interestingly named AMD products?

Well, Kyzen sounds just like Ryzen - so maybe this is a new CPU from AMD, or maybe even a new APU. I have a 'cryo' feel from Kyzen, so maybe we're looking at a heavily overclockable Ryzen processor that will be released as Kyzen? Who knows. Next up we have Aragon - very Lord of the Rings. Promethean will most likely end up as a chipset, as AMD named their Ryzen chipset Promontory - with Promethean being very close to that.

Intel is preparing its 10C/20T processor to directly compete against AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X and their upcoming ThreadRipper CPUs that will feature 16C/32T of CPU power, but Intel could have it in the bag with its Core i9-7900X.

According to new benchmarks, the Core i9-7900X will be clocked at 3.3/4.3GHz for base/boost, respectively. This is a huge deal for Skylake-X, as the IPC performance at 4.3GHz and 10C/20T of power should pummel every other CPU into dust. Better yet, SiSoft's benchmark picked up the CPU as 4.0GHz base clock and 4.5GHz boost, which would be absolutely insane - especially for a 10-core processor.

We should expect 13.75MB of L3 cache, 1MB L2 cache per core (10MB total), and a 175W TDP for the upcoming Core i9-7900X. We should expect Intel to unleash its new Skylake-X parts at Computex next week, alongside the new X299 chipset and a slew of new motherboards.

Intel has been on the CPU offensive since AMD launched their new Ryzen platform, and now we're hearing about their next-gen Xeon Scalable Platform, otherwise known as Cascade Lake.

Cascade Lake was shown off during the SAP Sapphire conference, with Intel teasing that its next-gen platform will arrive in 2018. Cascade Lake-SP is the Skylake-SP refresh, with Intel tapping the 14nm+ node. Cascade Lake will support up to a mammoth 6TB of Optane DIMMs, which is a huge plus for Intel.

Intel has teased: "Intel persistent memory will allow users to improve system performance dramatically by putting more data closer to the processor on nonvolatile media, and do it in an affordable manner. This will truly be a game-changer when it comes to the way applications and systems are designed".

Google has just unveiled its second-generation tensor processor, something that packs 45 TFLOPs of performance per chip, with four of them placed onto a tensor processor unit (TPU) module for a total of 180 TFLOPs.

The massively powerful systems are built for machine learning and artificial intelligence, and Google is pushing it into the cloud with their TPU-based computational powerhouse systems to be made available to Google Cloud Compute later this year. Google's first-gen Tensor processors were already 15-30x more powerful, and a huge 30-80x more power efficient than CPUs and GPUs for these types of workloads.

These new TPUs are "optimized for both workloads, allowing the same chips to be used for both training and making inferences. Each card has its own high-speed interconnects, and 64 of the cards can be linked into what Google calls a pod, with 11.5 petaflops total; one petaflops is 1015 floating point operations per second", reports Ars Technica.

AMD is really kicking Intel in the shins with its Ryzen CPU family, teasing that it's next-gen ThreadRipper processor will be launching in Summer 2017 - and will be officially detailed at Computex.

ThreadRipper will feature up to 16C/32T of CPU performance, with AMD "targeting the world's fastest ultra-premium desktop systems in an all-new HEDT platform".

I reached out to Founder & Principal Analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy, Patrick Moorhead, where he told us: "AMD's Threadripper willl be unique in the market and could easily garner over $1,000. I don't expect Intel to follow tit for tat, thread to thread, but rather on other merits like single core performance".

We've been hearing a few rumors on Intel's next-gen Core i9 family of processors, but now we have benchmarks of the new Core i9-7920X which rocks a 12C/24T design.

Intel's upcoming Core i9-7920X will reportedly feature 12C/24T with somewhere around 4GHz boost CPU clocks, with 16.5MB of L3 cache, 44 PCIe lanes, and 140W TDP. This chip was benchmarked against Intel's 10C/20T offering in the Core i9-7900X with its 3.3/4.0GHz base/boost clocks with 13.75MB of L3 cache, and the same PCIe lanes and TDP.

I put all of the scores into one of our benchmark templates, so you can see the scores in a much easier to understand way. As you can see the Core i9-7920X really is a monster, with the multi-core test score pushing 1760, leaving the Core i7-6950X in its rear view mirror, and the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X in its dust.

We have been hearing about this silent monster that AMD has with 16C/32T of CPU performance, something that has been referred to as ThreadRipper and is launching in June. Now we're hearing that AMD will have 10/12/14/16 core versions, meaning we'll have CPUs with 10C/20T, 12C/24T, 14C/28T, and 16C/32T.

ThreadRipper will be compatible with a modified version of AMD's current SP3 socket, something that's codenamed SP3r2, and was designed for AMD's upcoming Naples server platform. AMD's new Whitehaven platform will provide quad-channel DDR4 with 44 PCIe lanes for multi-GPU users, enthusiasts and workstation users.

Better yet, we know the names of AMD's new ThreadRipper processors with a rather large purported list of Ryzen 9 processors.