Processors - Page 85

AMD has had a busy year so far, launching its new Radeon VII on 7nm with 16GB of HBM2, and then came the Ryzen 3000 series launch powered by the exciting new Zen 2 architecture also on 7nm.

Just a couple of days ago AMD continued its winning streak with the release of its next-gen EPYC Rome CPUs, with up to 64C/128T of power that demolish Intel's current, and most likely next-gen offerings. The Zen 2 architecture powers the new EPYC processors, and now that it's here it's time for the Zen 3 hype train to begin.

AMD will be doing some exciting things with the Zen 3 architecture, something that will include the shift to 7nm EUV process which paves the way for even denser transistor counts, and could deliver even better power efficiency and higher CPU clock speeds. Better yet, Zen 3 could rock new ISA instruction sets.

On the eve of AMD's launch of its EPYC Rome CPUs, competitor Intel has announced that its future Intel Xeon Cooper Lake family of CPUs will have server versions with up to 56C/112T of power.

Intel detailed the future of its Xeon Scalable platform at its Data-Centric Innovation Summit that it's bringing its 56C/112T Xeon Platinum 9200 family to Cooper Lake. The reason? For the new bfloat16 instructions mixed with the high 28-core count CPU as well as the new Cooper Lake CPUs being socketed versus BGA only.

This means the new Xeon Platinum 9200 family on Cooper Lake is on the LGA4189 socket -- the same as the upcoming Ice Lake CPU coming after Cooper Lake. The new Xeon Platinum 9200 chips will have 8-channel DDR4 support and TDPs of up to

Intel has just announced a slew of new 10th-gen CPUs and will pack the most powerful integrated graphics in any thin-and-light notebook PC, which is a bold claim considering the power that Qualcomm throws around with Snapdragon 8cx.

We have 11 processors in total with most of the spread of CPUs packing 4C/8T, with TDPs of 9W, 15W, and 28W. We're looking at CPU clocks between 700MHz and 2.3GHz, while 4.1GHz is the peak single-core turbo frequency.

Intel will be including an improved GPU with either 32, 48, and 64 EUs with up to 1GHz GPU clocks, as well as Wi-Fi 6 (which is great to see), up to 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

We all know that since AMD had launched the Ryzen 3000 series, there would be non-X model CPUs coming eventually. If the recent posting by EEC is to be believed, we may be seeing many new models showing up very soon.

EEC lists several models which are ranging from the top end to the more midrange, along with several Ryzen PRO models which will be added to the stack. Now, this is a translation of the EEC listing, but being the way the data is listed and the information available, it lends a bit of credence to the listing being an excellent lead to what we may see launching soon.

The EEC listing shows many new models, which if following the European standard would be 7/8/2019. If the EEC is using USA standard, it will be 8/7/2019 as far as the listed 'notification registration date.' We cannot be sure as of the time of this posting if that means we may see an official announcement of new models within the next nine days. But, with what AMD has pulled off with Ryzen 3000 thus far, nothing would surprise me.

AMD's new Ryzen 3000 series has released with significant fanfare and some excellent performance. However, like any considerable platform launch, it also was shaken with several issues from improper throttling to incorrect reading and even select games not wanting to start at all. The latter is the case with Destiny 2 which players were understandably upset and lambasted AMD for a fix as soon as the issue was discovered.

AMD's Robert Hallock has been a beacon of knowledge for AMD users on social, especially Reddit, where this very story broke.

Robert took to the community with the strong messaging that AMD is serious about making the best experience possible. With that in mind, once AMD learned of the issue, their driver team got to work on a chipset driver to tackle the Destiny 2 issues.

Intel has released the latest drivers for its integrated graphics, and inside there is a nice surprise: a tease of its upcoming Xe-branded GPUs in the form of DG1 and DG2 codenames.

The 'DG' in both DG1 and DG2 should mean discrete graphics, while there is one variant of the DG1 and 3 variants of the DG2. The variants are broken into LP and HP could mean low-powered and high-powered, but it could also mean low-profile and high-profile... maybe.

Inside of the DG2 family there are three different numbers: 128, 256, and 512 -- this could be the EUs, or execution units. The DG1 variant seems to be the higher-end of the four SKUs.

AMD has been pumping its new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs into the market, based on the new Zen 2 architecture and 7nm node, but where are the third-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs? First we thought they were axed, but then the glimpses of a monster 64C/128T next-gen Ryzen Threadripper started... and now they're back again.

The Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series CPUs has turned up in a UserBenchmark result as a 16C/32T part as codename Castle Peak, with 3.6/4.0GHz base and boost CPU clocks, respectively. This is an engineering sample so CPU clocks are generally lower and will improve before the CPU is in its final, and retail stages.

Even in engineering form the new Castle Peak-dubbed 16C/32T chip offers an overall performance increase of 11% in single-core tests compared to a Ryzen Threadripper 2950X and up to 18% more in multi-threaded tests. It is about identical with the Ryzen 9 3900X in single-core tests and 35% faster in multi-core.

AMD is kicking all sorts of ass right now, so much so that I'm sure Lisa Su is changing her shoes a few times a day -- and especially so in major Asian markets where AMD has crossed the 50% market share line.

Danawa is one of the largest retailers in South Korea with its internal firm Danawa Research seeing AMD Ryzen CPUs overtake Intel Core CPU market share in the last few days, with the surge across 50% thanks to Zen 2 chips launching on 7/7. The most popular CPU was the Core i5-9400F followed closely by the new Ryzen 7 3700X, while the Ryzen 5 3600X had slightly less, and the high-end Ryzen 9 3900X being surprisingly popular with more sold than the Core i5-9600K for July 6-11.

Then we have some data from BCN Ranking which uses data from major outlets in Japan that AMD has crossed the milestone 50.5% market share, Intel has fallen from grace in Japan where it did dominate in October 2018 with 72.1% and is now sitting at just 49.5% in July 2019.

AMD's next-gen Zen 5 architecture has been teased once again, popping up on the LinkedIn profile of David Suggs, the CPU architect on Zen 2 and Zen 5. Suggs lists "Chief architect for Zen2 and Zen5, high-performance x86 micro-processor cores". Makes it kinda obvious, yeah?

We shouldn't expect Zen 5 to pop up until at least 2022, as we have Zen 3 and Zen 4 in between that with Zen 3 coming on the 7nm+ node. AMD has already launched Zen 2 into the market on 7nm (our review here), with Zen 3 launching in 2020 on 7nm+ so we should expect Zen 4 in 2021 at that rate, leading into Zen 5 in 2022. But what architectural changes will there be between each Zen chip? Will it be on the 5nm node?

Nothing is known about the architectural improvements that Zen 3 will bring let alone Zen 4 and Zen 5, but if it's anything like the difference Zen 2 on 7nm is to Zen and Zen+ on 14nm then we're in for a wild ride over the next couple of years.

A perfectly timed leak of Intel's new 10th-gen CPUs has hit with an exciting line up of 'Comet Lake' CPUs that will fall into 13 different chips, and will act as yet another refresh that will add on another plus bringing it up to a 14nm+++ node, up from the 14nm++ from the Coffee Lake refresh. Anyway, check them out:

You'll notice the flagship Core i9-10900KF (these names feel out of control now, Intel) which will arrive as a monster 10C/20T chip with a maximum single-core boost clock of 5.2GHz and all-core boost of 4.6GHz. It'll have 20MB of Intel Smart Cache, a 105W TDP, and come in at $499. The Core i7-10700K is an 8C/16T chip with 5.1GHz single-core boost and 4.8GHz all-core boost, with a 65W TDP and integrated graphics for $398.

Intel's new 10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs will reportedly come on a new LGA 1159 socket with new Z490 motherboards, and support DDR4-3200 natively. Intel will continue on its 10nm node meaning this is yet another refresh, with the 14nm+++ node to surely be the butt of many jokes in the 10th-gen CPU reviews. Especially when everyone will be writing 10 so much considering its the 10th generation Core CPU family, with the 10-series CPUs constantly being referred to, yet the 10nm node is nowhere to be seen. 14nm+++ still... interesting, Intel.

I'm sure you might be aware by now but AMD launched its next-gen Ryzen 3000 series CPUs in the last 24 hours (with our review here), with news quickly following that the company had teamed with gaming peripheral giant Razer to bring Razer Chroma lighting support to Ryzen CPU fans.

The new third-gen Ryzen 7 and 9 Wraith Prism fans now pack support for Razer Chroma RGB lighting, which means if you own any Razer Chroma-capable products all of the lighting can be easily controlled by Razer's in-house Synapse software. This means that AMD Ryzen gamers (at least with Zen 2 chips) that have Razer gaming keyboards, mice, mouse pads or headsets will enjoy synced RGB lighting goodness.

Another added benefit of this is that the AMD Wraith Prism HSF is not a pile of junk, it's actually a decent performer that already looks great, and with Razer Chroma support just became that little bit cooler. Yeah, I went there.

AMD is about to launch its next-gen Ryzen 3000 series CPUs and there's good news for overclockers and enthusiasts: CPU binning service Silicon Lottery has announced it will have binned versions of Ryzen 3000 series CPUs later this month.

For those who aren't aware of what a 'binned' processor is, a 'binned' CPU is something that a company or person buys and tests out to hand pick the very best overclockers. This means said service has to buy a bunch of CPUs in order to test them all out, finding out which ones have the best OC headroom, thus there is a premium attached to speed binned chips -- this is where Silicon Lottery comes into play.

Silicon Lottery will have binned versions of the upcoming Ryzen 7 3700X, Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 9 3900X on July 13, but the higher-end and kinda ridiculous (but in a really good way) Ryzen 9 3950X will be available sometime in the future with no current ETA. The company hasn't unveiled any pricing just yet, but with these new Zen 2-based CPUs being the latest and greatest on the market, I'm sure numbers will be tight and highly binned versions of these processors could be a little expensive. We'll know soon.

We all know Intel is suffering in the resurgence from AMD in its Ryzen CPUs, but its upcoming Ryzen 3000 series based on the next-gen Zen 2 architecture and 7nm process are going to hurt Intel even more.

Fast forward to now and we have a post on an employee-only portal called "AMD competitive profile: Where we go toe-to-toe, why they are resurgent, which chips of ours beat theirs". The post was written by Walden Kirsch and is part of "the latest in a Circuit News series on Intel's major competitors". Kirsch noted that AMD's recent strategic re-focus on high-performance desktop, datacenter and server markets.

AMD championing towards the new 7nm node with TSMC has helped in a big way, but Kirsch also notes the public wins of cloud systems, next-gen Zen 2, and more that will "amplify near-term competitive challenge from AMD". AMD sees competitive threads from 7nm-based EPYC Rome CPUs for the server and datacenter markets while Matisse will mop up the desktop CPUs under the Ryzen 3000 series.

Microsoft already taps semi-custom silicon from AMD for its current-gen Xbox consoles, and its next-gen Project Scarlett consoles that will soon expand the Xbox family in 2020... but what about AMD silicon inside of Surface products? That seems like it could happen, soon.

According to the latest rumors, Microsoft is working on a new AMD-powered Surface laptop that would drop the proprietary Surface Connect with the much more open USB-C port. Inside of the new Surface laptop is reportedly an AMD Picasso SoC on the 12nm node which will see Microsoft reduce its dependency on Intel for CPUs inside of its Surface products. The AMD Picasso SoC would feature Zen+ CPU cores (not Zen 2, and not 7nm) with Vega GPU cores.

On top of that, Microsoft is also reportedly working with Qualcomm on custom ARM-based silicon for codename Excalibur, a new Surface Pro that the silicon sounds like the Snapdragon 8cx, and some. Expect full 5G connectivity, and so much more on Excalibur. We'll keep you up to date on the new AMD silicon inside of the new Surface laptop as it happens.

AMD is about to unleash an onslaught of EPYC server CPUs with its new EPYC 7000 series processors about to drop -- built on the exciting new Zen 2 architecture and baked on the fresh 7nm node. We're looking at between 8C/16T through to an incredible 64C/128T on a single CPU socket... but what about pricing?

According to a post on Reddit, a list of SKUs coming in the AMD EPYC 7000 range from 2Compute mean we're to expect 19 new CPUs ranging from 8C/16T, adding 4 or 8 cores along the way through to a whopping 64C/128T. HotHardware compiled a list of specs and approximate price conversions between the listed EU price and into USD which we've got below.

If we compare that against Intel's best Xeon Platinum 8180 which is a 28C/56T processor (2.5-3.8GHz with a 205W TDP) which costs $10,000 -- AMD has it in the bag with the core/thread game and EPYC. The upcoming Intel Xeon Platinum 9282 will have 56C/112T will have clocks of between 2.6-3.8GHz but a huge TDP of 400W, with price estimates putting it in the $20,000 or higher bracket -- insanity compared to the less-than-$8000 for the 64C/128T offering in EPYC 7742.

I caused quite the flurry when I first reported that Intel was reacting to the impending launch of AMD's new Ryzen CPUs over two years ago now, and fast forwarding to now has seen the entire CPU market change. AMD is about to launch the world's first consumer 7nm CPU, with a range of actually very kick ass Ryzen 3000 processors based on the new Zen 2 architecture.

Well, now it seems Intel is going to reportedly drop the price of its desktop CPUs by 15% in a response to AMD's new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs that are launching on 7/7. DigitTimes is reporting that the new 9th-gen Intel Core CPUs would see a 10-15% price drop which would see somewhere between $25 and $75 being shaved off of CPUs like the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, and Core i5-9600K.

We're another day closer to the launch of AMD's next-gen Ryzen 3000 series CPUs and today brings yet another leak on multi-threaded benchmark performance with a new listing in the Geekbench database on the Ryzen 7 3800X.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 3800X spits out a multi-core score off 34,059 which is much higher than the 25,092 by the Ryzen 7 2700X, and it easily beats both the Intel Core i7-9700K and its 28,404 and even the flagship Core i9-9900K with 31,471. In the single-core tests Intel reigns supreme with its 9900K scoring 6236 and the 9700K with 6155, while the 3800X snags 5406 and the 2700X with 4860.

A refresher for what AMD is promising in terms of gaming performance with the Ryzen 7 3800X versus the Core i9-9900K from their recent Next Horizon Gaming event in LA.

Intel let out quite the surprise today with its new Intel Performance Maximizer, a new on-click overclocking tool that currently supports 9th-gen CPUs for now and takes the hassle out of overclocking for those who don't want to bother about it in the BIOS.

The new Intel Performance Maximizer is available right now and supports the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, and the Core i5-9600K. Intel is also supporting the 'KF' versions of each of the CPUs, and I'm sure that in the coming weeks and months we'll see oodles of more CPUs supporting Intel Performance Maximizer. The new tool makes it super-easy for anyone to literally click a few buttons and have their CPU overclocked.

For those who want to squeeze absolutely everything out of their CPU, the new Intel Performance Maximizer won't stop you from going into the BIOS before booting into Windows and manually overclocking your CPU. This is kind of like the old days with the Turbo button on the front of the rig. Except, in software form. It is very similar to what AMD has done with its Ryzen Master Software suite, and will be important for Intel going forward, too.

I had some interesting conversations with multiple industry sources in the last couple of weeks across my two weeks at various shows (Computex, AMD Next Horizon Gaming, E3 2019, and something secret) but there were a few interesting things said about Ryzen Threadripper.

In previous rumors it seemed the fate of the next-gen Threadripper was looking bad, but these sources - and now WCCFTech as well, have confirmed that a new HEDT part is indeed in the works. My sources didn't talk about the chipset, but did confirm a next-gen Threadripper is indeed coming whereas WCCFTech has said the X599 chipset will launch with the third-gen Threadripper.

AMD's third-gen Ryzen Threadripper will roll out on the 7nm node powered by the new Zen 2 architecture, while rocking up to a huge 64 cores and 128 threads. This means we're looking at EPYC 'Rome' territory, so expect the price to be pretty epic, too.

AMD barely announced its next-gen Ryzen 3000 series and new X570 boards touting the first PCIe 4.0 specification, so PCI-SIG decided to announce the next-generation PCIe 5.0 specification doubling the bandwidth from the already next-gen PCIe 4.0 standard.

PCIe 4.0 arrives with X570 boards and will be capable of 64GB/sec on a x16 slot, while PCIe 5.0 will come through and double that up to 128GB on a new PCIe 5.0 x16 slot -- all the while PCIe 3.0 delivers 32GB/sec on a full x16 slot. We won't see massive advancements in the graphics card side of things for gamers from this massive increase in bandwidth, but NVMe/Optane SSDs will get a HUGE kick in the ass in terms of bandwidth.

We are already seeing up to 4GB/sec on a PCIe 3.0-based M.2 SSD at x4, so imagine this doubling to up to 8GB/sec on PCIe 4.0 and a huge 16GB/sec on PCIe 5.0 x4. Yeah, 16GB/sec from your SSD. If you thought the PCIe 4.0-based NVMe SSD inside of the PS5 (that's what I started hearing from sources at Computex) then the PC is going to take things to the next level in the coming years with PCIe 4.0 and then PCIe 5.0.