Processor Technology Reviews, Analysis And News
Processors come in many types for different applications. However, when it comes to computing, whether mobile, on the desktop or in the Internet of Things, these chips are widely known as the "brains" of the operation. Here you'll find Hot Hardware reviews and news on products from the biggest names in PC and mobile processors from Intel and AMD, to Qualcomm, ARM and more.
After what seemed like months of leaks and speculation, Intel officially announced its 9th Generation Core desktop CPU line-up a couple of weeks back, at a lavish event in New York City. Though the upcoming Core X series processors, the beastly 28-core Xeon W-3175X, and the 9th Gen Core i family don’t feature new architectures, all of the parts bring something fresh to the table, whether it be soldered thermal interface material, unlocked multipliers in the case of the Xeon, or updated silicon designs that incorporate more core resources, among other things. One of the most anticipated and...
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This may sound a bit over the top to some of you, but in our opinion AMD triggered a true revolution in the high-end enthusiast desktop segment last year, when it first introduced Ryzen to the world. Excluding extremely expensive workstation or enterprise-class processors, in early 2017 the most powerful desktop CPU money could buy was a 10-core Intel Core i7 that retailed for more than $1700, while modern, mainstream desktops at the time typically featured 4 cores. Sure, AMD had six and eight core FX-series processors on the market as well, but their legacy architecture wasn’t competitive...
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Intel recently launched a Core i7-8086K Limited Edition processor, based on the company’s Coffee Lake architecture, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the venerable 8086. Although it wasn’t the first microprocessor employed in personal computers, the Intel 8086 laid the foundation for the x86 architecture, which has been at the core of virtually all “IBM compatible” or “Win-Tel” PCs released since. Before we talk about where Intel is going with Core i7-8086K, however, we need to discuss where it has been. Intel put together this infographic highlighting...
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When AMD launched its 2nd Generation Ryzen processors, we initially examined to the two top-end “X” variants -- the current flagship 8-core Ryzen 7 2700X and its 6-core cousin, the Ryzen 5 2600X. Of course, we love looking at the latest and greatest high-end hardware around here, but as is often the case, scaled-down versions of a particular product commonly offer significant value, without sacrificing much in terms of performance or features. With that in mind, we were eager to see what the lower-priced Ryzen 7 2700 and Ryzen 5 2600 could do. These processor are virtually identical...
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After the splash that AMD made with Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper in 2017, it should come as no surprise that AMD would follow-up with second generation variants. We've already seen the mainstream side of things with the Ryzen 2000 Series processors, and now at an event at Computex 2018, AMD has just announced its second-generation Ryzen Threadripper family. Like the Ryzen 2000 series, second-generation Ryzen Threadripper processors are based on 12nm Zen+ architecture. That means that the new High-End Desktop (HEDT) processors offer lower latencies, higher clock speeds, and Precision...
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Last week, Arm showed off the inner workings of its new Machine Learning Processor design, but that is not all that company had waiting in the wings. Arm is also detailing more cutting-edge technology in the form of its Cortex-A76 CPU, Mali-G76 GPU, and Mali-V76 VPU designs. All three chips are slated to be heavy-hitters in their respective categories, and thanks to some on-campus, in depth briefings earlier this month, we have all of the details to share... Cortex A-76 The Cortex-A76 represents Arm’s most radical overhaul over previous designs. The A76’s brand-new architecture...
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Qualcomm is looking to make Extended Reality (XR) the next big thing in mobile computing. XR is the term that Qualcomm has coined to describe the full gamut of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) experiences. With XR, Qualcomm is looking to provide a single platform that developers will be able to leverage for an array of different devices. This is how Qualcomm describes XR: At some point in the future, we envision the convergence of the smartphone, mobile VR headset, and AR glasses into a single XR wearable. In this scenario, a single pair of XR glasses will primarily...
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After taking a measured, wait-and-see approach to machine learning, Arm is ready to jump into the fold full throttle. Today, the company is following up on its Project Trillium announcement from back in February with new details surrounding its machine learning processor, also known as the neural-network processing unit or NPU. To quickly recap, Project Trillium encompasses Arm’s push to leverage machine learning and neural network operations across their line-up of processors – whether that processing takes place on the CPU, GPU, or its new NPU. Arm’s goal is to make machine...
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Today marks the official launch of AMD’s latest additions to the Ryzen Pro family, which include new processors with integrated Radeon Vega graphics. AMD has released Ryzen Pro APUs for both desktop and mobile form-factors, and all include features specifically geared towards business customers. With AMD's new Ryzen Pro offerings, you’ll find security-centric features like AMD GuardMI Technology with on-chip DRAM memory encryption, secure boot, fTPM/TPM 2.0, and what the company calls “enterprise-grade” reliability. On that latter point, AMD is guaranteeing a...
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AMD initially announced its 2nd Generation Ryzen desktop processors back at CES earlier this year. Our coverage of the event is available for you here, but to quickly recap, 2nd Generation Ryzen processors are based on a refined update to the Zen architecture, dubbed Zen+, that offers higher clocks, lower latencies, and a more intelligent Precision Boost 2 algorithm that improves performance, system responsiveness, and power efficiency characteristics. The chips are also manufactured using a more advanced process, however, they still leverage the existing AM4 infrastructure and are compatible with...
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Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that AMD's second-generation Ryzen processors have been making the rounds on the internet for a while now, at least unofficially. Production processors were sold accidentally ahead of schedule, giving us all some good looks at the overall performance and overclocking ability of AMD's latest Ryzen processors. Today, however, AMD is giving us our first official details regarding the new mainstream 2nd Gen Ryzen family of processors, and there aren't too many surprises, given what we've already seen from the plethora...
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Today is a big day for Intel -- the company is announcing a massive update to its processor families with new 8th generation Coffee Lake-based Core SKUs for both mobile and desktop platforms. On the mobile side of the equation, the most interesting processors are no doubt Intel's new six-core Coffee Lake parts, starting with the Core i7-8750H. This processor comes with base/max single-core turbo boost clocks of 2.2GHz and 4.2GHz respectively, while the Core i7-8850H bumps those clocks to 2.6GHz and 4.3GHz respectively. Both processors have six cores (12 threads), a TDP of 45 watts and 9MB...
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Of the over 28,000 attendees at NVIDIA’s GTC 2018 GPU Technology Conference, many converged on the San Jose Convention Center this week to learn about advancements in AI and Machine Learning that the company would bring to the table for developers, researchers and service providers in the field. Today, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage to unveil a number of GPU-powered innovations for Machine Learning, including a new AI super computer and an updated version of the company’s powerful Tesla V100 GPU that now sports a hefty 32 Gigabytes of on-board HBM2 memory. NVIDIA Tesla V100...
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Though the company has been evangelizing its next generation Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform for a while now, Qualcomm is lifting the veil today on the new SoC's benchmark performance profile. As we showed you back in December, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 is based on a bleeding-edge 10nm LPP FinFET manufacturing process with Samsung, and an entirely new architecture that promises significant gains in power efficiency and performance. Snapdragon 845 is a grounds-up silicon redesign from Qualcomm, targeted at a new breed of flagship smartphones and other premium mobile devices. At the heart of the Snapdragon...
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