Items tagged with processor
AMD has offered “PRO” branded Ryzen processors for a number of years. Although the base processor architecture and platform is unchanged versus their standard counterparts, Pro series Ryzen processors enable a number of security, reliability, and manageability features targeted at the enterprise market, where Intel’s competitive vPro-enabled products play. Today, however, AMD is pushing its Pro branding and feature set way up its product stack, with a new line-up of powerful Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors, designed for high-end workstations and creative professionals. Unlike AMD Ryzen Pro desktop processors, which use the same socket and platform as their non-Pro counterparts,...
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A few weeks back, Intel officially announced its 10th Generation Core series processors based on the Comet Lake-S architecture, and its companion Z490 chipset. 10th Gen Core series processors are not all-new, HEDT (High-End Desktop) products that target extreme enthusiasts, but rather tweaked, tuned, and enhanced mainstream parts, meant to supplants 9th Gen Socket 1151-based processors at the heart of Intel’s mainstream CPU line-up. Intel’s 10th Gen Core series desktop processors are still based on the same architecture and leverage the same 14nm++ manufacturing process as their 9th Gen predecessors, but Intel has made numerous changes in an attempt to inject even more performance,...
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AMD announced its Zen 2-based Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors a couple of months back at CES 2020. The information disseminated at AMD’s press conference, however, was relatively high-level, and as it turns out, wasn’t quite complete. Since the show, we’ve been made privy to much more information regarding the Ryzen 4000 series mobile line-up, including a couple of new processor models that haven’t been officially disclosed just yet. Though the Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors won’t be widely available for a few more weeks, some of AMD’s partners are going to begin taking pre-orders for notebooks powered by these new processors. As such, AMD is...
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When Dr. Lisu Su took to the stage at an event back in June and officially announced the Ryzen 9 3950X, it didn’t come as much of a surprise to be honest. Considering the fact that Zen 2 CPU chiplets feature 8-cores each, and the Ryzen 9 3900X with dual CPU chiplets launched with only 12-cores enabled, there was immediate speculation that a 16-core Ryzen 3000 series variant was in the works and that AMD was perhaps holding it back for strategic reasons. Of course, there were a multitude of leaks leading up to the announcement that continued to fuel the flames, but needless to say a 16-core CPU like the Ryzen 9 3950X seemed to be inevitable. AMD didn’t hit the initial September release...
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Intel has been talking about its Core i9-9900KS processor for months now. It was all the way back in May that the company first revealed what would become the new flagship processor in its mainstream computing platform. The Core i9-9900KS is not something totally new, however. As the “S” in its name implies, the Core i9-9900KS is something akin to a special edition of the existing Core i9-9900K. The processors are built from the same slab of silicon – an 8-core, Coffee Lake-refresh based die, packaged up for Intel’s LGA1151 socket. What makes the Core i9-9900KS different from its predecessor are its base and turbo boost clocks, in addition to its TDP. Whereas the Core...
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Late last year, at its Architecture Day event, Intel revealed a new, low-power microarchitecture, codenamed Tremont, that would power and array of processors and SoCs targeting products across the client, data center, 5G networking, and Internet of Things markets. While Intel did disclose the codename and show-off a Foveros-based SoC featuring Tremont -- codenamed Lakefield -- it did not dive deep on the microarchitecture or discuss its inner-workings. Today, however, at the Linley Fall Processor Conference that’s currently underway, Intel discussed Tremont in-depth and revealed its main features, microarchitectural enhancements, new instructions, and expected performance levels. Intel's...
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AMD has officially taken the wraps off its second generation EPYC 7002 series processors. The EPYC 7002 series builds upon the success of the original EPYC processors by leveraging the Zen 2 microarchitecture, which is also at the heart of the recently released Ryzen 3000 series desktop parts. EPYC 7002 series processors maintain platform compatibility with existing first-gen EPYC parts, but significantly increase the platform’s capabilities in aggregate and per socket, and introduce a number of new features as well. In terms of the microarchitecture, all of the benefits Zen 2 afforded the desktop have an impact on EPYC 7002 series processors, codenamed Rome. AMD has made a number of enhancements...
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Back in May, Intel disclosed a number of details regarding its next-generation 10nm Ice Lake architecture and Project Athena. The latter is an innovation program Intel kicked-off in collaboration with key industry partners that’s meant to usher in a new breed of advanced laptop designs and mobile devices. Today, Intel inches closer to broad availability of its first-wave of Ice Lake-based products, with the release of 11 10th Generation Core mobile SKUs, ranging from a dual-core Core i3 with a nominal 9W TDP all the way on up to a quad-core / eight-thread Core i7, with Gen 11 Iris Plus graphics, and a 28W TDP. Over the last few months, Intel has shown some competitive data to set expectations...
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The Zen 2-based AMD Ryzen 3000 series is easily one of the most anticipated product launches in the PC space in recent memory. AMD has essentially promised to address virtually all of the perceived shortcomings of the original Zen-based Ryzen processors, with the Ryzen 3000 series, while continuing to aggressively challenge Intel on multiple fronts – performance, power, price, you name it. AMD has been extolling the virtues of Zen 2 for quite some time, but in the last few weeks the company has really turned up the heat and revealed some exciting details, like single-thread performance on-par with Intel’s best, enhanced multi-threaded performance, and huge amounts of cache to keep...
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Over the last few months, Intel has disclosed a number of details regarding its next-generation 10nm processors, codenamed Ice Lake. At an Architecture Day held in December ’18, we learned about the company's Sunny Cove microarchitecture that will be employed in Ice Lake and future-generation processors, in addition to some details regarding Intel’s Gen11 graphics engine. Today, we are able to disclose even more information regarding Ice Lake, its overarching platform and new features, and about Project Athena, the innovation program Intel has started in collaboration key industry partners, that’s meant to usher in a new breed of advanced laptop designs and...
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It has always been a safe assumption that AMD would continue developing its Threadripper processor family for high-end desktop (HEDT) systems that need that kind of multi-core grunt. In case there was any doubt, however, AMD came out and confirmed plans to launch a third-generation Threadripper line sometime before the end of the year. AMD made the revelation in a slide deck that was part of a presentation it gave to investors yesterday evening. The investor presentation is mostly standard stuff, with AMD pointing out the different market opportunities that are out there (edge computing, security, data analytics, PCs, Internet of Things, and so forth). But there was one particular slide that...
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In October of last year, when Intel officially unveiled its 9th Generation Core series processors, the company also took the opportunity to announce a semi-new breed of workstation processor, namely the Xeon W-3175X. Technically speaking, the architecture at the heart of the Xeon W-3175X isn’t new – the monstrous 28-core / 56-thread processor is based on Skylake-SP, just like the first wave of Xeon Scalable processors that were released in 2017. What Intel has done with the Xeon W-3175X, however, is selectivity bin the die and tweak and tune the power and turbo boost profiles to increase frequencies, and ultimately performance, versus earlier Skylake-SP parts. The Xeon W-3175X is...
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AMD announced that its second-gen Ryzen 3000 mobile processors are ready to take on Intel in 2019. These new processors build on the success of the company's first-generation Ryzen Mobile CPUs by extending the product stack and pushing the performance envelope a little further. The bulk of AMD's mobile Ryzen 3000 processors use AMD's Zen+ core. This is significant because it utilizes an improved 12nm manufacturing process, which has higher efficiency and generally is able to hit slightly higher clock speeds than the original Zen core. This transition is likely responsible for the improvements that AMD was able to bring to its second-gen mobile Ryzen processors. At the high-end of the product...
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Computer users looking to build some high-powered gaming rigs will soon have some new Intel processors to choose from which has recently shown up in online listings. These new processors slot into the Coffee Lake Refresh family, and there are four new SKUs to look forward to. The parts include eight-core Core i9-9900KF and a Core i7-9700KF processors along with six-core Core i5-9600KF and Core i5-9400F processors. Listings for these parts have turned up on Newegg and Synnex (among others), although some of the listing have been removed at the time of writing (likely at the behest of Intel). Note that all four of the new CPUs end with an F designator, something that Intel traditionally...
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When Intel officially announced its 9th Generation Core processors at an event in NYC a few weeks back, it used the opportunity to also unveil a beastly, unlocked 28-core Xeon processor that’ll be arriving at a later date, and a refreshed line-up of 9th Gen-branded Core-X series processors as well. Unlike the 9th Gen Core i products, however, which leverage an updated Coffee Lake microarchitecture, the “new” Core X series remains based on Skylake-X – just like the 7th Gen Core X series processors we evaluated here. Some folks are likely to shout “re-brand” from the mountaintops in reference to the 9th Gen Core X series, but rest assured Intel has performed...
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The brain is the most complex organ in the body and the most difficult to unravel. Scientists have developed a variety of ways to better understand the brain, including the use of supercomputers. The world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer, the Spiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker), was just switched on for the first time yesterday. The mammoth array of server cabinets boasts one million processor cores and is able to perform 200 trillion actions per second. SpiNNaker has been twenty years and ￡15 million (nearly 19.5 million USD) in the making. The project was originally supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), but has been most recently...
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While is nothing is yet official, Intel is expected to announce several new processors later today, and rumor has it a beastly Core i9-9980XE with 18 physical cores and 36 threads will be among them. The new chip is said to be part of Intel's next generation Core-X high-end desktop (HEDT) series and a refresh of Basin Falls. Rumor has it this launch will coincide with new 9th generation Core processors for the mainstream market. The latter is expected to include up to 8-core processor offerings, including the Core i7-9700K and Core i9-9900K. Typically there is a waiting period for new HEDT parts to come out, but last minute leaks hold true, today will be an exception. Intel is said to be launching...
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Mac fans were excited when Apple finally rolled out updated MacBook Pro notebooks. The updated machines have support for Intel Coffee Lake processors, up to 32GB of RAM, True Tone displays and tweaked third-generation keyboards. Among the Coffee Lake processor options available is a high-end Core i9 part. A report has surfaced this week suggesting Apple didn't design the cooling system of the MacBook with enough chill to support that hot processor. YouTuber David Lee has made a video of a MacBook with a 2.9GHz six-core Core i9 processor inside that can hit up to 4.8GHz with Turbo Boost enabled. That chip is a $300 option on the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro. Lee claims that the chip is unable...
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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 the major advancements made in processor design and manufacturing over the last 40 years. As you...
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The core wars are heating up, and right now AMD has the upper hand, as it pertains to providing more cores for mainstream consumers to play with. Conventional wisdom says it is only a matter of time before Intel releases an 8-core chip that is not part of its high-end desktop (HEDT) or Xeon product lines. The question is, when will that happen? Well, rumor has it that Intel is prepping an 8-core Coffee Lake processor for a September launch. There was no such announcement at Computex earlier this month, so take all this with a pinch of salt. Word of the upcoming launch comes by way of an author at PCWatch, who claims to have heard the news from several OEM makers at the show. What they supposedly...
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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 to their X-branded counterparts after all, and because they’re unlocked, tweaking a few settings...
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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 brings decisive improvements to power and efficiency. Arm’s processor engineers worked with a...
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