Items tagged with processor
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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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 the same socket, chipsets, and motherboards as the first generation products -- with a BIOS / UEFI...
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To say that 2017 was an interesting year for CPUs would be a gross understatement. With Ryzen, AMD delivered its most impressive processor family in a decade, and soon after, Intel unveiled its high-end Core X series. That was then followed by another Intel launch: the mainstream-targeted 8th generation "Coffee Lake" Core series. Now, and thanks to a couple of leaks found on SiSoft's Sandra results repository, we know that a few more 8th generatopm Core models are en route. In addition, Coffee Lake is soon to welcome its first Pentium models, aimed at folks with simpler computing needs. All five of these Pentiums are dual-core models, with the G5600 and G5500 delivering four threads thanks to...
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The upheaval of the high-end desktop processor segment continues today with the official release of Intel’s latest Coffee Lake-based 8th Generation Core processors. 2017 easily been one of the most exciting years in a decade for desktop processors, thanks in no small part to AMD’s entire line-up of Ryzen products, including the monstrous Threadripper, which propelled the company back into contention at virtually every price point.Intel was at the ready with a host of ultra-high-end processors – namely the Core X series – that allow the company to lay claim to the fastest desktop processor on the market. And now it’s time for Intel to re-shape its mainstream CPU line-up and target the Ryzen 7/5/3...
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Over the last few months, Intel slowly divulged a number of details regarding the two processors we’ll be covering today, its flagship 18-core, behemoth Core i9-7980XE and its slightly smaller sibling, the 16-core Core i9-7960X. The fact that these two processors were in the works was officially disclosed all the way back in May, no doubt in an attempt to quell the impending AMD Threadripper firestorm, but specifics like frequencies, cache, and TDP were initially held back.Those specifications were eventually revealed, and some benchmarks leaked as well, but today we’ve got the full, official scoop. We’ve had the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X in-house and on the test bench for a few days and...
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Back in late June, AMD announced that it would be rolling out a Ryzen Pro line of CPUs aimed at desktops in the professional workplace. Today is the day that products with Ryzen Pro inside launch and AMD counts some of the biggest names in the computer industry as partners with workstations and desktops from Dell, Lenovo, and HP coming. AMD's Kevin Lensing spent a bit of time laying out what AMD is cooking up with Ryzen Pro noting that this is part of AMD's "return to innovation for high-performance PCs." Ryzen Pro is a commercial CPU for AMD with the consumer Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 3 parts having previously launched. The Ryzen part that computer enthusiasts are most excited about are...
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AMD’s unrelenting attack on the desktop CPU market continues today, with the official launch of the company's beastly Ryzen Threadripper processors. If, by some cruel joke, you are unfamiliar with Threadripper, it is AMD’s premium, high-end, many-core desktop processor, that leverages the same Zen microarchitecture that debuted with the Ryzen 7 series a few months back. The flagship chip in the initial AMD Ryzen Threadripper line-up packs 16 physical processor cores and supports 32 threads through the use of SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading). To date, the largest number of cores supported on standard desktop platforms, without resorting to enterprise-class processors or dual-socket setups was...
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AMD is officially launching its latest series of Ryzen processors today, the affordably priced Ryzen 3. As the branding suggests, Ryzen 3 will complement the previously launched Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 series of desktop processors, but will target lower cost, entry-level price points. Ryzen 3 isn’t your typical, entry-level processor, however. Ryzen 3 actually utilizes the same die as its higher-end siblings, but has fewer active cores and symmetrical multi-threading (SMT) has been disabled. Ryzen 3 processors feature quad-core configurations, however, they leverage the same socket and packaging, have the same features, and are fully unlocked for easy overclocking. We’ve got the Ryzen 3 1300X and...
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When AMD released its first Zen-based processors this past spring, which came to us in the form of Ryzen, it would be an understatement to say the company had a lot riding on the new family of CPUs. Post-launch, it was clear that AMD succeeded in its goal of making the battlefield competitive again. Fast-forward to today and it's fair to speculate that because Ryzen has proven so potent, that it has forced Intel's hand at expediting the release of some of its upcoming products. Intel's Core X series just launched a few weeks ago, giving Intel yet another edge and a performance lead over AMD - at least clock-for-clock and core-for-core. Where AMD still shines, however, is with its price points,...
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System builders—both professional and do-it-yourself types—have been waiting a long time for AMD to be competitive again with Intel. Over the years, each new architecture launch from AMD seemed to come with big promises that would ultimately turn out to be empty, but then Zen came along. Finally, AMD built an architecture that lived up to the hype, and with Ryzen getting off to a strong start, it appears the chip designer has been able to chisel away at a not-so-insignificant chunk of Intel's market share in the enthusiast market.We can see this by examining the market share figures collected by Passmark based on thousands of PerformanceTest benchmark results. While not a definitive measure of...
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Today marks the launch of AMD's EPYC family of processors for data center servers. Based on the company's Zen microarchitecture, it has become abundantly clear that AMD was targeting the lucrative data center market first and foremost with its new CPU architecture and the highly scalable Naples platform that leverages it. Of course Zen scales well for client/consumer desktop applications, as we've seen with AMD's successful Ryzen processor launch. However, the data center is near and dear to the AMD's heart, due to significantly higher chip pricing and better profit margins; not to mention the explosion of the cloud, from software as a service-built platforms like Amazon AWS, to AI, and big data...
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Over the next few months, Intel will be releasing an array of new high-end desktop processors in the recently-announced Core X Series, based on the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X micro-architectures. The first chips in the series to arrive in the lab are the 10-core Core i9-7900X and quad-core Core i7-7740X. We’ve got an array of benchmarks and overclocking data on tap with the processors, but due to some unexpected shipping issues, we weren't able to complete all of the test we would have liked. Rest assured, we’ll update this piece as soon as we can with a full set of numbers -- it will just take a few days. In any case, the Core i9-7900X will be the first of the high-end chips to arrive and it...
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AMD is bringing out its big guns in the form of Threadripper, the biggest and baddest of which is a 16-core monster with 32 threads. This top-end part was shown off at Computex earlier this week where it was paired with multiple graphics cards based on AMD's Vega architecture. As you might imagine, the results were nothing short of awesome. That said, there will be multiple Threadripper SKUs at various price points. From an official standpoint, we have very little details about AMD's multiple Threadripper SKUs. That will change in time, of course, though until then there are plenty of rumors and speculation surrounding Threadripper. The folks at OCaholic went and compiled them all into a handy...
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Although it seems like it has been longer, AMD launched its Ryzen 7 family of processors based on the all-new Zen microarchitecture just a little over a month ago. Based on the level of engagement virtually all of our Ryzen-related articles have received, we have to assume all of you regulars have already seen our launched coverage of Ryzen 7. However, if you somehow missed it, it is available right here. In our Ryzen 7 coverage, we were able to disclose a few details regarding the more mainstream targeted Ryzen 5 series of processors, but save for a few AMD provided data points, performance wasn’t one of them. Until today, that is. AMD’s Ryzen 5 series of processors should be available...
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The AMD Ryzen 7 family of processors are finally here. The anxious anticipation for a more powerful competitor to Intel CPUs that has worked many PC enthusiasts into a frenzy -- the likes of which we haven’t seen in over a decade -- has finally come to an end. Today, we can present you all with the independent Ryzen benchmarks and technical details you’ve all been waiting for. Power, performance profiles and overclocking – we’ve got it all on tap. We’ve had all three of the initial AMD Ryzen 7 series processors in hand for testing, including the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X, the Ryzen 7 1700X, and their low-power cousin the Ryzen 7 1700. At their core, all three of these processors are fundamentally...
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AMD President and CEO, Dr. Lisu Su, took to the stage at AMD’s Ryzen Tech Day and opened the event with some official speeds, feeds, pricing information, and benchmark scores from the company’s upcoming Ryzen series processors. To date, we’ve seen a number of leaks with related data and benchmarks, but the numbers and information we’ll be presenting here are straight from AMD – they are the real deal, not rumors or speculation. And we’ve got a couple of surprises and new pieces of information to share as well. As most of you probably know by now, AMD’s stated goal with Ryzen – which is based on AMD’s Zen microarchitecture -- was a 40% IPC (instructions per clock) uplift, with competitive frequencies,...
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Excitement for AMD's next-generation Ryzen series of processors seems to have reached a fever pitch. For the first time in far too long, we have the prospect of an AMD processor that's not only competitive with Intel's latest and greatest, but perhaps potentially a better value in some cases, too. Following-up on our report of leaked Ryzen models earlier, we now get some rumored performance characteristics of one particular chip, the ~$389 Ryzen 7 1700X. The 1700X could become AMD's best bang-for-the-buck Ryzen processor in the enthusiast segment. It is rumored to cost $110 less than the 1800X, with the only trade-off (that we know of) being a 200MHz reduction in base...
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If things go to plan, AMD will return to its former glory among power users in the processor space when it releases Ryzen in a couple of a months. Ryzen is the culmination of four years of development at AMD, and that happens to be the same amount of time the chip designer expects its forthcoming CPU architecture to be relevant. After four years, AMD will move onto something else.We know this because PCWorld had a chat with Mark Papermaster, AMD's chief technology officer, who told the site AMD was aiming for a four-year lifespan out of Ryzen. Essentially what AMD wants to do is release processors that have a bigger impact on performance compared to the previous generation. It is a different...
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We have covered Intel’s Kaby Lake microarchitecture on a few occasions already. We outlined the architectural details in this piece, and have evaluated a handful of mobile devices powered by Kaby Lake at this point, including the gorgeous Asus ZenBook 3 and updated Dell XPS 13. Today, however, Kaby Lake makes its official debut on the desktop, with a brand-new flagship quad-core processor – the Core i7-7700K – and newly refreshed 200 series motherboard chipsets.The Core i7-7700K has hardly been a secret. The processors actually went on sale at a couple of major on-line retailers recently and benchmark numbers have been trickling out for weeks now. We’ve got one in house for testing, along with...
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