Items tagged with Processors
Do you think Intel is perhaps feeling the heat from AMD and its latest generation of Ryzen processors? Intel may not be willing to admit it publicly (not in so many words, anyway), but an admission of sorts could come in the form of another price cut, as is rumored to be the case. If true, the price cuts will come in the second half of the year. Price cuts in reaction to the competition have been relatively rare on Intel's part, especially ones of any significance. However, there is a changing of the tide, and Intel finds itself reacting to the market. Take for example its recent roll out of high-end desktop (HEDT) Cascade Lake-X processors. Those chips debuted at significantly lower MSRPs than...
Read more...
Who knows what the future holds, but for the current generation of Ryzen processors, AMD correctly surmised that it did not need to surpass Intel in IPC performance in order to offer customers a compelling a solution. It just needed to be competitive at the higher end of the spectrum. Combined with aggressive pricing, customers have responded by buying more AMD processors than Intel chips, according to data released by an online retailer in Germany. Before we go any further, caveats are in order. For one, a single online retailer in Germany is not necessarily indicative of the marketplace as a whole. It is also important to consider that the sales figures for individual CPUs mostly apply to do-it-yourself...
Read more...
AMD is expected to launch its Ryzen 3000 desktop processor family this summer. Otherwise known as Matisse, the upcoming chips are based on AMD's 7-nanometer Zen 2 architecture, which yields faster clockspeeds and an improved IPC for better overall performance. The new chips will also be accompanied by a new X570 chipset, and we are starting to see motherboard models based on that chipset leak out. If you plan on building a PC around a Ryzen 3000 series processor, an X570 motherboard makes the most sense—the upcoming chipset is said to offer PCI Express Gen 4 support and will likely include other goodies not found on the current batch of X470 motherboards. That said, Ryzen 3000 processors...
Read more...
The revelation that practically every processor made in the past couple of decades is affected by at least one variant of Meltdown and Spectre, the names given to multiple versions of the same general execution vulnerability, shook the tech industry pretty hard. It also led to further discoveries of similar bugs. The most of recent example is called SPOILER, and AMD has a message for anyone who is in the market for a CPU. "We are aware of the report of a new security exploit called SPOILER which can gain access to partial address information during load operations. We believe that our products are not susceptible to this issue because of our unique processor architecture," AMD says. That is not...
Read more...
It is no secret that Intel is dealing with a CPU shortage. Robert Swan, the company's recently appointed CEO, said earlier this year that he anticipates Intel will overcome its "supply constraints" by the end of the second quarter. Whether that proves true or not remains to be seen, but things could get worse before they get better. "I think inventory levels, relative to the beginning of the year, were a little bit higher. Maybe a week and a half, two weeks higher as we enter the year. Our expectation is, working with our customers, that we will be through the supply constraints as we exit the second quarter of the year," Swan said during a fourth quarter call with investors. While Swan did not...
Read more...
When Intel released its 9th-gen Core processors in the fall, the company quickly found itself retaining its comfortable perch on top of the performance charts. That's thanks in part to a company which seems to be growing more aggressive by the day. The i7-8700K was already a very fast CPU, and the i9-9900K successfully took things to the next level. How good would it be to have that kind of processing horsepower in a notebook? If you instantly began salivating at the thought, then we're happy to report that such a thing is coming, and it's not because of a leak. Instead, this is straight from Intel's own mouth. Well, it was on the company's "Export Compliance Metrics" page, until people...
Read more...
Much of Intel's keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday was centered around upcoming platforms, and providing reassurance that the chip maker is still on track with its 10-nanometer lithography process. Time will tell, of course. Intel also announced new additions to its 9th generation Core desktop processor family, with more than a half a dozen new SKUs. We had to do a little digging to find out which ones, along with the details. After the keynote, Intel published a press release that mentions the new 9th gen Core processor additions, but it only links to a single model, that being the Core i5-9400. Thankfully Intel's ARK database that contains product specifications and model numbers...
Read more...
AMD and Intel have recently reignited a processor war after the former had gone years without a truly competitive offering with respect to overall performance. That all began to change when AMD launched its Ryzen desktop and mobile processors that have been well-received by enthusiasts and mainstream users, while dropping in at price points well below what Intel is offering in some cases. In addition, it appears things aren't going well for Intel right now as it is reportedly facing difficulties producing some of its latest versions of certain CPUs. In fact, shortages of Intel Whiskey Lake mobile processors are so severe that it is impacting overall notebook shipments and forcing...
Read more...
AMD is on a roll with its Zen architecture, and especially its second generation Ryzen processor family for the mainstream market. Buyers now have competitive solutions from both AMD and Intel at practically every price point. That hasn't always been the case before Ryzen—AMD wasn't really competing at the higher end of the performance spectrum—but it is now, and it's paying off. Evidence of this can be found at a German retailer's breakdown of CPU sales. Every so often, Mindfactory puts out a bunch of graphs and sales data comparing CPU sales from AMD and Intel processors. Over the course of the year, AMD has been catching up with Intel at that specific retailer, having grabbed 45...
Read more...
It's a ridiculously exciting time to be a PC enthusiast. AMD launched new Ryzen processors a few months ago, and will soon deliver 16- and 32-core Threadripper parts for those with huge computing needs. It's also been relentlessly rumored that NVIDIA will soon launch some new GeForce cards, and with the SIGGRAPH professional graphics conference taking place next week, we could see some new workstation cards, too. It's expected that Intel will be launching its 9th-gen Core series processors in the coming months, with the top SKU looking to be an absolute beast for all-around use cases. After years of tepid iteration, the i9-9900K is going for the 2700X's jugular - though we suspect not on the...
Read more...
As we sit here and ponder how much longer it will be until Intel refines its 10-nanometer technology and delivers Cannon Lake on a mass scale, there are other processor releases that will fill the gap between now and then. One of them is Intel's impending 9th Generation Core processor launch. Said to be a refresh of Coffee Lake, the latest rumor points to Intel introducing these chips next month. In case you have not been following the rumor scene, these 9th Gen Coffee Lake Refresh (Coffee Lake-R) chips will counter AMD's first and second generation Ryzen lineup with what will be Intel's first mainstream 8-core CPU options. Not all of the 9th Gen parts will be 8-core chips, but if the leaked...
Read more...
Everyone wants some of what TSMC is cooking with its new 7nm process that will be used for chips from multiple companies. TSMC's 7nm production lines will be used by NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony, and Apple. To meet the crushing demand for the parts, TSMC is reportedly accelerating its production schedule. Sources are claiming that many of TSMC's fabless customers are skipping the 10nm process tech more readily available and moving directly to 7nm chips. So far in addition to the companies previously mentioned HiSilicon, MediaTek, and Xilinx have all confirmed they will be joining in on the TSMC gravy train. While TSMC is ramping production, IC designers like Global Unichips and AIChip are helping...
Read more...
Back in the day, Intel and AMD were entrenched in a clockspeed race, with both companies pushing increasingly higher frequencies with each new processor generation. It was never more exciting than the race to 1GHz. As time went on, things stalled out in that regard, and the focus shifted to core counts. Well, Intel is throwing down the gauntlet later this year with a monstrous 28-core processor that it claims will ship to customers by the end of the year. Intel demonstrated the processor at Computex, running it through a few benchmarks. To be clear, this is a single-socket chip with 28 cores and 56 threads of computing muscle, clocked at up to 5GHz. It is a flat out beastly slice of silicon,...
Read more...
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 of shared Smart Cache. However, the new flagship processor is without question the Intel Core i9-8950HK,...
Read more...
