PCHardCores: August 2018

Friday 31 August 2018

CPU Hierarchy 2018: Intel and AMD Processors Ranked

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All of today's consumer, desktop CPUs compared, including Intel's 8th Gen Core series and AMD's Ryzen 2.

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AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 2950X CPU Now Available

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As pre-announced, AMD has begun selling its latest Ryzen Threadripper 2950X processor. The new CPU features 16 cores and is aimed at high-end desktops that can be overclocked for additional performance. Meanwhile, the new product costs exactly two times less than AMD’s flagship Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, its sibling counter-part meant for extreme workstations.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X processor relies on two eight-core Zen+ dies fabbed using GlobalFoundries’ 12LP process technology on a single piece of substrate. The CPU thus offers 16 cores featuring SMT technology and running at 3.5 – 4.4 GHz, featuring 32 MB of cache, a quad-channel DDR4-2933 memory subsystem, and 60 lanes of PCIe Gen 3.

AMD's High-Performance Desktop CPUs
	Cores/ Threads	Base/ Turbo	L3	DRAM 1DPC	PCIe	TDP	SRP	Retail Price
TR 2990WX	32/64	3.0/4.2	64 MB	4x2933	60	250 W	$1799	$1799
TR 2970WX	24/48	3.0/4.2	64 MB			250 W	$1299	-
TR 2950X	16/32	3.5/4.4	32 MB			180 W	$899	$899
TR 1950X	16/32	3.4/4.0		4x2667			$799	$720
TR 2920X	12/24	3.5/4.3		4x2933			$649	-
TR 1920X	12/24	3.5/4.0		4x2667			$399	$449
TR 1900X	8/16	3.8/4.0	16 MB	4x2667			$299	$308
Ryzen 7 2700X	8/16	3.7/4.3	16 MB	2x2933	16	105 W	$329	$319
Ryzen 7 1800X	8/16	3.6/4.0	16 MB	2x2667	16	95 W	?	$244

With a TDP of 180 W, the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X is compatible with all AMD X399-based platforms featuring sTR4 sockets. Meanwhile, since these chips are designed to be overclocked, they can benefit from motherboards with high-quality VRMs and more robust cooling systems, as the TDP of overclocked CPUs can skyrocket well above their regular power envelope.

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 2950X is now available from all leading retailers, including Amazon and Newegg for $899, which is actually cheaper than the price of AMD’s 16-core Ryzen Threadripper 1950X processor when it was launched about a year ago.

Buy AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X on Amazon.com

Buy AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X on Newegg

ASUS Details ZenBook Pro UX480 with ScreenPad, Whiskey Lake, & dGPU

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ASUS at IFA formally introduced its 14-inch ZenBook Pro UX480 laptop featuring the company’s ScreenPad, a touchpad with a built-in display. The notebook was demonstrated back in early June at Computex, but ASUS never disclosed its specs nor an availability timeframe. As it appears, the mobile PC is powered by Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake-U processor accompanied by NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX dGPU. ASUS intends to start selling the product sometimes in late October.

The ZenBook Pro is a relatively new lineup in ASUS’ product range that is aimed at users demanding performance, portability, and style. Initially, ASUS introduced 15.6-inch versions of its ZenBook Pro laptops, but with the ZenBook Pro 14 UX480 it is adding 14-inch models into the family. Since the system is smaller, ASUS has to use components with a lower TDP, and possibly reduce the count of components in general. This however does not mean that the new system has to make compromises in terms of performance or key features. The ZenBook Pro 14 comes with Intel’s quad-core Core i5/i7 (Whiskey Lake-U) processor, NVIDIA’s discrete GeForce GTX 1050 GPU with Max-Q software, as well as ASUS’ 5.5-inch ScreenPad that can simplify usage of certain programs or even act like a second screen for applications that support it.

At least initially, ASUS will offer its ZenBook Pro 14 with a Full-HD multi-touch display that supports 100% of the sRGB color gamut, and is factory-calibrated to DeltaE accuracy of < 3.

As for DRAM and storage, the ZenBook Pro 14 will ship with either 8 or 16 GB DDR4-2400, as well as an SSD featuring 128GB to 1TB of capacity with a SATA or a PCIe interface. Interestingly, only the 1TB SSD variant inside the UX480 will use a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, whereas the more popular 256 GB and 512 GB capacities will come with a PCIe 3.0 x2 or a SATA interface, which will therefore offer considerably lower performance. Furthermore, inexpensive versions of the ZenBook Pro 14 will be equipped with a hard drive and an Intel Optane Memory caching SSD.

The I/O capabilities of the ZenBook Pro 14 resemble those of higher-end ZenBook Pro 15 models, though the smaller PC lacks Thunderbolt 3. On the wireless connectivity side of things, we see Intel’s Wireless-AC 9560 CNVi solution featuring 802.11ac Wi-Fi (with up to 1.73 Gbps throughput over 160 MHz) and Bluetooth 5.0.

As for physical ports, the notebook is equipped with two USB 3.0 connectors (Type-A and Type-C), one USB 2.0 port, a HDMI display output, a microSD card reader, a TRRS audio jack, and a proprietary jack for charging. As for conferencing, the laptop has a VGA webcam with IR sensors for Windows Hello, Harman Kardon-badged stereo speakers with a ‘smart’ amplifier, and a microphone array.

When it comes to battery, the ZenBook Pro 14 is outfitted with a 70 Wh battery that enables 12.5 hours of autonomous operation and can fast charge from empty to 60% in 49 minutes.

Traditionally for ZenBooks, the ZenBook Pro 14 comes in an aluminum chassis with Deep Dive Blue finish with Rose Gold inlays. ASUS says that the chassis meets the MIL-STD 810G standard for reliability/durability, and can survive drops, vibrations, high/low temperatures, and so on.

The laptop features a 17.9-mm z-height and weighs 1.6 kilograms, which is not particularly thin or very light for a 14-inch laptop. In the meantime, since we are dealing with a notebook that has a discrete GPU, is able to accommodate a hard drive, is equipped with a ScreenPad (which adds the weight of the extra display module and its protective glass), and features a high-capacity battery, the weight and thickness are not particularly surprising.

As noted above, ASUS will start selling its ZenBook Pro 14 (UX480) starting from late October. Considering that there will be multiple configurations available, pricing of the new notebooks will vary greatly depending on exact configuration.

General Specifications of the ASUS ZenBook Pro 14
		UX480
LCD	Diagonal	14"
	Details	1920×1080 \| 100% sRGB
	Multi-Touch	10-point multi-touch
Screenpad	Diagonal	5.5"
	Type	Super IPS+
	Resolution	1920×1080
CPU Options		Core i7-8565U (4C/8T, 1.8 - 4.6 GHz, 8 MB, 15 W) Core i5-8265U (4C/8T, 1.6 - 3.9 GHz, 6 MB, 15 W)
Graphics	Integrated	HD Graphics 620 (24 EUs)
	Discrete	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q 2 or 4 GB GDDR5 memory GP107, 640 SPs
RAM		8 or 16 GB DDR4-2400
Storage	Options	128 or 256 GB SATA SSD 256 or 512 GB PCIe 3.0 x2 SSD 1 TB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD HDD with Intel Optane Memory caching SSD
Wireless	Wi-Fi	Intel Wireless-AC 9560 CRF 802.11ac (2x2) Wi-Fi
	Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.0
USB	2.0	1 × USB Type-A
	3.1 Gen 2	1 × USB Type-C 1 × USB Type-A
Thunderbolt		2 × TB 3 (data, DP displays)
Display Outputs		1 × HDMI
Gigabit Ethernet		optional USB to LAN port dongle
Card Reader		MicroSD card reader
Webcam		Webcam with IR sensors for Windows Hello
Fingerprint Sensor		No
Other I/O		Microphone, stereo speakers, audio jack
Battery		70 Wh, 12.5 hours battery life
Dimensions	Width	32.3 cm \| 12.71 inch
	Depth	22.5 cm \| 8.85 inch
	Thickness	1.79 cm \| 0.7 inch
Weight		1.6 kilograms \| 3.52 lbs
Price		$?

Huawei To Launch the Mate 20 with Kirin 980 on October 16th

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Just a small note to detail one of Huawei’s announcements today: alongside the Kirin 980 announcement, Richard Yu, Huawei’s CEO, stated that their next generation flagship device, the Mate 20, will be launched on October 16^th. At the heart of the new device will be that Kirin 980, which Huawei boasts as having several world firsts.

As with previous years, Huawei has announced a new flagship SoC one month and followed it 6-8 weeks later with a device announcement. It has happened the last two years, and this is no different: the Kirin 970 from last year is in at least 7 devices from Honor and Huawei now, so we expect the new Kirin 980 to be just as prolific.

For full details of the chip, head on over to Andrei’s analysis, but the specification is as follows;

HiSilicon High-End Kirin SoC Lineup
SoC	Kirin 980	Kirin 970	Kirin 960
CPU	2x A76 @ 2.60 GHz 2x A76 @ 1.92 GHz @ 512KB L2's 4x A55 @ 1.80 GHz @ 128KB L2's 4MB DSU L3	4x A73 @ 2.36 GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84 GHz 2MB L2	4x A73 @ 2.36GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84GHz 2MB L2
GPU	ARM Mali-G76MP10 @ 720 MHz	ARM Mali-G72MP12 @ 746 MHz	ARM Mali-G71MP8 @ 1037MHz
LPDDR4 Memory	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4X @ 2133MHz 34.1GB/s	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4X @ 1833 MHz 29.9GB/s	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4 @ 1866MHz 29.9GB/s
Storage I/F	UFS 2.1	UFS 2.1	UFS 2.1
ISP/Camera	New Dual ISP +46% speed	Dual 14-bit ISP	Dual 14-bit ISP (Improved)
Encode/Decode	2160p60 Decode 2160p?? Encode	2160p60 Decode 2160p30 Encode	1080p H.264 Decode & Encode 2160p30 HEVC Decode
Integrated Modem	Kirin 980 Integrated LTE (Category 21/18) DL = 1400 Mbps 4x4 MIMO 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM (5CA no MIMO) UL = 200 Mbps 2x2 MIMO 1x20MHz CA, 256-QAM	Kirin 970 Integrated LTE (Category 18/13) DL = 1200 Mbps 5x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150 Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Kirin 960 Integrated LTE (Category 12/13) DL = 600Mbps 4x20MHz CA, 64-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Sensor Hub	i8	i7	i6
NPU	Dual @ >2x perf	Yes	No
Mfc. Process	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 10nm	TSMC 16nm FFC

We will be there at the launch, and if the phone matches the impressive specifications of the chip, we will be in for an interesting story.

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HiSilicon Announces The Kirin 980: First A76, G76 on 7nm

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This year at IFA, instead of suddenly finding the new silicon on the show floor, Huawei’s CEO Richard Yu announced this year’s new Kirin 980 during the company’s keynote speech. For readers who’ve been attentively following our articles over the last few months, today’s news should hopefully not come at too big of a surprise, as I’ve been heavily hinting at the timing of the first new 7nm Cortex A76 silicon designs coming later this year in commercial devices, with HiSilicon being the prime candidate for being the first vendor on the market with the their new generation SoC.

Huawei’s silicon design division HiSilicon has been a key strategic component for the company’s products, as it enables it to differentiate itself in a more drastic way than what we usually see from other vendors who simply rely on established open-market SoC vendors such as Qualcomm. This kind of strategy of course is a double-edged sword, as if you’re all-in with your in-house silicon, it also means that these designs must be executed properly, as otherwise you find yourself in an unfavourable competitive position.

The Kirin 950 was an impressive chip as it boasted the first Cortex A72 design on a then new TSMC 16FF manufacturing process – this paid off plenty for Huawei as the combination of new IP as a new manufacturing node resulted in a very competitive silicon which directly translated into favourable characteristics of the handsets in that it was used in.

The Kirin 960 and Kirin 970 on the other hand showcased the risky side of this strategy, and where things can go off-track – the Kirin 960 was a 16nm SoC released in a device generation where 10nm competitors such as the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895 dominated. The Kirin 970 fared better when switching to a 10nm manufacturing node, but this time around HiSilicon wasn’t able to include the newest Arm CPU IP, relying on an A73 CPU while the Snapdragon 845 embraced the new A75. Furthermore the last two Kirin generations had showcased extremely uncompetitive GPU performance and efficiency figures – here HiSilicon is stuck and is at the whim of IP vendors’ ability to produce competitive designs against market leaders such as Qualcomm.

The reason as to why I reiterated what happened to the last few generations, is that this time around HiSilicon finds itself in a very favourable position where IP and manufacturing is aligned into what is essentially a best-case scenario for the new design. Arm’s new Cortex A76 and Mali G76 both promise great leaps in terms of performance and power efficiency, and TSMC is in mass production of its new 7nm manufacturing node.

Today we present the new Kirin 980, the first announced TSMC 7nm SoC as well as the first Cortex A76 and Mali G76 design:

HiSilicon High-End Kirin SoC Lineup
SoC	Kirin 980	Kirin 970	Kirin 960
CPU	2x A76 @ 2.60 GHz 2x A76 @ 1.92 GHz @ 512KB L2's 4x A55 @ 1.80 GHz @ 128KB L2's 4MB DSU L3	4x A73 @ 2.36 GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84 GHz 2MB L2	4x A73 @ 2.36GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84GHz 2MB L2
GPU	ARM Mali-G76MP10 @ 720 MHz	ARM Mali-G72MP12 @ 746 MHz	ARM Mali-G71MP8 @ 1037MHz
LPDDR4 Memory	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4X @ 2133MHz 34.1GB/s	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4X @ 1833 MHz 29.9GB/s	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4 @ 1866MHz 29.9GB/s
Storage I/F	UFS 2.1	UFS 2.1	UFS 2.1
ISP/Camera	New Dual ISP +46% speed	Dual 14-bit ISP	Dual 14-bit ISP (Improved)
Encode/Decode	2160p60 Decode 2160p?? Encode	2160p60 Decode 2160p30 Encode	1080p H.264 Decode & Encode 2160p30 HEVC Decode
Integrated Modem	Kirin 980 Integrated LTE (Category 21/18) DL = 1400 Mbps 4x4 MIMO 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM (5CA no MIMO) UL = 200 Mbps 2x2 MIMO 1x20MHz CA, 256-QAM	Kirin 970 Integrated LTE (Category 18/13) DL = 1200 Mbps 5x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150 Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Kirin 960 Integrated LTE (Category 12/13) DL = 600Mbps 4x20MHz CA, 64-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Sensor Hub	i8	i7	i6
NPU	Dual @ >2x perf	Yes	No
Mfc. Process	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 10nm	TSMC 16nm FFC

The new Kirin 980 checks off all of the newest available IPs from Arm, finally employing a new DynamIQ CPU cluster configuration comprised of 4 Cortex A76's and 4 Cortex A55s.

The biggest surprise to today’s announcement for me is to see that HiSilicon has made the step forward to fully take advantage of Arm’s new DSU cluster and its asynchronous CPU configuration, and actually implement the brand new Cortex A76 into two groups, each housed in their own clock and voltage plane.

The highest performance Cortex A76 pair runs at up to 2.6GHz. This is less than Arm’s originally announced 3GHz target for the CPU, however I had warned readers to expect more conservative clocks around the 2.5GHz figure, as the higher clock rates seemingly were meant for higher TDP form-factors. Nevertheless, the new CPU microarchitecture still brings with it substantial performance improvements, and thus will still perform very well at 2.6GHz, posting leading performance for this generation.

The surprise of seeing the second pair of Cortex A76 cores running at up to 1.92GHz is actually quite fantastic news for power efficiency. Here we see HiSilicon include what is essentially a “medium” efficiency group of CPUs. Because these two cores are running on a separate clock and voltage plane to the primary performance A76 pair, it means they can operate at different efficiency points, enabling more effective power savings in varied multi-threaded operation.

Previously, quad-core clusters were running on the same clock and voltages, and if there was a single high performance thread requiring a high performance state, it meant that other medium-performance threads were forced to take a power efficiency penalty by needlessly running at this less efficient performance state. By introducing a mid-tier, this effectively eliminates such kind of overhead which is commonly found in real-world applications.

I haven’t been able to confirm this with HiSilicon as of yet, but the reduced clock of this mid pair of A76 would also strongly point out to a possibly different physical implementation with a lower silicon sign-off frequency. This means that even though both pairs of A76’s are the same IP, this mid-pair are very likely to actually be more efficient when running at the same frequency.

Finally, we see four new Cortex A55 cores as the most power-efficient workhorses of the SoC who’ll be able to take the brunt of workloads, running at up to 1.8GHz. Here again, virtue of the mid-performance cluster, HiSilicon is likely able to implement a very power-efficiency focused physical implementation for the A55’s, resulting in clock speeds that in range with current generation A53 and A55 SoCs.

Cache wise, all the Cortex A76’s come with their recommended 512KB L2 cache configurations while the A55’s employ 128KB caches. As a reminder, in the new DynamIQ cluster configuration, the L2 caches for these designs are private to each CPU core. The L3 cache in the DSU has seen a full implementation at 4MB, double that of what we’ve seen in the Snapdragon 845.

I haven’t been able to confirm the frequency of the DSU in the Kirin 980, nor if it actually has a separate clock and voltage plane of its own, here it might be possible that it’s could be on the same plane with the A55’s. Again, that’s just speculation on my part, the other possibility is that we have 4 full clock and voltage planes for the whole CPU complex.

75% higher CPU performance, 58% better efficiency compared to Kirin 970

In terms of performance gains, HiSilicon promises 75% gains over the Kirin 970, which after a bit of math actually ends up basically exactly where I had projected the A76 to land, based on Arm’s own performance claims.

The following projection is of my own, and takes into account both Arm’s and HiSilicon’s matching performance claims:

As you may have noted, the power and efficiency estimates are also included. HiSilicon proclaims that the Kirin 980 is 58% more power efficient than the Kirin 970. We haven’t been able to clarify if this means that the perf/W is 58% better at the same performance of the 970, or if the Kirin 980 has a 58% better perf/W at both SoC’s respective peak performance states. The projection assumes the latter, and it actually again it matches up with Arm’s own claims about the Cortex A76.

I’m still very very sceptical about these numbers as they seem quite fantastic; yet to date I haven’t seen any contradictory information that would actually rebuke these estimates. For the time being, until we actually get our hands on the first Kirin 980 device, take the above power and efficiency estimate with a large grain of salt.

The move to a 3-tier CPU hierarchy also brings with itself complications in terms of scheduling. As we’ve seen this year, scheduling is very much a new critical component of modern SoCs as with the very high dynamic range of performance and power, using the most optimal solution is critical in extracting the best out of the silicon. Here HiSilicon promises a new “Flexible scheduling” mechanism. We unfortunately don’t have any more details on this, but it’s going to be a crucial component of the new Kirin 980.

New Mali G76MP10 – Actually 20 "rendering pipelines"

Moving on, the Kirin 980 is also the first SoC to employ Arm’s new generation Mali G76 GPU. The G76 greatly differs from past Midgard and Bifrost GPUs in that it vastly changes the block structure inside what you consider a “core”. Here the G76 essentially doubled up on texture units, render units, and doubles the width of the arithmetic pipelines. In effect, a G76 core is pretty much equivalent to two G72 cores.

What this means that while on paper the G76MP10 might at first glance looks smaller than the G72MP12 in the Kirin 970, yet it actually represents a 66% increase in the computational resources, not taking into account microarchitectural improvements of the new IP.

The Kirin 970’s GPU was clocked at up to 747MHz – however the power draw at this frequency was still too great for the SoC to handle, resulting in real-world workloads effectively running at much lower frequencies.

The Kirin 980 runs the new GPU at 720MHz and promises a 46% performance boost. We didn’t have any clarification of the workload here, but generally the industry standard is usually GFXBench Manhattan.

46% higher performance, and 178%* higher power efficiency*

Now the real kicker of the new GPU, is that HiSilicon proclaims a massive 178% boost in power efficiency when compared to the Kirin 970. Putting these claims into our efficiency table and extrapolating the results:

GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power)
	Mfc. Process	FPS	Avg. Power (W)	Perf/W Efficiency
Kirin 980 Projection Based on +%	7FF	55 ?	3.5 ?	16 fps/W ?
Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon 845)	10LPP	61.16	5.01	11.99 fps/W
Galaxy S9 (Exynos 9810)	10LPP	46.04	4.08	11.28 fps/W
Galaxy S8 (Snapdragon 835)	10LPE	38.90	3.79	10.26 fps/W
LeEco Le Pro3 (Snapdragon 821)	14LPP	33.04	4.18	7.90 fps/W
Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820)	14LPP	30.98	3.98	7.78 fps/W
Huawei Mate 10 (Kirin 970)	10FF	37.66	6.33	5.94 fps/W
Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895)	10LPE	42.49	7.35	5.78 fps/W
Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890)	14LPP	29.41	5.95	4.94 fps/W
Meizu PRO 5 (Exynos 7420)	14LPE	14.45	3.47	4.16 fps/W
Nexus 6P (Snapdragon 810 v2.1)	20Soc	21.94	5.44	4.03 fps/W
Huawei Mate 8 (Kirin 950)	16FF+	10.37	2.75	3.77 fps/W
Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)	16FFC	32.49	8.63	3.77 fps/W
Huawei P9 (Kirin 955)	16FF+	10.59	2.98	3.55 fps/W

The proclaimed performance boost would still be a tad too low catch up to the Snapdragon 845’s Adreno 630, at least in this workload. Here depending on how the Mali G76 scales, we might have different results based on different tests, showing a rebalancing of fillrate heavy workloads versus arithmetic/compute heavy workloads.

Where the Kirin 980 would showcase a large jump is in power consumption and efficiency. Again, HiSilicon’s marketing claims here end up matching what we had projected for the G76, based on Arm’s own figures. If this ends up as expected in measured devices, it would mean that the new Kirin would finally get back to sustainable power levels of that of the Kirin 950, shedding away the awful legacy of the first two Bifrost generation GPUs.

I’ve been banging the drums of the problem of sustainable performance a lot this year, and I do really hope the Kirin 980 ends up near the projections, because that would be a significant step forward for not only the SoC, but general consumer experience as well.

Faster memory controller

The new chipset sports an LPDDR4X memory controller, although it’s able to claim to be the industry’s first one to run at 2133MHz, resulting in a 13% increase in bandwidth. One of the weaknesses of the Kirin 970 was a memory controller that was quite power hungry at higher frequencies, here’s to hoping that the new design resolves these issues and we see better efficiency at high performance states.

Surprisingly, HiSilicon disclosed some memory latency and bandwidth figures: In the GeekBench 4 tests the Kirin 980 measures 138ns versus a quoted 176ns for the Snapdragon 845. This actually was a bit eye-brow raising as in context, the latency figure isn’t all that good: the Kirin 970 sported a similar 138ns latency as well, coming in the same ballpark of the Snapdragon 835. Yet all are worse than the Exynos 9810’s 78ns figure. Here I do hope the non-improvement doesn’t limit the peak performance of the A76 in the same way Qualcomm’s added latency of their new L4 system cache in the S845 hindered the A75 core’s performance.

Bandwidth figures are quoted at 23.1GB/s versus 19.2GB/s for the Snapdragon 845. I’ve been told GB4’s memory bandwidth test has issues scaling up after a certain point, so I’m not putting too much weight on these results for the time being.

New ISP with imaging features

The Kirin 980 sports a new ISP that increases is processing throughput capability by up to 46%, able support higher resolution camera streams. A first for HiSilicon is the introduction of a 10-bit pipeline for HDR capture, a feature also introduced in this year's competing SoCs, however only seldom used in practise due to colour management and displays lagging behind in terms of adoption.

The new ISP is able to now use “multi-pass noise reduction”, which sound much like the multi-frame noise reduction features introduced in the Snapdragon 845 this year, where noise reduction is not perform on a spatial pixel basis, but on a temporal inter-frame basis, resulting in sharper noise-free images without the side-effect of blurring. There’s also a new video encoding pipeline which promises “33% shorter delay” between captures. This last part was quite unclear in its meaning – the Kirin 970 lacked 4K60 encoding capabilities, and whether the Kirin supports it is something we still need to clarify with the company.

New “Dual-NPU” at 2x the throughput

The Kirin 980 continues improving its neural network inference acceleration IP, and introduces a new “Dual NPU”. In fact what this means is that the block essentially has been doubled up in the same way you would add a scaling unit to a GPU. The block still only handles one model kernel at a time, meaning in effect the speed of a single inference should be doubled, depending on NN model of course.

The new unit is said to be ~2.2x faster than the Kirin 970’s NPU, achieving up to 4500 inferences per minute, or 75 fps in their in-house test. They present figures for the Snapdragon 845 and Apple A11 as well, and as far as I can tell based on my own testing, these are very much accurate in terms of the observed performance.

Faster Category 21 Integrated Modem up to 1400Mbps

The new modem in the Kirin 980 elevates the capabilities of the predecessor – now it’s able to support up to UE Cat 21 download speeds of up to 1400Mpbs. This is achieved of up to 3x carrier aggregation in combination of 4x4 MIMO, all while support 2x2 MIMO and new 256-QAM in the upload link (Category 18), and achieving 200Mbps upload speeds.

6.9bn transistors on <100mm² thanks to TSMC’s new 7nm manufacturing node

The new chipset boasts 6.9bn transistors – an increase of 25% compared to last year’s Kirin 970 coming in at 5.5bn. HiSilicon was able to maintain a small die area of less than 100mm² thanks to the new 7nm TSMC process node. The project started in 2015 with 7nm process node research, with IP block unit development starting in 2016 and validation happening in 2017. Finally the SoC has been in mass production since this summer.

In-house WiFi Chipset

As surprise side-announcement was the reveal of the new Hi1103 WiFi chipset. The new chip supports 802.11ac with up to 1732Mbps speeds and 2x2 MIMO of up to 160MHz wide channels. I say that this is surprising because usually Huawei fell back to Broadcom BCM WiFi solutions which are considered to be industry leading and essentially found in every flagship device on the market. It’ll be interesting to see how the new HiSilicon chipset performs in comparison.

All the planets seem aligned for the Kirin 980

The Kirin 980 really does look like it’s on its way to be an exceptionally well balanced SoC with major improvements in every regard. The Kirin 960 and 970 had a rough time competing, both due to a process node disadvantage and then an IP disadvantage. Both suffered a lot from bad GPU performance and efficiency. Here the Kirin 980 looks to resolve these issues and the combination of Arm’s new Cortex A76 CPU cores, G76 GPU, new internal IP blocks such as memory controller, ISP and updated NPU, combined with a new leading-edge 7nm manufacturing process. The combination of all these new characteristics put the new Kirin 980 in an excellent competitive position, and the upcoming Mate 20 should be a device to look forward to.

Lenovo Announces Yoga C630: The First Windows on Snapdragon 850

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Lenovo on Thursday introduced the world’s first laptop based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 850 SoC. The Yoga C630 promises to deliver a considerably higher performance than the first-generation Windows-on-Snapdragon machines because of SoC improvements as well as optimizations made to the OS. Lenovo says that the Yoga C630 can work for over 25 hours on one charge, thus beating every other convertible PC available today.

Lenovo’s Yoga C630 comes in a convertible laptop form-factor featuring a 13.3-inch Full-HD display with multitouch support. The notebook is made of aluminum, it is just 12.5 mm thick and weighs about 1.2 kilograms, thus being both thinner and lighter than the company’s previous-gen Miix 630 2-in-1 detachable PC powered by the Snapdragon 835. Being based on a mobile SoC, the Yoga C630 does not require any fans and therefore does not produce any noise.

As noted above, the Lenovo Yoga C630 is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 SoC featuring eight cores and Adreno 630 GPU. The chip is accompanied by 4 or 8 GB LPDDR4X memory as well as 128 GB or 256 GB of solid-state storage featuring a UFC 2.1 interface. As for wireless connectivity, the convertible laptop naturally has an integrated Snapdragon X20 LTE modem that supports up to 1.2 Gbps speeds over appropriate networks as well as a 802.11ac Wi-Fi controller that also supports Bluetooth 5. In addition, the system has two USB Type-C ports, a fingerprint reader, a webcam, stereo speakers, a microphone, and an audio jack for headsets.

Qualcomm itself promises that its Snapdragon 850 offers a 30% higher performance, a 20% longer battery life, and a 20% higher Gigabit LTE speeds when networks permit. That said, it is more than reasonable to expect systems based on the S850 to be faster than notebooks powered by the S835 right out of the box. Meanwhile, there are other important factors that makes Arm-powered Windows 10 systems more attractive in general: Microsoft has re-optimized its Edge browser for the WoS (Windows on Snapdragon) device, whereas Qualcomm has implemented a 64-bit SDK for developers looking to optimize their code for the WoS. Assuming that software makers are interested in the platform, they will release optimized versions of their programs in the coming months or quarters.

With a more compact design, a lower weight, a longer battery life, and a higher performance right out of the box, the Lenovo Yoga C630 looks better than the Miix 630 in every possible aspect. Obviously, software compatibility and performance in applications that run via emulation might still be a question, but Qualcomm and Microsoft are working on issues and all companies involved state that the market these devices are aiming for use UWP programs anyway.

The Lenovo Yoga C630
		Specifications
Display		13.3" IPS 1920×1080
CPU		Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 4 × Kryo 385 Gold - 2.95 GHz, 4 × 256 KB L2 4 × Kryo 385 Silver - 1.80 GHz, 4 × 128 KB L2
Graphics		Adreno 630 at 710 MHz (737 GFLOPS)
RAM		4 GB or 8 GB LPDDR4X
Storage		128 GB or 256 GB UFS 2.1
Wi-Fi		2×2 802.11ac/ad Wi-Fi
Bluetooth		Bluetooth 5
WWAN		Qualcomm X20 Gigabit LTE
USB	3.0	2 × Type-C
Cameras	Front	Webcam with IR and Windows Hello
	Rear	None
Other I/O		Microphone, stereo speakers, audio jack, trackpad, etc.
Battery		? Wh
Battery Life		25 hours
Dimensions	Width	306.8 mm \| 12.08"
	Height	216.9 mm \| 8.52"
	Thickness	12.5 mm \| 0.49"
Weight		1.2 kilograms \| 2.6 lbs

Lenovo’s Yoga C630 convertible laptop will hit the market in EMEA region already in September at prices starting from €999. The company will start sales of the hybrid WoS notebook in the U.S. sometimes in November with MSRPs from $849.99, which is actually cheaper than the price of the Miix 630.

Huawei To Announce Kirin 980 Today at IFA

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In the smartphone wars, the chip inside powering the devices is becoming ever more important. Raw performance plus accelerators are pushing the boundaries of what we used to think was possible. Huawei’s unique selling point is that it designs its own chips for its smartphones, based a lot on Arm’s reference cores. Today, Huawei will be announcing its next generation SoC to the world.

As proudly declared on stage at the Honor launch event yesterday, with Honor’s own upcoming Magic 2 smartphone having it inside, Honor’s CEO George Zhao proudly declared that Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei CBG, will be announcing the Kirin 980 today.

Huawei’s current flagship SoC is the Kirin 970, which sits inside the Mate 10, P20, P20 Pro, and Honor’s Play, Honor 10, and Honor View 10. All of Huawei’s chips are made by their internal design house, HiSilicon, and the Kirin 970 was announced last year at IFA, so it makes sense that this year we would see the next generation, the Kirin 980, around this time.

Huawei has a long tradition of being a primary Arm partner, often using its latest design options where possible to get the edge of the competition. The Kirin 980, as with the silicon before it, aims for the highest echelons of performance in order to set it apart from the competition. You can also expect the Kirin 980 to be promoted alongside Huawei’s other ‘features’, such as GPU Turbo.

As for the internals of the Kirin 980, Huawei rarely disappoints on this front, but everyone will have to stay tuned for the official announcement to see just what's in store for their new SoC.

HiSilicon High-End Kirin SoC Lineup
SoC	Kirin 980	Kirin 970	Kirin 960
CPU	POWER*	4x A73 @ 2.36 GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84 GHz	4x A73 @ 2.36GHz 4x A53 @ 1.84GHz
GPU	TURBO*	ARM Mali-G72MP12 746 MHz	ARM Mali-G71MP8 1037MHz
LPDDR4 Memory	SOME*	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4 @ 1833 MHz 29.9GB/s	4x 16-bit CH LPDDR4 @ 1866MHz 29.9GB/s
Interconnect	YES	ARM CCI	ARM CCI-550
Storage I/F	NO DOUBT*	UFS 2.1	UFS 2.1
ISP/Camera	SMILE*	Dual 14-bit ISP	Dual 14-bit ISP (Improved)
Encode/Decode	FAST*	2160p60 Decode 2160p30 Encode	2160p30 HEVC & H.264 Decode & Encode 2160p60 HEVC Decode
Integrated Modem	IF YOU INSIST*	Kirin 970 Integrated LTE (Category 18/13) DL = 1200 Mbps 5x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150 Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Kirin 960 Integrated LTE (Category 12/13) DL = 600Mbps 4x20MHz CA, 64-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Sensor Hub	AFFIRMATIVE*	i7	i6
NPU	8-BALL SAYS YES*	Yes	No
Mfc. Process	???	TSMC 10nm	TSMC 16nm FFC
*May be subject to change

Huawei's keynote is today at 2pm CEST (8am ET), which will be live blogged if the data allows. It's going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned.

Thursday 30 August 2018

Lenovo's Halo: The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Announced

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Lenovo on Thursday introduced its ultra-thin ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop aimed at business users who are also interested in gaming and multimedia applications. The new notebook has a 15.6-inch display and is basically a version of the ThinkPad P1 mobile workstation with a gaming-grade discrete GPU and additional enhancements aimed at the target audience. Meanwhile, a ThinkPad is still a ThinkPad, with all the business/enterprise-related advantages of the series.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme is based on Intel’s Core i7 or Core i9 processors with up to six cores as well as NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti discrete GPU with Max-Q software enhancements to guarantee sufficient performance in a variety of games while keeping TDP in check. The notebook can be equipped with up to 64 GB of DDR4-2667 memory as well as up to two M.2 SSDs with a PCIe or SATA interface that can work in RAID 0 or RAID 1 modes. Unlike the ThinkPad P1, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme officially supports 1 TB drives, and therefore up to 2 TB of storage in total.

As with the 13.3-inch ThinkPad X1 as well as 15.6-inch ThinkPad P1 laptops, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme will be available with two display options. The more advanced machines will come with a multitouch 15.6-inch 10-bit IPS LCD with a 4K Ultra-HD (3840×2160) resolution, a 400 nits brightness, and supporting Dolby Vision HDR for appropriate content. The more affordable models will use a non-touch Full-HD (1920×1080) IPS panel featuring a 300 nits brightness and covering 100% of the sRGB color range.

On the wireless connectivity side of things, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme resembles its professional counterpart, the ThinkPad P1. The laptop is outfitted with Intel’s Wireless-AC 9560 802.11ac Wi-Fi solution featuring up to 1.73 Gbps throughput over 160 MHz channels as well as supporting Bluetooth 5.0 tech. As for hardware interfaces, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is equipped with two Thunderbolt 3 ports (unknown controller), two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A connectors, a mini GbE header (requires a dongle), an HDMI 2.0 output, an optional smart card reader, a 4-in-1 card reader, a webcam, far field microphones, and a TRRS audio port that supports Dolby Atmos with appropriate headphones.

Even though Lenovo outfitted its ThinkPad X1 Extreme with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti discrete GPU aimed at gamers, the laptop still retains its business/enterprise roots. The notebook comes with Intel’s vPro technology enabled (on i7 CPUs), features a dTPM 2.0 module, a match-in-sensor fingerprint reader, ThinkShutter cover for the webcam, and so on. Meanwhile, ThinkPad’s ergonomic keyboard with key travel of 1.8mm and backlighting will certainly be appreciated by all types of users, including gamers.

Since the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is essentially a variant of the ThinkPad P1, it uses a similar black carbon fiber chassis with an aluminum bottom designed to withstand bumps of life as well as harsh environmental conditions while efficiently dissipating heat generated by high-performance CPU and GPU. Obviously, at 17.8 mm (0.7 inch) z-height and at 1.7 kg (3.76 pounds) weight, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme will also be among the thinnest and lightest 15.6-inch gaming notebooks. When it comes to battery life, Lenovo says that the ThinkPad X1 Extreme can last for 15 hours on one charge, presumably with an 80 Wh battery. Meanwhile, just like its ‘professional’ brother, the X1 Extreme uses a power brick with a proprietary connector, not a universal USB Type-C.

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Extreme
		ThinkPad X1 Extreme FHD	ThinkPad X1 Extreme 4K UHD
Display	Type	IPS
	Resolution	1920×1080	3840×2160
	Brightness	300 cd/m²	400 cd/m²
	Color Gamut	~100% sRGB	100% AdobeRGB (?)
	Touch	No	Yes
	HDR	No	Dolby Vision HDR
CPU		Intel's 8th Generation Core i7/i9 with six cores. Select SKUs will be powered by vPro-enabled CPUs
Graphics	Integrated	UHD Graphics 620 (24 EUs)
	Discrete	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4 GB GDDR5 and Max-Q enhancements GP 107, 768 SPs
RAM		up to 64 GB DDR4-2667
Storage		up to 2 TB PCIe SSD with RAID 0/RAID 1
Wi-Fi		Intel Wireless AC-9560 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with up to 1.73 Gbps
Bluetooth		Bluetooth 5
Thunderbolt		2 × USB Type-C TB3 ports
USB		2 × USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C
HDMI		HDMI 2.0
GbE		Native, with a dongle
Fingerprint Sensor		Yes
Webcam		720p webcam 720p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
Other I/O		Microphone, stereo speakers, TRRS audio jack (with Dolby Atmos enhancements for appropriate headphones), joystick, trackpad, card reader, etc.
Battery		80 Wh
Dimensions	Thickness	non touch-enabled: 18.4 mm \| 0.7 inch touch-enabled: 18.7 mm \| 0.72 inch
	Width	361.8 mm \| 14.2 inch
	Depth	245.7 mm \| 9.7 inch
Weight		1.7 kilograms \| 3.76 lbs
Operating System		Windows 10 Pro

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme will be available in September at prices starting at $1,859. Meanwhile, the X1 Extreme systems with overclockable Core i9 processors will be available starting from December. Keep in mind that the Core i9-8950HK does not support Intel’s vPro technology, so laptops based on these chips will lack certain features of notebooks running various Core i7 CPUs.

NOTE: The news story used Lenovo ThinkPad P1 provided images. We're pretty sure some of the photos that show crazy viewing angles aren't that clear. With any luck, we will have time for a hands on while at the IFA show.

ThinkPad X1 Extreme Packs Core i9 Into Lightweight Package

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Lenovo's new 15-inch mobile workstation combines the sleek aesthetics of the X1 Carbon with discrete graphics, a 4K panel and a 45-watt CPU.

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Intel Amber Lake and Whiskey Lake processors aren't entirely safe from Spectre and Meltdown

This could be our first look at the Intel Core i9-9900K

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Intel’s first mainstream Core i9 processor has been heavily rumored over the last few months, but now we might actually have our first ever photo of the highly anticipated CPU.

XFastest claims to have snapped up the first ever photo of the Intel Core i9-9900K - with its top off no less. This was to highlight and confirm the rumors that say Intel is going with a soldered integrated heat spreader (IHS) to support greater overclocking capabilities.

For the last few generations of chips, Intel has gone with a Thermal Interface Material (TIM – aka thermal paste) to transfer heat between the processor dies and the IHS. In theory, this purported gold-plated solder will replace the TIM and be a much more efficient heat transfer medium.

Intel’s use of thermal paste has been a sore spot of enthusiasts and overclockers leading many to ‘delid’ their processors in an attempt to replace the TIM with a more efficient solution. It’s been an even bigger point of criticism lately as AMD went with a soldered IHS on all of its Ryzen 2nd Generation processors.

Here's everything you need to know about Intel's new Whisky Lake processors

Via Wccftech

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Acer’s 14-Inch Swift 3 Gets Whiskey Lake-U CPU, GeForce MX150, Goes on a Diet

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In addition to launching its ultra-portable 13.3-inch Swift 3 laptops, Acer also introduced revamped versions of its more traditional 14-inch Swift 3 notebooks on Wednesday. The new mobile PCs sport Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake-U processors along with a slimmer design and a longer battery life.

The Acer Swift 3 SF314-55-series notebooks outfitted with a 14-inch Full-HD display are based around Intel’s latest quad-core Core i7-8565U/Core i5-8265U CPUs, or dual-core Core i3-8145U processors that belong to the Whiskey Lake-U family. The new CPUs are accompanied by 4 or 8 GB of DDR4 memory, a PCIe/NVMe SSD featuring up to 512 GB capacity, and an optional NVIDIA GeForce MX150 discrete GPU.

On the connectivity side of things, the Acer Swift 3 (SF314-55/SF314-55G) comes equipped with an 802.11ac + Bluetooth module, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, an USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port, a HDMI output, a TRRS audio connector, a SD card reader, an optional fingerprint scanner, and a Windows Hello-compliant webcam. The manufacturer does not disclose capacity of the battery for the Swift 3 SF314-55-series laptops, but says that it lasts 12 hours on one charge, which is about two hours longer than on previous-gen models.

Moving on to the key selling point of the new Acer Swift 3 SF314-55-series notebooks: their new design. The new chassis is 14.9 mm (0.59 inches) thick, which is considerably thinner when compared to the 18.9-mm (0.71-inch) chassis of existing 14-inch Swift 3 laptops. For some reason, Acer hasn't touched upon the weight the new Swift 3 PCs as of yet, but it is reasonable to expect the new units to be lighter than their predecessors. To make the new Swift 3 more attractive to those seeking for something eye-catching, the new laptops will be offered not only in the standard silver, but also with a red finish.

Gallery: Acer Swift 3 SF314-55-Series Notebooks

In addition to the Swift 3 SF314-55-series laptops, Acer also unveils the Swift 3 SF314-56-series notebooks that come in a slightly thicker chassis which accommodates a hard drive. These machines offer the same CPU and GPU options as their slimmer brethren, but will naturally be able to store considerably larger amounts of data. As for color schemes, the Swift 3 SF314-56-series notebooks will be available in red, blue, pink, and silver enclosures.

Gallery: Acer Swift 3 SF314-56-Series Notebooks

Acer’s 14-inch Swift 3 (SF314-55 / SF314-55G) laptops will be hitting the market in North America this November at price points starting at $799.99. Meanwhile, the 14-inch Swift 3 (SF314-56 / SF-314-56G) with a hard drive will be available in EMEA markets in early 2019 starting at €799.

2018 Acer Swift 3 14-Inch Laptops
		SF314-55	SF314-55G	SF314-56	SF314-56G
Display	Diagonal	13.3"
	Resolution	1920×1080
	Type	IPS
CPU		Core i7-8565U - 4C/8T, 1.8 - 4.6 GHz, 8 MB, 15 W Core i5-8265U - 4C/8T, 1.6 - 3.9 GHz, 6 MB, 15 W Core i3-8145U - 2C/4T, 2.1 - 3.9 GHz, 4 MB, 15 W
Graphics		Intel UHD 620 Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce MX150	Intel UHD 620 Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce MX150
RAM	Capacity	4 or 8 GB
	Type	DDR4 (frequency unknown)
Storage		up tp 512 GB PCIe/NVMe SSD		2.5" HDD
Wi-Fi		802.11ac Wi-Fi module (unknown vendor)
Bluetooth		?
USB		2 × USB 3.0 Type-A 1 × USB 3.1 G2 Type-C
Other I/O		HDMI, webcam, TRRS connector for audio, speakers, microphone, SD card reader
Dimensions	Thickness	14.9 mm \| 0.59"		?
	Width	?
	Depth	?
Weight		?
Battery Capacity		Capacity unknown, provides up to 12 hours of battery life		?
Price		Starting at $799.99		Starting at €799.99

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