Sometimes choosing a CPU is hard. So we've got you covered. In our CPU Guides, we give you our pick of some of the best processors available, supplying data from our reviews. Our Best CPUs for Gaming guide targets most of the common system-build price points that typically pair a beefy graphics card with a capable processor, with the best models being suitable for streaming and encoding on the fly.
As part of AMD’s quarterly earnings presentation, the company has briefly reiterated its product plans for the second-half of the year. The company was previously slated to launch new CPUs and GPUs for the client and server markets late this year, and on today’s call the company has confirmed that those plans are on track.
On the client side of matters, both AMD’s new CPUs and GPUs are currently set to launch late in 2020. The first GPUs based on the company’s RDNA 2 architecture – which is also underpinning the new Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles – will be released later this year. And AMD is confirming that RDNA2 will eventually be a “full refresh” of the company’s GPU product stacks. Meanwhile the eagerly anticipated Zen 3 architecture is set to make its desktop debut late this year as well. Though with these sorts of events it’s prudent to note that a commitment to launch a product by a certain date isn’t a commitment to have it on retail shelves by that same date.
Meanwhile on the server side of matters, the picture is much the same. AMD reports that they are on track to begin shipping the Zen 3-based “Milan” EPYC processors late in 2020. As well, AMD’s first CDNA architecture GPU for the data center market is set to launch late this year as well.
Continuing our look at tech industry financial results, AMD this afternoon is celebrating setting some new records in its Q2’2020 financial results. Enjoying a continuing turn-around in its fortunes t hanks in big part to its Zen series of CPU architectures and resulting products, the company has just closed the books on the first year of sales of its Zen 2-based desktop processors, with EPYC following close behind. At this point AMD is now setting quarterly revenue records, and the company is expecting to grow its revenue further over the coming months.
For the second quarter of 2020, AMD reported $1.93B in revenue, a 26% jump over the same quarter a year ago. As a result, Q2’2020 was AMD’s best quarter ever, built on the back of record notebook and server revenue. Overall, all of AMD’s metrics have improved in a year-over-year basis, with net income up $122M (349%) to $157M, while the company’s all-important gross margin improved by 3 points to 44%. In fact the only real knock that can be made on AMD’s quarter is that they didn’t pass their Q1’2020 net income or gross margin, which was due to increased semi-custom shipments, which aren’t as profitable for the company.
| AMD Q2 2020 Financial Results (GAAP) | |||||
| Q2'2020 | Q2'2019 | Q1'2020 | |||
| Revenue | $1.93B | $1.53B | $1.79B | ||
| Gross Margin | 44% | 41% | 46% | ||
| Operating Income | $173M | $59M | $177M | ||
| Net Income | $157M | $35M | $162M | ||
| Earnings Per Share | $0.13 | $0.03 | $0.14 | ||
Once again the flag bearer for AMD is their Computing and Graphics segment, which encompasses their desktop and notebook CPU sales, as well as their GPU sales. That division booked $1.37B in revenue for the quarter, $427M (45%) more than Q2 of 2019. The segment’s operating income as up significantly as well, jumping from just $22M a year ago to $200M this year.
These numbers come as AMD closes the book on their first year of Zen 2 product sales – the first retail chips hit store shelves at the very start of Q3’2019. Since then AMD has grown their desktop chip sales significantly, and combined with laptop sales the company is reporting their best client processor revenue in more than 12 years. As previously mentioned, laptop sales saw record revenue – doubling last year’s numbers – thanks in part to AMD shipping a record number of notebook chips.
| AMD Q2 2020 Computing and Graphics | |||||
| Q2'2020 | Q2'2019 | Q1'2020 | |||
| Revenue | $1367M | $940M | $1438M | ||
| Operating Income | $200M | $22M | $262M | ||
As for product average selling prices (ASPs), AMD is reporting that client processor prices are up on a year-over-year basis (thanks again to Zen 2). However they have dropped on a quarterly basis due to a greater mix of Ryzen Mobile sales.
Meanwhile AMD’s GPU division looks to have once again been the laggard. While AMD doesn’t break out revenue numbers to specific divisions, on the subject of ASPs they note that GPU ASPs are down on both a year-over-year and quarterly basis, due to lower channel sales. On their earnings call, AMD has noted that while mobile GPU sales are up by double digits, this was more than offset by declines in desktop GPU sales. Overall, with AMD’s Q2’2019 being a somewhat soft quarter for GPU sales to begin with as consumers awaited their heavily-teased Navi architecture products, I’m surprised to see that AMD’s ASPs still slipped this year.
| AMD Q2 2020 Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom | |||||
| Q2'2020 | Q2'2019 | Q1'2020 | |||
| Revenue | $565M | $591M | $348M | ||
| Operating Income | $33M | $89M | -$26M | ||
Finally, AMD’s Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment saw a very solid Q2, as the group enjoyed an uptick in EPYC processor sales. In fact AMD has finally, albeit belatedly, finally captured a double-digit share of the server processor market, a major goal for the company. Fittingly, on a year-over-year basis, EPYC revenue has doubled.
None the less, the odd grouping of server CPUs with semi-custom (console) chips means that revenue actually dropped on a year-over-year basis thanks to lower semi-custom sales. The upshot, at least, is that it’s a significant improvement over Q1, where the group ended up in the red. Meanwhile AMD has started production of the PS5 and Xbox Series X SoCs, so revenues here should significantly improve next quarter, but those are still lower margin products.
Looking forward, like much of the rest of the tech industry AMD is looking towards a strong second-half of the year, as the company has been able to successfully weather the immediate challenges from the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, AMD is increasing its full-year projections, and the company is now calling for 32% revenue growth over 2019, and a gross margin of around 45%.
Driving this growth for AMD will be a mix of the slow expansion of server products, as well as new products launched in the second-half of the year. AMD is expecting EPYC sales to continue to grow and for the company to gain market share there as more server vendors further ramp up their EPYC server production. Meanwhile AMD is reiterating that it’s expecting to begin shipping its Zen 3-based “Milan” EPYC processors late this year. AMD’s upcoming CDNA-based data center GPUs are also set to launch around at time.
As for the consumer side of matters, AMD is expecting continued sales success with its consumer products, particularly Ryzen Mobile. None the less, all eyes are going to be on AMD’s future products, as AMD is reiterating their 2020 launch plans. The company reports that it’s on track to launch Zen 3 client CPUs in late 2020, and the company’s eagerly-anticipated RDNA2 products, which will eventually encompass a full stack refresh, will launch in late 2020 as well.
Coming in the wake of last week’s disclosure that their 7nm yields are roughly a full year behind schedule, Intel this afternoon has announced that they are reorganizing the technology side of the company. Key to this change is that Intel is breaking up its monolithic Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG) into several smaller groups, all of which will report directly to CEO Bob Swan. Meanwhile Intel’s chief engineering officer, Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, who had been leading the TSCG, will be departing the company at the end of next week. The reorganization is effective immediately.
As a result of this reorganization, TSCG is being broken up into five groups focusing on manufacturing and architecture. These are:
It should be noted that while Intel’s brief announcement does not mention last week’s disclosure, the timing and resulting personnel changes are unmistakably related to the 7nm delay. Today’s reorganization is the second shuffle for Intel in as many months, as the company reorganized a number of product groups after Jim Keller departed for (honest to goodness) personal reasons.
Meanwhile, TSCG’s former president, Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, will be departing the company on August 3rd. Renduchintala joined Intel in 2015, and for most of the past half-decade has been responsible for overseeing all of TSCG’s efforts, and especially involved in the development of the company’s next-generation process nodes. Intel’s reorganization announcement makes no specific mention of Renduchintala beyond his date of departure, however it is difficult to imagine that this is anything other than Intel pushing out Renduchintala in light of their process woes. More than anything else, Renduchintala was the face of Intel’s monolithic, vertically-integrated design and manufacturing strategy; a strategy that is no more as Intel seriously investigates building parts of leading-edge processes at competing fabs.
This is breaking news. More to follow
Source: Intel
Intel this morning is taking the wraps off of a new Core i9 processor that it’s adding to its family of Comet Lake desktop CPUs. Taking its place as the closest thing to a budget option in the i9 pile, the i9-10850K is a slightly lower-clocked version of Intel’s flagship 10-core i9-10900K processor. Overall the chip is clocked 100MHz slower than the 10900K in every aspect, from base clocks to turbo clocks, a rather small increment at a time when Intel’s chips boost to over 5000Mhz. Meanwhile, although Intel has yet to publish an official price, expect to see the 10850K priced a bit lower than the $488 10900K.
| Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake Core i9 and Core i7 |
||||||||||
| AnandTech | Cores | Base Freq |
TB2 2C |
TB2 nT |
TB3 2C |
TVB 2C |
TVB nT |
TDP (W) |
IGP | MSRP 1ku |
| Core i9 | ||||||||||
| i9-10900K | 10C/20T | 3.7 | 5.1 | 4.8 | 5.2 | 5.3 | 4.9 | 125 | 630 | $488 |
| i9-10900KF | 10C/20T | 3.7 | 5.1 | 4.8 | 5.2 | 5.3 | 4.9 | 125 | - | $472 |
| i9-10900 | 10C/20T | 2.8 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 4.6 | 65 | 630 | $439 |
| i9-10900F | 10C/20T | 2.8 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 4.6 | 65 | - | $422 |
| i9-10900T | 10C/20T | 1.9 | 4.5 | 3.7 | 4.6 | - | - | 35 | 630 | $439 |
| i9-10850K | 10C/20T | 3.6 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 4.8 | 125? | 630 | $453 |
| Core i7 | ||||||||||
| i7-10700K | 8C/16T | 3.8 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 5.1 | - | - | 125 | 630 | $374 |
| i7-10700KF | 8C/16T | 3.8 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 5.1 | - | - | 125 | - | $349 |
| i7-10700 | 8C/16T | 2.9 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.8 | - | - | 65 | 630 | $323 |
| i7-10700F | 8C/16T | 2.9 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.8 | - | - | 65 | - | $298 |
| i7-10700T | 8C/16T | 2.0 | 4.4 | 3.7 | 4.5 | - | - | 35 | 630 | $325 |
Aside from clockspeeds, the Core i9-10850K is a fairly unremarkable processor within Intel’s larger lineup. The chip features the same fully-enabled 10-core configuration as the 10900K, as well as Comet Lake’s full UHD 630 integrated GPU. The unlocked chip also features the same Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) capabilities as the flagship i9, and while Intel’s figures don’t include a TDP rating, we’re confident that it’s the same 125 Watts as the company’s other high-end K-series parts. So for all practical purposes this is a 10900K clocked 100MHz lower, and that’s it.
More curious, perhaps, is why Intel is even bothering to release the chip. While the company does keep a fairly fine-grained and highly-binned product lineup, 100MHz is a small difference even by Intel’s usual standards. On paper at least, the 10850K will deliver better than 97% of the 10900K’s performance; so Intel has created a SKU that’s not even 3% different from its other full-TDP i9 parts.
Our best guess at this point is that, having pushed its 14nm process and Skylake CPU architecture as far as it can go with its fifth rendition, that the company has been amassing chips that can’t quite reach the 10900K’s lofty clockspeeds. Judging from overclocking results as well as ongoing issues with retail shortages, Intel is seemingly playing on the very far edge of their frequency rage, so even 100MHz in headroom can make the difference between whether a chip passes validation or not. Though any kind of de facto price cut is also undoubtedly helpful for Intel against AMD’s highly-competitive Ryzen 3000 series lineup.
Moving on, today’s processor release isn’t just an OEM release, but is a retail release as well. Listings for the BX8070110850K began appearing for the chip even before today’s announcement, confirming that the chip will soon be for sale as a proper boxed CPU release. Pricing is a bit more unclear however, as Intel’s announcement doesn’t include an official MSRP. While Intel will need to price it under the $488 of the 10900K, street pricing is a whole other matter. With the 10900K in short supply and even the i7-10700K going for over $400, early retail listings have been inconsistent. We’ll know more for sure once wide sales begin, but it’s hard to imagine the 10850K going for less than $450.
Among several different updates tucked into Intel’s Q2’2020 earnings report, the company included a brief update on some of their future products. While the bulk of the company’s focus is currently on their next-generation Tiger Lake CPUs, which are launching this quarter, the company is also looking at what comes after Tiger Lake, as well as the future of their highly profitable server business.
First off, Alder Lake has finally been formally outed. The successor to Tiger Lake now has an official launch window of the second-half of 2021. The 10nm chip will be for both mobile and desktops, making it the first 10nm chip that Intel has confirmed will come to desktops. Very little is otherwise officially known about the chip, but Intel’s ISA documents have previously revealed that there will be some new instructions found in that chip.
Otherwise the six-month window for kicking off production shipments is a fairly wide one for a chip that doesn’t rely on a new process node. Intel product cycles are rarely under a year long, so at first blush we’d be surprised if this was anything earlier than a late 2021 product. But with Intel’s recent 7nm delay and planned ramp-up of their 10nm process, it may be that Intel will be trying to pull it in and launch it in Q3, similar to this year’s Tiger Lake launch.
Meanwhile on the server side of matters, Intel is preparing for both Ice Lake-SP as well as its successor, Sapphire Rapids. One of the many victims of Intel’s 10nm woes, Ice Lake-SP is Intel’s first 10nm server chip. As of late the company has been riding a wave of profitability based on its server parts, so a newer part that improves on core counts and energy efficiency will be a welcomed addition to Intel’s product lineup, not to mention better able to fend off AMD’s powerful EPYC “Rome” processors.
Initial production shipments for Ice Lake-SP are set to start by the end of this year. Though Intel’s language is loose enough that this may mean that larger volumes of the chip may not ship until 2021.
Following Ice Lake-SP will be Sapphire Rapids, Intel’s second-generation 10nm server part. Along with getting Intel’s product release cadence closer to being back on track, Sapphire Rapids will play an important role in unifying Intel’s split Xeon families. Intel’s oddball 14nm Cooper Lake Xeons, which are currently shipping, support bfloat16, but Ice Lake-SP will not. For 10nm chips that support is finally being rolled into Sapphire Rapids, making the new chip the successor to both Cooper Lake and Ice Lake-SP in every way.
Sapphire Rapids will follow Ice Lake-SP by roughly a year. According to Intel’s presentation deck, chips will begin sampling in H2’2020, while CEO Bob Swan’s prepared remarks state that initial production shipments will begin at that time.
What follows these chips, in turn, will be the big question that Intel is currently wangling with in light of their 7nm delay. The company has made it clear that they intend to maintain an annual release cadence, divorced from their process roadmap if necessary. Depending on the state of their 7nm process, that may mean 7nm chips, 10nm chips, chips using dies from both processes, or even using dies from third-party fabs. Intel has opened the door to all possibilities, and their 2022 chips will likely be their first chance to embrace their new pragmatic approach.
While today second quarter earnings report from Intel represented a high-water mark for the company amid booming sales and revenues, unfortunately not everything disclosed today was good news from the company. As part of Intel’s quarterly earnings presentation, the company announced that their under-development 7nm manufacturing process has suffered a six month delay due to a defect in the process. As a result, the first consumer products aren’t due until at least late 2022, leaving Intel with 10nm as their best in-house manufacturing process for the next couple of years.
But even more important than that, the delay has spurred some soul searching within Intel, driving the company to pivot on its manufacturing plans and open the door to using third-party fabs for a much broader segment of its products. Going forward, the company will be taking what CEO Bob Swan and other leadership are calling a “pragmatic” approach, looking at both in-house and third-party fabs and using those fabs that make sense for the company and the product in question. And while the company has not announced any specific plans to outsource production – they are looking at it for products in the 2022-and-later timeframe – it would be hard to overstate how dramatic of a shift this is for the industry, and for a company that even five years ago was the world’s leader in silicon lithography manufacturing.
Kicking off another earnings season for the tech industry, we once again have Intel, who is reporting their financial results for the second quarter of the year. This is the first full coronavirus-impacted quarter for the company and the tech industry as a whole, but if you were looking solely at Intel’s results, you wouldn’t know there’s a pandemic going on: the company posted yet another record quarter, delivering their highest Q2 revenues ever with a sizable profit margin riding on top of that.
For the second quarter of 2020, Intel reported $19.7B in revenue, more than $3B ahead of their year-ago quarter, and only slightly behind Q1’s $19.8B in revenue. As a result of this strong revenue, income was also very healthy for the company, with Intel recording $5.1B in net income, a 22% jump over Q2’19.
It is interesting to note, however, that Intel’s famed gross margin took a pretty sizable hit for the most recent quarter. Intel recorded a gross margin of just 53.3%, well below the 60% margin the company is known for. This matter was briefly mentioned in the company's earnings call, where the larger-than-expected drop was labeled as being largely a timing item, with Intel taking a hit as they ramp up Tiger Lake. At the same time, however, 10nm demand overall is higher, which although is not a bad problem to have, 10nm is more expensive to build on than Intel's well-refined (and paid for) 14nm fabs.
| Intel Q2 2020 Financial Results (GAAP) | |||||
| Q2'2020 | Q1'2020 | Q2'2019 | |||
| Revenue | $19.7B | $19.8B | $16.5B | ||
| Operating Income | $5.7B | $7.0B | $4.6B | ||
| Net Income | $5.1B | $5.7B | $4.2B | ||
| Gross Margin | 53.3% | 60.6% | 59.8% | ||
| Client Computing Group Revenue | $9.5B | -3% | +7% | ||
| Data Center Group Revenue | $7.1B | +2% | +43% | ||
| Internet of Things Group Revenue | $816M | -8% | -32% | ||
| Mobileye Revenue | $146M | -43% | -27% | ||
| Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group | $1.7B | +24% | +76% | ||
| Programmable Solutions Group | $501M | -3% | +2% | ||
Breaking things down on a group basis, many of Intel’s internal reporting groups have grown over the year-ago quarter, and some quite significantly. Client computing revenue was up 7% to $9.5B, while data center revenue was the big winner in terms of growth, with $7.1B in revenue making for a 43% jump over the previous year. The significant growth in the data center segment comes thanks in part to a big jump in cloud service provider revenue, which was up 47% year-over-year. That, in turn, was driven in part by Intel’s recently-launched Cooper Lake Xeon processors, which has the major server providers cycling in systems using those new chips.
As for client computing revenue, the biggest gains there once again came from notebook sales, which have taken off in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. All-told, notebook revenue is up 14% over Q2’19, while slower desktop sales have caused desktop sales to drop by 14%. The net result is that PC sales were up 2% year-over-year, with desktop and notebook ASPs ticking up slightly as well.
Rounding out Intel’s product portfolio, the company’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group was the other big winner for the company. Revenue there reached $1.7B, 76% higher than Q2’19, and 24% over last quarter. This was driven by growth in both ASPs and volume (bit growth), allowing Intel to book more revenue at every level. The Programable Solutions Group, on the other hand, saw a very mild 2% increase in revenue.
Unfortunately for Intel, their Internet of Things sub-groups didn’t fare very well, in part due to greater exposure to the coronavirus pandemic. The IoT Group itself saw revenues fall 32% from Q2’19, dropping to $816M. Meanwhile Mobileye was equally exposed, seeing a 27% drop to $146M in revenue.
the company recorded smaller gains for their Programable Solutions Group, as well as their Internet of Things business. Overall IoT was a mixed bag: Mobileye revenue, which the company offers a separate breakout, was up 22% over the previous year, but the rest of Intel’s IoT business saw a 3% drop in revenue. Finally, Intel’s storage group was a surprising winner, with record revenue pushing them to year-over-year growth of 46%, thanks to higher NAND ASPs and lower unit costs.
Overall, Intel believes that they’ve weathered the current pandemic fairly well – something no one was quite sure of a quarter ago – which is reflected in their Q2 results. Some business units have fared better than others, but ultimately demand for the company’s chips remains high, albeit in a different mix than Intel would have seen in more normal circumstances. Reflecting this optimism, at point the company has resumed providing full-year guidance: they are now expecting 2020 to be Intel’s best year ever, making for their fifth record year in a row.
Unfortunately for Intel, while the coronavirus hasn’t tripped them up too much, their own internal issues are, and as a result Intel’s long-term situation is more muddled than ever. As part of today’s earnings release the company is announcing that their 7nm CPU plans have been pushed back by 6 months, and that 7nm yields are about 12 months behind where Intel planned for them to be. This is due to a defect in their 7nm process, which the company has since root caused and is correcting, but none the less it’s caused a 7nm delay they can hardly afford. Intel’s first consumer 7nm chips are now not expected to land until at least late 2022, if not later.
We’ll have more on this subject in a separate article a bit later today, but the fallout from the delay is that Intel is now planning to take a far more pragmatic approach to fab utilization. Which is to say that the company is keeping their options open for using third-party fabs if that proves to be their best option, making full use of their die disaggregation technologies like Foveros to mix-and-match dies from different sources as necessary.
In the meantime, the big winner within Intel is the company’s 10nm process, which the company is going to have to lean on more heavily in light of the 7nm delay. According to Intel they have further accelerated their 10nm ramping due to growing demand for 10nm products – both PC and comms/5G – with Tiger Lake shipments set to be 20% higher than what Intel was originally planning for back in January. So while 10nm has been something of an albatross for Intel, it’s not going to be a short-lived manufacturing node as Intel rushes to 7nm; instead it’s going to be a core part of their plans for the next two or three years.
Today ASUS is announcing its newest flagship gaming-oriented phone, the ROG Phone III. A direct successor to the quite well received ROG Phone II from last year, the company is keeping the formula quite basic this year, keeping the general characteristics of the ROG Phone III similar to that to its predecessor whilst upgrading the core components such as the SoC, now featuring for the first time in a device the new Snapdragon 865+.
| ASUS ROG Phones | ||||||
| ROG Phone III | ROG Phone II | |||||
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ 1x Cortex A77 @ 3.1GHz 3x Cortex A77 @ 2.42GHz 4x Cortex A55 @ 1.80GHz Adreno 650 @ +10% |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ 1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.96GHz 3x Cortex-A76 @ 2.42GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz Adreno 640 @ 675MHz |
||||
| DRAM | 16 GB LPDDR5 | 12 GB LPDDR4X | ||||
| Storage | up to 512GB UFS 3.1 | 128 / 512GB UFS 3.0 | ||||
| Display | 6.59" AMOLED 2340 x 1080 (19.5:9) 144Hz 270Hz Touch |
6.59" AMOLED 2340 x 1080 (19.5:9) 120Hz 240Hz Touch |
||||
| Size | Height | 171.0 mm | 170.99 mm | |||
| Width | 78 mm | 77.6 mm | ||||
| Depth | 9.85 mm | 9.48 mm | ||||
| Weight | 240 grams | 240 grams | ||||
| Battery Capacity | 6000mAh 30W charging (PD) |
6000mAh |
||||
| Wireless Charging | - | |||||
| Rear Cameras | ||||||
| Main | 64MP IMX686 0.8µm pixels (1.6µm 4:1 16MP) |
48MP IMX586 0.8µm pixels (1.6µm 4:1 12MP) f/1.79 |
||||
| Telephoto | - | - | ||||
| Wide | 13MP 125° wide-angle |
13MP 125° wide-angle |
||||
| Extra | 5MP Macro | - | ||||
| Front Camera | 24MP | 24MP | ||||
| I/O | USB-C 3.1 (Side) + USB-C 2.0 (Bottom) |
USB-C 3.1 (Side) + USB-C 2.0 (Bottom) 3.5mm headphone jack |
||||
| Wireless (local) | 802.11ax WiFi-6 Bluetooth 5.1 LE + NFC |
802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.0 LE + NFC 802.11ad (Wireless display) |
||||
| Other Features | Dual Stereo Speakers Under-Display Fingerprint Sensor |
|||||
| Dual-SIM | Dual nanoSIM | |||||
| Launch Price | 8+256GB + S865 : 799€ 12+512GB + S865+: 999€ 16+512GB + S865+: 1099€ |
12+512GB: $899 / £829 / 899€ | ||||
The new SoC upgrades the CPU and GPU speeds by 10%, upping the frequencies on the Cortex-A77 cores to up to 3.1GHz for the first time ever in a smartphone. ASUS says that it’s also vastly upgraded the heat sink of the SoC inside the phone, with it now being 6x larger than that found on the ROG Phone II. Combined with a revamped vapour chamber design, the new phone is said to be virtually immune to thermal throttling and is able to keep is peak performance figures for prolonged periods even in demanding situations.
The phone also upgrades its RAM and storage options. You’re able to feature up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, whilst the 512GB NAND storage has been upgraded to an UFS 3.1 unit, improving transfer speeds by up to 15%.
On the display side, ASUS has kept the same screen size and resolution as on the ROG Phone II at 6.59” and 2340 x 1080, but this time around has upped the already high 120Hz refresh rate to up to 144Hz, with also an uptick in the input touch sampling rate to up to 270Hz. This being the biggest feature of the ROG Phone II, it’s arguably seen smaller upgrades this generation.
ASUS is seemingly also keeping a very similar footprint between generations as both phones still have 171 x 78mm length and widths, although the new phone is listed as being thicker at now up to 9.85mm. Weight hasn’t changed and still falls in at a hefty 240g, mostly taken up by the huge 6000mAh battery that also hasn’t seen changes this generation. Much like its predecessor, these are gigantic phones.
On the camera side of things, we’ve seen a big improvement on the main camera unit which has been switched from the previous generation IMX586 sensor to a newer IMX686. The upgrade here lies in its larger 1/1.72” sensor size, retaining 0.8µm pixels but being improved in resolution to up to 64MP with a quad-Bayer colour filter array, binning down to 16MP for regular mode shots. As of writing we don’t have information on the optics of the camera.
The ultra-wide-angle seems to have at surface remained the same at 13MP with a 125° field of view, but again we’re lacking specifics. An addition to the camera array is a 5MP macro camera which generally is more of a gimmick rather than something that augments the capture experience.
In terms of connectivity, of course the big upgrade is the move to 5G thanks to the new X55 modem. Wi-Fi 6 also the norm now and BT has been upgraded to version 5.1. We don’t see mention of ASUS’ “wireless display” functionality with 802.11ad so it might be the company has removed this feature this generation.
One other big feature that’s been removed is the 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, as in many other vendors this has gone the way of the Dodo, and is only otherwise available through ASUS’ AeroActive Cooler 3 add-on accessory which features a pass-through USB-C and 3.5mm port.
The ROG Phone III is said to first appear in Europe later this month in the form of a Strix variant with a regular Snapdragon 865 and 8+256GB of RAM for 799€, whilst the 12+512GB and 16+512GB variants will be offered later for 999€ and 1099€. In the US, the phone will only release in September with pricing there being released at a later date.
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Today AMD is finally lifting the lid on its long-awaited desktop Zen2 based APU family. Using the same silicon as in the Ryzen Mobile 4000 family, AMD is pumping it up into 35 W and 65 models in the same AM4 platform that is in use today. There has been strong demand from PC builders to release these chips, which were on the topics of forum conversation all the way back at CES. There’s only one downside to these new processors: you can’t buy them. AMD states that the initial release of Ryzen 4000G hardware is for OEMs like Dell and HP only.
One of the most visited parts of the AnandTech website is our benchmark database, Bench. Over the last decade we've placed as much benchmark data as we can in there for every sample we can get our hands on. As the CPU editor, one of my duties is to maintain the CPU part of Bench, making sure the benchmarks are relevant and the newest components are tested. Today we are announcing our latest major Bench refresh with our new Benchmark suite, and some very lofty goals.
TSMC on Thursday has confirmed that it had stopped processing new orders from Huawei back on May 15th. The news is the first official statement from the company on the matter, since the US Commerce Department’s expansion of rules to require licenses for sales to Huawei of semiconductors which us US technology.
Under the rule change, Taiwan based TSMC is not allowed to sell to Huawei silicon products unless the Chinese vendor receives (an unlikely) license from US regulators. Huawei and TSMC had been given a 3-months grace period in which existing orders were allowed to be processed and shipped. TSMC yesterday has confirmed that the manufacturer does not plan to ship any wafers to Huawei or HiSilicon after September 14th.
It’s been wildly speculated that Huawei had been pre-empting the US ban and making very large orders to TSMC to be able to have a sufficient silicon supply for the rest of the year. However, once this stock runs out and if the political situation hasn’t been resolved by then, it would mean big troubles for the Chinese vendor. Beyond Huawei’s consumer business segment which had grown to be the #2 smartphone vendor in the world, behind Samsung and ahead of Apple, Huawei is an important player in the cellular infrastructure market where they are currently the leading player for telecommunications equipment.
HiSilicon is also a big player in the DTV SoC market, IP camera SoC market, and most recently an entrant in the server CPU market with their in-house Kunpeng 920 chip and custom microarchitecture. Without means to manufacture their designs, it leaves the company in a precarious situation. Other semiconductor foundries are also unlikely to be able to pick up Huawei as a customer as they all use US-made equipment. In theory, even Shanghai based SMIC would be banned from supplying Huawei – in practice we haven’t heard any confirmation on the situation there yet.
As for TSMC, Huawei represented the manufacturer’s biggest customer with a 23% revenue share in 2019. Surprisingly enough, the company states that the Huawei ban is unlikely to have an effect on the company’s revenues, with other customers being able to pick up coveted manufacturing capacity. The company even forecasts 20% year-on-year growth for the July-September period, and is further increasing its capital expenditure for the year to up to $17bn.
