One of the critical deficits Intel has to its competition in its server platform is core count – other companies are enabling more cores by one of two routes: smaller cores, or individual chiplets connected together. At its Architecture Day 2021, Intel has disclosed features about its next-gen Xeon Scalable platform, one of which is the move to a tiled architecture. Intel is set to combine four tiles/chiplets through its fast embedded bridges, leading to better CPU scalability at higher core counts. As part of the disclosure, Intel also expanded on its new Advanced Matrix Extension (AMX) technology, CXL 1.1 support, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, and an Accelerator Interfacing Architecture that may lead to custom Xeon CPUs in the future.
Japan is famous for its massed ranks of vending machines, with a ton of different models crammed in everywhere in Tokyo, selling all manner of things – from umbrellas to beer – and now there’s a new model in town that vends processors.
As Wccftech reports, dedicated vending machines dispensing CPUs are now a thing in Japanese arcades, which on the face of it contain AMD Ryzen 5000 processors. Though priced at 1000 Yen – about $9.10 / £6.60 / AU$12.40 – you’re not going to get a cutting-edge chip as you might anticipate.
If you take the plunge with one of these machines, what you do get is a Ryzen 5000 box which contains a few CPUs that might be AMD or Intel models, and could be anything.
The temptation to play is driven by the (very slim sounding) possibility of picking up a contemporary(ish) Ryzen CPU, perhaps a first-gen or second-gen model as Wccftech makes clear – something you could actually build a budget PC around, in other words, or maybe use to upgrade a very outdated machine.
Analysis: Treasure or trash, that’s the (doubtless heavily weighted) gamble
We talk about the silicon lottery in terms of how good any given CPU is at overclocking, but this is a literal processor lottery, and we’re betting the odds of getting something good are very shaky.
Given that you’re handing over the equivalent of a handful of dollars or pounds for a handful of CPUs in some cases, those bits of silicon are likely to be ancient: the 486DX processor, a 33MHz beast that powered our first PC, was brought to mind here (though probably not that old, seeing as that’s now venturing into collectible territory).
Despite the doubtless age-old silicon mostly involved, the temptation of getting some kind of decent Ryzen chip (like maybe a 2700X which is still a perfectly serviceable 8-core CPU in the main), or an Intel equivalent, will doubtless keep folks paying. An image of one of the machines posted on Twitter shows it’s almost empty, so that would appear to tell a story in itself.
Of course, the idea of tech vending machines which are a huge gamble isn’t a new one. ‘Treasure Box’ vending machines are already a thing as this Timeout article highlights, offering the enticing possibility of winning a Nintendo handheld for a small fee, but the likelihood of getting a tiny plastic torch that breaks after three days of ownership.
Back in March, Intel unveiled its 11th generation of desktop processors codenamed Rocket Lake. In its lineup, the flagship desktop chip is the Core i9-11900K, with eight cores, sixteen threads, and a current selling price of $545 at Amazon. Along with obvious performance advantages that come with the flagship model, including higher turbo frequencies, Intel has put a lot of its latest technologies into Rocket Lake including Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) and Adaptive Boost (ABT) - the idea here is to to give the best possible performance out of the box. In this article, we take four retail Intel Core i9-11900K processors and four premium Z590 motherboards, including the ASRock Z590 Taichi, the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero, the GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Master, and MSI MEG Z590 Ace, and overclocking them. Is overclocking worth it on Intel's Core i9-11900K? Let's find out.
Intel Arc is official, and with it the graphics card world will soon be a mighty scrum between Teams Blue, Red, and Green. But how much do AMD and Nvidia have to fear from this latest player in on the GPU scene, and how confident are we that Intel Alchemist, the first Arc card we're expecting to see, will earn a spot on our best graphics cards list when it drops?
While this might be Intel's first go at making a line of discrete gaming graphics cards, Intel has been making GPUs for a while now in the form of Intel Iris integrated graphics, and it's Iris Xe graphics have been pretty impressive, given the constraints of its platform integrated with Intel Tiger Lake CPUs.
That is, of course, still the case since we haven't gotten our hands on the Intel Arc graphics card yet, but we won't have to wait too much longer with a release date expected less than a year away. So what else do we know so far about the Intel Arc? Let's take a look.
Cut to the chase
What is it? Intel’s line of discrete graphics cards
When is it out? Q1 2022, possibly as early as January 2022
What will it cost? No one knows yet
When is Intel Arc going to be released?
The Intel Arc release date is a bit fuzzy this far out, but Intel is giving a Q1 2022 release date for their first lineup of Intel Arc graphics cards. This lines up pretty neatly with CES 2022, so it wouldn't be shocking to see an announcement or even a full blown launch in January 2022.
We don't know how the cards will break down by model yet, or how many different cards will be featured under the Intel Arc codename "Alchemist" – which, we have to admit, is a pretty cool code name – so it's too soon to tell how many cards are going to be released in Q1 2022.
We expect though that there could be at least three cards competing in the three tranches against AMD and Nvidia, with high-end, midrange, and low-end cards featuring different amounts of VRAM and core counts to compete against rival cards from Team Red and Team Green.
We know that Intel Arc will definitely have some midrange offering that will pit it against the RTX 3070 and RX 6700 XT, and will likely have something for the low end as well. Whether it will compete against the higher-end RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT, much less the RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT are open questions at this point.
It is far too soon to tell how much Intel Arc graphics cards will cost, but we expect that they will be competitively priced against rival AMD and Nvidia cards, if for no other reason than that they will have to be, otherwise what is the point?
Of course, much of the discussion around price and pre-announcement discussion points to Intel aiming more towards competing with AMD than with Nvidia.
An interview with Russian YouTube channel Pro Hi-Tech, that was subsequently taken down, saw Intel senior vice president of architecture saying that Intel Arc would aim for the mainstream market, which begins around $200 (about £165, AU$300).
Intel has clarified that Koduri was talking about the mainstream market starting at that price point and not future Intel graphics cards starting at that price point, so they appear to be giving themselves some wiggle room on future pricing.
That said, it doesn't appear that they are gunning for the brass ring right out the gate and looking to challenge the Nvidia RTX 3090, so whatever Alchemist comes out with, we may see it more targeted towards the Nvidia RTX 3070 and the AMD RX 6700 XT on the high end, which would put a cap on the MSRP at around $600 / £500 / AU$1,000.
What can Intel Xe graphics cards do?(Image credit: Intel)
Intel Arc specs
Unlike just about everything else about Intel Arc, there are some things we do know about Intel Arc's specs, courtesy of Intel itself.
During Intel's recent Architecture Day event, where Intel Arc was given some considerable attention, we learned that Intel Arc will be seriously competitive when it comes to real-time ray tracing, AI super sampling technology – directly competing with Nvidia DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution – to upscale graphics, and mesh shading.
Intel released a video demonstrating its latest tech during its Intel Arc announcement and it definitely looks impressive.
We do know that the Intel Xe-HPG architecture that Intel Arc will be based on features a core count of 4096, which is higher than both the AMD RX 6700 and RX 6800, though this falls short of that of the Nvidia RTX 3070.
If Team Blue can get the pricing right on Intel Arc, it could easily pose the greatest challenge to AMD, and even supplant it for second place in the graphics card market as the graphics card to get if you are in any way budget-conscious.
The number of GPUs being shipped has just shot up according to the latest report from an analyst firm detailing Q2 shipments for 2021.
This comes from Jon Peddie Research, which continuously keeps tabs on the graphics arena, and found that in Q2 of this year, GPU shipments (including integrated graphics as well as discrete cards) went up by no less than 37% compared to the same quarter in 2020. Shipment numbers also increased slightly since Q1 2021, with a 3.4% uptick quarter-on-quarter.
In total, 123 million GPUs were shipped, and Jon Peddie further observes that there was also major growth in terms of CPU shipments for PCs which increased by 42% year-on-year.
However, what Jon Peddie calls desktop graphics add-in boards – in other words, traditional graphics cards that you fit into your PC – actually slipped by 2.9% in Q2. That said, a decline is usually expected as we head from Q1 to Q2.
The current overall balance of discrete GPUs – both desktop and laptop models – witnessed Nvidia increasing its grip on the market, extending its share to 83% this quarter, with AMD of course having the remaining 17%.
Analysis: Nvidia slowly squeezing the life out of Big Navi?
Going back to that final breakdown of all discrete graphics cards, Nvidia really is making serious headway against its rival according to Jon Peddie’s stats. It now stands with 83% of market share, compared to 81% in Q1. And if we go back further to Q1 of 2020, Team Green held a 75% share, so the company is up pretty strongly with a full 8% gain over the last year-and-a-half. Territory which, let’s face it, AMD can’t afford to cede…
Despite the strong growth in GPU shipments compared to 2020, the analyst firm is cautious about the current quarter (Q3 2021), observing that: “In a year like no other, suppliers reported shortages of component parts, capacitors, substrates, and other items … No one was happy about it, and unfortunately, the upcoming inventory build-out for the holiday season that usually takes place in the third quarter will be constrained until the supply chain catches up with demand.”
The Core i9-12900K manages to record a single-core result of 1,893, with a score of 17,299 for multi-core. Remember, this is an 8-core CPU with a further 8 power-efficient cores (to make 24-threads in total). The base clock is read as 3.2GHz, but of course this is a pre-release sample chip, so take that with caution – indeed, the boost clock isn’t even properly recorded here (note that clocks will be different between the two types of cores, but the full-power ones are expected to Turbo to 5.3GHz or thereabouts).
If we compare those scores with the current flagship Core i9-11900K for Rocket Lake, we see that the Alder Lake successor is a touch faster in single-core (2%) but hugely quicker when it comes to multi-core – to the tune of 57%.
On the AMD front, comparing to the Ryzen 9 5950X, the 12900K comfortably outdoes Team Red’s flagship by 12%, and beats it in multi-core, albeit by a small margin of 3.5%.
Analysis: Sleepless nights for AMD engineers?
Naturally, we must be careful around any leaks, so engage skeptical mode as ever with the rumor mill, but taking this at face value, it looks to be an impressive showing for an Intel sample chip.
That could’ve helped lift the numbers, and remember, this is a sample chip, so the finalized Core i9-12900K should be even faster – plus the release version of Windows 11 should be better tuned for Alder Lake, too. Meaning that the hardware and software synergy here might lead to even more impressive results when the new CPUs (and operating system) are launched later in 2021.
It’s a tantalizing prospect, and one that might well worry AMD, especially given that this isn’t the first seriously promising leaked benchmark for the Alder Lake flagship. We also witnessed the 12900K comfortably getting the better of the Ryzen 5950X in Cinebench R20, winning by 26% in single-core, and 11% in multi-core.
Obviously, we shouldn’t get carried away around leaks, though, but thus far they appear to be building a convincing picture of a big step forward for Intel – which ultimately will be great for the overall level of competition within the desktop CPU sphere.
One of Intel’s Alder Lake processors has been spotted being benchmarked, with the purported Core i7-12700 producing some interesting results – and having an interesting core count for that matter.
The Intel Core i7-12700 was spotted in a Geekbench result, as flagged by BenchLeaks on Twitter, and according to the listed spec of this CPU, it has 8-cores and 16-threads. That means the chip has 8 full-power cores (with hyperthreading), but no power-efficient cores.
Now, the rumored Core i7-12700K is purportedly going to offer eight full cores plus four low-power cores, for a total thread count of 20, so if the spec info provided via Geekbench is correct, the vanilla 12700 will do away with the 4 ‘small’ power-efficient cores.
Clock speeds are indicative of a pre-release sample CPU with a base clock of 2.1GHz and boost to 4.8GHz, but that’s very common with early leaks (remember, Alder Lake isn’t due until later in the year, maybe around October going by the rumor mill).
As for the actual result – assuming it’s genuine – the Core i7-12700 managed a score of 1,595 in single-core, with 10,170 recorded in multi-core. The former score doesn’t look great, and indeed lags behind the current Core i7-11700, which is of course disappointing on the face of it (more on that in a moment).
Multi-core is a more positive showing here with the Alder Lake processor offering a 15% uptick compared to its predecessor, and coming pretty close to the performance of the Ryzen 7 5800X. This is something to get a bit more excited about, of course, particularly given that the Alder Lake silicon is a sample, so we can expect more pep than this from the final version (And remember, Windows 11 is set to fine-tune performance of Intel’s 12th-gen CPUs, too).
Analysis: Be careful not to read too much into all this
As ever with these kinds of early benchmark leaks, we definitely can’t read too much into what is just a sample chip, and there’s only so much a single benchmark can tell us anyway.
The single-core result is disappointing as mentioned, but this is symptomatic of an engineering sample, where typically scores can pitch considerably lower than what we should expect from the finished product. Indeed, there’s clearly no way Intel would release a successor CPU which was slower than the current model for single-core performance, as that just wouldn’t make any sense.
As for the prospect of the Core i7-12700 doing away with power-efficient cores compared to the ‘K’ model, that’s a move to be skeptical around in our opinion. The ‘K’ variant of an Intel processor is always capable of better performance, but it does that with higher clock speeds, and being unlocked for overclocking – while the core configuration remains identical to the vanilla (non-K) offering.
So, either Intel is seriously changing things up here, or the CPU’s configuration is being misread by the software – or indeed this could be a result of the 12700 shown here being an early sample chip. The latter possibilities seem more likely, so we wouldn’t get hung up on purported differences in the actual core count, and it’s surely likely the vanilla 12700 will offer 4 ‘little’ cores just like its 12700K sibling.
There may be other Alder Lake CPUs which drop the power-efficient cores from the mix, as per the rumor mill, but we’d be surprised to see such a variation between K and non-K models.
In today's review, we are taking a look at Noctua's NH-U12S Redux, a price-optimized version of their highly popular NH-U12S tower CPU cooler. The NH-U12S Redux has been redesigned to bring the same kind of Noctua performance, but at a retail price of just $50, making it more affordable to the masses.
Ever since we heard about Intel’s plans for dedicated Arc graphics cards, we’ve been wondering just how much of a threat they could be to Nvidia and AMD, but with news that the GPUs will offer some sort of support for overclocking, it looks like that threat level has just risen for the two established GPU makers.
In case you’re not aware, overclocking is a process that allows users to push their hardware to their very limits and eke out even more performance. By overclocking your CPU or GPU, you can get some noticeable performance improvements for no extra cost.
The process does have its risks, however, as if done incorrectly it can lead to components overheating, the PC becoming unstable and even (in some extreme cases) the components getting damaged. That’s why many manufacturers have tools that makes the process easier and safer.
So, when Roger Chandler, Intel's Vice President and General Manager of Client Graphics Products and Solutions, mentions in a recent blog post that the company is “integrating overclocking controls into the driver UI to give enthusiasts the tools they need to push the hardware to the limit,” we got pretty excited.
Going for the enthusiasts
While Intel has been in the GPU game for a long while now, most noticeably with its integrated graphics that come with its processors, Intel Arc represents a more concerted effort to woo PC gamers and enthusiasts, a market that Nvidia and AMD dominate in.
The news we’ve been hearing about Intel Arc has certainly been promising – including information that means it could take on the Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD RX 6700 XT. The first Intel Arc GPU, codenamed 'Alchemist’, is due in the first quarter of 2022 and will offer features such as ray tracing lighting effects.
The ability to overclock these GPUs in some capacity will make them more appealing to enthusiasts and gamers, then. This is Intel’s biggest challenge: breaking the gamer mindset that Nvidia and AMD GPUs are the only ones worth buying for the ultimate gaming experience.
So, while overclocking won’t be the most important feature for a lot of people, it does show enthusiasts that Intel is getting serious, and that should worry Nvidia and AMD.
Welcome to Hot Chips! This is the annual conference all about the latest, greatest, and upcoming big silicon that gets us all excited. Stay tuned during Monday and Tuesday for our regular AnandTech Live Blogs.
Welcome to Hot Chips! This is the annual conference all about the latest, greatest, and upcoming big silicon that gets us all excited. Stay tuned during Monday and Tuesday for our regular AnandTech Live Blogs.
Welcome to Hot Chips! This is the annual conference all about the latest, greatest, and upcoming big silicon that gets us all excited. Stay tuned during Monday and Tuesday for our regular AnandTech Live Blogs. Today we start at 8:45am PT, so set your watches and notifications to return back here! The first set of talks is all about CPUs: Intel Alder Lake, AMD Zen 3, IBM Z, and Intel Sapphire Rapids.
Over the last couple of years, a great deal of concern has developed around the future of semiconductor manufacturing, both with respect to total capacity and where the next generation of fabs will be hosted. The current chip crunch has underscored that current fab capacity is too small for a world where there’s a silicon chip in practically everything, and meanwhile geopolitical matters have made nations increasingly worried about where today’s cutting-edge fabs are located – mostly in Taiwan and South Korea. Consequently, we’ve seen governments kick-start initiatives to woo fab companies or otherwise incentivize the domestic construction of next-generation fabs, including the United States Department of Defense, whom today is awarding Intel an agreement to provide commercial foundry services for the DoD.
As announced by Intel this morning, Intel’s Foundry Services group has secured an agreement with the United States Department of Defense to provide fab services under the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial (RAMP-C) program. RAMP-C is one of several US government programs to encourage domestic chip production, with this program focused on chip production for defense needs. In short, the DoD wants to ensure it will be able to have its chips (and other necessary commercial hardware) fabbed within the United States on a leading-edge commercial manufacturing node, and it is tapping a consortium of companies lead by Intel to develop the necessary foundry ecosystem.
Along with Intel, the consortium also includes IBM, Cadence, Synopsys and other companies, all of whom will be providing their relevant expertise and technologies to the project. These companies will be working together on what’s a fairly forward-looking service agreement, as the DoD is looking at fab needs several years down the line. Ultimately, the group is being tasked with establishing a semiconductor IP ecosystem around Intel’s forthcoming 18A process – the most advanced process on their development roadmap – which isn’t due to start ramping until 2025.
At this point Intel and the DoD are not announcing the value of the services agreement. There is no doubt some hedging going on, and there are multiple milestones Intel & co will need to hit between now and 2025 as part of their participating in the RAMP-C program.
But in the meantime, even being able to claim the DoD as a major customer for Intel Foundry Services is a big win for the group, which is still in the early stages of lining up customers and proving that it has learned from past mistakes, both with regards to offering contract foundry services, and in operating a leading-edge fab ecosystem. As a reminder, Intel has previously announced that it will be spending around $20 billion to build a pair of new fabs in Arizona, so success for IFS hinges on finding big customers like the DoD to fill those fabs with orders.
Intel has disclosed more about how Alder Lake processors will work for gamers, and as we’ve heard in the past via the rumor mill, the power-efficient (‘little’) cores should more than pull their weight even for gaming on a desktop PC – in certain scenarios.
Team Blue has already explained how these 12th-gen CPUs, with their mix of performance (normal) and efficient (low-power) cores, will work with Windows 11 to get the most out of the processor’s abilities. Alder Lake will have a Thread Director, a hardware-based scheduler to work in tandem with Windows 11’s thread scheduler, enabling the operating system to fully optimize CPU performance for different workloads.
And when it comes to gaming workloads, as PC Gamer reports, Intel’s Ran Berenson, GM of Core and Client Development Group, laid out the advantages of Alder Lake in no uncertain terms: “The best example that we have in the lab is gaming in parallel to whatever other workloads that you’re running. Can be streaming, can be web browsing.”
Intel gives an example of playing and recording a game, a scenario in which the beefy powerful cores are running the actual game, with the low-power cores providing the wherewithal to tackle recording duties. Similarly, if you’re running Discord during a gaming session, the small cores could handle that.
Alder Lake’s little cores won’t just be about dealing with tasks on the side for gamers, though, and separately Intel detailed the way in which these cores – which are shaping up to be surprisingly powerful, beating out a Skylake (6th-gen) core in terms of IPC (instructions per clock), but with better power-efficiency – could boost gaming frame rates.
Games will have to be optimized for Alder Lake silicon to do so, of course, and to take advantage of the full amount of threads on offer, which will be 24-threads with the flagship (8 full-power cores, amounting to 16-threads with hyperthreading, with a further 8 low-power cores without hyperthreading).
Berenson told PC Gamer: “If the game is optimized to use a lot of threads and it’s not the old old games today, yes, it will be very beneficial for the game, you know, to run physics on a specific core and run audio announcements on the other core.”
So, while existing games won’t be able to squeeze the full potential from the 24-threads of the Alder Lake flagship, titles coming down the line will – providing the developer optimizes for them.
Intel makes it clear that there’s a “lot of room for optimization” when it comes to gaming on 12th-gen CPUs.
Analysis: Cores and effect
How excited should we be about Alder Lake’s gaming potential in light of this new info? Well, there are lots of promising noises being made for sure, but certainly the question of how well 12th-gen silicon might fly in terms of game devs making use of the full capabilities of all those threads, including the low-power ones, is something only those with access to a working crystal ball (and suitable divinatory skills) will be able to foresee.
In general, though, with contemporary games we are seeing a shift towards more cores being used – thanks to AMD pushing swiftly forward with multi-core Ryzen CPUs. Certainly, the days when Intel took a stance against driving for more and more cores for gaming (rather than maximizing clock speeds) appear to be well and truly in the rear-view mirror.
As we’ve seen in recent times, much greater numbers of gamers now own 6-core or 8-core processors, and with that trend in mind, it’s not difficult to imagine many more threads being put to good use by game developers in the maybe-not-too-distant future – particularly if Alder Lake is offering a lot of scope for optimization, as claimed.
In the nearer future, though, expect those small cores to be making more of a difference for the likes of game streamers, or other side jobs like running Discord.
In our coverage of the semiconductor space, we typically think of two main vectors of hardware – the CPU and the GPU. Beyond that, we look at FPGAs, microcontrollers, and this decade is bringing the advent of the dedicated AI processor. What ties all of these products together is actually the FPGA - a field programmable gate array that allows a skilled technician to essentially build a custom circuit out of configurable gates. This means an FPGA can be used to design and simulate a full CPU or GPU, but also an FPGA offers a reconfigurable way to offer optimized compute power that adapts to the needs of its users without the cost of millions or tens of millions to design dedicated silicon. One of the first FPGA companies on the market was Lattice Semiconductor, which now focuses on small power efficient FPGA designs that end up in everything from consumer devices to servers.
Over the last three years at Lattice, Jim has initiated a cultural shift that is playing out in the company roadmaps – new products, a more agile approach, and a need to focus on enabling machine learning at every part of its product stack. The recent financial disclosures at Lattice show an increasing demand for its hardware, as well as the company making strides to double its addressable market over the next five years. I thought this would be a good time to reconnect with Jim to find out exactly what he’s doing at Lattice to earmark the next generation of growth at this foundational FPGA company.
AMD vs Intel isn't just a choice you'll need to deliberate over when choosing the parts for your PC, it's also one of the biggest rivalries in the world of tech, with both companies offering the best gaming CPUs on the market. You may have noticed though that when it comes to computers, regardless of if it's gaming or workstation, these are the only two brands in the business of processors.
You'd think that would make choosing a CPU for your system easy given there are only two companies involved, but both AMD and Intel have a huge array of processors to choose from that can be catered towards your build requirements. As this is strictly an Intel Vs AMD faceoff, it's important to know where each manufacturer's strengths lie.
Choosing the best processor or graphics card has never been harder thanks to this Intel vs AMD struggle for domination. When one releases a top-notch component, the other manages to match or outdo the first. In addition, the internals roll out fast enough that even PC building veterans don’t have an easy time figuring out what the best PC components are.
To make things more complicated, the two companies don’t mix on a technical level. When you’re shopping, you have to choose one or the other. This decision might be the first and most crucial one when gathering supplies for that upcoming PC build. Thankfully, each brand comes with their own list of flaws and benefits in terms of price points, overclocking abilities, graphics, and component variety. Regardless of what you choose, there’ll be a quality part that will fit your needs.
Let us help you make sense of it all. We can assist you in sorting out how the AMD Ryzen 3rd Generation and more recently the Ryzen 5000 series chips are different from Intel’s latest Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake chips (as well as their 10th-generation counterparts). We'll also break down each brand's available components, and look at overall costs, performance and where each brand is headed in the coming years.
(Image credit: TechRadar)
AMD vs Intel: price
In the past, if you were looking for a decent CPU with a budget-friendly price, your go-to choice was AMD. However, with their newest generation of Ryzen CPUs, AMD has been on par or even surpassed Intel components on price. The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, for instance, is easily the brand's most expensive unit, retailing for around $750 (£580, AU$1130). However, the sticker shock you feel backs up some impressive technology.
The Ryzen 9 3950X boasts 16 cores and 32 threads, exceeding the previous flagship, the Ryzen 9 3900X. And it doesn't just have more cores and threads than its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 3950X has more cache memory and faster processing speeds. It also has the ability to store up to four different profiles for different performance and overclocking settings, so no matter if you're a casual or hardcore gamer or hobbyist artist and animator, you'll always have the best performance you can get out of your CPU.
On the much cheaper end, AMD just rolled out the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and AMD Ryzen 3 3100, it’s new budget champions. These cost $120 (about £100, AU$190) and $99 (about £79, AU$150) respectively while delivering truly impressive power, proving once again that AMD is king when it comes to affordability and multi-threaded performances.
When it comes to Intel, Coffee Lake Refresh processors are probably what most people are familiar with. The latest generation of Coffee Lake Refresh processors from Intel includes the i9-9900K which retails for around $550 (£420, AU$830) and gives you 8 cores to work with as well as native integrated graphics.
However, the new Comet Lake-S desktop processors have just been unveiled and are well on their way, led by the Core i9-10900K. At $488 (about £395/A$765), this high-specced chip boasts 10 cores, 20 threads and a boost of 5.3GHz. Another notable chip in this new line is the Core i7-10700K, which offers 8 cores and 16 threads with a 5.1GHz turbo for just $374 (about £300, AU$571).
Comet Lake’s mobile processors, on the other hand, have been filtering out for months now, with the Core i7-10710U leading them. These chips start at $281 (about £215, AU$405) and cost up to $443 (about £340, AU$635). Their gaming laptop counterparts, the Comet Lake-H processors, have also been trickling out, with the Core i9-10980HK leading the charge at $583 (about £470, AU$910).
If you're in the market for a really high-end CPU and have super deep pockets, the third generation of AMD Threadripper units is the best choice for professional 3D modeling artists, animators, filmmakers, and data scientists. The Threadripper 3990X retails for a whopping $3,900 (£3,030, AU$5,890), putting it well out of range of casual PC builders and average PC gamers. This CPU is built with 64 cores and 128 threads to give you plenty of power to render 3D models and rip through complex mathematical models to get the most out of your workday.
(Image credit: Intel)
AMD vs Intel: performance
So you've set yourself a budget for a new CPU, but you still have a ton of options when it comes to performance. On the whole, AMD and Intel Processors have been on a pretty even keel when it comes to overall performance. Between the two, it all comes down to whether you need to multitask well or want to play games at their highest settings.
If you're looking at buying an AMD processor, be advised that very few of their available CPUs feature integrated graphics. Those that do are referred to as an Accelerated Processing Unit. The ultra-low budget AMD Athlon 240GE retails around $80 (£62, AU$120) and features Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics. This makes it perfect for low- to mid-grade gaming as well as video streaming for high quality graphics rendering at a low price.
Now that AMD has rolled out its budget gaming champions, the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and AMD Ryzen 3 3100, you’ve got a few more options here. These two might set you back a bit more, but not by much, while offering a much better performance. The Ryzen 3 3300X, for example, delivers performance that until now was only available on mid-range or high-end hardware. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 3 3100 is simply excellent for 1080p gaming.
If you're into higher-end gaming, however, you'll have to pair a Ryzen 7 or 9 CPU with a dedicated GPU to take your game to the next level.
For day-to-day work and multitasking, the AMD Ryzen line is also a safe bet, as they offer the most PCIe lanes so you can use more solid-state drives for super-fast computer start up and file recall. Just keep in mind that AMD processors tend to run hotter than their Intel counterparts, so you'll need to consider either a supplementary fan or liquid cooling system for your new CPU.
With Intel, on the other hand, each chip has on-die integrated Intel HD or Iris graphics, so you can play most mainstream games or stream quality video right out of the box, no matter what CPU you pick. However, like their AMD cousins, if you want to play more graphically demanding games, you'll need to choose a companion GPU.
But with the newest Coffee and Ice Lake processors, each CPU will beat out AMD Ryzen and Threadripper units on core-by-core performance - though that gap is minimal. The late 2020 introduction of Tiger Lake could see even more integrated graphic rendering ability for a better streaming or gaming experience right out of the box. Intel has also heavily hinted at plans to release their own dedicated Intel Xe GPU in 2020.
(Image credit: Future)
AMD vs Intel: specs
We've reviewed both the Ryzen 9 3950X and the Intel i9-9900K to give you more insight on each processor's capabilities, performance, and price. Both processors give you plenty of power, but each has their own pros and cons.
As mentioned before, the Ryzen 9 3950X has 16 cores and 32 threads. This gives you all the power you need and then some to tackle everyday multitasking and general workloads in an office setting. It also has enough juice to give you great frame rates in both full HD and 4K gaming settings so you don't have to deal with terrible amounts of lag or screen tearing. The entire Ryzen 3000 series are all fairly evenly-matched when it comes to frame rates and multitasking abilities, so it all comes down to how many cores and threads you'll need.
The Ryzen 9 3950X features dual channel memory support and 64MB of cache. This ensures faster recall of your frequently-used files and programs. With a base clock speed of 3.5 GHz and a Max Boost Clock of 4.7 GHz, you'll be able to tackle just about any game or work task at blazing speeds.
The Intel i9-9900K has half the number of cores and threads as the Ryzen 9 3950X, but it makes up for some of that with slightly stronger single core performance. The i9-9900K has a base speed of 3.6GHz and a Turbo clock of a whopping 5GHz. It also uses just 95 watts of power compared to the Ryzen 9's 105 watts - though you are getting around half the total performance.
With Intel's integrated graphics, you'll get both full HD and 4K video and graphical support right out of the box. You'll not only get a great picture for both streaming video and playing the latest games, you'll also get awesome frame rates as well, preventing lag and screen tearing.
(Image credit: Intel)
AMD vs Intel: technical and customer support
AMD has an entire webpage dedicated to customer and technical support of their CPUs. On this page, you can download the latest drivers for integrated Radeon graphics processors or GPUs. You can also check up on your product's warranty, download full spec sheets, and ask other AMD users questions on a dedicated forum. If you have a problem with a specific unit, you can use a drop-down menu to select your CPU to be directed to a page of driver download links and a customer support page for more in-depth troubleshooting.
Intel's official site also has a dedicated page for technical support when you have trouble with your new or existing CPU. You'll be able to browse a variety of blog posts that answer frequently asked questions, view spec sheets, download drivers, and access the support community forums if your question isn't answered by the FAQ. Intel also offers live phone or chat support if you need help walking through a solution.
(Image credit: AMD)
AMD vs Intel: future speculation
AMD has had a massively successful past few years with their Ryzen and Threadripper lines of CPUs. With twice the number of cores and threads as their counterparts, they've given Intel something to worry about and proven their worth as a reliable choice for PC components. Intel, on the other hand, has seen some embarrassing failures such as their lackluster release (or lack thereof) of Cannon Lake. However, they seem to have taken their knocks and learned a few lessons to apply to future releases.
Intel has announced plans for future releases of their Tiger Lake and Comet Lake-S lines of processors for laptops and desktops, respectively. The new CPU line will most likely try to stay abreast of AMD's Ryzen and Threadripper products. However, it's unlikely that Intel will be able to top AMD any time soon, as even Intel CFO George Davis has admitted that Team Blue won't reach parity with AMD's 7nm manufacturing process until 2021.
Future generations of AMD's Ryzen processors will most likely continue to give you more cores and threads for faster and more efficient multitasking. Whenever AMD Ryzen 4000 processors for desktop make their way to market - which should be some time this year - the shift to a more efficient 7nm+ manufacturing process should see further boosts to IPC (instructions per clock) performance along with power efficiency. Threadripper's future seems to stay on track to offer powerful CPU options to industry professionals for 3D modeling and animation or data science work.
Interested in graphics cards? Check out the Nvidia vs AMD smackdown
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This week Intel held its annual Architecture Day event for select press and partners. As with previous iterations, the company disclosed details about its next generation architectures set to come to the market over the next twelve months. Intel has promised the release of its next-generation consumer and mobile processor family, Alder Lake, to come by the end of the year and today the company is sharing a good number of details about the holistic design of the chips as well as some good detail about the microarchitectures that form this hybrid design: Golden Cove and Gracemont. Here is our analysis of Intel’s disclosure.
For Intel’s 2021 Architecture Day presentations, the yin to the CPU company’s traditional yang is GPUs. Intel has spent the last few years preparing to enter the market for discrete GPUs, with aims of competing in everything from consumer video cards up to HPC-class accelerators. And now, as the company already begins preparing for 2022, those efforts are finally coming to a head. Intel’s big breakout effort in the discrete GPU space starts in earnest next year with Xe-HPG and Xe-HPC, so for their 2021 architecture day, Intel is opening up a bit more about the GPU architectures that will be driving their first wave of high-performance products next year.
Intel’s dominance in the CPU market has been somewhat shaken lately by a resurgent AMD, and it looks like the company isn’t taking the challenge lying down if new rumors about its 13th-gen Raptor Lake-S desktop processors are to be believed.
From what we’ve heard, the Raptor Lake-S family of processors, which will come after Intel’s 12th gen Alder Lake-S release, will feature two new core architectures – Raptor Cove cores for high-performance tasks, and enhanced Gracemont cores that are more efficient.
The idea would be that Raptor Lake-S would use the efficiency cores for day-to-day tasks, keeping overall power consumption down, and will switch to the high-performance cores when your PC needs extra processing power. Processors in mobile devices from the likes of ARM and Qualcomm have been doing something similar for a while now.
YouTube channel AdoredTV has now apparently got hold of leaked information about the upcoming CPUs, and talks about them in the video you can watch below.
Leaked Intel Raptor Lake-S details
According to AdoredTV, Intel Raptor Lake-S will have a flagship Intel Core i9 K-Series processor, which will come with 24 core, 32 threads and a 36 MB cache. Those core numbers are noticeable as they are higher than Intel’s consumer CPUs usually go, though it’s worth pointing out that it will apparently be split between eight high-performance Raptor Cove cores, and 16 efficiency Gracemont cores.
In contrast, Intel’s 12th gen Alder Lake-S’s flagship CPU, the Intel Core i9-12900K, is rumored to come with 16 cores (with eight performance and eight efficiency cores) and 24 threads.
Intel Raptor Lake-S will also have an Intel Core i7 K-series variant with 16 cores (eight Raptor Cove and eight Gracemont) and 24 threads, and an Intel Core i5 K-Series with 14 cores (six Raptor Cove and eight Gracemont) and 24MB cache.
These K-Series CPUs are all unlocked, which means users can overclock them to eke out more performance.
There will also be non-overclockable Raptor Lake-S CPUs, according to the leak. These will be an Intel Core i5 S-Series with 14 cores (six Raptor Cove and four Gracemont), 16 threads and 21MB cache, an Intel Core i3 S-Series with four cores (all Raptor Cove), eight threads and 12MB of cache and an Intel Pentium S-Series with two cores (both Raptor Cove), four threads and 6MB of cache. All CPUs will apparently come with integrated graphics supplied by Intel’s enhance Xe GPU.
If these specs are accurate, and they sound pretty plausible, then it looks like Intel is getting serious about AMD. These will no doubt be powerful CPUs, and with the two new core architectures, it shows that Intel is keen to try new things.
This is great to see, as for a long while Intel’s dominance in the CPU market meant that the company appeared to get a little complacent, with very little innovation between GPU generations. And to be fair, who could blame it? It was seeing unrivaled success with its products, so the need to radically innovate simply wasn’t there.
However, its biggest competitor in the desktop CPU space, AMD, has recently been on a bit of a winning spree with its CPUs, gaining critical and commercial success, and this has led to its chipping away at Intel’s once unassailable lead.
AMD’s desire to take Intel’s crown has meant the company has pulled out all the stops when it comes to producing excellent processors, and it’s now overtaken Intel when it comes to processing node leadership, producing 7nm chips while Intel is still on 10nm (though Intel maintains these numbers are more to do with PR than actual performance).
Still, this has shaken Intel, which recently announced its ambitions to re-take the process node leadership, and widen the gap between its lead and AMD. The renewed competition in the AMD vs Intel fight has meant that not only has AMD upped its game, but Intel is doing the same. The overall winners, then, are us consumers, as we’ll be getting some truly exciting processors that should push our PCs to even greater heights in the future.
On the back of a myriad of new motherboard launches based on AMD's X570 chipset, we have the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max. The new Max motherboard supersedes the previous X570 Ace, and fittingly has lots of new and improved features. Some of the biggest features of the new Ace Max include a large 18-phase power delivery with premium 90 A power stages and the inclusion of an Intel Wi-Fi 6E wireless interface. Other features include four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, support for DDR4-5300 memory, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet.
Perhaps on par with MSI's flagship X570 model, the Godlike, the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max looks to take things to the next level with a stylish all-black design with contrasting gold stripes and multiple areas of integrated RGB lighting. Looking at PCIe support on the X570S Ace Max, it includes three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that operate at x16 or x8/x8/+x4, with a single PCIe 4.0 x1 slot. The latter of which unfortunately shares bandwidth with the Wi-Fi 6E module, so when that is in use, the slot is disabled.
Looking at storage options, the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max has four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, including three with support for SATA drives, as well as eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. MSI also includes an M.2 Xpander-Z Gen4 S M.2 PCIe 4.0 addon card for users looking to add more M.2 storage. Memory support is also impressive, with support for up to DDR4-5300 and a maximum supported capacity of up to 128 GB across four memory slots. Keeping the system cool is a combined total of eight 4-pin headers, including one designated to a CPU fan, one for a water pump, and six for chassis fans. MSI also has a premium power delivery, with an 18-phase design using 90 A power stages versus the 60 A power stages used on the original MEG X570 Ace.
The rear panel has a solid array of input and output befitting a premium model, including one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, three USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. It uses a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE controller for Ethernet, and Intel's latest AX210 Wi-Fi 6E wireless interface for Wi-Fi, offering access to the 6 GHz band and support for BT 5.2 devices. There's also a premium onboard audio pairing of a Realtek ALC4082 HD audio codec and an ESS Sabre 9018Q2C DAC.
At the time of writing, we don't have pricing information or when the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max will be available at retail, but we expect this to be within the coming months.
Colorful has unveiled two new motherboards designed for Intel Rocket Lake and Comet Lake processors. The CVN B560I Gaming V20 and CVN B560I Gaming Frozen are based on the Mini-ITX form factor, and both share the same feature set; the only difference is in the aesthetics. The most prominent features include one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, four SATA ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet controller.
Designed around the budget-friendly Intel B560 chipset for 11th and 10th generation Intel desktop processors, both the Colorful CVN B560I Gaming V20 and Frozen models include an unspecified 8-phase power delivery (6+2), with one 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input and a 24-pin 12 V ATX motherboard inputs. On the right-hand side of the board are a pair of memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4266 and can accommodate up to 64 GB.
At the time of writing, Colorful hasn't divulged its controller set, but we know it has one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot and one full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot along the bottom of the board. For cooling, both boards include three 4-pin fan headers with four straight-angled SATA ports, which can be found on the right-hand side of the PCB. The only difference between both models is that the Frozen variant has a white PCB, and the V20 uses a black PCB. This gives users the option to find a solution to fit their systems aesthetic; However, Colorful doesn't specify if either model includes integrated RGB LED lighting. We would assume neither does based on the images.
Both models share the same rear panel I/O layout and include one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Colorful provides a pair of video outputs, including HDMI and DisplayPort, while an unspecified HD audio codec powers three 3.5 mm audio jacks. Regarding networking, there's one Gigabit Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi 6 CNVi, which also includes support for BT 5.0 devices.
At present, Colorful hasn't provided pricing or when the CVN B560I Gaming V20 and Gaming Frozen models will hit retail shelves.
Back in January, Intel launched its Jasper Lake platform with a range of dual-core and quad-core Tremont Atom-based processors.. Primarily aimed at the notebook and Chromebook market, Intel's Jasper Lake Celeron and Pentium Silver chips are using 10nm Tremont Atom cores as low as 6 W. Today we have learned that ASUS has unveiled its first Jasper Lake system via the N5105I-IM-A mini-ITX motherboard for the DIY market, with a passively cooled design, and supports the Intel Celeron N5105 4-core 4-thread processor.
Based on the small form factor mini-ITX platform, the ASUS N5105I-IM-A includes two SO-DIMM memory slots, although ASUS hasn't revealed a full list of the specifications. It is using a 4-pin 12 V ATX power input, with an additional 4-pin 12 V power output. The N5105I-IM-A is designed to support Intel's Celeron N5105 processor, which features four Tremont Atom cores, four threads, and features a base frequency of 2 GHz, a turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz, and has a 10 W TDP.
Due to the low power by the Intel Celeron N5105, ASUS has opted for a gold-colored copper CPU heatsink, which comes supplied with the board. Looking at onboard connectivity, ASUS includes what looks like a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, with two SATA ports and one 4-pin fan header for a chassis fan. Video is provided by the graphics on the CPU.
On the rear panel is a range of input and output, including two video outputs consisting of an HDMI and D-sub output, with three Serial ports. The board also includes support for an RJ11/DIO connector that is regularly used for cash registers and an MSR/RFID reader for credit and debit card payments. In terms of USB, four Type-A ports are likely USB 3.0, and it also includes one Ethernet port that an unspecified controller powers.
At the time of writing, we don't have any information on the pricing or the availability of the ASUS N5105I-IM-A motherboard.
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