Intel today launched its 11th Generation Core “Rocket Lake” desktop processor family led by the Core i9-11900K—this is its long-awaited review. With the Core i9-11900K, Intel wants to respond to the AMD Ryzen 5000 series, which snatched overall performance leadership away from the company. Rocket Lake is Intel’s first attempt at improving per-core (single-threaded) performance in several years, through the introduction of the new “Cypress Cove” CPU core. Intel claims IPC gain over the previous generation of up to 19%. The i9-11900K is an 8-core/16-thread processor, which is a step backward from its 10-core/20-thread predecessor, the i9-10900K, but Intel believes that the IPC gain and enhancements to the multi-core boosting algorithm should help recover some of the multi-threaded performance despite the two-core deficit. This is also their attempted hint at the market and software developers that eight cores should be plenty for cutting-edge gaming and client desktop tasks.
The reason Intel had to stop at eight cores for Rocket Lake has more to do with the fact that the processor is still manufactured on the 14 nm silicon fabrication node Intel has been lugging along for six years now. The Core i9-11900K is built on the same Socket LGA1200 package as its predecessor, and the package is physically of the same size as the i7-860 from 2009. The new Cypress Cove CPU cores are significantly larger than the “Skylake” cores on “Comet Lake,” and the new Gen12 Xe LP iGPU is larger than the Gen 9.5 unit, too. As a result, elongating the die to cram in more cores wasn’t an option. Add to this that the 14 nm node limits the power budget, and the 10-core Comet Lake was already flirting with 250 W package power draw. Physically removing the iGPU to make room for the extra two cores wasn’t an option either, as Intel emphasizes the iGPU to sell these chips to the vast majority of desktop users that don’t need discrete graphics. Intel plans to significantly change its mainstream desktop socket with the future generation “Alder Lake,” however.
Why Intel stuck with 14 nm is another mystery. Intel’s position is that to accomplish the performance target of Rocket Lake on the desktop platform, 14 nm was sufficient. Intel already has a more advanced silicon fabrication node, the 10 nm SuperFin, which it’s using to make 11th Gen “Tiger Lake-U” mobile processors with plans to launch a new 8-core “Tiger Lake-H” mobile chip later this year. Mobile processors make up a major share of Intel’s client CPU sales, and with the recent surge in notebook sales, the company wants to maximize its 10 nm foundry utilization for mobile chips. The desktop platform has a relatively “unlimited” power budget compared to mobile, and with 10th Gen “Comet Lake-S,” Intel seems to have decided that it’s willing to take the heat for selling a hot and inefficient desktop chip as long as it’s competitive.
We’ll go into the nuts and bolts of Rocket Lake on the following pages, but put briefly, the chip combines eight new Cypress Cove CPU cores with a Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics core and an updated platform I/O that includes PCI-Express Gen 4. The chip also puts out eight more PCIe lanes than the previous generation. These contribute to a CPU-attached NVMe interface, much like those of AMD Ryzen chips, and a double-width DMI x8 chipset-bus. The general purpose PCIe connectivity put out by the new Intel 500-series chipsets continues to be PCIe Gen 3.
With this generation, Intel has an ace up its sleeve—DLBoost, or hardware acceleration of AI deep-learning neural net building and training. Intel claims DLBoost accelerates DNN training performance by up to six times compared to normal x86 execution. DLBoost made its debut with the company’s 10th Gen “Ice Lake” mobile processors, and Intel sees huge potential for AI in several client-relevant media tasks, such as quick image and video manipulation—just like on the latest smartphones. The company also put out plenty of developer documentation and is working with ISVs to promote DLBoost. Another feature making its desktop debut is the new AVX-512 instruction set, or at least a truncated version of it, with only client-relevant instructions.
The Core i9-11900K 8-core processor is clocked at 3.50 GHz, with a maximum Turbo frequency of 5.30 GHz using Thermal Velocity Boost and an all-core boost frequency of 4.70 GHz. Each of the eight Cypress Cove cores comes with 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and the chip has 16 MB of shared L3 cache. The i9-11900K is unlocked and ready for overclocking. Intel has introduced several new features for overclockers, which we’ll detail on the following pages. The i9-11900K is priced at US$539 in 1,000-unit tray quantities, which should put its retail starting price at around $550, the same pricing territory as AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X. In this review, we put the Core i9-11900K through an exhaustive new set of CPU and gaming tests to show you if Intel has managed to take back the crown from AMD.
Intel has started to publish documents related to its upcoming Discrete Graphics 2 (DG2) GPUs based on the Xe-HPG microarchitecture, inadvertently revealing some of their specifications. As expected, Intel’s Xe-HPG family looks like it’ll include multiple models and compete across desktops and laptops and different levels of performance.
In order to prepare for a new product launch, Intel not only has to send various samples to its partners, but it also has to publish extensive documentation about the parts. Usually, such documents are hidden in password-protected sections of Intel’s website, but a simple search of the term “discrete graphics2” revealed dozens of documents about Intel’s DG2 family, as well as some of its specifications, as spotted Friday Twitter leakers @momomo_us and @Komachi_Ensaka.
According to the newfound documents, Intel’s DG2 lineup will include at least five different models for notebooks and at least two models for desktops. For some reason, notebook GPUs are referred to as SKU1 through SKU5; whereas, desktop graphics processors are called SoC1 and SoC2.
The new GPUs will support a PCIe 5.0 interface, GDDR6 memory running at 14 GT/s or 16 GT/s, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB Type-C, according to Intel’s documents. However, it is unclear whether all the capabilities will be enabled on all SKUs.
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Based on names of the documents that Intel has made available to its partners, the company and its allies are currently testing five mobile DG2 graphics processors with 96 execution units (EUs), 128 EUs, 256 EUs, 384 EUs and 512 EUs.
Meanwhile, the desktop-oriented SoC1 is believed to feature 512 EUs.
(Image credit: Intel)
Since Intel’s DG2 products are based on the yet-to-be-revealed Xe-HPG architecture tailored for gaming graphics processors, it’s hard to estimate how the new graphics solutions from Intel will stack up against existing DG1 product or the best graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.
Assuming this is the full lineup, it’s a bit odd to see Intel prepare a relatively broad lineup of GPUs for notebooks and only two graphics processors for desktops. It’s possible that Intel plans on revealing more desktop GPU models (with more EUs, perhaps). It’s also possible that the company will try to address a sweet spot niche of the gaming graphics cards market with a limited number of offerings.
The first benchmark results for Qualcomm’s 3rd Generation Snapdragon 8cx system-on-chip (SoC) for always-connected PCs has been posted to the Geekbench 5 database. The numbers show the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 beating its predecessors and even competing with Intel’s latest 11th Gen Core i7 “Tiger Lake” mobile chip in multi-threaded workloads.
Qualcomm has been fairly consistent in updating its Snapdragon 8cx family of SoCs for notebooks annually. This year, the company is expected to launch its third-generation Snapdragon 8cx chip, which is rumored to significantly change its architecture. Instead of integrating four high-performance CPU cores and four low-power ones, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is expected to pack eight high-performance cores working at different clock speeds, omitting low-power cores. This should improve performance, but it’s unclear whether the chip will match its predecessor’s 7W thermal envelope.
Qualcomm yet has to formally announce its Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, but someone has already submitted test results of a Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) platform running the new SoC to the Geekbench database, as spotted by NotebookCheck.
Just like other notebook development platforms, QRD platforms are meant for developers of hardware and software, so performance usually differs from that of retail products. Nonetheless, such platforms still tend to give a good hint of what to expect from new chips.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 Benchmarks
CPU
Single-Core
Multi-Core
Cores/Threads, uArch
Cache
Clocks
TDP
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3*
982
4,918
4C Kryo Gold+ + 4C Kryo Gold
? MB
2.69 GHz
?
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2
795
3,050
4C Kryo 495 Gold + 4C Kryo 495 Silver
? MB
3.15 GHz + 2.42 GHz
7W
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 1
725
2,884
4C Kryo 495 Gold + 4C Kryo 495 Silver
? MB
2.84 GHz + 1.80 GHz
7W
AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS
1,540
8,225
8C/16T, Zen 3
16MB
3.30 ~ 4.53 GHz
35W
AMD Ryzen 9 4900H
1,230
7,125
8C/16T, Zen 2
8MB
3.30 ~ 4.44 GHz
35~54W
Intel Core i7-1160G7
1,400
5,000
4C/8T, Willow Cove
12MB
2.10 ~ 4.40 GHz
15W
Intel Core i7-1185G7
1,550
5,600
4C/8T, Willow Cove
12MB
3.0 ~ 4.80 GHz
28W
Apple M1
1,710
7,660
4C Firestorm + 4C Icestorm
12MB + 4MB
3.20 GHz
20~24W
*Chip not confirmed by Qualcomm
The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 showed notably higher results in single-thread workloads when compared to previous generations. It was 35% faster than the 8cx Gen 1 and 24% faster than the 8cx Gen 2. We don’t yet know the frequency of the 8cx Gen 3’s cores for sure, but it appears that the 8cx Gen 3 packs something better than Qualcomm’s Kryo 495 Gold (a custom version of Arm’s Cortex-A76).
On the other hand, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3’s performance paled in comparison to chips from AMD and Intel competing with the best CPUs for desktops. The latest Zen 3 and Willow Core microarchitectures can run at higher clocks and consume more power. Meanwhile, Apple’s M1 beat Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 (at least in its current form) in single-threaded workloads by 74%.
When it came to performance in multi-threaded workloads, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 clearly benefits from eight high-performance cores (albeit running at different clocks) inside. The new SoC outperformed the 8cx Gen 2 by over 60% and is on par with Intel’s four-core, eight-thread Core i7-1160G7, a 15W SoC.
The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 tested couldn’t compete with the higher-wattage Apple M1 and AMD’s Ryzen SoCs, but systems based on Qualcomm’s 8cx platforms are not really meant to compete against higher-end machines in terms of performance.
Overall, the benchmark results show the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 demonstrating single-thread and multi-thread performance improvements in a synthetic benchmark. Of course, it remains to be seen how commercial devices based on the new SoC will stack up against rivals in real-world applications.
João Silva 2 days ago Featured Tech News, Graphics, Notebook
The Geekbench 5 database is leaking more unannounced hardware. This time around, entries have detailed the upcoming RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti GPUs for laptops, including specifications and performance scores.
The RTX 3050 will feature 2048 CUDA cores, 4GB of VRAM across a 128-bit memory bus and a 1060MHz clock speed. The GPU was tested in an unannounced laptop – the Samsung 760XDA. The GPU scored 52,587 points in Geekbench 5’s OpenCL test, rivalling the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q, which scored 53,607 points in the same test.
The RTX 3050 Ti was also tested inside of a Samsung 760XDA laptop, so there will be multiple configurations of this laptop available. The RTX 3050 Ti ups the ante with 2560 CUDA cores, a 1030MHz clock speed and the same memory configuration as its younger sibling.
In Geekbench 5’s OpenCL test, the RTX 3050 Ti comes out with a score of 60,479, putting it roughly on par with the RTX 2060 Max-Q. You gain about 15% extra performance jumping from the RTX 3050 to the Ti model.
RTX 3050 series laptops are expected to begin shipping in Q2 2021. Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: These are early and limited indications of performance, but it still gives us a good idea of what to expect from Nvidia’s entry-level RTX laptop GPUs. What do you think of the RTX 3050 and the RTX 3050 Ti? Is performance in line with what you expected?
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Any business laptop that comes out these days is entering a tough field full of very established players. The world is already stuffed full of ThinkPads and Latitudes, which have strong followings, cover price ranges across the board, and are highly attuned to what workers need.
So my question with lesser-known business laptops is usually: Where does this fit? What customer is it catering to who might be underserved by a ThinkPad?
With its TravelMate line (specifically the TravelMate P6), Acer seems to be going for two potential openings. The first is that the TravelMate is, as the name implies, specifically intended for frequent business travelers. It’s light, portable, and sturdy, at the expense of some other traits. And the second is its price. Starting at $1,199.99, the TravelMate line is targeting a more price-conscious demographic than many business laptops that would be considered “premium” are. I think the TravelMate succeeds in filling these two niches in particular. But it has some other drawbacks that make it tough to recommend for a general audience.
The aspect of the TravelMate that should be a big help to mobile business users is the port selection. Despite being quite thin, the laptop is able to fit a USB Type-C (supporting USB 3.1 Gen 2, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3, and USB charging), two USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 (one with power-off USB charging), one HDMI 2.0, one microSD reader, one combination audio jack, one Ethernet port (with a trap-door hinge), one DC-In jack for Acer’s adapter, one lock slot, and an optional SmartCard reader. The fewer dongles and docks you have to travel with, the better.
Portability is another priority here and is another one of the TravelMate’s highlight features. At just 2.57 pounds and 0.65 inches thick, the TravelMate should be a breeze to carry around in a backpack or briefcase. Acer says it’s put the product through a slew of durability tests for weight and pressure, drops, shocks, vibrations, and other hiccups you may encounter during the day.
Another area that’s likely important to some mobile professionals is videoconferencing capability. I found that to be a mixed bag here. The TravelMate’s four-microphone array had no trouble catching my voice, in both voice recognition and Zoom meeting use cases. Acer says they can pick up voices from up to 6.5 feet away. The webcam also produces a fine picture (though this unit doesn’t support Windows Hello for easy logins) and has a physical privacy shutter. The speakers are not great, though — music was tinny with thin percussion and nonexistent bass.
Acer promises that the TravelMate can survive “the bumps from airport security, accidental drops, and other mishaps.”
The TravelMate also includes some business-specific features including a TPM 2.0 chip and Acer’s ProShield security software.
In other, less business-y areas, though, the TravelMate has a few shortcomings. Shoppers looking for anything more than portability out of the chassis may be disappointed. While most of the TravelMate is made of magnesium-aluminum alloy, it has a bit of a plasticky feel — and while the keyboard is sturdy, there’s considerable flex in the screen. And then there’s the aesthetic: the P6 is far from the prettiest computer you can buy for $1,199.99. It’s almost entirely black, with very few accents (and the ones it has are a drab gray color). And the bezels around the 16:9 screen are quite chunky by modern standards. Plus, the 16:9 aspect ratio is falling out of fashion for a reason — it’s cramped for multitasking, especially on a 13- or 14-inch screen — and the panel maxed out at 274 nits in my testing, which is a bit too dim for outdoor use.
The color is called “mild black.”
The TravelMate looks and feels like it was made a bit better than budget fare. But it also looks and feels closer to an Aspire 5 than it does to a top ThinkPad. For context, you can get an Aspire 5 with identical specs to this TravelMate model for just over $700. Another comparison: the Swift 5, a gorgeous consumer laptop that’s even lighter than the TravelMate, can be purchased with comparable specs for just $999.99. This is all to emphasize that you’re sacrificing a bit of build quality (as well as some extra money) for the TravelMate’s weight and business-specific offerings.
The touchpad is also not my favorite. For one, I had some palm-rejection issues. Those didn’t interfere with my work per se, but it was still unnerving to see my cursor jumping around the screen while I was typing. In addition, the touchpad on my unit had a bit of give before the actuation point, meaning one click required me to make (and hear) what felt like two clicks. And its off-center placement meant that I was constantly right-clicking when I meant to left-click, and I had to consciously reach over to the left side in order to click with my right hand. Finally, the click itself is shallow and far from the most comfortable.
I also didn’t love the power button. It contains a fingerprint sensor, which worked quite well. But the button itself is stiff and very shallow. I know this sounds like a small nitpick, but it was really irksome and made turning the TravelMate on in the morning more of a hassle than it could’ve been.
Some TravelMate models support facial recognition, but my model did not.
The TravelMate model that I received to review is sold out everywhere I’ve looked as of this writing. The closest model to it is listed at $1,199.99 (though it’s cheaper through some retailers) and comes with a Core i5-10310U, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage. My unit is the same, but it has a Core i5-10210U. Those processors don’t have a significant performance difference, so my testing here should give you a good idea of what to expect from that model. You can also buy a model with a Core i7-10610U, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD for $1,399.99. Both configurations run Windows 10 Pro and include a 1920 x 1080 non-touch display.
For my office workload of emails, spreadsheets, Zoom calls, etc., the TravelMate did just fine. I sometimes heard the fans spinning at times when my load wasn’t super heavy, but the noise wasn’t loud enough to be a problem. Note that this processor has Intel’s UHD graphics, rather than its upgraded Iris Xe graphics, which means the system wouldn’t be a good choice for gaming, video software, or other graphics work.
But there’s one area where the TravelMate really impressed, and it’s one that’s quite useful for travelers: battery life. Running through my daily workload at 200 nits of brightness, my system averaged nine hours and 15 minutes of continuous use. That’s almost twice what the budget Aspire 5 got with my same workload. It also beats the Swift 5 and the pricier ThinkPad X1 Nano. If your workload is similar to (or lighter than) mine, you should be able to bring this device around an airport or conference for a full work day without being attached to a wall.
The notebook can charge up to 50 percent in less than 45 minutes.
One performance complaint, though: this thing comes with bloatware. My unit was pre-installed with all kinds of junk, including games (Amazon was pinned to the taskbar) and other software like Dropbox. Most annoyingly, it came with Norton, which bugged me with annoying pop-ups all the time and also seemed to impact battery life: the TravelMate consistently lasted around an hour longer after I uninstalled the program. It doesn’t take too long to uninstall everything, but I’m still morally put off by the idea of so much cheap crapware being loaded onto a laptop that costs over $1,000. And it’s especially troubling to see on a business laptop, because it can expose users to cybersecurity risk.
The TravelMate line is filling a pretty specific niche, and it fills it just fine. If you’re a frequent business traveler who needs a light device with plentiful ports and all-day battery life, you’re shopping in the $1,199 price range, and you’re willing to overlook a mediocre touchpad, dim 16:9 display, and other hiccups, then the P6 will be a better choice for you than something like a pricier and heavier Dell Latitude or the shorter-lived and port-starved ThinkPad X1 Nano.
That said, the P6 has enough drawbacks that I think the bulk of customers would be better served by other laptops. Those who like the Acer brand may like some of Acer’s other offerings — especially those who don’t need the business-specific security features. The Swift 5 is lighter, nicer-looking, and more affordable than the TravelMate, with a better touchpad, screen, and processor. And budget shoppers can find much of what the TravelMate offers in any number of cheaper laptops. The Aspire 5 and the Swift 3 don’t have the TravelMate’s battery or port selection, but they do improve upon its touchpad, audio (in the Aspire’s case), and looks (in the Swift’s case). And, of course, there’s a litany of other laptops in this price range — from HP’s Spectre x360 to Dell’s XPS 13 — that are excellent in almost every way and also offer 3:2 screens.
Ultimately, the TravelMate isn’t a bad laptop — but if it’s the best laptop for you, you probably know who you are.
Intel has demonstrated a laptop based on its upcoming eight-core Tiger Lake-H processor running at up to 5.0 GHz, essentially revealing some of the main selling points of its flagship CPU for notebooks. Mobile PCs based on the chip will hit the market in the second quarter, Intel said.
As a part of its GDC 2021 showcase (via VideoCardz), Intel demonstrated a pre-production enthusiast-grade notebook running a yet-to-be-announced 11th-Generation Core i9 ‘Tiger Lake-H’ processor with eight cores and Hyper-Threading technology running at 5.0 GHz ‘across multiple cores.’
The demo CPU is likely the Core i9-11980HK, which Lenovo has already listed, but without disclosing its specifications. This time around, Intel also did not reveal the base clocks of the processor and how many cores can run at 5.0 GHz, but it’s obvious that we’re talking about more than one core, implying 5.0 GHz is not its maximum single-core turbo clock.
Intel’s Tiger Lake-H processors are powered by up to eight cores featuring the Willow Cove microarchitecture equipped with up to 24 MB of L3 cache and a new DDR4 memory controller. The new CPUs also have numerous improvements over processors on the platform level, including 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes to connect to the latest GPUs and high-end SSDs, as well as built-in Thunderbolt 4 support.
To demonstrate the capabilities of the 8-core/16-thread Core i9 ‘Tiger Lake-H’ CPU, Intel used the Total War real-time strategy game that uses CPUs heavily. Unfortunately, it is unknown which GPU Intel used for the demonstration or if it was a discrete high-end notebook graphics processor or Intel’s integrated Xe-LP GPU. Since the laptop featured at least a 15.6-inch display, common sense tells us that this was a discrete graphics solution.
During the presentation, Intel said that the first notebooks based on the Tiger Lake-H processor would arrive in Q2 2021 but did not disclose whether they will show up in early April or late June.
We wouldn’t have tech without science, and The Verge wouldn’t be what it is without its team of science reporters. In this time of pandemics, Mars landings, and climate controversies, our skilled science team is more important than ever. We talked to Nicole Wetsman, one of our top science and health reporters, to find out how she does her job and what tools she uses.
What is your job at The Verge?
I’ve always been interested in science and health, but I never wanted to work in a lab or be a doctor. Reporting on those subjects gave me a way to learn and work with those ideas. I write about science, health, and health technology for The Verge. For the past year, that’s primarily meant covering COVID-19 — everything from testing technology to the vaccine rollout to public health data systems. I also help our video team script health-related videos and sometimes jump in as an on-camera host.
What is the process you follow when you are writing a science article?
I usually start by reading through any research articles on a particular topic and then talking with scientists and other experts who work in that area. That might include people who did a study or built a new health app or people who work in fields that might apply the new innovation. Then, I organize my research, synthesize what I found, and write up a story.
What hardware tools do you use for your work?
I’m embarrassingly low-tech for a reporter at a technology website. For the most part, I just use my 13-inch MacBook Pro, AirPods, and iPhone 12 to do everything. Occasionally, I pull out a Zoom F1 Field Recorder to record voice-overs for video projects.
What software tools do you use for your work?
I do most of my writing and research organization in Google Docs. I use the recording and transcription service Otter for interviews. It matches audio with the transcript, so I can easily go back and find whatever part of the interview I need, even if the transcription isn’t perfect. (It usually isn’t.)
When I need to find scientific research on any topic vaguely medical, I turn to PubMed, a search engine housed at the National Institutes of Health. I also use Google Scholar to find academic research articles.
Are there any other tools that you use?
I write out my to-do lists and schedule in a Moleskine weekly planner, which is the only notebook I’ve found with a layout that works for me.
What advice do you have for people who are considering reporting as a profession?
Journalism can sometimes seem like a competitive field, with reporters jockeying for scoops, intel, and access. At the core, though, it’s inherently collaborative. Working with others means benefiting from their ideas, edits, and perspectives, and it makes the final product better.
The winter storm that savaged Texas in February might affect the tech industry for months to come. TrendForce said today it expects the shutdown of Samsung’s fab in Austin to contribute to a quarter-over-quarter increase in NAND flash pricing.
The research firm said that NAND flash pricing could rise 3-8% in the second quarter as supply of NAND flash controllers tightens. Samsung is a critical supplier of those controllers, which means delays to its fab’s re-opening will affect the entire industry.
The predictions follow a DigiTimes report claiming the disruption of controller supply could halt production of up to 75% of Samsung’s PCIe SSDs in March. Samsung’s plan is to resume NAND flash controller production in April and shipping in May.
TrendForce said that limited supply will be paired with higher-than-anticipated demand from notebook manufacturers scrambling to keep pace with the pandemic-induced rise in consumer interest. (And pandemic-caused production delays, too.)
(Image credit: TrendForce)
The research firm also said it expects both of those factors, along with “bids from Chinese telecom operators and increased IT equipment purchases from small and medium businesses globally” to help stabilize the enterprise SSD market in 2Q21.
These increases won’t offset the decline from 1Q21, when TrendForce put client and enterprise SSD pricing down 5-10% and 10-15%, and supply could level out soon. The firm predicted an up to 10% increase in NAND flash bit output next quarter.
But for now it seems the industry will have to wait with bated breath for Samsung to resume normal NAND flash controller production at its Texas factories. Until then, manufacturers are expected to stockpile however many SSDs they can get acquire.
Performance results for Intel’s unreleased eight-core Tiger Lake-H parts are already being posted online. Benchleaks shared Geekbench 5 scores of the upcoming Core i7-11800H Tiger Lake-H CPU with impressive results.
Rumor has it that the Core i7-11800H will be one of Intel’s beefy 45W Tiger Lake-H parts featuring eight cores and 16 threads to compete with the likes of AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800H. Like Intel’s current U-series and H35 products, the eight-core Tiger Lake variants will feature Intel’s latest Willow Cove cores powered by the 10nm SuperFin architecture, allowing for up to 20% higher clock speeds than the previous models.
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(Image credit: Geekbench 5)
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(Image credit: Geekbench 5)
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(Image credit: Geekbench 5)
Strangely we have not just one, but three Geekbench results for the i7-11800H. Presumably, this was done to attain a more realistic Geekbench 5 result, as executing multiple benchmark runs and averaging the results can be more realistic than running a benchmark a single time.
When we average the three results together, the i7-11700H managed a single-threaded score of 1474 points and a multi-threaded score of 8116 points. That makes the i7-11800H around 15% faster than its predecessor, the Core i7-10875H, suggesting a healthy gen-on-gen performance improvement.
However, if we compare the i7-11800H to the best Ryzen 7 5800H Geekbench 5 scores, that puts the 5800H and 11800H within 2% of each other. That lands within the margin of error, so we can safely say that both chips offer similar performance in Geekbench 5.
If these results are true, then Intel is poised to make a major comeback in the notebook segment, finally catching up to AMD’s impressive Zen 3 notebook processors.
AMD unveiled its EPYC 7003 ‘Milan’ processors today, claiming that the chips, which bring the company’s powerful Zen 3 architecture to the server market for the first time, take the lead as the world’s fastest server processor with its flagship 64-core 128-thread EPYC 7763. Like the rest of the Milan lineup, this chip comes fabbed on the 7nm process and is drop-in compatible with existing servers. AMD claims it brings up to twice the performance of Intel’s competing Xeon Cascade Lake Refresh chips in HPC, Cloud, and enterprise workloads, all while offering a vastly better price-to-performance ratio.
Milan’s agility lies in the Zen 3 architecture and its chiplet-based design. This microarchitecture brings many of the same benefits that we’ve seen with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series chips that dominate the desktop PC market, like a 19% increase in IPC and a larger unified L3 cache. Those attributes, among others, help improve AMD’s standing against Intel’s venerable Xeon lineup in key areas, like single-threaded work, and offer a more refined performance profile across a broader spate of applications.
The other attractive features of the EPYC lineup are still present, too, like enhanced security, leading memory bandwidth, and the PCIe 4.0 interface. AMD also continues its general approach of offering all features with all of its chips, as opposed to Intel’s strict de-featuring that it uses to segment its product stack. As before, AMD also offers single-socket P-series models, while its standard lineup is designed for dual-socket (2P) servers.
(Image credit: AMD)
The Milan launch promises to reignite the heated data center competition once again. Today marks the EPYC Milan processors’ official launch, but AMD actually began shipping the chips to cloud service providers and hyperscale customers last year. Overall, the EPYC Milan processors look to be exceedingly competitive against Intel’s competing Xeon Cascade Lake Refresh chips.
Like AMD, Intel has also been shipping to its largest customers; the company recently told us that it has already shipped 115,000 Ice Lake chips since the end of last year. Intel also divulged a few details about its Ice Lake Xeons at Hot Chips last year; we know the company has a 32-core model in the works, and it’s rumored that the series tops out at 40 cores. As such, Ice Lake will obviously change the competitive landscape when it comes to the market.
AMD has chewed away desktop PC and notebook market share at an amazingly fast pace, but the data center market is a much tougher market to crack. While this segment represents the golden land of high-volume and high-margin sales, the company’s slow and steady gains lag its radical advance in the desktop PC and notebook markets.
Much of that boils down to the staunchly risk-averse customers in the enterprise and data center; these customers prize a mix of factors beyond the standard measuring stick of performance and price-to-performance ratios, instead focusing on areas like compatibility, security, supply predictability, reliability, serviceability, engineering support, and deeply-integrated OEM-validated platforms. To cater to the broader set of enterprise customers, AMD’s Milan launch also carries a heavy focus on broadening AMD’s hardware and software ecosystems, including full-fledged enterprise-class solutions that capitalize on the performance and TCO benefits of the Milan processors.
AMD’s existing EPYC Rome processors already hold the lead in performance-per-socket and pricing, easily outstripping Intel’s Xeon at several key price points. Given AMD’s optimizations, Milan will obviously extend that lead, at least until the Ice Lake debut. Let’s see how the hardware stacks up.
AMD EPYC 7003 Series Milan Specifications and Pricing
Cores / Threads
Base / Boost (GHz)
L3 Cache (MB)
TDP (W)
1K Unit Price
EPYC Milan 7763
64 / 128
2.45 / 3.5
256
280
$7,890
EPYC Milan 7713
64 / 128
2.0 / 3.675
256
225
$7,060
EPYC Rome 7H12
64 / 128
2.6 / 3.3
256
280
?
EPYC Rome 7742
64 / 128
2.25 / 3.4
256
225
$6,950
EPYC Milan 7663
56 / 112
2.0 / 3.5
256
240
$6,366
EPYC Milan 7643
48 / 96
2.3 / 3.6
256
225
$4.995
EPYC Milan 7F53
32 / 64
2.95 / 4.0
256
280
$4,860
EPYC Milan 7453
28 / 56
2.75 / 3.45
64
225
$1,570
Xeon Gold 6258R
28 / 56
2.7 / 4.0
38.5
205
$3,651
EPYC Milan 74F3
24 / 48
3.2 / 4.0
256
240
$2,900
EPYC Rome 7F72
24 / 48
3.2 / ~3.7
192
240
$2,450
Xeon Gold 6248R
24 / 48
3.0 / 4.0
35.75
205
$2,700
EPYC Milan 7443
24 / 48
2.85 / 4.0
128
200
$2,010
EPYC Rome 7402
24 / 48
2.8 / 3.35
128
180
$1,783
EPYC Milan 73F3
16 / 32
3.5 / 4.0
256
240
$3,521
EPYC Rome 7F52
16 / 32
3.5 / ~3.9
256
240
$3,100
Xeon Gold 6246R
16 / 32
3.4 / 4.1
35.75
205
$3,286
EPYC Milan 7343
16 / 32
3.2 / 3.9
128
190
$1,565
EPYC Rome 7302
16 / 32
3.0 / 3.3
128
155
$978
EPYC Milan 72F3
8 / 16
3.7 / 4.1
256
180
$2,468
EPYC Rome 7F32
8 / 16
3.7 / ~3.9
128
180
$2,100
Xeon Gold 6250
8 / 16
3.9 / 4.5
35.75
185
$3,400
AMD released a total of 19 EPYC Milan SKUs today, but we’ve winnowed that down to key price bands in the table above. We have the full list of the new Milan SKUs later in the article.
As with the EPYC Rome generation, Milan spans from eight to 64 cores, while Intel’s Cascade Lake Refresh tops out at 28 cores. All Milan models come with threading, support up to eight memory channels of DDR4-3200, 4TB of memory capacity, and 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0 connectivity. AMD supports both standard single- and dual-socket platforms, with the P-series chips slotting in for single-socket servers (we have those models in the expanded list below). The chips are drop-in compatible with the existing Rome socket.
AMD added frequency-optimized 16-, 24-, and 32-core F-series models to the Rome lineup last year, helping the company boost its performance in frequency-bound workloads, like databases, that Intel has typically dominated. Those models return with a heavy focus on higher clock speeds, cache capacities, and TDPs compared to the standard models. AMD also added a highly-clocked 64-core 7H12 model for HPC workloads to the Rome lineup, but simply worked that higher-end class of chip into its standard Milan stack.
As such, the 64-core 128-thread EPYC 7763 comes with a 2.45 / 3.5 GHz base/boost frequency paired with a 280W TDP. This flagship part also comes armed with 256MB of L3 cache and supports a configurable TDP that can be adjusted to accommodate any TDP from 225W to 280W.
The 7763 marks the peak TDP rating for the Milan series, but the company has a 225W 64-core 7713 model that supports a TDP range of 225W to 240W for more mainstream applications.
All Milan models come with a default TDP rating (listed above), but they can operate between a lower minimum (cTDP Min) and a higher maximum (cTDP Max) threshold, allowing quite a bit of configurability within the product stack. We have the full cTDP ranges for each model listed in the expanded spec list below.
Milan’s adjustable TDPs now allow customers to tailor for different thermal ranges, and Forrest Norrod, AMD’s SVP and GM of the data center and embedded solutions group, says that the shift in strategy comes from the lessons learned from the first F- and H-series processors. These 280W processors were designed for systems with robust liquid cooling, which tends to add quite a bit of cost to the platform, but OEMs were surprisingly adept at engineering air-cooled servers that could fully handle the heat output of those faster models. As such, AMD decided to add a 280W 64-core model to the standard lineup and expanded the ability to manipulate TDP ranges across its entire stack.
AMD also added new 28- and 56-core options with the EPYC 7453 and 7663, respectively. Norrod explained that AMD had noticed that many of its customers had optimized their applications for Intel’s top-of-the-stack servers that come with multiples of 28 cores. Hence, AMD added new models that would mesh well with those optimizations to make it easier for customers to port over applications optimized for Xeon platforms. Naturally, AMD’s 28-core’s $1,570 price tag looks plenty attractive next to Intel’s $3,651 asking price for its own 28-core part.
AMD made a few other adjustments to the product stack based on customer buying trends, like reducing three eight-core models to one F-series variant, and removing a 12-core option entirely. AMD also added support for six-way memory interleaving on all models to lower costs for workloads that aren’t sensitive to memory throughput.
Overall, Milan has similar TDP ranges, memory, and PCIe support at any given core count than its predecessors but comes with higher clock speeds, performance, and pricing.
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Milan also comes with the performance uplift granted by the Zen 3 microarchitecture. Higher IPC and frequencies, not to mention more refined boost algorithms that extract the utmost performance within the thermal confines of the socket, help improve Milan’s performance in the lightly-threaded workloads where Xeon has long held an advantage. The higher per-core performance also translates to faster performance in threaded workloads, too.
Meanwhile, the larger unified L3 cache results in a simplified topology that ensures broader compatibility with standard applications, thus removing the lion’s share of the rare eccentricities that we’ve seen with prior-gen EPYC models.
The Zen 3 microarchitecture brings the same fundamental advantages that we’ve seen with the desktop PC and notebook models (you can read much more about the architecture here), like reduced memory latency, doubled INT8 and floating point performance, and higher integer throughput.
AMD also added support for memory protection keys, AVX2 support for VAES/VPCLMULQD instructions, bolstered security for hypervisors and VM memory/registers, added protection against return oriented programming attacks, and made a just-in-time update to the Zen 3 microarchitecture to provide in-silicon mitigation for the Spectre vulnerability (among other enhancements listed in the slides above). As before, Milan remains unimpacted by other major security vulnerabilities, like Meltdown, Foreshadow, and Spoiler.
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The EPYC Milan SoC adheres to the same (up to) nine-chiplet design as the Rome models and is drop-in compatible with existing second-gen EPYC servers. Just like the consumer-oriented chips, Core Complex Dies (CCDs) based on the Zen 3 architecture feature eight cores tied to a single contiguous 32MB slice of L3 cache, which stands in contrast to Zen 2’s two four-core CCXes, each with two 16MB clusters. The new arrangement allows all eight cores to communicate to have direct access to 32MB of L3 cache, reducing latency.
This design also increases the amount of cache available to a single core, thus boosting performance in multi-threaded applications and enabling lower-core count Milan models to have access to significantly more L3 cache than Rome models. The improved core-to-cache ratio boosts performance in HPC and relational database workloads, among others.
Second-gen EPYC models supported either 8- or 4-channel memory configurations, but Milan adds support for 6-channel interleaving, allowing customers that aren’t memory bound to use less system RAM to reduce costs. The 6-channel configuration supports the same DDR4-3200 specification for single DIMM per channel (1DPC) implementations. This feature is enabled across the full breadth of the Milan stack, but AMD sees it as most beneficial for models with lower core counts.
Milan also features the same 32-bit AMD Secure Processor in the I/O Die (IOD) that manages cryptographic functionality, like key generation and management for AMD’s hardware-based Secure Memory Encryption (SME) and Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) features. These are key advantages over Intel’s Cascade Lake processors, but Ice Lake will bring its own memory encryption features to bear. AMD’s Secure Processor also manages its hardware-validated boot feature.
AMD EPYC Milan Performance
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AMD provided its own performance projections based on its internal testing. However, as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, we should view these with the appropriate level of caution. We’ve included the testing footnotes at the end of the article.
AMD claims the Milan chips are the fastest server processors for HPC, cloud, and enterprise workloads. The first slide outlines AMD’s progression compared to Intel in SPECrate2017_int_base over the last few years, highlighting its continued trajectory of significant generational performance improvements. The second slide outlines how SPECrate2017_int_base scales across the Milan product stack, with Intel’s best published scores for two key Intel models, the 28-core 6258R and 16-core 4216, added for comparison.
Moving on to a broader spate of applications, AMD says existing two-socket 7H12 systems already hold an easy lead over Xeon in the SPEC2017 floating point tests, but the Milan 7763 widens the gap to a 106% advantage over the Xeon 6258R. AMD uses this comparison for the two top-of-the-stack chips, but be aware that this is a bit lopsided: The 6258R carries a tray price of $3,651 compared to the 7763’s $7,890 asking price. AMD also shared benchmarks comparing the two in SPEC2017 integer tests, claiming a similar 106% speedup. In SPECJBB 2015 tests, which AMD uses as a general litmus for enterprise workloads, AMD claims 117% more performance than the 6258R.
The company also shared a few test results showing performance in the middle of its product stack compared to Intel’s 6258R, claiming that its 32-core part also outperforms the 6258R, all of which translates to improved TCO for customers due to the advantages of lower pricing and higher compute density that translates to fewer servers, lower space requirements, and lower overall power consumption.
Finally, AMD has a broad range of ecosystem partners with fully-validated platforms available from top-tier OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, among many others. These platforms are fed by a broad constellation of solutions providers as well. AMD also has an expansive list of instances available from leading cloud service providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle, to name a few.
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Model #
Cores
Threads
Base Freq (GHz)
Max Boost Freq (up to GHz11)
Default TDP (w)
cTDP Min (w)
cTDP Max (w)
L3 Cache (MB)
DDR Channels
Max DDR Freq (1DPC)
PCIe 4
1Ku Pricing
7763
64
128
2.45
3.50
280
225
280
256
8
3200
x128
$7,890
7713
64
128
2.00
3.68
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$7,060
7713P
64
128
2.00
3.68
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$5,010
7663
56
112
2.00
3.50
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$6,366
7643
48
96
2.30
3.60
225
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$4,995
75F3
32
64
2.95
4.00
280
225
280
256
8
3200
x 128
$4,860
7543
32
64
2.80
3.70
225
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$3,761
7543P
32
64
2.80
3.70
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$2,730
7513
32
64
2.60
3.65
200
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$2,840
7453
28
56
2.75
3.45
225
225
240
64
8
3200
x128
$1,570
74F3
24
48
3.20
4.00
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$2,900
7443
24
48
2.85
4.00
200
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$2,010
7443P
24
48
2.85
4.00
200
165
200
128
8
3200
X128
$1,337
7413
24
48
2.65
3.60
180
165
200
128
8
3200
X128
$1,825
73F3
16
32
3.50
4.00
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$3,521
7343
16
32
3.20
3.90
190
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$1,565
7313
16
32
3.00
3.70
155
155
180
128
8
3200
X128
$1,083
7313P
16
32
3.00
3.70
155
155
180
128
8
3200
X128
$913
72F3
8
16
3.70
4.10
180
165
200
256
8
3200
x128
$2,468
Thoughts
AMD’s general launch today gives us a good picture of the company’s data center chips moving forward, but we won’t know the full story until Intel releases the formal details of its 10nm Ice Lake processors.
The volume ramp for both AMD’s EPYC Milan and Intel’s Ice Lake has been well underway for some time, and both lineups have been shipping to hyperscalers and CSPs for several months. The HPC and supercomputing space also tend to receive early silicon, so they also serve as a solid general litmus for the future of the market. AMD’s EPYC Milan has already enjoyed brisk uptake in those segments, and given that Intel’s Ice Lake hasn’t been at the forefront of as many HPC wins, it’s easy to assume, by a purely subjective measure, that Milan could hold some advantages over Ice Lake.
Intel has already slashed its pricing on server chips to remain competitive with AMD’s EPYC onslaught. It’s easy to imagine that the company will lean on its incumbency and all the advantages that entails, like its robust Server Select platform offerings, wide software optimization capabilities, platform adjacencies like networking, FPGA, and Optane memory, along with aggressive pricing to hold the line.
AMD has obviously prioritized its supply of server processors during the pandemic-fueled supply chain disruptions and explosive demand that we’ve seen over the last several months. It’s natural to assume that the company has been busy building Milan inventory for the general launch. We spoke with AMD’s Forrest Norrod, and he tells us that the company is taking steps to ensure that it has an adequate supply for its customers with mission-critical applications.
One thing is clear, though. Both x86 server vendors benefit from a rapidly expanding market, but ARM-based servers have become more prevalent than we’ve seen in the recent past. For now, the bulk of the ARM uptake seems limited to cloud service providers, like AWS with its Graviton 2 chips. In contrast, uptake is slow in the general data center and enterprise due to the complexity of shifting applications to the ARM architecture. Continuing and broadening uptake of ARM-based platforms could begin to change that paradigm in the coming years, though, as x86 faces its most potent threat in recent history. Both x86 vendors will need a steady cadence of big performance improvements in the future to hold the ARM competition at bay.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for Ice Lake to get a true view of the competitive x86 landscape over the next year. That means the jury is still out on just what the data center will look like as AMD works on its next-gen Genoa chips and Intel readies Sapphire Rapids.
Intel may offer more information about its upcoming products soon. The company’s hosting a session at GDC Showcase that promises to offer a “first look at the new Tiger Lake H-series notebook and Rocket Lake desktop processors.”
It’s not clear what exactly Intel plans to share at GDC Showcase, which is essentially the pre-show for Game Developers Conference 2021, especially since we got our “first looks” at Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake in September and October 2020.
We already know Tiger Lake is supposed to introduce a new ultraportable gaming segment; that models with four, six, and eight cores will be available; and that Intel claims these processors will outperform AMD’s Ryzen 4000-series “Renoir” chips.
Intel’s also claimed that manufacturers have already built more than 150 products around Tiger Lake-H processors, and even though the line is supposed to be limited to notebooks, ASRock’s already planning to use the chips in several NUC models.
We also know Rocket Lake is supposed to help Intel claim more spots on our list of the best CPUs with a claimed peak boost speed of 5.3GHz, the introduction of the Cypress Cove architecture, and the inclusion of 12th-gen Xe LP Graphics.
GDC Showcase might have been a good time for Intel to announce Rocket Lake retail availability, but the company’s already said enthusiasts should be able to get their hands on the new CPUs on March 30. (Assuming they haven’t already bought some.)
But that doesn’t mean Intel will show up to GDC Showcase empty-handed. We’re still awaiting official specs for eight-core Tiger Lake models, for example, and so far the only information we have about Rocket Lake pricing has come from retailer leaks.
So far as what Intel’s said about its plans: The session will purportedly help viewers “learn how Intel empowers software developers with the latest tools and technology helping to make the best gaming and content creation experiences possible.”
A surge in crypto mining interest has led not only to users seeking out the best mining GPUs, but since graphics cards are so hard to find in stock and the GPU price index for cards on eBay is just crazy, mining with laptops is becoming a thing. In fact, we have even seen mining farms that only use notebooks. Now, MSI is trying to advertise its latest GE76 Raider notebook as a mobile mining machine.
In an official blog post MSI describes how it plans to use one of its latest gaming notebooks, the 17.3-inch GE76 Raider with Intel’s Core i9-10980HK processor and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 GPU inside, for mining for one month. To mine, MSI will use the NiceHash platform (see how to mine Ethereum) as well as the Excavator miner with the DaggerHashimoto algorithm.
MSI admits that one of its top-of-the-range gaming notebooks is hardly the most cost-efficient mining option, but since it is hard to get a higher-end graphics card, miners may still want to try it.
(Image credit: MSI)
MSI claims that its GE76 Raider has a hash rate of around 52.8 MH/s, which is just a little below that of a desktop GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card. Assuming that the laptop consumes 240W of power and the cost of power is $0.12 per kWh, then the machine will bring about $134.08 in profits per month, according to CryptoCompare.
MSI does not talk about the long-term effects of using its laptop for mining and whether the components are built to endure years of 24/7 use. Yet, it sends a clear signal to to potential buyers that its gaming notebooks could be used for mining.
Dell is refreshing its 15-inch gaming notebook, the Dell G15, with a new design and refreshed specs. Today’s announcement is for China, where the laptop is available now, and will come to the rest of the world “later,” likely this year.
The company is being surprisingly coy on specs for a laptop that is actually going on sale today, albeit in a single market. What we do know is that Dell will offer three options, going up to 115W of
TDP
and Nvidia’s Ampere (RTX 3000) graphics. No specific processor details were made available. The 15.6-inch display will go up to 360 Hz, which should help in quick twitch esports, and uses low-blue light hardware, meeting German TuV standards.
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(Image credit: Dell)
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(Image credit: Dell)
The new G15 has a more aggressive, angular design that comes in four new colorways: dark shadow grey, obsidian black, “spector green with speckles” and “phantom grey with speckles,” which seem to suggest somewhat glittery exteriors. Dell missed an opportunity to call it “specktor green,” but oh well.
With that new design comes an upgraded cooling system, which Dell says came from its higher-end gaming line, Alienware. A four-zone RGB keyboard is optional and uses the same AlienFX software as its Alienware counterparts. Photos show USB Type-A ports, a drop-jaw Ethernet port, headphone jack and an HDMI output.
No prices were immediately announced, and Dell has made no suggestions as to whether the specifications coming to the rest of the world will be the same as the ones in China.
Kubuntu Focus has started to offer Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series graphics processor with its Kubuntu GNU/Linux distribution-based M2 laptop aimed at gamers and performance-hungry professionals.
Linux-based laptops are usually niche products for people with very specific requirements, so there aren’t many configurations available. Yet, a few companies offer high-end notebooks with powerful hardware that can compete against their Windows-powered counterparts. Kubuntu Focus is one of the vendors that offers such machines.
The Kubuntu Focus M2 notebook comes with a 15.6-inch 144Hz Full-HD display and Intel’s Core i7-10875H (8C/16T, 2.30GHz/5.10GHz) processor that was first introduced last October, Liliputing recalls. At the time, the manufacturer only offered Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20-series graphics processors based on the Turing architecture with it since no mobile GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs featuring the Ampere architecture were available.
Nvidia has launched its GeForce RTX 30-series graphics processors for notebooks, so now the Kubuntu Focus M2 comes with an option for RTX 3060, 3070, and 3080 GPUs. In fact, the base model now comes equipped with the Core i7-10875H CPU, the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, 16GB of memory, and a 250GB SSD for $1,795.
Kubuntu Focus’ M2 is quite a powerful mobile workstation with plenty of options and rich connectivity, including a Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth adapter, a GbE port, a Thunderbolt 3 connector, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connectors, two display outputs (one mini-DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI), a microSDXC card reader, and audio ports. The beefiest configuration with the Core i7-10875H, the GeForce RTX 3080, 64GB of DDR4, and 4TB of storage costs $4535.
The Kubuntu Focus M2 seems to be the first Linux laptop with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series graphics, but it will certainly not be the last one.
When Intel introduced its codenamed Tiger Lake-H processors earlier this year, it limited the announcement to quad-core CPUs aimed at a rather niche ‘ultraportable gaming’ segment and did not reveal any details about six-core and eight-core Tiger Lake-H CPUs it previously confirmed. These chips are still on track to be released in the coming months, and a PC maker recently disclosed the specifications of some of them.
DT Research sells rugged and specialized PCs for corporate, government, and healthcare clients. Such customers are willing to pay a premium for systems they need, but they also need time to ensure that the PCs comply with their requirements. Recently DT Research issued specifications of its upcoming LT375 Rugged Mobile Workstation and the publication was quickly discovered by @momomo_us/Twitter. The machine is set to be based on Intel’s Tiger Lake-H processor with six or eight cores that will be accompanied by a 17-inch 1000-nits display, up to Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU, up to 64GB of RAM, and two SSDs (more details about the system below).
DT Research will offer its LT375 with the following three Tiger Lake-H processors:
The PC maker does not list the TDP of the CPUs, but a 17-inch desktop replacement notebook can certainly handle a 45W processor, so it is more than likely that all of these chips are rated for 45W.
What strikes the eye about the specifications of Intel’s Tiger Lake-H is their rather low frequencies when compared to Intel’s previous-generation Comet Lake-H CPUs aimed at the same market segment. We do know that there is Intel’s Core i9-11980HK coming to gaming PCs and this one has to be fast, but its younger brother Core i9-11900H (8C/16C, 2.10 GHz/4.90 GHz) looks rather pale when compared to the Core i9-10885H (8C/16C, 2.40 GHz/5.30 GHz), assuming that the specifications are accurate.
Intel’s Tiger Lake-H processors with up to eight Willow Cove cores have a number of advantages over its predecessors, including an all-new microarchitecture, a massive (up to) 24 MB LLC to maximize effective memory bandwidth as well as single-thread performance, a new memory controller, PCIe 4.0, and Thunderbolt 4 support. But only real tests will reveal whether these advantages are enough to beat its speedy predecessor.
Intel yet has to confirm the final specifications of its upcoming Tiger Lake-H CPUs with six and eight cores, so any preliminary and unofficial information about these chips should be taken with a grain of salt.
(Image credit: DT Research)
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