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Intel 12th-Gen Alder Lake Release Date, Benchmarks, Specifications, and All We Know

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Intel’s 12th-Gen Alder Lake chip will bring the company’s hybrid architecture, which combines a mix of larger high-performance cores paired with smaller high-efficiency cores, to desktop x86 PCs for the first time. That represents a massive strategic shift as Intel looks to regain the uncontested performance lead against AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series processors. AMD’s Zen 3 architecture has taken the lead in our Best CPUs and CPU Benchmarks hierarchy, partly on the strength of their higher core counts. That’s not to mention Apple’s M1 processors that feature a similar hybrid design and come with explosive performance improvements of their own.

Intel’s Alder Lake brings disruptive new architectures and reportedly supports features like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 that leapfrog AMD and Apple in connectivity technology, but the new chips come with significant risks. It all starts with a new way of thinking, at least as far as x86 chips are concerned, of pairing high-performance and high-efficiency cores within a single chip. That well-traveled design philosophy powers billions of Arm chips, often referred to as Big.Little (Intel calls its implementation Big-Bigger), but it’s a first for x86 desktop PCs.

Intel has confirmed that its Golden Cove architecture powers Alder Lake’s ‘big’ high-performance cores, while the ‘small’ Atom efficiency cores come with the Gracemont architecture, making for a dizzying number of possible processor configurations. Intel will etch the cores on its 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process, marking the company’s first truly new node for the desktop since 14nm debuted six long years ago.

As with the launch of any new processor, Intel has a lot riding on Alder Lake. However, the move to a hybrid architecture is unquestionably riskier than prior technology transitions because it requires operating system and software optimizations to achieve maximum performance and efficiency. It’s unclear how unoptimized code will impact performance.

In either case, Intel is going all-in: Intel will reunify its desktop and mobile lines with Alder Lake, and we could even see the design come to the company’s high-end desktop (HEDT) lineup.

Intel might have a few tricks up its sleeve, though. Intel paved the way for hybrid x86 designs with its Lakefield chips, the first such chips to come to market, and established a beachhead in terms of both Windows and software support. Lakefield really wasn’t a performance stunner, though, due to a focus on lower-end mobile devices where power efficiency is key. In contrast, Intel says it will tune Alder Lake for high-performance, a must for desktop PCs and high-end notebooks. There are also signs that some models will come with only the big cores active, which should perform exceedingly well in gaming.

(Image credit: Intel Alder Lake-S Demo)

Meanwhile, Apple’s potent M1 processors with their Arm-based design have brought a step function improvement in both performance and power consumption over competing x86 chips. Much of that success comes from Arm’s long-standing support for hybrid architectures and the requisite software optimizations. Comparatively, Intel’s efforts to enable the same tightly-knit level of support are still in the opening stages.

Potent adversaries challenge Intel on both sides. Apple’s M1 processors have set a high bar for hybrid designs, outperforming all other processors in their class with the promise of more powerful designs to come. Meanwhile, AMD’s Ryzen 5000 chips have taken the lead in every metric that matters over Intel’s aging Skylake derivatives.

Intel certainly needs a come-from-behind design to thoroughly unseat its competitors, swinging the tables back in its favor like the Conroe chips did back in 2006 when the Core architecture debuted with a ~40% performance advantage that cemented Intel’s dominance for a decade. Intel’s Raja Koduri has already likened the transition to Alder Lake with the debut of Core, suggesting that Alder Lake could indeed be a Conroe-esque moment.

In the meantime, Intel’s Rocket Lake will arrive later this month, and all signs point to the new chips overtaking AMD in single-threaded performance. However, they’ll still trail in multi-core workloads due to Rocket Lake’s maximum of eight cores, while AMD has 16-core models for the mainstream desktop. That makes Alder Lake exceedingly important as Intel looks to regain its performance lead in the desktop PC and laptop markets.

While Intel hasn’t shared many of the details on the new chip, plenty of unofficial details have come to light over the last few months, giving us a broad indication of Intel’s vision for the future. Let’s dive in.

Intel’s 12th-Gen Alder Lake At a Glance

Qualification and production in the second half of 2021
Hybrid x86 design with a mix of big and small cores (Golden Cove/Gracemont)
10nm Enhanced SuperFin process
LGA1700 socket requires new motherboards
PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support rumored
Four variants: -S for desktop PCs, -P for mobile, -M for low-power devices, -L Atom replacement
Gen12 Xe integrated graphics
New hardware-guided operating system scheduler tuned for high performance

Intel Alder Lake Release Date

(Image credit: Intel via YouTube)

Intel hasn’t given a specific date for Alder Lake’s debut, but it has said that the chips will be validated for production for desktop PCs and notebooks with the volume production ramp beginning in the second half of the year. That means the first salvo of chips could land in late 2021, though it might also end up being early 2022. Given the slew of benchmark submissions and operating system patches we’ve seen, early silicon is obviously already in the hands of OEMs and various ecosystem partners.

Intel and its partners also have plenty of incentive to get the new platform and CPUs out as soon as possible, and we could have a similar situation to 2015’s short-lived Broadwell desktop CPUs that were almost immediately replaced by Skylake. Rocket Lake seems competitive on performance, but the existing Comet Lake chips (e.g. i9-10900K) already use a lot of power, and i9-11900K doesn’t look to change that. With Enhanced SuperFIN, Intel could dramatically cut power requirements while improving performance.

Intel Alder Lake Specifications and Families

Intel hasn’t released the official specifications of the Alder Lake processors, but a recent update to the SiSoft Sandra benchmark software, along with listings to the open-source Coreboot (a lightweight motherboard firmware option), have given us plenty of clues to work with.

The Coreboot listing outlines various combinations of the big and little cores in different chip models, with some models even using only the larger cores (possibly for high-performance gaming models). The information suggests four configurations with -S, -P, and -M designators, and an -L variant has also emerged:

Alder Lake-S: Desktop PCs
Alder Lake-P: High-performance notebooks
Alder Lake-M: Low-power devices
Alder Lake-L: Listed as “Small Core” Processors (Atom)

Intel Alder Lake-S Desktop PC Specifications

Alder Lake-S*
Big + Small Cores	Cores / Threads	GPU
8 + 8	16 / 24	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
8 + 6	14 / 22	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
8 + 4	12 / 20	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
8 + 2	10 / 18	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
8 + 0	8 / 16	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
6 + 8	14 / 20	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
6 + 6	12 / 18	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
6 + 4	10 / 16	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
6 + 2	8 / 14	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
6 + 0	6 / 12	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
4 + 0	4 / 8	GT1 – Gen12 32EU
2 + 0	2 / 4	GT1 – Gen12 32EU

*Intel has not officially confirmed these configurations. Not all models may come to market. Listings assume all models have Hyper-Threading enabled on the large cores.

Intel’s 10nm Alder Lake combines large Golden Cove cores that support Hyper-Threading (Intel’s branded version of SMT, symmetric multi-threading, that allows two threads to run on a single core) with smaller single-threaded Atom cores. That means some models could come with seemingly-odd distributions of cores and threads. We’ll jump into the process technology a bit later.

As we can see above, a potential flagship model would come with eight Hyper-Threading enabled ‘big’ cores and eight single-threaded ‘small’ cores, for a total of 24 threads. Logically we could expect the 8 + 8 configuration to fall into the Core i9 classification, while 8 + 4 could land as Core i7, and 6 + 8 and 4 + 0 could fall into Core i5 and i3 families, respectively. Naturally, it’s impossible to know how Intel will carve up its product stack due to the completely new paradigm of the hybrid x86 design.

We’re still quite far from knowing particular model names, as recent submissions to public-facing benchmark databases list the chips as “Intel Corporation Alder Lake Client Platform” but use ‘0000’ identifier strings in place of the model name and number. This indicates the silicon is still in the early phases of testing, and newer steppings will eventually progress to production-class processors with identifiable model names.

Given that these engineering samples (ES) chips are still in the qualification stage, we can expect drastic alterations to clock rates and overall performance as Intel dials in the silicon. It’s best to use the test submissions for general information only, as they rarely represent final performance.

The 16-core desktop model has been spotted in benchmarks with a 1.8 GHz base and 4.0 GHz boost clock speed, but we can expect that to increase in the future. For example, a 14-core 20-thread Alder Lake-P model was recently spotted at 4.7 GHz. We would expect clock rates to be even higher for the desktop models, possibly even reaching or exceeding 5.0 GHz on the ‘big’ cores due to a higher thermal budget.

Meanwhile, it’s widely thought that the smaller efficiency cores will come with lower clock rates, but current benchmarks and utilities don’t enumerate the second set of cores with a separate frequency domain, meaning we’ll have to wait for proper software support before we can learn clock rates for the efficiency cores.

We do know from Coreboot patches that Alder Lake-S supports two eight-lane PCIe 5.0 connections and two four-lane PCIe 4.0 connections, for a total of 24 lanes. Conversely, Alder Lake-P dials back connectivity due to its more mobile-centric nature and has a single eight-lane PCIe 5.0 connection along with two four-lane PCIe 4.0 interfaces. There have also been concrete signs of support for DDR5 memory. There are some caveats, though, which you can read about in the motherboard section.

Intel Alder Lake-P and Alder Lake-M Mobile Processor Specifications

Alder Lake-P* Alder Lake-M*
Big + Small Cores	Cores / Threads	GPU
6 + 8	14 / 20	GT2 Gen12 96EU
6 + 4	10 / 14	GT2 Gen12 96EU
4 + 8	12 / 16	GT2 Gen12 96EU
2 + 8	10 / 12	GT2 Gen12 96EU
2 + 4	6 / 8	GT2 Gen12 96EU
2 + 0	2 / 4	GT2 Gen12 96EU

*Intel has not officially confirmed these configurations. Not all models may come to market. Listings assume all models have Hyper-Threading enabled on the large cores.

The Alder Lake-P processors are listed as laptop chips, so we’ll probably see those debut in a wide range of notebooks that range from thin-and-light form factors up to high-end gaming notebooks. As you’ll notice above, all of these processors purportedly come armed with Intel’s Gen 12 Xe architecture in a GT2 configuration, imparting 96 EUs across the range of chips. That’s a doubling of execution units over the desktop chips and could indicate a focus on reducing the need for discrete graphics chips.

There is precious little information available for the -M variants, but they’re thought to be destined for lower-power devices and serve as a replacement for Lakefield chips. We do know from recent patches that Alder Lake-M comes with reduced I/O support, which we’ll cover below.

Finally, an Alder Lake-L version has been added to the Linux kernel, classifying the chips as ‘”Small Core” Processors (Atom),’ but we haven’t seen other mentions of this configuration elsewhere.

Intel Alder Lake 600-Series Motherboards, LGA 1700 Socket, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0

(Image credit: VideoCardz)

Intel’s incessant motherboard upgrades, which require new sockets or restrict support within existing sockets, have earned the company plenty of criticism from the enthusiast community – especially given AMD’s long line of AM4-compatible processors. That trend will continue with a new requirement for LGA 1200 sockets and the 600-series chipset for Alder Lake. Still, if rumors hold true, Intel will stick to the new socket for at least the next generation of processors (7nm Meteor Lake) and possibly for an additional generation beyond that, rivaling AMD’s AM4 longevity.

Last year, an Intel document revealed an LGA 1700 interposer for its Alder Lake-S test platform, confirming that the rumored socket will likely house the new chips. Months later, an image surfaced at VideoCardz, showing an Alder Lake-S chip and the 37.5 x 45.0mm socket dimensions. That’s noticeably larger than the current-gen LGA 1200’s 37.5 x 37.5mm.

Because the LGA 2077 socket is bigger than the current sockets used in LGA 1151/LGA 1200 motherboards, existing coolers will be incompatible, but we expect that cooler conversion kits could accommodate the larger socket. Naturally, the larger socket is needed to accommodate 500 more pins than the LGA 1200 socket. Those pins are needed to support newer interfaces, like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5, among other purposes, like power delivery.

PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support are both listed in patch notes, possibly giving Intel a connectivity advantage over competing chips, but there are a lot of considerations involved with these big technology transitions. As we saw with the move from PCIe 3.0 to 4.0, a step up to a faster PCIe interface requires thicker motherboards (more layers) to accommodate wider lane spacing, more robust materials, and retimers due to stricter trace length requirements. All of these factors conspire to increase cost.

(Image credit: VideoCardz)

We recently spoke with Microchip, which develops PCIe 5.0 switches, and the company tells us that, as a general statement, we can expect those same PCIe 4.0 requirements to become more arduous for motherboards with a PCIe 5.0 interface, particularly because they will require retimers for even shorter lane lengths and even thicker motherboards. That means we could see yet another jump in motherboard pricing over what the industry already absorbed with the move to PCIe 4.0. Additionally, PCIe 5.0 also consumes more power, which will present challenges in mobile form factors.

Both Microchip and the PCI-SIG standards body tell us that PCIe 5.0 adoption is expected to come to the high-performance server market and workstations first, largely because of the increased cost and power consumption. That isn’t a good fit for consumer devices considering the slim performance advantages in lighter workloads. That means that while Alder Lake may support PCIe 5.0, it’s possible that we could see the first implementations run at standard PCIe 4.0 signaling rates.

Intel took a similar tactic with its Tiger Lake processors – while the chips internal pathways are designed to accommodate the increased throughput of the DDR5 interface via a dual ring bus, they came to market with DDR4 memory controllers, with the option of swapping in new DDR5 controllers in the future. We could see a similar approach with PCIe 4.0, with the first devices using existing controller tech, or the PCIe 5.0 controllers merely defaulting to PCIe 4.0.

Benchmarks have surfaced that indicate that Alder Lake supports DDR5 memory, but like the PCIe 5.0 interface, but it also remains to be seen if Intel will enable it on the leading wave of processors. Notably, every transition to a newer memory interface has resulted in higher up-front DIMM pricing, which is concerning in the price-sensitive desktop PC market.

DDR5 is in the opening stages; some vendors, like Adata, TeamGroup, and Micron, have already begun shipping modules. The inaugural modules are expected to run in the DDR5-4800 to DDR5-6400 range. The JEDEC spec tops out at DDR5-8400, but as with DDR4, it will take some time before we see those peak speeds. Notably, several of these vendors have reported that they don’t expect the transition to DDR5 to happen until early 2022.

While the details are hazy around the separation of the Alder Lake-S, -P, -M, and -L variants, some details have emerged about the I/O allocations via Coreboot patches:

	Alder Lake-P	Alder Lake-M	Alder Lake-S
CPU PCIe	One PCIe 5.0 x8 / Two PCIe 4.0 x4	Unknown	Two PCIe 5.0 x8 / Two PCIe 4.0 x4
PCH	ADP_P	ADP_M	ADP_S
PCH PCIe Ports	12	10	28
SATA Ports	6	3	6

We don’t have any information for the Alder Lake-L configuration, so it remains shrouded in mystery. However, as we can see above, the PCIe, PCH, and SATA allocations vary by the model, based on the target market. Notably, the Alder Lake-P configuration is destined for mobile devices.

Intel 12th-Gen Alder Lake Xe LP Integrated Graphics

A series of Geekbench test submissions have given us a rough outline of the graphics accommodations for a few of the Alder Lake chips. Recent Linux patches indicate the chips feature the same Gen12 Xe LP architecture as Tiger Lake, though there is a distinct possibility of a change to the sub-architecture (12.1, 12.2, etc.). Also, there are listings for a GT0.5 configuration in Intel’s media driver, but that is a new paradigm in Intel’s naming convention so we aren’t sure of the details yet.

The Alder Lake-S processors come armed with the 32 EUs (256 shaders) in a GT1 configuration, and the iGPU on early samples run at 1.5 GHz. We’ve also seen Alder Lake-P benchmarks with the GT2 configuration, which means they come with 96 EUs (768 shaders). The early Xe LP iGPU silicon on the -P model runs at 1.15GHz, but as with all engineering samples, that could change with shipping models.

Alder Lake’s integrated GPUs support up to five display outputs (eDP, dual HDMI, and Dual DP++), and support the same encoding/decoding features as both Rocket Lake and Tiger Lake, including AV1 8-bit and 10-bit decode, 12-bit VP9, and 12-bit HEVC.

Intel Alder Lake CPU Architecture and 10nm Enhanced SuperFin Process

Intel pioneered the x86 hybrid architecture with its Lakefield chips, with those inaugural models coming with one Sunny Cove core paired with four Atom Tremont cores.

Compared to Lakefield, both the high- and low-performance Alder Lake-S cores take a step forward to newer microarchitectures. Alder Lake-S actually jumps forward two ‘Cove’ generations compared to the ‘big’ Sunny Cove cores found in Lakefield. The big Golden Cove cores come with increased single-threaded performance, AI performance, Network and 5G performance, and improved security features compared to the Willow Cove cores that debuted with Tiger Lake.

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(Image credit: Intel)

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(Image credit: Intel)

Alder Lake’s smaller Gracemont cores jump forward a single Atom generation and offer the benefit of being more power and area efficient (perf/mm^2) than the larger Golden Cove cores. Gracemont also comes with increased vector performance, a nod to an obvious addition of some level of AVX support (likely AVX2). Intel also lists improved single-threaded performance for the Gracemont cores.

It’s unclear whether Intel will use its Foveros 3D packaging for the chips. This 3D chip-stacking technique reduces the footprint of the chip package, as seen with the Lakefield chips. However, given the large LGA 1700 socket, that type of packaging seems unlikely for the desktop PC variants. We could see some Alder Lake-P, -M, or -L chips employ Foveros packaging, but that remains to be seen.

(Image credit: Intel)

Lakefield served as a proving ground not only for Intel’s 3D Foveros packaging tech but also for the software and operating system ecosystem. At its Architecture Day, Intel outlined the performance gains above for the Lakefield chips to highlight the promise of hybrid design. Still, the results come with an important caveat: These types of performance improvements are only available through both hardware and operating system optimizations.

Due to the use of both faster and slower cores that are both optimized for different voltage/frequency profiles, unlocking the maximum performance and efficiency requires the operating system and applications to have an awareness of the chip topology to ensure workloads (threads) land in the correct core based upon the type of application.

For instance, if a latency-sensitive workload like web browsing lands in a slower core, performance will suffer. Likewise, if a background task is scheduled into the fast core, some of the potential power efficiency gains are lost. There’s already work underway in both Windows and various applications to support that technique via a hardware-guided OS scheduler.

The current format for Intel’s Lakefield relies upon both cores supporting the same instruction set. Alder Lake’s larger Golden Cove cores support AVX-512, but it appears that those instructions will be disabled to accommodate the fact that the Atom Gracemont cores do not support the instructions. There is a notable caveat that any of the SKUs that come with only big cores might still support the instructions.

Intel Chief Architect Raja Koduri mentioned that a new “next-generation” hardware-guided OS scheduler that’s optimized for performance would debut with Alder Lake, but didn’t provide further details. This next-gen OS scheduler could add in support for targeting cores with specific instruction sets to support a split implementation, but that remains to be seen.

Intel fabs Alder Lake on its Enhanced 10nm SuperFin process. This is the second-generation of Intel’s SuperFin process, which you can learn more about in our deep-dive coverage.

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(Image credit: Intel)

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(Image credit: Intel)

Intel says the first 10nm SuperFin process provides the largest intra-node performance improvement in the company’s history, unlocking higher frequencies and lower power consumption than the first version of its 10nm node. Intel says the net effect is the same amount of performance uplift that the company would normally expect from a whole series of intra-node “+” revisions, but in just one shot. As such, Intel claims these transistors mark the largest single intra-node improvement in the company’s history.

The 10nm SuperFin transistors have what Intel calls breakthrough technology that includes a new thin barrier that reduces interconnect resistance by 30%, improved gate pitch so the transistor can drive higher current, and enhanced source/drain elements that lower resistance and improve strain. Intel also added a Super MIM capacitor that drives a 5X increase in capacitance, reducing vDroop. That’s important, particularly to avoid localized brownouts during heavy vectorized workloads and also to maintain higher clock speeds.

During its Architecture Day, Intel teased the next-gen variant of SuperFin, dubbed ’10nm Enhanced SuperFin,’ saying that this new process was tweaked to increase interconnect and general performance, particularly for data center parts (technically, this is 10nm+++, but we won’t quibble over an arguably clearer naming convention). This is the process used for Alder Lake, but unfortunately, Intel’s descriptions were vague, so we’ll have to wait to learn more.

We know that the 16-core models come armed with 30MB of L3 cache, while the 14-core / 24 thread chip has 24MB of L3 cache and 2.5 MB of L2 cache. However, it is unclear how this cache is partitioned between the two types of cores, which leaves many questions unanswered.

Alder Lake also supports new instructions, like Architectural LBRs, HLAT, and SERIALIZE commands, which you can read more about here. Alder Lake also purportedly supports AVX2 VNNI, which “replicates existing AVX512 computational SP (FP32) instructions using FP16 instead of FP32 for ~2X performance gain.” This rapid math support could be part of Intel’s solution for the lack of AVX-512 support for chips with both big and small cores, but it hasn’t been officially confirmed.

Intel 12th-Generation Alder Lake Price

Intel’s Alder Lake is at least ten months away, so pricing is the wild card. Intel has boosted its 10nm production capacity tremendously over the course of 2020 and hasn’t suffered any recent shortages of its 10nm processors. That means that Intel should have enough production capacity to keep costs within reasonable expectations, but predicting Intel’s 10nm supply simply isn’t reasonable given the complete lack of substantive information on the matter.

However, Intel has proven with its Comet Lake, Ice Lake, and Cooper Lake processors that it is willing to lose margin in order to preserve its market share, and surprisingly, Intel’s recent price adjustments have given Comet Lake a solid value proposition compared to AMD’s Ryzen 5000 chips.

We can only hope that trend continues, but if Alder Lake brings forth both PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support as expected, we could be looking at exceptionally pricey memory and motherboard accommodations.

Meet Andy Jassy, Amazon’s next CEO

Andy Jassy speaking at the 2019 CERAWeek Conference

Photo: Getty Images

The exec helped Amazon soar in the cloud, and now he’ll determine the company’s future

Amazon is getting a new CEO for the first time in its 27-year-history: cloud computing chief Andy Jassy, who will be replacing co-founder Jeff Bezos later this year. Jassy, currently the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a core believer in Bezos’ business philosophies and a longtime veteran of the company, having run the cloud division since its inception nearly two decades ago.

Jassy, who turned 53 last year, is now getting the opportunity to make his mark not just on Amazon, but also the world and the major ways the company shaped it, from Whole Foods to a million-person-plus warehouse workforce to massive logistics and AI divisions with far-reaching real-world effects.

Far from a household name, Jassy is still one of the most consequential executives in Amazon’s history. His promotion underscores the importance of cloud computing to the biggest tech titans that now play vital roles in powering the entire internet. In the case of AWS, that includes everything from Netflix and Spotify to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Democratic National Committee.When AWS goes down, huge chunks of the internet go with it.

The transition of power is reminiscent of Satya Nadella’s promotion to the CEO role at Microsoft in 2014, after Nadella spent three years running the company’s Azure cloud business. Nadella modernized many elements of Microsoft’s business and company culture with a focus on the cloud and mobile computing, as well as an excellent eye for major acquisitions. Jassy’s ascent to the top job at Amazon may similarly usher in an era of transformation for the e-commerce giant.

The big question Amazon insiders and those on the outside looking in will try to answer in the next six months, before he takes the job in the third quarter of the year, will be whether Jassy deviates from Bezos’ approach or sticks to business as usual. Yet if Jassy continues to see himself as an acolyte of Bezos and his famous “Day 1” mentality — which argues that companies start to decline and die the moment they rest on their laurels — it will mean plenty of change is on the horizon. For Amazon, change is both the most important survival instinct and its most successful business tool.

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

When Jassy joined Amazon in the late ‘90s, the company was years away from thinking about the cloud and still focused solely on e-commerce. Jassy graduated from Harvard Business School in 1997 and joined Amazon soon thereafter as part of a wave of fresh MBAs flocking to the tech industry before the dot-com boom. Jassy moved out West with the intention of one day returning to New York, according to an interview last year on The Disruptive Voice podcast, but he’s never held a job at another company.

Jassy went on to become Bezos’ first “shadow” adviser, something like a corporate chief of staff who followed the CEO every day and sat in on all of his meetings, according to a profile of Jassy published late last month by Insider. Jassy also made a peculiar first impression on his boss by accidentally hitting him in the head with a kayak paddle during a characteristically competitive game of company broomball, as recounted in Brad Stone’s 2013 book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

Bezos and Jassy’s relationship deepened in the years after, with Bezos tasking his younger lieutenant with exploring the then-nascent technology of cloud computing around 2003. The goal was to see whether it made sense for Amazon to offer hosting services to other websites and businesses, back when many of the largest tech companies mainly relied on third-party data centers or had already begun looking into or actively building their own. The idea came from Amazon’s own struggles to build an external development platform for retailers three years earlier, so third-party companies could build their own e-commerce operations.

It was Jassy who helped identify the problem: Amazon’s development tools, frankly, sucked. The company set out to improve them by creating easier-to-use APIs and other technology that would let any one team at Amazon pull from a common pool of resources. “So very quietly around 2000, we became a services company with really no fanfare,” Jassy told a crowd at the re:Invent conference in 2018, according to TechCrunch.

It took Amazon another six years of exploring and experimenting — with the effort to formally develop AWS really taking off after a fateful 2003 executive retreat at Bezos’ house, Jassy recounted — before the company launched its first cloud product in 2006. “In retrospect it [AWS] seems fairly obvious, but at the time I don’t think we had ever really internalized that,” Jassy said at re:Invent. The company’s early investments paid off, as it took competitors years to realize the business opportunity and launch comparable cloud products.

“If you believe companies will build applications from scratch on top of the infrastructure services if the right selection [of services] existed, and we believed they would if the right selection existed, then the operating system becomes the internet, which is really different from what had been the case for the [previous] 30 years,” Jassy explained.

That belief about the future of the internet proved prescient. Today, AWS powers a huge bulk of apps, services, and websites consumers and employees use every day, largely because Amazon has unparalleled resources and developer tools that make building and tapping into its massive resources as easy as using a standard API. It’s why so many companies forgo building their own data center operations and instead choose AWS or one of its competitors. Unless you’re Facebook or Google, both of which built out their own global data center operations, it’s simply easier to use Amazon than to do it yourself.

Photo: Getty Images

Jassy deserves credit for architecting the company’s cloud vision, having run AWS since it was created and becoming its CEO after Bezos promoted him to the position from a senior vice president role back in 2016. His tenure at AWS has also turned cloud computing into the most profitable of Amazon’s divisions, accounting for roughly 63 percent of the company’s profits in 2020 and putting it on track to make more than $50 billion in revenue this year. Amazon now controls about a third of the entire cloud infrastructure market, more than its next closest competitors (Microsoft and Google) combined, according to Synergy Research.

Without AWS’s momentous growth, Amazon may not have had the resources to invest as much money back into its retail, logistics, streaming video, hardware, smart home, AI, and other divisions over the years. That makes AWS effectively the engine of Amazon’s continuous reinvention, and Jassy is the spark that helps drive it.

In recent years, Jassy has clearly fashioned himself as an heir apparent to Bezos, spinning tales of Amazon’s early days and the remarkable beginnings of AWS and how those learnings can be applied to other businesses. He’s a keynote speaker at Amazon’s high-profile re:Invent conference, an industry gathering dedicated to cloud computing, and he’s become a more public face of Amazon in recent years. Last summer, when longtime logistics executive Jeff Wilke, another potential Bezos successor, announced his retirement, the writing was on the wall. Someone would eventually take over from Bezos, and it was looking more likely than ever to be Jassy.

Jassy’s management quirks and persona have also become somewhat legendary within the company, similar to Bezos’ infamous email style and meeting decorum. Jassy is known internally for his exhaustive attention to detail and hands-on approach, his penchant for back-to-back meetings, and his welcoming embrace of social justice issues, according to Insider.

In September, he tweeted publicly about accountability for the killing of Breonna Taylor, and he’s been outspoken in his support for the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ issues. Jassy, however, is also known for having defended controversial decisions, like Amazon’s sale of its flawed facial recognition technology to police departments and the government. (Amazon announced a one-year ban on its sale of the tech to law enforcement starting in June of last year.)

Jassy’s approach is also characterized as one of making tough and unprecedented calls, best exemplified in AWS’ decision to ban social media platform Parler last month following the US Capitol riot. It was a move the company did not take lightly considering its “religious” commitment to maintaining service for customers, Insider reported at the time. But it felt compelled to do so after outcry from employees and because Parler posed “a very real risk to public safety,” Amazon said in a statement at the time.

Jassy will no doubt be in charge of making even tougher calls in the future. But that’s part of both the job and the Amazon culture he’s helped cultivate. “It’s really hard to build a business that sustains for a long period of time,” Jassy told a virtual crowd at the all-digital Amazon re:Invent last December. “To do it, you’re going to reinvent yourself, and often you’re going to have to reinvent yourself many times over.”

That’s precisely what Amazon has done over the years, transforming from an online bookseller into an e-commerce giant and onward into a hardware maker, a major Hollywood and entertainment industry player, and now the second largest employer in the country. All the while, Jassy has worked behind the scenes to ensure AWS was growing into the profit machine it is today.

Now, Jassy appears ready for a reinvention of his own, at a time when Amazon is still at the forefront of so many industries and continuing to explore new territory, all while it faces increasing antitrust pressure in the US and overseas and mounting competition in the AI, cloud, and e-commerce industries.

“Typically, what you see is the desperate kind of reinvention — companies on the verge of falling apart or going bankrupt, deciding they have to reinvent themselves. When you wait until that point, it’s a crapshoot whether you’re going to be successful or not,” Jassy explained. “You want to be reinventing when you’re healthy. You want to be reinventing all the time.”

Huawei’s HarmonyOS appears to just be a forked version of Android

HarmonyOS is Huawei’s alternative operating system that was created after the company was banned in the US and lost its Android license. The reality is the operating system is less of a new alternative and more of a slapdash fork of Android 10, according to a new report from Ron Amadeo at Ars Technica.

HarmonyOS was initially pitched as a wholly distinct OS from Android and iOS, something that would be just as at home on smart home appliances (like the company’s Honor Vision TV) as it would on smartphones. The announcement was a hopeful promise that losing access to US businesses wouldn’t stop Huawei from innovating, but Amadeo’s experience with the beta highlights some disappointing discoveries:

Getting developer access requires a two-day background check that includes sending copies of your passport, personal ID, and credit card to Huawei
You don’t actually run the beta OS in its emulator; it’s streamed to you, Google Stadia-style, from (presumably) a phone running the beta in China
Most importantly, HarmonyOS seems to be a fork of Android 10 with the word “Android” find-and-replaced with “Harmony”

HarmonyOS was likely always going to be most popular in China, but the fact that the new OS appears to be a continuation of Huawei’s EMUI skin with potentially slower access to Android updates through the Open Source Android Project is a major strike against it being used anywhere else. It might be good enough to not offend the US government and satisfy Chinese authorities, but quick text edits and an invasive application process do not an appetizing operating system make.

Read Amadeo’s whole deep dive of detective work dissecting the beta, along with some jabs at Huawei’s fluff-filled developer documentation for a hypothetical “super virtual device,” over at Ars Technica.

Cyberpunk Vulnerability Gives Modders Full Access to Your PC

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

CD Projekt Red is warning players to “use caution” when installing Cyberpunk 2077 mods or custom saves after members of the game’s community discovered a vulnerability in how the game connects to your system’s DLL files that could allow creators of mods/crafted saves to take control of your PC at runtime.

Two days ago, Redditor u/Romulus_Is_Here posted a

warning

to the r/cyberpunkgame subreddit detailing discoveries made by modder and

Cyberpunk save editor

creator PixelRick. According to the post, “Through the use of a mod or a crafted game save, malicious codes [sic] can be executed to take control of the PC by the creator of the save game/mod.”

The post doesn’t go into too much depth on how the vulnerability works, but has since been updated with an official tweet from CD Projekt Red confirming the weakness’ existence and shedding more light onto how it works.

If you plan to use @CyberpunkGame mods/custom saves on PC, use caution. We’ve been made aware of a vulnerability in external DLL files the game uses which can be used to execute code on PCs. Issue will be fixed ASAP. For now, please refrain from using files from unknown sources.February 2, 2021

The tweet states that the error is in the external DLL files the game uses and says the “Issue will be fixed ASAP.” DLL files are already part of your operating system and can be accessed by external programs to run certain activities, so it seems like the issue here is that malicious mods might use your copy of Cyberpunk as a sort of trojan horse to sneak into your system and gain remote access to its files and activities.

“This issue can be potentially used as part of a remote code execution on PCs,” CDPR told Eurogamer. “We appreciate the input and are working on fixing this as soon as possible. In the meantime, we advise anyone to refrain from using files obtained from unknown sources.”

U/Romulus_Is_Here also warns that PixelRick “has confirmed that the PS4 too is susceptible to this vulnerability to an extent.”

The safest solution here is to not use mods from unverified sources, but until CDPR institutes an official patch, fans have come up with an alternate option. Cyber Engine Tweaks is a well-known fan plug-in from modder Yamashi that aims to fix the game’s notoriously inconsistent performance. In the plug-in’s most recent update, version 1.9.6, Yamashi claims to have fixed the vulnerability, which they reiterate can give “full access to your computer to whoever forged a malicious file.”

Night City is a dangerous place. Stay safe out there, Samurai.

Best Raspberry Pi Accessories of 2021

(Image credit: Amazon)

Raspberry Pi Models, Tutorials and More

You can purchase a Raspberry Pi for as little as $5 (for the Raspberry Pi Zero) or more likely $35 (for the Raspberry Pi 4), but you’ll need a few extra products to make it run. And, beyond that, there’s a whole world of accessories that help you make the most of your Pi.

As with any computer, on the Raspberry Pi, you’ll need a way to enter data and a way to see the interface, which usually means getting a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor. .However, you can opt for a headless Raspberry Pi install, which allows you to remote control the Pi from your PC. In that case, the minimum requirements are:

microSD card of at least 8GB, but the best Raspberry Pi microSD cards have 32GB or more. When you first set up a Raspberry Pi, you need to “burn” the OS onto it by using a PC, another Raspberry Pi or even a phone with microSD card reader.

Power supply: For the Raspberry Pi 4, you need a USB-C power source that provides at least 3 amps / 5 volts, but for other Raspberry Pis, you need a micro USB connection that offers at least 2.5 amps and the same 5 volts.

In addition, there are a number of accessory and add-on types that protect your Pi, add new features and make everything a lot more useful and fun. These include:

Cases: The best Raspberry Pi cases give you style, functionality and durability.
HATs (aka add-on boards): The best Raspberry Pi HATs let you do everything from adding motors to creating LED light shows.
Breakout Boards: To breakout the GPIO for easier access or to use via a breadboard. Essential for the new Raspberry Pi 400.
Camera Modules: The Raspberry Pi has its own special camera port and there’s a whole ecosystem of compatible camera modules for it.
Cooling: Raspberry Pi 4 models in particular can get hot so fans and heatsinks help.
Electronic parts: You can make great projects and have a lot of fun with motors, sensors, transistors and other bits and bobs.

Overall, these are the best Raspberry Pi accessories. No matter what your needs or project, you’ll definitely need some of these.

The Best Raspberry Pi Accessories You Can Buy Today

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

1. Argon Neo Case

Best Raspberry Pi Case

Attractive aluminum design

Easy access to GPIO pins

Passive cooling

Sliding magnetic cover

Must remove cover to get to pins

The top overall choice on our round-up of the best Raspberry Pi Cases, the Argon Neo combines great looks with plenty of flexibility and competent passive cooling. This mostly-aluminum (bottom is plastic) case for the Raspberry Pi 4 features a magnetic cover that slides off to provide access to the GPIO pins with enough clearance to attach a HAT, along with the ability to connect cables to the camera and display ports. The microSD card slot, USB and micro HDMI out ports are easy to access at all times.

With the cover on or off, the Argon Neo provides solid passive cooling capability as an included thermal pad connects the Raspberry Pi 4’s CPU to an aluminum plate to dissipate heat. You can also attach an optional fan HAT for active cooling. At just $15, this case is extremely affordable but cuts no corners.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

2. Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera

Best Raspberry Pi Camera

Great image quality

Interchangeable Lenses

Tripod mountable

Expensive

Doesn’t come with lens

It doesn’t come cheap, but the official Raspberry Pi High Quality camera offers the best image quality of any Pi camera by far, along with the ability to mount it on a tripod. The 12-MP camera doesn’t come with a lens, but supports any C or CS lens, which means you can choose from an entire ecosystem of lenses, with prices ranging from $16 up to $50 or more and a variety of focal lengths and F-stop settings.

The Raspberry Pi High Quality camera plugs into the same CSI port on the Raspberry Pi as any other Pi camera module, but unlike the others, this one has a ¼ inch screw hole that allows you to attach it to any standard tripod or camera mount. If you care about image quality, the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera is a must-have.

Read: Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera review

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

3. Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2

Best Affordable Raspberry Pi Camera

Good image quality

Affordable price

No tripod mounting

If you need a Raspberry Pi camera, but don’t want to spend more than $50 on the high quality module and then have to bring your own lens, the official Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2 is the one to get. This 8-MP camera uses a Sony IMX219 sensor that gives it really solid image quality, records video at up 1080p, 30 fps and is a big improvement over the 5-MP OmniVision OV5647 that was in the V1 camera.

There are a number of third-party Raspberry Pi camera modules on the market, with some costing around $10 or less. However, most of these use the older, OV5647 sensor which provides far worse image quality.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

4. Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II

Best Keyboard for Raspberry Pi

Best-in-class typing experience

Trackpoint for navigation

Both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth wireless

Long battery life

Expensive

Whether you want to control your Raspberry Pi from the couch or you have it on a table and don’t want to waste space, getting one of the best wireless keyboards is a good idea. It’s particularly helpful to have a wireless keyboard with a pointing device so you don’t need to also drag around a mouse.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II is the best keyboard for Raspberry Pi thanks to its excellent key feel, multiple connectivity options and built-in TrackPoint pointing stick. The keyboard looks and types just like those on Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of business laptops, offering plenty of tactile feedback and a deep (for a non-mechanical), 1.8mm of key travel. The TrackPoint pointing stick sits between the G and H keys, allowing you to navigate around the Raspberry Pi’s desktop, without even lifting your hands off of the home row.

The Thinkpad TrackPoint II has both 2.4-GHz (via a dongle) and Bluetooth connectivity which you can toggle between using a hardware switch. So, if you have two Raspberry Pis or one Pi and one PC, you can switch back and forth with ease. Charging via USB-C, the keyboard promises up to two months of battery life on a charge.

Read: Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II review

(Image credit: Amazon)

Raspberry Pi 4 Official Power Supply

Best Raspberry Pi Power Supply

Provides just the right amount of power

Built for Pi

No on/off switch

Not the cheapest option

If you’re going to use a Raspberry Pi 4, you need a USB-C power supply that offers at least 3 amps of juice with a roughly 5-volt output. We’ve found that the best USB-C laptop chargers are capable of delivering this kind of power (albeit often with 4.8 – 4.9 volts, which still works), but if you don’t have a powerful charger handy or need one just for your Pi, the official Raspberry Pi power supply is your best choice.

Rated for 5.1 volts and 3 amps, the official Raspberry Pi 4 power supply has good build quality and a nice design. Available in black or white, it’s a small rectangle, emblazoned with the Raspberry Pi logo and a strong, built-in Type-C cable that’s 59 inches (1.5m) long. Unlike some third-party competitors, it doesn’t come with an on / off switch, but it is compatible with cheap on / off adapters you can attach to the end. You may find competitors for a few dollars less, but the official Raspberry Pi 4 power supply is a sure thing.

If you are shopping for any other Raspberry Pi, including the Raspberry Pi Zero or Raspberry Pi 3 or below, you’ll need a power supply that outputs to a micro-USB port and only requires 2.5 amps and 5 volts. There’s also an official Raspberry Pi charger for these older models.

(Image credit: Amazon)

6. Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro

Best Raspberry Pi HAT

Analog to digital conversion

Motor controller

LED lights

Built-in breadboard

No pass-thru for other HATs

The Raspberry Pi’s 40 GPIO pins are arguably its most important feature. Using these pins (see our GPIO pinout), you can attach an entire universe of electronics, including motors, sensors and lights. There’s a huge ecosystem of add-on boards, appropriately called HATs (hardware attached on top) that plug directly into the GPIO pins and matching the same layout as the Pi. These add on boards give you all kinds of added functionality, from LED light matrixes to touch screens and motor controllers for robotics projects.

Sitting at the very top of our list of Best Raspberry Pi HATs, each of which has a different purpose, the Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro provides a smorgasbord of features that you can use in a wide variety of projects. While the Raspberry Pi doesn’t come with an analog to digital converter like Arduino does (see Raspberry Pi vs Arduino), the Explorer HAT Pro provides four ADCs you can use with joysticks or potentiometers. It also packs two motor controllers, four colorful LED lights, four touch pads and four crocodile clips for attaching other electronics. Oh and it comes with a small breadboard you can stick on top and use for mounting and wiring electronics. Every serious Raspberry Pi fan should have one of these on hand.

(Image credit: Amazon)

7. Pimoroni Fan Shim

Best Cooling for Raspberry Pi

Great cooling

HATs go on top of it

Expensive in the US

If you’re using a Raspberry Pi 4, you definitely need some kind of cooling, whether it’s a heat sink, an aluminum with passive cooling built in or, best of all, a fan. The Pimoroni Fan Shim is powerful, easy-to-install and unobtrusive. You just push it down onto the left most side of your GPIO pin header and it does a fantastic job of cooling your Pi. You can even use a Pimoroni Fan Shim on a Raspberry Pi 4 that’s been overclocked all the way to 2.1 GHz, without seeing any throttling.

You can just let the Fan Shim run all the time or you can download Pimoroni’s software, which allows you to set temperature thresholds for it.

Read: Pimoroni Heatsink and Fan Shim Tested

(Image credit: Silicon Power)

8. Silicon Power 32GB 3D NAND microSD Card

Best Raspberry Pi microSD Card

Inexpensive

Leading performance

White surface you can write on

Slow boot times

Unless you’ve specifically configured yours to boot from an SSD (see our article on How to Boot Raspberry Pi from USB), every Raspberry Pi uses a microSD card as its primary storage drive. We maintain a list of the Best microSD cards for Raspberry Pi and have chosen the 32GB Silicon Power 3D NAND card as the top choice.

Unless you’re hosting a media server or have a ridiculous amount of ROMS on a game emulator, a 32GB microSD card provides more than enough storage for Raspberry Pi OS and a ton of applications. The operating system and preloaded applications take up far less than 8GB by themselves.

In our tests, the Silicon Power 3D NAND microSD card had the fastest application open times and the best combination of random reads and writes. Considering that it’s also less expensive than most 32GB cards and that its white surface provides a little room for you to write on it (with marker), this is currently the best card around.

(Image credit: Amazon)

9. GPIO Reference Board

Helpful Accessory

Helpful reference

Cheap

You can look this up online

Each of the Raspberry Pi’s 40 GPIO pins has a different function so it’s hard to keep track of which does what. For example, some of the pins provide I2C communication while others offer power and others are just for grounding. You can look at a GPIO pinout guide such as ours, but sometimes it’s just easier to put the list of functions right on top of the pins.

GPIO reference boards are tiny, non-electronic headers that you place on top of the pins to show you which one has which name. There are many different brands and models for sale and all do pretty much the same thing so there’s no need to be picky about which one you buy. Most have small holes on top that you can use to hang them on a keychain and take them wherever you go.

(Image credit: Amazon)

10. micro HDMI to HDMI Adapters

Must-Have for Pi 4

Very helpful and work well

You still need an HDMI cable

While most of the earlier Raspberry Pi models have a single, full-size HDMI port, the Raspberry Pi 4 has dual micro HDMI ports that can each output to a monitor at up to 4K resolution. While there’s a good chance you already have one or more HDMI cables lying around the house, most of us don’t have micro HDMI cables, because it’s a rarely used connector.

To connect the Raspberry Pi 4 to a screen, you’ll either need a micro HDMI to HDMI cable or a micro HDMI to HDMI adapter you can connect an existing cable to. Cable Matters, a well-known and reputable brand, sells a pair of such adapters for just $10. That’s much cheaper than a single micro HDMI to HDMI cable, which goes for $8 to 10 for just one. I’ve been using these Cable Matters adapters for more than a year now and they’ve worked really well.

(Image credit: Amazon)

11. Electronics Kit with Breadboard, Wires

Great for learning

Helpful for prototyping

No soldering necessary

You can use your Raspberry Pi as a game emulator, a server or a desktop PC, but the real fun begins when you start connecting electronics to its GPIO pins. Of course, to even get started playing with GPIO connectors, you need some interesting things to connect to them such as lights, sensors and resistors.

The market is filled with electronics kits that come with a slew of LED lights, resistors, jumper cables, buttons and other bits and bobs you need to get started. Most importantly, all of these kits come with at least one breadboard, a white plastic surface filled with holes you can use to route and test circuits, no soldering required.

There are plenty of good kits from no-name brands on Amazon, but the Freenove LCD 1602 Starter kit caught our eye, because it comes with an ADC chip for analog-to-digital conversion, an LCD text screen and a GPIO extension board you can use to route all your pins over to the breadboard at once.

(Image credit: Amazon)

12. USB 3 microSD Card Reader

Need it to read and write

PC with USB port quired

In order to write Raspberry Pi OS (or a different OS) to a microSD card, you’ll need some kind of microSD card reader that you can attach to your PC. Just about any make or model will do as long as it reads SDHC and SDXC cards and, preferably, connects via USB 3.0. I’ve been using the Jahovans X USB 3.0 card reader, which currently goes for $5.99, for almost a year now and it has worked really well.

You can also attach a microSD card reader to your Pi and use it to create a disk image backup of your Raspberry Pi.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

13. Raspberry Pi Zero Official Case

Best Case for Raspberry Pi Zero

GPIO Access

Camera Access

Official Pi design

Can’t have both GPIO and Camera at once

We’re not huge fans of the Official Raspberry Pi 4 case, because it covers the GPIO pins and camera slots. However, the Official Raspberry Pi Zero case is a completely different as it comes with three different covers: one which has a camera hole (so you can make a Raspberry Pi body camera), another which exposes the GPIO pins and a third which covers the whole thing. The official Raspberry Pi Zero case also has the official burgundy and white colors of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

AMD vs Nvidia: Which Is More Popular Among Linux Users?

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Linux might only make up a very small portion of the operating system market share (about 1-2% depending on who you ask), but it’s a dedicated minority, filled with loyalists who are willing to stick with the OS despite compatibility issues thanks to its heavy customizability and open-source nature. In other words, people who use Linux tend to be pretty versed in tech. That’s probably why Boiling Steam, a site dedicated to gaming on Linux, thought it might be illuminating to do some research into what type of hardware Linux users prefer. In the AMD vs Nvidia debate, we finally have some numbers on what the most discerning tech wizards prefer…as well as which manufacturers better serve their unique needs.

These numbers come from ProtonDB, which is a site that tracks game compatibility with Proton, Steam’s built-in solution for running games on Linux. The idea of the site is to report how well certain games run on Linux or what features might need tweaking to work properly on the OS. But because users report their system specs as part of their reports, it’s also possible to use the site to glean which components are most popular among gaming-minded Linux users.

Boiling Steam admits that its data is limited- ProtonDB is really the only reliable source here, as other options like the Steam Hardware Survey aren’t granular enough to be reliable. But still, the site’s analysis (compiled from over 111,000 reports) is an interesting bird’s-eye view of the Linux gaming scene.

Before getting to the AMD vs Nvidia debate, let’s start with Boiling Steam’s CPU charts. The site’s analysis goes back 2 years, and in that time, it seems like AMD’s grown from being the CPU choice for roughly 27% of the ProtonDB user base to the CPU choice for almost 50%. Intel takes up the other 50%, of course, though Boiling Steam recognizes that AMD’s penchant for matching Intel’s single-core performance and providing more cores at a lower cost might soon tip the scales in its favor.

As for GPUs, AMD is also on the rise there, but Nvidia still holds a noticeable majority. In January of 2019, AMD was the GPU choice for 25% of the ProtonDB user base, with that percentage rising to 37.5% in January of this year. Nvidia still dominates the rest, which Boiling Steam credits to the company’s early successes in ray tracing and DLSS compared to AMD.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is how this data comes together. According to Boiling Steam, “If you own an Intel CPU, you are far, far more likely to have a[n] Nvidia GPU as well.” Meanwhile, “If you own an AMD CPU, there’s a good chance (50/50) you have an AMD GPU as well, and even more so if you use very specific [Linux] distros (Arch, Gentoo, Slack, KdeNeon, Fedora, Deepin, Void…)”

In other words, AMD fans are likely to go all-in with AMD on their systems. And, well…it seems like the geekier someone is, the more likely they are to prefer AMD.

None of this is too surprising going off general fan community conversation — you don’t have many gifs featuring Nvidia’s Jensen Huang transforming into a giant robot floating around online, but you do for AMD’s Lisa Su. Still, having concrete numbers to point to is great, plus this also shows a promising trend for AMD on Linux going forward.

“For Linux, if you were ever interested in gaming with decent performance, an Intel + Nvidia combo was pretty much required until recently,” Boiling Steam writes. “Intel, for the best single thread performance on CPUs, and Nvidia both for their excellent proprietary drivers and better hardware/pricing overall.”

However, as AMD’s made strides in recent years to provide comparable performance to Intel and Nvidia at a lower cost, that’s no longer the case, which promises a strong future for Linux users who are also AMD fans. It’s a future that’s only made stronger by AMD’s recent efforts to have its CPUs and GPUs work together using “Smart Access Memory.” So far, Smart Access Memory has maintained feature parity on Linux and Windows, which is always a strong sign of a company’s commitment to Linux users.

Going forward, then, it’s possible that AMD might steal even more of Intel and Nvidia’s Linux market share, as it both continues to improve its technology overall as well as support its unique features beyond just Windows.

For more of Boiling Steam’s analysis, and to see its charts, visit Boilingsteam.com.

DTS Play-Fi: what is it? What speakers and devices support it?

(Image credit: DTS)

What’s the first thing you think of when someone says the word ‘multi-room’?

For most, we imagine it’s a dedicated set-up from a single manufacturer such as Sonos or Bluesound, with its connected ecosystem of speakers, soundbars, soundbases and hi-fi components. Or perhaps you’d think of AirPlay 2, a gateway for an iOS source (Apple device) to stream music to multiple compatible products.

If you want to mix and match from multiple manufacturers, cherry-picking devices in order to get the best performance and fit for each room, DTS Play-Fi could be an option worth looking into. The app-controlled, wireless, multi-room platform has been licensed to several hi-fi brands and consequently sits at the functionality core of excellent streaming products such as the What Hi-Fi? Award winning Audiolab 6000N Play (pictured below) and five-star Arcam rPlay music streamers.

It claims to provide “premium wireless audio for every room of your house”, and works across a wide array of products. So, let’s take a look at what it does, how it does it and what products utilise it…

Multi-room audio: everything you need to know

What is DTS Play-Fi?

(Image credit: Audiolab)

DTS Play-Fi is, at the most fundamental level, a platform and app that lets you connect and control various hi-fi devices together in order to stream audio from one to another. This can be within one room for a multi-channel set-up, or across multiple rooms in your home. Multi-room aside, it can just be used to facilitate network streaming in one standalone product.

The range of compatible devices includes portable wireless speakers, stereo systems, A/V tuners, preamps, amplifiers, music streamers and media servers – all of which can be managed on your smartphone, tablet, PC or TV via the dedicated app. DTS Play-Fi launched in 2012 and originally its app was only available only on Android. But now its dedicated control app is available on iOS, Kindle Fire (the operating system on Amazon’s Fire tablets) and Windows PCs too, as well as on TVs.

On Windows, however, there are two varieties of Play-Fi app: a free version and a “Play-Fi HD” version. The latter costs $14.95 (approximately £10), which buys you a code for from the DTS online store and ultimately gives you greater control over your audio as well as higher quality.

Best multi-room systems 2021
Best multi-room speakers 2021

How does it work?

Download the app and you should quickly see a list of available devices. Tap to select it, then choose audio from a number of sources including Amazon Music (including Amazon Music HD), Tidal, Deezer, Spotify and Qobuz, as well as internet radio stations via iHeartRadio, SirusXM and Radio.com. Apple Music is not available on the service at the moment.

Some DTS Play-Fi-compatible products will also support AirPlay and AirPlay 2, Apple’s simple method of streaming audio and video directly from iPhones, iPads and other devices. However, this isn’t available in every DTS Play-Fi product; it’s the manufacturer’s decision whether to implement it or not. Similarly, that’s the case with Google Chromecast and Spotify Connect.

You can configure two separate speakers into a stereo pairing – one playing the left channel audio, the other playing the right – using the app, or (if you have at least six DTS Play-Fi compatible products) create a 5.1 surround-sound system.

Those speaker groups can then be designated as ‘Zones’, which allows you to delegate music to different rooms of your house. For example, you could have a Tidal stream going to the speakers in your living room while a Deezer stream plays in the bedroom.

A new companion app, called DTS Play-Fi Headphones, also lets you stream audio from select DTS Play-Fi-connected products (soundbars, stereo amps and speakers) to a pair of headphones over wi-fi. DTS claims the wi-fi connection is better than Bluetooth headphones (which can introduce latency issues) and its AV synchronisation technology means there shouldn’t be any syncing issues between picture and audio when watching TV.

To use it, you have to connect your wired headphones to your smartphone or tablet with the app on it, up to four people can be connected to one stream, and users can even listen at different volumes. The free app is available on iOS and Android.

Best music streaming services 2021

Does DTS Play-Fi support hi-res music?

DTS Play-Fi will play MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF files. They can be streamed up to a 16-bit/48kHz resolution limit without compression – anything bigger will be compressed by default.

However, this can be changed using the service’s Critical Listening mode, which lets you stream 24-bit/192kHz music across your wi-fi network. A word of warning, though: since those files are generally pretty large (many of our hi-res music files are between 30MB and 70MB per track, compared to 3.5MB for the average MP3 file) and thus require greater bandwidth to stream, DTS advises using a wired connection for more reliable performance.

High-resolution audio: everything you need to know

Which products support DTS Play-Fi?

Among the vast array of products supporting DTS Play-Fi are soundbars, systems and speakers from – deep breath – Audiolab, Anthem, Arcam, Aerix, Definitive Technology, Integra, Klipsch, MartinLogan, McIntosh, Onkyo, Paradigm, Philips, Polk, Quad, Rotel, Phorus, Pioneer and Sonus faber.

Most recently, product announcements include the Quad Artera Solus Play streaming system, a range of Philips audio kit and TVs, and kit by Porsche Design.

You can see the full list of supported brands here.

Best music streamers 2021
How to add a streamer to your hi-fi system

How many products can you connect using DTS Play-Fi?

In the words of The Notorious B.I.G., the sky’s the limit. You could theoretically connect as many products as you like together, but DTS recommends a maximum of 32 Play-Fi devices per home network, lest performance start to suffer.

Up to 16 Play-Fi products can stream the same song, whether that’s from your phone, tablet, or Windows PC. You can designate a maximum of four zones, with each zone streaming audio from a different source.

Up to eight people can use the same wi-fi network to stream songs using DTS Play-Fi (provided they’re all using different devices).

Adding a music streamer to my hi-fi system has been a revelation (and a frustration)

Does DTS Play-Fi support voice control?

In a word, yes. DTS Play-Fi supports voice control most exhaustively via Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. This functionality is available in two ways: “integration of Alexa Voice Services” (which is for products with the Alexa voice assistant built-in) or, most commonly, “Works with Alexa” (which means you’ll be able to control Alexa-based music streams on DTS Play-Fi products via an Echo device).

Play-Fi-connected smart speakers such as the Onkyo P3, Pioneer F4 and Phorus PS10 have integrated Alexa, so you can shout commands at it just as you would Amazon’s own Echo speakers.

To use Alexa with other Play-Fi products (such as those from McIntosh or Martin Logan – basically anything without microphones built in) you’ll need to ask any of the above smart speakers or an Echo or Dot to play music, which it will then do across the rest of your Play-Fi products. There’s a long list of Works with Alexa-supporting DTS Play-Fi products, which we can be found here.

Speaking of Alexa, DTS Play-Fi products now support Alexa Cast, allowing users to send and control music directly from the Amazon Music app to them. See compatible products here.

How about Apple’s Siri voice assistant? Music playback on Play-Fi products that support AirPlay 2 can be started via voice commands to Siri or to a HomePod. Alternatively, users can use spoken commands to add AirPlay 2 speakers into a group with a HomePod or even transfer music playback from the HomePod to other AirPlay 2 products in the home.

Amazon Echo smart speakers: which Alexa speaker should you buy?
Best smart speakers 2021

What are the DTS Play-Fi alternatives?

Many other companies offer their own services to connect up audio kit – controlled through bespoke apps. Sonos is the obvious standout in that respect – its multi-room speakers routinely win What Hi-Fi? Awards for ease of use and excellent support of numerous streaming services, plus exclusive features such as Sonos Trueplay.

Streaming products from the likes of Naim, Linn, Audio Pro, B&O and Bose (and many more) use their own streaming apps, while Bluesound, NAD, Dali use the shared BluOS platform, and Denon and Marantz use the shared HEOS platform.

Then there’s arguably the most ubiquitous platforms: Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast, which have been integrated across a huge variety of wireless products, allowing you to mix-and-match products in your streaming household.

One thing’s for sure, it’s no longer difficult to make a multi-room audio system. If anything, it’s just harder to choose which of the many paths to go down.

Round	Raspberry Pi Pico	Arduino
Functionality and GPIO	✗
SoC	✗
Coding	✗
Ease of Use	✗
Power Consumption		✗
Total	4	1

(Image credit: AMD)

AMD whipped the covers off of its Ryzen 5000 ‘Cezanne’ mobile chips at CES 2021, but today marks the official launch and AMD has unveiled the deep-dive details of the SoC that brings the Zen 3 architecture to the notebook market for the first time. The new chips will power a large range of notebooks, like the Asus ROG Flow X13 that we reviewed today, and finally bring Ryzen to the highest-end gaming notebooks to compete with Intel’s Tiger Lake chips.

On the surface, the Ryzen 5000 chips look like an iterative update to existing Ryzen 4000 Renoir processors, but there’s a surprising amount of ingenuity under the hood. AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Mobile chips bring the 7nm process paired with Zen 3’s 19% IPC increase to notebooks for the first time, largely by replacing the Zen 2 CPU cores with faster Zen 3 cores while leveraging much of the Ryzen 4000 design (like the 7nm Vega graphics cores and existing I/O accommodations) to minimize time to market.

And time is of the essence. For now, Intel will fend off the Ryzen 5000 chips with its Tiger Lake lineup that’s currently capped at four cores and eight threads with its 35W H35 series chips. Intel says its long-awaited eight-core 45W H-series chips are still in development, with headline specs including a 5.0 GHz boost on multiple CPU cores, but the company’s first eight-core 10nm processors won’t come to market until later this quarter.

Meanwhile, AMD is shipping Ryzen 5000 and has wrung out extra performance through clever modifications to its existing Ryzen 4000 SoC design, which we’ll cover below, culminating in a 23% overall improvement in single-threaded work and a 17% increase in multi-threaded performance for the 5000 series.

AMD says the improvements open up new levels of performance and set a new standard for battery life in x86 notebooks, with up to a 20-hour increase in standby life and an additional two hours during general productivity work, all while remaining the only 8-core x86 chips for ultrathin laptops.

The Ryzen 5000 Mobile series looks promising. Provided that AMD can provide sufficient quantities, they could mark yet another escalation in the increasingly-competitive notebook market. Let’s take a closer look.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors 35W – 45W+ H-Series
	Cores / Threads	Base / Boost	TDP	GPU CU / Boost	Cache
Ryzen 9 5980HX	8 / 16	3.3 / 4.8	45W+	8 / 2.1 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 9 5980HS	8 / 16	3.0 / 4.8	35W	8 / 2.1 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 9 5900HX	8 / 16	3.3 / 4.6	45W+	8 / 2.1 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 9 5900HS	8 / 16	3.0 / 4.6	35W	8 / 2.1 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 9 4900H	8 / 16	3.3 / 4.3	45W	8 / 1.75 GHz	12MB
Ryzen 9 4900HS	8 / 16	3.0 / 4.3	35W	8 / 1.75 GHz	12MB
Ryzen 7 5800H	8 / 16	3.2 / 4.4	45W	8 / 2.0 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 7 4800H	8 / 16	2.9 / 4.2	45W	7 / 1.6 GHz	12MB
Ryzen 7 5800HS	8 / 16	2.8 / 4.4	35W	8 / 2.0 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 7 4800HS	8 / 16	2.9 / 4.2	35W	7 / 1.6 GHz	12MB
Ryzen 5 5600H	6 / 12	3.3 / 4.2	45W	7 / 1.8 GHz	19MB
Ryzen 5 4600H	6 / 12	3.0 / 4.0	45W	6 / 1.5 GHz	11MB
Ryzen 5 5600HS	6 / 12	3.0 / 4.2	35W	7 / 1.8 GHz	19MB
Ryzen 5 4600HS	6 / 12	3.0 / 4.0	35W	6 / 1.5 GHz	11MB

The 13 new processors span from low-power 15W chips up to two new overclockable 45W+ HX-series models designed to bring desktop PC-like gaming performance to notebooks. The Ryzen 5000 mobile processors all come with threading enabled, the 7nm Vega graphics engine with higher graphics boost clocks than the prior-gen models, support CPPC (Collaborative Power and Performance Control) technology, which we’ll dive into shortly, and have higher CPU boost clocks than the previous-gen.

As before, the H-series models are designed for notebooks that will use discrete graphics. The two 45W+ eight-core HX models carve out a new high-performance niche by bringing CPU, memory, and fabric overclocking to AMD-powered notebooks for the first time, but overclocking headroom will largely be dictated by the thermal and power characteristics of each notebook. Naturally, bulkier notebooks with more robust cooling and power delivery will unlock better overclockability.

The two H models slot in with eight- and six-core variants and a 45W TDP rating, with the former having eight CUs that boost to 2.0 GHz, while the latter has seven CUs that stretch up to 1.8 GHz.

AMD also expanded its HS series with four chips with boost clocks that reach up to 4.8 GHz within the 35W TDP envelope. AMD segments the HS stack with three eight-core models with varying base and boost clocks, but these models have lower base clocks than the H-series models to accommodate the 35W TDP envelope. AMD also has a lone six-core twelve-thread model to round out the bottom of the H-Series stack. AMD also segments the HS models with either seven or eight Vega CUs, with peak boost clocks weighing in at 2.1 GHz.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors 15W U-Series
	Cores / Threads	Base / Boost	GPU CU / Boost	Cache
Ryzen 7 5800U – Zen 3	8 / 16	1.9 / 4.4	8 / 2.0 GHz	20MB
Ryzen 7 4800U	8 / 16	1.8 / 4.1	8 / 1.75 GHz	8MB
Ryzen 7 5700U – Zen 2	8 / 16	1.8 / 4.3	8 / 1.9 GHz	12MB
Ryzen 7 4700U	8 / 16	2.0 / 4.1	7 / 1.6 GHz	8MB
Ryzen 5 5600U – Zen 3	6 / 12	2.3 / 4.2	7 / 1.8 GHz	19MB
Ryzen 5 4600U	6 / 12	2.1 / 4.0	6 / 1.5 GHz	8MB
Ryzen 5 5500U – Zen 2	6 / 12	2.1 / 4.0	7 / 1.8 GHz	11MB
Ryzen 5 4500U	6 / 6	2.3 / 4.0	6 / 1.5 GHz	8MB
Ryzen 3 5400U – Zen 3	4 / 8	2.6 / 4.0	6 / 1.6 GHz	10MB
Ryzen 3 4300U	4 / 4	2.7 / 3.7	5 / 1.4 GHz	4MB
Ryzen 3 5300U – Zen 2	4 / 8	2.6 / 3.8	6 / 1.5 GHz	6MB

The 15W U-Series models slot in for thin and light devices and will often lean on the integrated graphics units. AMD recently chose to unify its Ryzen Mobile branding under the same Ryzen 5000 umbrella as its desktop chips to clear up the confusion with the Ryzen 4000 series processors that came with an older architecture than desktop Ryzen 3000 models.

However, AMD also sprinkled in three Zen 2 ‘Lucienne’ chips in the Ryzen 5000 Mobile stack, muddying the waters. AMD says this approach meets specific pricing criteria and customer (OEM) demand on the lower end of its product stack. These Zen 2-powered Ryzen 3, 5, and 7 models slot into the lowest-end 15W U-series category.

The Zen 2 variants come with the same design as their predecessors, but again, the targeted enhancements to the SoC (all of the same modifications listed below apply) and increased clock rates result in higher performance.

The Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 families also include one Zen 3 model apiece with either eight cores and 16 threads, or four cores and eight threads. Unlike the previous-gen Ryzen 4000 chips, all of the 15W models come threading enabled.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Architecture Deep Dive – Design Goals

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AMD’s performance claims for the Ryzen 5000 chips are quite impressive, with a 23% generational improvement in single-threaded performance being the highlight feature. The increased single-threaded performance over the Zen 2-powered Ryzen 4000 chips stems from the 19% IPC improvement borne of the Zen 3 microarchitecture and more fine-grained SoC-level optimizations that optimize power delivery, among other factors. AMD also claims two additional hours of battery life and a 108% advantage in multi-threaded work over Intel’s 11th-gen mobile processors.

AMD’s design goals focused on three key areas: Performance (particularly in IPC and per-core performance), latency improvements that come via the unified L3 cache and eight-core CCX, and improved power efficiency.

Zen 3 Unification

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The Ryzen 5000 Mobile chips come with all the hallmarks of the Zen 3 microarchitecture, which you can read more about here. Like the desktop chips, AMD increased the L3 cache to 16MB over the prior gen’s 8MB and unified the eight cores and cache into one contiguous cluster inside the CCX (Core Complex). In contrast, Zen 2 had two four-core clusters, each with 4MB of cache.

This new arrangement improves both core-to-cache and core-to-core latency. For highly-threaded applications, this new design imparts a 2X cache increase, and lightly-threaded workloads now have access to a full 16MB of cache, which is equivalent to a 4X increase in directly-accessible cache.

Ryzen 5000’s monolithic die, meaning it is one large die instead of the multi-die arrangements on desktop chips, allows for tighter control of power efficiency. The company also improved performance-per-watt (power efficiency) by targeting the highest-end of the frequency/voltage curve it could maintain while controlling thermal density. That’s a key consideration for thin-and-light devices with limited cooling capability. By sustaining the highest clocks possible while the chip is still in the thermal and power efficiency sweet spot, the company increased single-threaded performance beyond Zen 3’s 19% IPC uplift to a 23% improvement in per-core performance.

The Ryzen 5000 Mobile Die

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In many respects, AMD simply replaced the Zen 2 cores with Zen 3 cores, leaving the rest of the design untouched. AMD’s re-use scheme allowed the company to accelerate time to market; AMD introduced the mobile variants a mere 90 days after the desktop models, which is the fastest transition of a new architecture to mobile in the company’s history (it typically takes a year).

The company’s forward-thinking modular design eased the process: AMD planned for this eventuality when it designed the Ryzen 4000 SoC. AMD also preserved the same pinout (BGA mounting scheme) for the Ryzen 5000 processors, meaning they are backward compatible with existing designs. This also allows OEMs to use the same motherboards and componentry for both existing and future products, speeds the design of new laptops, and allows OEMs to leverage existing supply chains. However, while these design elements largely remain the same, AMD fine-tuned the various elements to extract more performance, which we’ll dive into below.

Although it doesn’t equate directly to the physical layout on the die, the topology in the second slide shows us the design’s basic outlay. Here we can see the eight threaded cores clustered around the central 16MB slice of L3 cache, two DDR4-3200 / LPDDR4x-4266 controllers, and the 7nm Vega GPU with 1MB of L2 cache and eight CUs.

The SoC also has a host of other fixed-function acceleration blocks for multimedia, the System Management Unit (SMU) for power delivery control, Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) for external sensors, audio engine, Platform Security Processor (which comes into play in the Pro models), and the usual external interfaces, like NVMe and three flavors of USB (Type-C, 3.1, 2.0).

As before, the chips have 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity, meaning Cezanne will not have PCIe 4.0 support. AMD allocates eight lanes to the graphics, while the remaining eight lanes are split between two NVMe interfaces for storage.

The Ryzen 5000 mobile die spreads 10.7 billion 7nm TSMC transistors across 180mm2 of silicon, with the core complexes, L3 cache, and GPU in the center of the die, while the I/O componentry lines the periphery. This is slightly larger (~15%) than Renoir’s 156mm2 die and comes with 900,000 more transistors (the larger caches contribute to the higher transistor count).

	Die Size	Transistor Count	Transistor Density
Ryzen 5000 Mobile Cezanne	180mm2	10.7 billion	59.44 MTr/mm2
Ryzen 4000 Mobile Renoir	156mm2	9.8 billion	62.82 MTr/mm2

Ryzen 5000 Mobile Memory Controller Enhancements

(Image credit: AMD)

AMD’s engineers turned their eye to optimizing the memory PHY to reduce the overall SoC power draw. With Ryzen 4000, the PHY remained fully ‘on’ if the SoC wasn’t in a standby power state, consuming a significant amount of power draw. Ryzen 5000 introduces a deep power state that the SMU engages when the PHY is in a lower-activity state (but not idle). This shifts the digital portion of the PHY into a lower power state, bypassing it to reduce supply voltage. This technique engages a new low-dropout (LDO) power regulator and turns off the primary on-chip voltage regulator for the memory PHY during low usage. This approach reduces power consumption from the PHY and the power delivery network as well.

Of course, minimizing latency when the controller shifts back to its full-performance state is paramount. AMD leverages the data fabric’s hardware-assisted fast entry/exit mechanisms to shift into different power states, thus lowering latency.

Each memory controller supports a single 64b memory channel or dual 32b virtual channels. Each controller supports DDR4-3200 in single-channel (1DPC SR/DR) or two channels of LPDDR4x-4266.

Quad-channel LPDDR4x provides 33% more theoretical bandwidth than DDR4-3200 and has twice the density of standard DDR4, thus improving maximum capacity to 32GB of memory with a two-channel die.

Vega Rides Again

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As before, the Vega graphics unit comes with a maximum of 8 compute units (CU) and 1MB of L2 cache, but AMD increased the peak frequency by 20% (up to 2.1 GHz).

AMD fine-tuned the power management mechanisms, like the on-chip voltage regulator, to improve sustained performance. AMD also reduced Vmin (the minimum voltage required for operation) to improve power efficiency (performance-per-watt). These improvements enable higher-frequency operation in tandem with improved frequency-per-watt throughout the entire voltage/frequency range. That frees up additional power that’s used to sustain higher frequencies in either the CPU or GPU.

AMD’s new intelligent graphics Dynamic Energy Management (DEM) functionality steps in to detect which workloads are impacted heavily by graphics frequency, allowing the GPU to operate at lower frequencies when increasing the frequency wouldn’t result in tangible performance gains (for example, when the workload is primarily memory bound).

Ryzen 5000 uses the latest revision of the 7nm process, which has less leakage. It also marks the debut of per-core CPU voltage regulation to the Ryzen Mobile lineup, which reduces overall power consumption during gaming workloads. The saved power savings from these two factors can be directed to the GPU to boost gaming performance.

AMD also optimized its graphics drivers for enhanced memory management and tweaked anti-aliasing and other functions, with peak performance weighing in at 2.15 TFLOPS (FP32) and 4.30 TFLOPS (FP16). AMD used benchmark results from Timespy, a CPU intensive workload, to quantify the performance improvement, noting a 171% increase over the first-gen Ryzen processors. Notably, the Ryzen 5000 Vega iGPU is 15% faster than Ryzen 4000.

AMD carries all the security features present in the 4000 series to the 5000 series, with the addition of Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) that eliminates control flow attacks that hijack legitimate applications to run malicious code. As before, the chips also have other security features that serve as the bedrock of the Pro Security suite for Ryzen Pro processors.

Ryzen 5000 Mobile, Boosting Boosts

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AMD’s addition of its Collaborative Power Performance and Control (CPPC) interface was truly a watershed breakthrough for its Ryzen 3000 desktop chips. This tech tells the operating system which cores are the fastest, and the Windows scheduler then targets lightly-threaded workloads at those cores. This allows AMD to bin its chips into higher speed grades based on the fastest available cores on the chip, instead of the older technique of binning the chip based on the lowest common denominator (slowest core).

This technique discards the old paradigm of only having three power states, which provides more granular power control to improve both power efficiency (battery life) and performance. The CPPC interface also allows the operating system to dictate power state transitions on a per-core basis via a broader range of voltage and frequency settings. Now the processor can assign any voltage or frequency within its operating range on the fly. Additionally, this technique reduces transition latency from ~30ms when it is controlled by firmware down to 1-2 ms, which improves performance in bursty workloads and saves power.

AMD also added per-core power and frequency management to provide another layer of granularity. In the past, the CPU cores were tied to the same voltage plane as the GPU, resulting in a 1:1 relationship between CPU vCore and GPU Vgfx, regardless of load on either unit.

The illustration on the right of the second slide illustrates the impact – Ryzen 4000’s cores all ran at the same voltage regardless of voltage, matching that of the graphics unit, while Ryzen 5000 adjusts on a per-core basis regardless of GPU voltage.

During multi-threaded heterogeneous workloads, the chip can match frequency and voltage on all the cores running that specific workload, thus ensuring consistent operation. AMD’s on-chip power regulation also supports software quality of service (QoS) hooks that allow the operating system to more effectively identify higher- and lower-priority workloads, which then is used to dictate voltage and frequency of the affected cores to maximize power efficiency.

As you can see in the last slide, AMD says that the culmination of these technologies delivers significant reductions in SoC power draw, with a head-to-head comparison between the Ryzen 7 5800U and 4800U showing impressive reductions in a few different scenarios. That includes a 26% reduction in standby mode, an impressive 47% reduction at idle, a 33% reduction in video playback, and an 18% reduction when the chip is under load in the MobileMark 2018 benchmark.

Ryzen 5000 Mobile Battery Life

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AMD also made a host of other refinements at the system level to help reduce power draw, including working with audio codec vendors to increase the occurrence and duration of low-power/idle residency states for the audio codec. Likewise, AMD worked with hardware vendors for certain components, like DC-to-DC regulators and embedded controllers, to enable support for new ‘hints’ that trigger lower-power states.

AMD says it has increased standby state time by 20 hours, idle battery life by 3.9 hours, video playback by 1.1 hours, and MobileMark by 2 hours. The company also claims that the Ryzen 9 5900HX is 19% faster in single-threaded workloads than Intel’s flagship 10980HK.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Performance Benchmarks

AMD provided a host of performance benchmarks in three key areas: Mobile gaming, content creation, and ultrathin performance. As with all vendor-provided benchmarks, you should take these results with a grain of salt. We’re sharing the full slide deck for each category, but without commentary – take the results as you will. We also include the endnotes that contain the test configurations.

Today marks the launch of the chips, so there should be plenty of third-party reviews for another take on performance, like our Asus ROG Flow X13 review.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Cezanne Gaming Benchmarks

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AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Content Creation Benchmarks

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AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Ultrathin Benchmarks

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Thoughts

Ryzen 5000 Mobile brings a new level of competition to the laptop market through a more refined 7nm process, the Zen 3 architecture, and good old fashioned engineering. Some will see AMD’s decision to re-use key parts of the design, like the Vega graphics unit and PCIe 3.0 controllers, as a liability. Still, AMD managed to wring out enough extra performance and longer battery life to offset most of the downsides.

AMD’s re-use tactic allowed it to speed the chips to market and also simplify the design process for its OEM partners. That’s important in the face of a much larger and entrenched competitor like Intel. AMD’s deeper levels of engagement with ecosystem partners are emerging as it gains more market share and thus has access to more resources. And this is a virtuous cycle: AMD has made the types of adjustments and collaborations that OEMs appreciate, which should further deepen its partnerships.

AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors have already taken the notebook market by storm, granting the company its biggest slice of the mobile market in history, and the Ryzen 5000 Mobile chips look to continue that momentum. AMD pulled off this feat in record time — the Raven Ridge chips didn’t come to the mobile market for a year after debuting on the desktop, while the Zen 3 transition should take roughly four months.

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Speaking of Raven Ridge, those chips came to market in 75 designs, while the next-gen Ryzen 4000 chips landed in 100 devices. AMD expects Ryzen 5000 to power over 150 notebooks by the end of the year, many with the highest-end graphics cards, a distinction that has long eluded the company. As you can see above, the chips will debut in a wide range of devices from leading OEMs.

For now, supply could be AMD’s biggest obstacle. Record demand, coupled with the trade war and conditions associated with the pandemic, has strangled the supply of chips for almost every segment, spanning from automobiles to the CPUs and GPUs craved by enthusiasts, which has lead to price gouging. Hopefully AMD can ensure enough supply to keep OEM pricing within reasonable bounds.

AMD’s partners do have Ryzen 5000 Mobile laptops on the market, but we’ll have to wait and see how long term supply pans out. Given what we’ve seen from the first reviews, it looks like AMD will have plenty of demand for its latest chips.

Intel’s 12th-Gen Alder Lake At a Glance

Intel Alder Lake Release Date

Intel Alder Lake Specifications and Families

Intel Alder Lake-S Desktop PC Specifications

Intel Alder Lake-P and Alder Lake-M Mobile Processor Specifications

Intel Alder Lake 600-Series Motherboards, LGA 1700 Socket, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0

Intel 12th-Gen Alder Lake Xe LP Integrated Graphics

Intel Alder Lake CPU Architecture and 10nm Enhanced SuperFin Process

Intel 12th-Generation Alder Lake Price

The Best Raspberry Pi Accessories You Can Buy Today

1. Argon Neo Case

2. Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera

3. Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2

4. Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II

Raspberry Pi 4 Official Power Supply

6. Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro

7. Pimoroni Fan Shim

8. Silicon Power 32GB 3D NAND microSD Card

9. GPIO Reference Board

10. micro HDMI to HDMI Adapters

11. Electronics Kit with Breadboard, Wires

12. USB 3 microSD Card Reader

13. Raspberry Pi Zero Official Case

What is DTS Play-Fi?

How does it work?

Does DTS Play-Fi support hi-res music?

Which products support DTS Play-Fi?

How many products can you connect using DTS Play-Fi?

Does DTS Play-Fi support voice control?

What are the DTS Play-Fi alternatives?

Functionality and GPIO of Raspberry Pi Pico vs Arduino

SoC of Raspberry Pi Pico vs Arduino

Coding Raspberry Pi Pico vs Arduino

Ease of Use on Raspberry Pi Pico vs Arduino

Power Consumption on Raspberry Pi Pico vs Arduino

Which is Better: Raspberry Pi Pico or Arduino?

Our Verdict

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Build

Features

Picture

Sound

Verdict

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Architecture Deep Dive – Design Goals

Zen 3 Unification

The Ryzen 5000 Mobile Die

Ryzen 5000 Mobile Memory Controller Enhancements

Vega Rides Again

Ryzen 5000 Mobile, Boosting Boosts

Ryzen 5000 Mobile Battery Life

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Performance Benchmarks

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Cezanne Gaming Benchmarks

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Content Creation Benchmarks

AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Ultrathin Benchmarks

Thoughts

The Honor View 40 will have triple rear camera

Antonio Delgado

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