Intel's 11th Generation Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processors in the LGA1200 package could come with clock speeds that are of the norm these days. Intel appears unwilling to dial down clock speeds in the wake of increased IPC with the new generation "Cypress Cove" CPU cores that drive these processors. Twitter handle "leakbench," which tracks interesting Geekbench results, fished out a database listing for a "Rocket Lake-S" engineering sample with clock speeds of 3.40 GHz base, and 5.00 GHz boost.

The listing has all the telltale signs of "Cypress Cove," such as 48 KB L1D cache, 512 KB per core L2 cache, and 16 MB shared L3 cache for this 8-core/16-thread chip. "Cypress Cove" is rumored to be to be a back-port of Intel's "Willow Cove" CPU core design from its original 10 nm+ node to the 14 nm++. VideoCardz compared this "Rocket Lake-S" ES benchmark result to that of a retail Core i7-10700K, and found its single-threaded performance to be roughly 6.35 percent higher despite a 200 MHz clock-speed deficit, although for some reason, its multi-threaded performance is trailing by over 15 percent.

Intel is struggling with its node development and it looks like next-generation consumer systems are going to be stuck on 14 nm for a bit more. Preparing for that, Intel will finally break free from Skylake-based architectures and launch something new. The replacement for the current Comet Lake generation is set to be called Rocket Lake and today we have obtained some more information about it. Thanks to popular hardware leaker rogame (_rogame), we know a few stuff about Rocket Lake. Starting off, it is known that Rocket Lake features the backport of 10 nm Willow Cove core, called Cypress Cove. That Cypress Cove is supposed to bring only 10% IPC improvements, according to the latest rumors.

With 10% IPC improvement the company will at least offer some more competitive product than it currently does, however, that should be much slower than 10 nm Tiger Lake processors which feature the original Willow Cove design. It shows that backporting of the design doesn't just bring loses of the node benefits like smaller design and less heat, but rather means that only a fraction of the performance can be extracted. Another point that rogame made is that Rocket Lake will run up to 5 GHz in boost, and it will run hot, which is expected.

Intel's silicon fabrication woes refuse to torment the company's product roadmaps, with the company disclosing in its Q2-2020 financial results release that the company's first CPUs built on the 7 nanometer silicon fabrication node are delayed by a year due to a further 6-month delay from prior expectations. The company will focus on getting its 10 nm node up to scale in the meantime.

The company mentioned that the 10 nm "Tiger Lake" mobile processor and "Ice Lake-SP" enterprise processor remains on-track for 2020. The company's 12th Generation Core "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors won't arrive before the second half of 2021. In the meantime, Intel will launch its 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processor on the 14 nm node, but with increased IPC from the new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores. Also in 2H-2021, the company will launch its "Sapphire Rapids" enterprise processors that come with next-gen connectivity and updated CPU cores.

VLSI engineer and industry analyst, @chiakokhua, who goes by "Retired Engineer" on Twitter, was among the very first voices that spoke about 3rd gen Ryzen socket AM4 processors being multi-chip modules of core- and uncore dies built on different silicon fabrication processes, which was an unbelievable theory at the time. He now has a fantastic theory of what "Rocket Lake-S" could look like, dating back to November 2019, which is now re-surfacing on tech communities. Apparently, Intel is designing these socket LGA1200 processors to be multi-chip modules, similar to "Matisse" in some ways, but different in others.

Apparently, "Rocket Lake-S" is a multi-chip module of a 14 nm die that holds the CPU cores; and 10 nm die that holds the uncore components. AMD "Matisse" and "Vermeer" too have such a division of labor, but the CPU cores are located on dies with a more advanced silicon fabrication process (7 nm), than the die with the uncore components (12 nm).

The "Rocket Lake-S" microarchitecture by Intel sees the company back-port its next-generation "Willow Cove" CPU core to the existing 14 nm++ silicon fabrication process in the form of an 8-core die with a Gen12 Xe iGPU. An engineering sample of one such processor made it to the Futuremark database. Clocked at 3.20 GHz with 4.30 GHz boost frequency, the "Rocket Lake-S" ES was put through 3DMark "Fire Strike" and "Time Spy," with its iGPU in play, instead of a discrete graphics card.

In "Fire Strike," the "Rocket Lake-S" ES scores 18898 points in the physics test, 1895 points in the graphics tests, and an overall score of 1746 points. With "Time Spy," the overall score is 605, with a CPU score of 4963 points, and graphics score of 524. The 11th generation Core "Rocket Lake-S" processor is expected to be compatible with existing Intel 400-series chipset motherboards, and feature a PCI-Express gen 4.0 root complex. Several 400-series chipset motherboards have PCIe gen 4.0 preparation for exactly this. The increased IPC from the "Willow Cove" cores is expected to make the 8-core "Rocket Lake-S" a powerful option for gaming and productivity tasks that don't scale across too many cores.

Intel plans to update its Xeon Scalable server processor family this year with the new "Ice Lake-SP" microarchitecture. Built on the 10 nm+ silicon fabrication process, "Ice Lake-SP" is a high- thru extreme core-count monolithic silicon that features "Sunny Cove" CPU cores that introduce the first real IPC increases over "Skylake." A 24-core/48-thread processor likely based on this silicon surfaced on the Geekbench database, where it posted some impressive numbers given its low clock speeds.

The processor comes with an identification string "GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 106 Stepping 4," with a nominal clock speed of 2.20 GHz, and boost frequency of 2.90 GHz, which points to the possibility of this being an engineering sample. Besides clock speeds and core counts, some basic hardware specs were detected by Geekbench 4. For starters, the processor has an L1D cache size of 48 KB and L1I cache size of 32 KB, which is similar to the client-segment "Ice Lake-U" silicon based Core i7-1065G7, and confirms that this processor uses "Sunny Cove" cores. "Cascade Lake" and "Skylake" cores use 32 KB L1D caches. Also, the dedicated L2 cache per core is 1.25 MB, up from the 1 MB L2 caches on "Cascade Lake." Client-segment "Ice Lake" chips use 512 KB L2 caches. The shared L3 cache is 36 MB (or 1.5 MB slice per core), which loosely aligns with the cache balance of Intel's server and HEDT processors. In this bench run, the processor is backed by 256 GB of memory, of an unknown type or configuration. In the three bench runs, the setup scores roughly 4100 points single-core, and roughly 42000 points multi-core.

Intel is preparing to launch its next-generation Tiger Lake lineup of processors for the middle of 2020. The processors are based on the new "Willow Cove" CPU core, which supposedly brings even more IPC gains compared to previous "Golden Cove" CPU cores found in Ice Lake processors. The Tiger Lake lineup will use Intel's advanced 10 nm+ manufacturing process. This alone should bring some gains in frequency compared to the 10 nm Ice Lake processor generation, which was spotting a maximum of 4.1 GHz boost frequency on 28 W TDP model named Core i7-1068NG7. This processor is labeled as the highest-performing Ice Lake parts available today and the best 10 nm products available so far from Intel.

Thanks to the popular hardware leaker Rogame, we have evidence that the gains from 10 nm+ manufacturing process are real and that Tiger Lake will show us an amazing boost frequency of 5 GHz. In the benchmark, an unknown OEM laptop was spotted running the benchmark with a Tiger Lake CPU. This CPU is a 4 core, 8 threaded model with a base frequency of 2.3 GHz and a surprising boost frequency of 5 GHz. This information should, of course, be taken with a grain of salt until we get more information about the Tiger Lake lineup and their specifications.

VIA Technologies, Inc. today announced that it has received AWS IoT Greengrass certification for the VIA Mobile360 M820 in-vehicle safety system. AWS IoT Greengrass seamlessly extends AWS services to edge devices and allows the systems to act in real-time using locally generated data when an internet network connection is not available - a vital feature for vehicles on the road.

"AWS Greengrass IoT certification for the VIA Mobile360 M820 underlines our commitment to providing an optimized deployment path for operators to enable AWS services across their vehicle fleets," commented Richard Brown, VP of International Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "This highly-integrated solution accelerates the integration of advanced fleet management and in-vehicle safety applications from the edge to the cloud."

Intel has today released the 43rd edition of its x86/x64 ISA developer manual designed to help developers see what's new in x86 world and make software optimizations for Intel's platform. In the latest edition of the manual, Intel has revealed the details of its low-power x86 "Tremont" architecture designed for 10 nm efficient, low-power computing. Announced last year in October, Intel promised to deliver a big IPC increase compared to the previous generation low-power CPU microarchitecture like the Goldmont Plus family. To achieve extra performance, Intel has implemented a lot of new solutions.

For starters, Tremont boasts better branch prediction unit, with increased capacity for instruction queue and better path-based conditional and indirect prediction. The front-end fetch and decode pipeline have been updated as well. Now the design is a 6-wide Out of Order Execution (OoOE) pipeline which can process 6 instructions per cycle. The Data cache is now upgraded to 32 KB. The load and store execution pipelines are now doubled and they are capable of two loads and two stores, or one load and one store, depending on the application. Tremont also updates on one important point and that is a dedicated store data port for integer and vector integer/floating-point data. Another big improvement is happening in the cryptography department. Tremont now features Galois-field instructions labeled as the GFNI family of instructions. There are two AES units for faster AES encryption and decryption. The already implemented SHA-NI cryptography standard was enhanced and it now is much faster as well. For mode in-depth report please check out Intel's x86/x64 manual.

MSI IPC launches the IoT edge computers, MS-9A77 & MS-9A97 positioned in high-performance products with high efficiency and low energy consumption. This ultra-compact and fanless embedded computer with 3 sides I/O interface, slim type, anti-vibration and shockproof designed to compliance IEC 61373. The DIN-rail mounting form factor is suitable to be used in control cabinet for industrial automation application.

Moreover, it also supports MSI IPC's exclusive HIDAC Industrial IoT software for smart device monitoring and management. This slim industrial computer is with DIN-rail installation and can be mounted using VESA or wall mount as an option.

PTT leaked some juicy details of the upcoming Intel "Rocket Lake" and "Alder Lake" processor generations. "Rocket Lake" will power Intel's 11th generation Core processor series in the LGA1200 package, and are rumored to be a "back port" of Intel's advanced "Willow Cove" CPU cores to a 14 nm-class silicon fabrication node, with core-counts ranging up to 8. The idea for Intel is to sell high IPC, high clock-speed desktop processors for gaming.

According to the PTT report, there will be three kinds of SKUs for "Rocket Lake" based on TDP: 8-core parts with 95 W TDP rating; and 8-core, 6-core, and 4-core parts in 80 W TDP and 65 W TDP variants. For the 95 W (PL1) parts, the power-levels PL2, and PL4 are reportedly set at 173 W and 251 W, respectively, and a 56-second Tau (a timing variable that dictates how long a processor can stick around at an elevated power-state before retreating to PL1, which is interchangeable with the TDP value on the box). The 80 W TDP parts feature 146 W PL2, 191 W PL3, and 251 W PL4, but a lower Tau value of 28 seconds. For the 65 W parts, the PL2 is 128 W, PL3 is 177 W, and PL4 251 W, and the Tau value 28 seconds.

AMD has reportedly updated its Ryzen 3 1200 CPU with Zen+ architecture and is now offering it to consumers. Featuring a configuration of 4 cores with 4 threads, this CPU can operate anywhere from 3.1 GHz (base) to 3.4 GHz in boost frequency. Having originally launched in July of 2017, just under three years ago, AMD decided to refresh this CPU with Zen+ architecture, which brought improvements like a tiny IPC increase, better turbo boost speeds, faster caches and better memory controller for better support of faster DDR4 modules.

The new "Zen+" revision has the same specifications as the older model, however, the only difference is the newer 12 nm manufacturing process and some of the architecture changes of Zen+. The rest of the specifications like clock speeds are the same. The CPU is listed by a German supplier for €54.73 or about $60. This revision carries a different part number, under the code "YD1200BBM4KAFBOX", where the older 14 nm model was "YD1200BBM4KAEBOX".

AMD's Zen 3 architecture will power the next generation Ryzen 4000 desktop chips and the 3rd Gen EPYC lineup which are both expected to launch later this year. Adored TV has received some leaked information detailing the technical specifications of the Zen 3 architecture. The majority of the leaked information confirmed existing rumors such as the 8 core CCX, higher clocks and lower power draw.

However the leak suggests IPC improvements will be less than the expected 20% hinted at by AMD and may end up being closer to 10 - 15%. The leak also claims that L3 cache will remain at 32 MB however it will no longer be split due to the single CCX. While this may be disappointing for some, remember to take the claims with a grain of salt as with any rumor.

AMD at its 2020 Financial Analyst Day event unveiled its upcoming CDNA GPU-based compute accelerator architecture. CDNA will complement the company's graphics-oriented RDNA architecture. While RDNA powers the company's Radeon Pro and Radeon RX client- and enterprise graphics products, CDNA will power compute accelerators such as Radeon Instinct, etc. AMD is having to fork its graphics IP to RDNA and CDNA due to what it described as market-based product differentiation.

Data centers and HPCs using Radeon Instinct accelerators have no use for the GPU's actual graphics rendering capabilities. And so, at a silicon level, AMD is removing the raster graphics hardware, the display and multimedia engines, and other associated components that otherwise take up significant amounts of die area. In their place, AMD is adding fixed-function tensor compute hardware, similar to the tensor cores on certain NVIDIA GPUs.

Alleged pictures of the upcoming Intel Core i9-10900K and i7-10700K processors made it to Chinese social media. The blurry-cam pictures of the chips' topside don't reveal much other than the "Intel Confidential" markings, denoting that these chips are engineering samples. The reverse side confirm that these are chips are built in the new LGA1200 package. You can also spot electrical ancillaries laid out unlike any previous-gen Intel package, and different socket key notches.

In the run up to the rumored April 2020 launch we could learn more about these chips. Based on the 14 nm "Comet Lake" silicon, Intel's 10th generation Core desktop processors in the LGA1200 package increase logical processor counts across the board, and increase clock speeds. The i9-10900K is a 10-core/20-thread processor with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and up to 5.10 GHz boost frequency, with 4.80 GHz all-core boost. The i7-10700K, on the other hand, is an 8-core/16-thread chip with 16 MB L3 cache, and clock speeds of 5.00 GHz boost and 4.50 GHz all-core Turbo. The Core i5 series also gets a shot in the arm, being configured as 6-core/12-thread, with 12 MB of L3 cache. The per-core performance (IPC) is expected to be the same as 6th generation "Skylake."

Since its switch to the x86 machine architecture from PowerPC in the mid-2000s, Apple has been consistent with Intel as its sole supplier of CPUs for its Macbooks, iMac desktops, and Mac Pro workstations. The company's relationship with rival AMD has been limited to sourcing discrete GPUs. If pieces of code from a MacOS beta is anything to go buy, Apple could bite the AMD bullet very soon. References to several AMD processors were found in MacOS 10.15.4 Beta 1. These include the company's "Picasso," "Renoir," and "Van Gogh" APUs.

It's very likely that with increasing CPU IPC and energy-efficiency, Apple is finally seeing the value in single-chip solutions from AMD that have a good enough combination of CPU and iGPUs. The 7 nm "Renoir" silicon in particular could change the mobile and desktop computing segments, thanks to its 8-core "Zen 2" CPU, and a "Vega" based iGPU that's highly capable in non-gaming and light-gaming tasks. AMD's proprietary SmartShift feature could also be leveraged, which dynamically switches between the iGPU and an AMD discrete GPU.

At a media event on Wednesday, Intel invited us to check out their first working modern discrete graphics card, the Xe DG1 Software Development Vehicle (developer-edition). Leading the event was our host Ari Rauch, Intel Vice President and General Manager for Graphics Technology Engineering and dGPU Business. Much like gruff developer-editions of game consoles released to developers several quarters ahead of market launch, the DG1-SDV allows software developers to discover and learn the Xe graphics architecture, and develop optimization processes for their current and future software within their organizations. We walked into the event expecting to see a big ugly PCB with a bare fan-heatsink and a contraption that sort-of looks like a graphics card; but were pleasantly surprised with what we saw: a rather professional product design.

What we didn't get at the event, through, was a juicy technical breakdown of the Xe graphics architecture, and its various components that add up to the GPU. We still left pleasantly surprised for what we were shown: it works! The DG1-SDV is able to play games at 1080p, even if they are technically lightweight titles like "Warframe," and aren't maxing out settings. The SDV is a 15.2 cm-long graphics card that relies on the PCI-Express slot for power entirely (and hence pulling less than 75 W).

A prominent Taiwanese newspaper reported that AMD will formally unveil its next-generation "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture at the 2020 International CES. Company CEO Dr Lisa Su will head an address revealing three key client-segment products under the new 4th generation Ryzen processor family, and the company's 3rd generation EPYC enterprise processor family based on the "Milan" MCM that succeeds "Rome." AMD is keen on developing an HEDT version of "Milan" for the 4th generation Ryzen Threadripper family, codenamed "Genesis Peak."

The bulk of the client-segment will be addressed by two distinct developments, "Vermeer" and "Renoir." The "Vermeer" processor is a client-desktop MCM that succeeds "Matisse," and will implement "Zen 3" chiplets. "Renoir," on the other hand, is expected to be a monolithic APU that combines "Zen 2" CPU cores with an iGPU based on the "Vega" graphics architecture, with updated display- and multimedia-engines from "Navi." The common thread between "Milan," "Genesis Peak," and "Vermeer" is the "Zen 3" chiplet, which AMD will build on the new 7 nm EUV silicon fabrication process at TSMC. AMD stated that "Zen 3" will have IPC increases in line with a new microarchitecture.

Intel's latest talent acquisition from rival AMD, as it builds a GPU product lineup, is Masooma Bhaiwala. "After 15+ amazing years at AMD, I have decided to take on a different opportunity... It was a truly fun ride, with an incredible team, during which we built some truly cool chips," she wrote in a LinkedIn post. According to her profile, Bhaiwala takes the role of Vice President, discrete GPU SoCs, and works under Intel's Graphics and Throughput Computing Hardware Engineering group headed by Raja Koduri.

Koduri's team has been a glassdoor for former AMD executives and tech-leads. While it has hired engineering talent such as Balaji Kanigicherla, Kalyan Thumaty and Joseph Facca; it has simultaneously lost client-graphics marketing talent, with the likes of Chris Hook, Heather Lennon, and Jon Carvill waltzing out of the company in less than a year of their association. Besides Koduri's Intel's most priced tech talent acquisition is Jim Keller, who is working on a future high-IPC CPU core design for the company. While working for AMD, Keller's "Zen" microarchitecture coupled with CEO Lisa Su's leadership have scripted one of the biggest turnarounds in Silicon Valley.

At its recent SC19 talk, AMD touched upon its upcoming "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture. Designed for the 7 nm EUV silicon fabrication process that significantly increases transistor densities, "Zen 3" could post performance gains "right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture," states AMD, referring to the roughly 15 percent IPC gains that were expected of "Zen 2" prior to its launch. "Zen 2" IPC ended up slightly over 15 percent higher than that of the original "Zen" microarchitecture. AMD's SC19 comments need not be a guidance on the IPC itself, but rather performance gains of end-products versus their predecessors.

The 7 nm EUV process, with its 20 percent transistor-density increase could give AMD designers significant headroom to increase clock speeds to meet the company's generational performance improvement targets. Another direction in which "Zen 3" could go is utilizing the additional transistor density to bolster its core components to support demanding instruction-sets such as AVX-512. The company's microarchitecture is also missing something analogous to Intel's DLBoost, an instruction-set that leverages fixed-function hardware to accelerate AI-DNN building and training. Even VIA announced an x86 microarchitecture with AI hardware and AVX-512 support. In either case, the design of "Zen 3" is complete. We'll have to wait until 2020 to find out how fast "Zen 3" is, and the route taken to get there.

Intel CFO George Davis in an interview with Barron's commented on the company's financial health, and some of the reasons behind its rather conservative gross margin guidance looking forward to at least 2023. Intel's current product stack is moving on to the company's 10 nm silicon fabrication process in a phased manner. The company is allocating 10 nm to mobile processors and enterprise processors, while brazening it out with 14 nm on the client-desktop and HEDT platforms until they can build 10 nm desktop parts. AMD has deployed its high-IPC "Zen 2" microarchitecture on TSMC's 7 nm DUV process, with plans to go EUV in the coming months.

"We're still keenly focused on gross margin. Everything from capital efficiency to the way we're designing our products. What we've said though, the delay in 10 nanometer means that we're going to be a little bit disadvantaged on unit cost for a period of time. We actually gave guidance for gross margin out in 2021 to help people understand. 2023 is the period that we were ultimately guiding [when] we're going to see very strong revenue growth and margin expansion. We've got to get through this period where we have the 10 nanometer being a little bit late [as] we're not optimized on a node that we're on. But [by] then we're moving to a two to two and a half year cadence on the next nodes. So we're pulling in the spending on 7 nanometer, which will start up in the second half of 2021 because we think it's the right thing to do competitively," he said.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9 3950X socket AM4 processor beats Intel's flagship 18-core processor, the Core i9-10980XE, by a staggering 24 percent at 3DMark Physics, according to a PC Perspective report citing TUM_APISAK. The 3950X is a 16-core/32-thread processor that's drop-in compatible with any motherboard that can run the Ryzen 9 3900X. The i9-10980XE is an 18-core/36-thread HEDT chip that enjoys double the memory bus width as the AMD chip, and is based on Intel's "Cascade Lake-X" silicon. The AMD processor isn't at a tangible clock-speed advantage. The 3950X has a maximum boost frequency of 4.70 GHz, while the i9-10980XE isn't much behind, at 4.60 GHz, but things differ with all-core boost.

When paired with 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory, the Ryzen 9 3950X powered machine scores 32,082 points in the CPU-intensive physics tests of 3DMark. In comparison, the i9-10980XE, paired with 32 GB of quad-channel DDR4-2667 memory, scores just 25,838 points as mentioned by PC Perspective. Graphics card is irrelevant to this test. It's pertinent to note here that the 3DMark physics test scales across practically any number of CPU cores/threads, and the AMD processor could be benefiting from a higher all-core boost frequency than the Intel chip. Although AMD doesn't mention a number in its specifications, the 3950X is expected to have an all-core boost frequency that's north of 4.00 GHz, as its 12-core sibling, the 3900X, already offers 4.20 GHz all-core. In contrast, the i9-10980XE has an all-core boost frequency of 3.80 GHz. This difference in boost frequency, apparently, even negates the additional 2 cores and 4 threads that the Intel chip enjoys, in what is yet another example of AMD having caught up with Intel in the IPC game.

Intel at the Intel Developer Conference 'IDC' 2019 in Tokyo revealed their performance projections for mobility Xe GPUs, which will supersede their current consumer-bound UHD620 graphics under the Gen 11 architecture. The company is being vocal in that they can achieve an up to 2x performance uplift over their previous generation - but that will likely only take place in specific scenarios, and not as a rule of thumb. Just looking at Intel's own performance comparison graphics goes to show that we're mostly looking at between 50% and 70% performance improvements in popular eSports titles, which are, really, representative of most of the gaming market nowadays.

The objective is to reach above 60 FPS in the most popular eSports titles, something that Gen 11 GPUs didn't manage with their overall IPC and dedicated die-area. We've known for some time that Intel's Xe (as in, exponential) architecture will feature hardware-based raytracing, and the architecture is being developed for scalability that goes all the way from iGPUs to HPC platforms.

There is no correlation between CPU frequency boosting behavior and system stability. Intel today launched its "10th generation" Core X HEDT processors, with core-counts ranging between 10 to 18, priced between $590 and $978. Based on the 14 nm "Cascade Lake-X" silicon, these chips have the same exact IPC as "Skylake" circa 2015, but offer nearly double the number of cores to the Dollar compared to the 9th generation Core X series; and add a couple of useful instruction sets such as DLBoost, which accelerates DNN training/building; a few more AVX-512 instructions, and an updated Turbo Boost Max 3.0 algorithm. The chips offer clock-speed bumps over the previous generation.

Intel's main trade-call for these processors? Taking another stab at AMD for falling short on boost frequency in the hands of consumers. "The chip that hits frequency benchmarks as promised, our new #CoreX -series processor, provides a stable, high-performance platform for visual creators everywhere," reads the Intel tweet, as if to suggest that reaching the "promised" clock speed results in stability. AMD was confronted with alarming statistics of consumers whose 3rd generation Ryzen processors wouldn't reach their advertised boost frequencies. The company released an updated AGESA microcode that fixed this.

Intel is preparing to increase core-counts across the board with its upcoming Core X "Cascade Lake-X" HEDT processor family, launching next month. The first indication of this comes from an Intel slide that claims a 1.74 to 2.09x increase in performance-per-Dollar over "Skylake-X." The "Cascade Lake" microarchitecture already made its debut in the enterprise market as Intel's 2nd generation Xeon Scalable processors, and its IPC is similar clock-to-clock, to its predecessor (Skylake).

If Intel is claiming such performance-per-Dollar increases, it only points to a significant increase in core counts to the Dollar (think 16-core at $999, 28-core at $1999, etc.). Adding value to these chips are certain new AI accelerating instruction sets, such as DLBoost, support for Optane DC Persistent Memory, increased memory clock-speeds, and higher CPU clocks across the board compared to the Core X 9000-series. The Core X "Cascade Lake-X" processor family debuts this October.