AMD Tuesday hosted a ZEN microarchitecture deep-dive presentation in the backdrop of Hot Chips, outlining its road to a massive 40 percent gain in IPC (translated roughly as per-core performance gains), over the current "Excavator" microarchitecture. The company credits the gains to three major changes with ZEN: better core engine, better cache system, and lower power. With ZEN, AMD pulled back from its "Bulldozer" approach to cores, in which two cores share certain number-crunching components to form "modules," and back to a self-sufficient core design.

Beyond cores, the next-level subunit of the ZEN architecture is the CPU-Complex (CCX), in which four cores share an 8 MB L3 cache. This isn't different from current Intel architectures, the cores share nothing beyond L3 cache, making them truly independent. What makes ZEN a better core, besides its independence from other cores, and additional integer pipelines; subtle upscaling in key ancillaries such as micro-Op dispatch, instruction schedulers; retire, load, and store queues; and a larger quad-issue FPU.

Intel is reportedly planning launch its 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processors by Q4-2016. Its desktop variants, built in the existing LGA1151 package, will be the third Intel micro-architecture built on the 14 nm process (after "Skylake" and "Broadwell" architectures). With this generation, Intel is planning to sub-classify LGA1151 into three categories, to ensure people don't try to install higher-powered CPUs on low-power machines.

These are LGA1151-Standard Power; LGA1151-Low Power; and LGA1151-Ultra Low Power. These are defined by the TDP of the packages. Standard Power chips run at 95W TDP, Low Power at 65W TDP, and Ultra Low Power at 35W TDP. There could be motherboards and machines that, depending on their VRM setup, completely shut out Standard Power or even Low Power chips.

Silicon fabrication company GlobalFoundries is reportedly planning to skip development of the 10 nanometer (nm) process, and is aiming to jump straight to 7 nm. The company currently operates a 14 nm FinFET node. In 2015 the company acquired semiconductor manufacturing assets from IBM, and is using them to fast-track its development. When it's ready, the 7 nm node will offer both optical and EUV (extreme ultra-violet) lithography. Driving the EUV product is an IBM 3300 EUV fabricator at the company's advanced patterning center, in its Albany, New York fab.

Intel is opening up its silicon manufacturing facilities to fabless chip-makers, beginning with the manufacture of ARM SoCs. The company entered a licensing deal with ARM that allows ARM SoC designers such as Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung, to manufacture their SoCs at Intel fabs. Intel is among the first fabs with a working 14 nm node, and is on-track for sub-10 nm node development.

Intel had a crack at the market segments typically addressed by ARM SoCs, with its own x86 chips, which failed to see the kind of volumes ARM chipmakers were pushing. The company has now changed tactics to open its fabs up to those ARM SoC makers, letting them manufacture their designs on proven silicon-fabrication tech, in geographically important locations. Intel has its cutting-edge fabs located in Costa Rica and Malaysia.

It looks like NVIDIA won't skip the 14 nm process en route sub-10 nm nodes, despite meeting its energy-efficiency targets with the 16 nm FinFET node, after all. The company has reportedly concluded talks with Samsung Electronics, to optically-shrink its current GeForce "Pascal" architecture down to the newer 14 nanometer FinFET node, by Samsung. It's unclear as to whether specific upcoming (unreleased) Pascal GPUs will get 14 nm treatment, or if this is a series-wide die-shrink of the kind NVIDIA did between the 65 nm and 55 nm nodes. The Samsung-made 14 nm "Pascal" GPUs should enter production before year-end.

An AMD Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" based graphics card (RX 470 or RX 480) was taken apart down to its die, for science. Close up die-shots of the silicon reveal that 36 GCN compute units is all that the silicon has, and that the RX 480 indeed maxes out this stream processor count, with 2,304 stream processors at its disposal.

The die is fabbed by GlobalFoundries, on its swanky new 14 nm FinFET process. Redditors good at pattern-recognition could make out 36 "structures" spread across four quadrants, deducing them to be the GCN compute units. Each of these CUs feature 64 stream processors. Roadmaps reveal that the next high-end GPUs by AMD could be based on its newer "Vega" architecture.

MSI is proud to present brand new graphics cards based on AMD's RX 470 Polaris architecture. Both the Radeon RX 470 GAMING X 8G and Radeon RX 470 GAMING X 4G cards brandish the imposing TWIN FROZR VI thermal design to keep the 14 nm FinFET GPU cooler than ever before. The new levels of cool allow for higher core and memory speeds for increased performance in games at HD resolutions and in VR.

The recognizable shape of the eye-catching TWIN FROZR cooler are intensified by a fiery red GAMING glow piercing through the cover, while the MSI GAMING dragon RGB LED on the side can be set to any of 16.8 million colors to go with your mood or build. A completely new custom 6-phase PCB design using Military Class 4 components with an 8-pin power connector enables higher overclocking performance to push your graphics card to the max.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, has released a brand new video card in PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 4 GB GDDR5. It is based on AMD's latest GCN 4 architecture designed for GloFo 14 nm FinFET that delivers premium VR capability, increased level of performance, smooth VR, seamless support for next-gen gaming monitors, and CPU-free game streaming or recording. Furthermore, the model also supports AMD's newest technologies such as Direct 12 and Vulkan, FreeSync, and Liquid VR.

PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 4 GB GDDR5 utilizes 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with 2048 stream processors, ships core clock up to 1270 MHz, and has 1750 MHz memory clock speed which is connected via a new high speed 256-bit memory interface. Having a 8 Pin power connector plus superior 6+1 multi-phases where each phase supplies 25W instead of 22.5W found in other boards this board is designed for the ultimate performance and supplying stable power.

Here's the first picture of Sapphire Radeon RX 460 NITRO OC, a premium RX 460 offering by Sapphire. The card combines a custom-design PCB with a larger than reference cooling solution that employs heat pipes, an aluminium fin-stack, and a pair of 90 mm spinners, to keep the GPU cool. The RX 460, based on the 14 nm "Baffin" Polaris11 silicon, features 896 stream processors spread across 14 compute units; and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface. The NITRO OC, as its name suggests, features factory-overclocked speeds. The RX 460 is expected to be available from 8th August, 2016.

Intel is preparing to launch its next-generation NUC (next unit of computing) compact desktops between 2016-17. A leaked company roadmap and slides revealed that the line of NUCs based on the company's higher-performance 7th generation Core processors could be codenamed "Baby Canyon," and the one based on its low-power Celeron processors could be codenamed "Arches Canyon." The company is readying five "Baby Canyon" NUCs under the NUC7 series, and two models under the NUC6C series.

The NUC7 series are driven by 14 nm Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 "Kaby Lake" dual-core processors, with support for dual-channel DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, and a unique USB type-C connector that routes 10 Gb/s USB 3.1, 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3, and DisplayPort 1.2. The platform's second USB 3.1 port is a front-facing type-A. The NUC6C series, on the other hand, is focused on legacy connectivity, and features an analog VGA port, besides HDMI 2.0, and a pair of USB 3.1 ports. The NUC6C series could make its debut within 2016, with the NUC7 following up in 2017.

AMD confirmed specifications of its second and third "Polaris" architecture graphics cards in a leaked presentation, the Radeon RX 470, and the Radeon RX 460. The RX 470 will be AMD's attempt at a graphics card that plays everything at 1080p resolution, under $150. The Radeon RX 460, on the other hand, is based on the new 14 nm Polaris11 "Baffin" silicon, and could be ideal for MOBA games with light GPU requirements.

The Radeon RX 470 is carved out from the Polaris10 "Ellesmere" silicon that the RX 480 is based on, it features 2,048 stream processors across 32 GCN compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. The Radeon RX 460, on the other hand, features 896 stream processors across 14 compute units, 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface, and relies on the PCI-Express slot entirely for power. The reference RX 460 board looks quite similar to the Radeon R9 Nano, but features a simpler spiral heatsink under the fan. Despite rumors to the contrary, it looks like Vega is on-course for a 2017 launch after all.

MSI is proud to add AMD's latest Radeon RX 480 to its graphics card lineup. The new Polaris architecture combines the latest FinFET 14 process technology and AMD's advanced power, gating and clocking technologies for a superior cool and quiet gaming experience. The new 14 nm process allows for an impressive increase in efficiency, providing 2.5 times more performance per watt over the last generation.

Get ready for a whole new level of gaming at 1440p where powerful Async shaders and new geometry capabilities enable unique support for DirectX 12 and Vulkan in the best version of Graphics Core Next yet. Every PC gamer knows how incredibly smooth gaming can be at a steady 60+ FPS. Now you can have that polished experience at virtually any framerate with AMD FreeSync technology.

A Sapphire branded AMD reference design Radeon RX 480 graphics card was taken apart, giving us an early close look at the card and its key components. The pictures reveal pretty much the same details as the first close-up shot of the reference RX 480 / RX 470 common PCB, and the cooling solution was taken apart further, revealing more details than the first time we saw what's underneath.

To begin with, the reference RX 480 PCB features a 6-phase VRM that draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include one HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. One of the pictures features a close-up of the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon. The cooling solution is confirmed to feature a chunky monolithic aluminium heatsink with a copper core, cooling the GPU, with a metal base-plate conveying heat from the VRM and memory to it; ventilated by a lateral blower. The Radeon RX 480 is expected to launch on the 29th of June, 2016, priced at $199 for the 4 GB variant, and $229 for the 8 GB variant.More pictures follow.

Here's a sight for sore eyes, a stream of Radeon RX 480 graphics cards by XFX are making their way down the production line to packaging. The picture reveals that XFX could top up the reference-design RX 480 board with a back-plate, to make it even more marketable. To give you an idea of just how cool the 14 nm "Ellesmere" chip runs, with the cooler shroud taken apart, you'll find that the GPU is cooled by just a chunky, monolithic aluminium heatsink with a copper core, and not an elaborate aluminium fin-stack/channel setup with heat-pipes crisscrossing it. A base-plate cools the memory and VRM. In related news, ChipHell scored a GPU-Z screenshot of the XFX Radeon RX 480, confirming its stream processor count of 2,304 and GPU clocks of 1328 MHz, with the memory ticking at 8 GHz (GDDR5-effective).

AMD's all-important Polaris10 "Ellesmere" ASIC is pictured up close in a 3-quarter PCB shot of the upcoming Radeon RX 480 / RX 470. The picture reveals the ASIC with a die that's significantly smaller than that of the 28 nm "Tonga" silicon. The "Ellesmere" die is built on the 14 nm FinFET+ process. The die is seated on a substrate with a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. This appears to be a common reference PCB between the RX 480 and the RX 470.

The RX 480 ships with a classy looking lateral-flow cooler that's longer than the PCB itself; while the RX 470 uses a more common fin-stack top-flow cooling solution. Of course both cards are expected to ship with custom-design boards and cooling solutions. The reference PCB draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and uses a 6-phase VRM to condition it for the GPU and memory. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0a connectors. There are also unused traces on the PCB for a DVI connector, so it's likely that some custom-design cards could feature it.

AMD at its pre-Computex media event, showed off the first next-generation socket AM4 processor based on the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon. That processor wasn't alone, it also came with a platform demonstrator for the company's industry partners, behind closed doors. This includes a platform demonstrator motherboard by AMD. Earlier this year, a Chinese tech-site caught a glimpse of this board. There's never anything glamorous about platform demo boards (from either AMD or Intel), they tend to be a haphazard bunch of slots and ports that max out the platform's feature-set. The same applies to this AM4 board.

The picture reveals a few big things about the AM4 socket, and the platform in general. To begin with, the 1331-pin PGA socket is somewhat the same size as AM3+, but likely features finer pins. It features CPU cooler retention holes in a "square" layout, rather than the rectangular layout that AMD has been using way back since socket 754. It will be interesting to see if these mount holes are compatible with any of Intel's sockets. The second and perhaps the biggest change of this platform, of course, is that the chipset is completely integrated with the processor, and so there's no chipset on the board. The processor socket wires out all the connections a southbridge, FCH, or PCH normally would, plus all the I/O of a northbridge (PCIe, memory, etc). The platform supports dual-channel DDR4 memory, and PCI-Express gen 3.0 across its PCIe budget.

AMD made a bold move in launching its first "Polaris" architecture based performance-segment GPU, the Radeon RX 480 at a starting price of US $199. The company claims that it will perform on-par with $500 graphics cards from the previous generation, directly hinting at performance being on par with the Radeon R9 Fury and R9 Nano. Although it's not in the league of the GTX 1070 or the GTX 1080, this level of performance at $199 could certainly disrupt things for NVIDIA, as it presents an attractive option for people still gaming on 1440p and 1080p resolutions (the overwhelming majority). The R9 Fury can handle any game at 1440p.

The Radeon RX 480 is based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon, fabbed by GlobalFoundries. It's publicly known that GloFlo has a 14 nm fab in Malta (upstate New York), USA. The RX 480 is based on AMD's 4th generation Graphics CoreNext architecture, codenamed "Polaris." It features 2,304 stream processors, spread across 36 compute units (CUs). Its single-precision floating point performance is rated by AMD to be "greater than 5 TFLOP/s." The chip features a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, with memory clocked at 8 Gbps, yielding memory bandwidth of 256 GB/s. There will be two variants of this card, 4 GB and 8 GB. It's the 4 GB variant that starts at $199, the 8 GB variant is expected to be priced at $229. AMD confirmed that the GPU will support DisplayPort 1.4 although it's certified up to DisplayPort 1.3. The typical board power is rated at 150W. The card could be available from 29th June.

Intel today announced the Core i7 "Broadwell-E" processor series. Built in the socket LGA2011v3 package, these chips work with motherboards based on the Intel X99 Express chipset, some boards may require BIOS updates to support these chips. At the heart of the lineup is the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon. Intel is launching not three but four SKUs, including two six-core, one eight-core, and one ten-core.

The lineup begins with the Core i7-6800K. This six-core chip features 15 MB of L3 cache, 3.40 GHz clocks with 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost, 28 PCI-Express lanes, and a price of US $434. Next up, is the Core i7-6850K, which is also a six-core chip with 15 MB L3 cache, but features slightly higher clock speeds of 3.60 GHz with 3.80 Turbo Boost, but more importantly, features the full 40 PCI-Express lanes of the silicon. The Core i7-6850K is priced at US $617. Further up the lineup is the Core i7-6900K, with eight cores, 20 MB L3 cache, 3.20 GHz clocks with 3.70 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, and a price of $1,089. The price-per-core dramatically shoots up from here, as we get to the Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, the jewel in Intel's crown, featuring ten cores, 25 MB of L3 cache, 3.00 GHz clocks with 3.50 GHz Turbo Boost, and a wallet-scorching $1,723 price.

At its 2016 Annual Shareholders Meeting website, AMD reportedly posted a wafer shot of its upcoming 14 nm "Summit Ridge" CPU die. The "Summit Ridge" silicon is rumored to drive a number of performance-thru-enthusiast processor SKUs for AMD. The die pictured features eight CPU cores based on the "Zen" micro-architecture, a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache split between two blocks of four CPU cores, each.

"Summit Ridge," much like the "Bristol Ridge" APU silicon, will be a true SoC, in that it integrates the southbridge on the processor die. With "Summit Ridge," AMD is also introducing a new inter-socket interconnect replacing its ageing HyperTransport technology. The new Global Memory Interconnect (GMI) bus provides a 100 GB/s path between two sockets. The "Summit Ridge" die features two such interconnect ports.

In the wake of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, which if live up to their launch marketing, could render AMD's high-end lineup woefully outperformed, AMD reportedly decided to pull the launch of its next big silicon, Vega10, from its scheduled early-2017 launch, to October 2016. Vega10 is a successor to "Grenada," and will be built on the 5th generation Graphics CoreNext architecture (codenamed "Vega").

Vega10 will be a multi-chip module, and feature HBM2 memory. The 14 nm architecture will feature higher performance/Watt than even the upcoming "Polaris" architecture. "Vega10" isn't a successor to "Fiji," though. That honor is reserved for "Vega11." It is speculated that Vega10 will feature 4096 stream processors, and will power graphics cards that compete with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. Vega11, on the other hand, is expected to feature 6144 stream processors, and could take on the bigger GP100-based SKUs. Both Vega10 and Vega11 will feature 4096-bit HBM2 memory interfaces, but could differ in standard memory sizes (think 8 GB vs. 16 GB).

The first AMD Radeon graphics cards based on the company's "Polaris" architecture are slated for a late-May launch, according to Thai tech-site Zolkorn. The company is reportedly planning an elaborate launch event in Macau, China, days ahead of the 2016 Computex trade-show in Taipei. AMD has reportedly already sent invites to media outlets, although to a very limited number (in comparison to, say, NVIDIA's GTX 1080 event in Austin, US). The event could see a paper-launch of the first Radeon R9 400 series graphics cards based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" and "Baffin" chips, with AIB-branded cards being exhibited at Computex, and market-availability following shortly after.

Silicon Lottery at OCN got their hands on Intel's upcoming flagship high-end desktop (HEDT) processor, the Core i7-6950X. Based on the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon, the processor offers a staggering 10 cores, with HyperThreading enabling 20 logical CPUs, 25 MB L3 cache, and a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller. The i7-6950X is expected to occupy a price point that's above the $999 traditionally reserved for the top-end HEDT chip. Silicon Lottery successfully overclocked the i7-6950X to 4.50 GHz, from its rumored stock frequency of 3.00 GHz, and compared it to a previous-generation Core i7-5960X 8-core processor. The common platform consisted of an ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard, 16 GB of quad-channel DDR4-3000 memory, and GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics.

At its top overclock of 4.50 GHz, the i7-6950X achieved a Cinebench R15 score of 2327 points. At 4.00 GHz, it scored 1904 points, 19.5 percent higher than the i7-5960X at the same clocks (the i7-6950X features two extra cores). The two chips were also put through AIDA64 memory tests. The memory read speeds were nearly the same, but the memory write speeds were found to be a staggering 37 percent higher on the i7-6950X. The memory copy speeds, however, were 10.5 percent lower on the i7-6950X. Intel is expected to launch its next-generation Core i7 HEDT lineup, including two six-core, one eight-core, and one ten-core chips, in a few weeks from now.

Intel's upcoming Core i7-6850K six-core processor made its way to the hands of an enthusiast on OCN, who wasted no time in picturing the chip, and putting it through a few handy tests. Built for the LGA2011v3 socket, the i7-6850K is based on the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon, and features six cores, HyperThreading enabling 12 logical CPUs, 15 MB of L3 cache, and a nominal clock speed of 3.60 GHz. To begin with, while the i7-6850K is pin-compatible with existing socket LGA2011v3 motherboards (and logically features an identical pin-map to "Haswell-E,") the package is slightly different. Its fiberglass substrate is slightly thinner (1.12 mm vs. 1.87 mm of "Haswell-E,"). Its thickness is made up for by a chunkier IHS (integrated heatspreader).

The i7-6850K sample was installed on a machine with ASRock X99 Extreme3 motherboard (BIOS: P3.30), 16 GB of quad-channel DDR4-2133 memory, and a single GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card. It was compared to a Core i7-5820K processor on the same setup. The i7-6850K based setup was barely (~1%) faster at 3DMark FireStrike Extreme in its final score, however, its CPU-intensive Physics score was 14.9% higher. Moving on to the community favorite Cinebench R15, the i7-6850K yielded a 10% higher score. To test its single-core performance, the chip was put through SuperPi 32M, where the i7-6850K crunched through the test in 8m 27.854s, compared to 8m 38.866s by the i7-5820K.

Intel introduced a trio of embedded CPUs for SFF desktops and industrial PCs (IPCs), based on its "Skylake-R" silicon. This variant of Skylake features the largest integrated GPU Intel ever made - the Intel Iris Pro 580. This IGP features 72 execution units (compared to 24 on, say, the i7-6700K), and relies on a 128 MB eDRAM L4 cache for fast frame-buffering operations. The IGP uses this tiny yet fast cache, in conjunction with its traditional UMA system memory share, as video memory. The "Skylake-R" package is a multi-chip module of the main die with four "Skylake" CPU cores and the 72-EU IGP, and a second die housing the L4 cache.

Among the three "Skylake-R" chips Intel launched are the Core i7-6785R, the Core i5-6685R, and the Core i5-6585R. The i7-6785R features HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs, 8 MB of L3 cache, and 3.30 GHz nominal clock speed, with 3.90 GHz Turbo Boost. The i5-6685R and the Core i5-6585R lack HyperThreading, and feature just 6 MB of L3 cache; the former features clock speeds of 3.20 GHz nominal with 3.80 GHz Turbo Boost, while the latter offers 2.80 GHz nominal with 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost. All three feature iGPU clocks of 350 MHz nominal, with up to 1150 MHz boost. The 14 nm chips further feature TDP of 65W, and feature dual-channel memory controllers that support both DDR4 and DDR3L memory. Sold in the OEM channel, the i7-6785R, i5-6685R, and i5-6585R, are priced at US $370, $288, and $255, respectively, per-piece, and in 1000-unit tray quantities.

GIGABYTE Technology, a leading creator of high performance products for IT professionals and an associate member of the Intel Internet of Things Solutions Alliance, is pleased to announce that its current line-up of EL-20 series IoT Gateway solutions will phase in new Intel Pentium and Celeron processors based on the Braswell D stepping.

The new Intel Pentium N3710 and Intel Celeron N3060 will be phased in to deliver higher performance on both compute tasks and graphics, while maintaining their current thermal and power envelopes, thanks to improvements of Intel's 14 nm process. The new D-stepping Braswell processors now fall under the Intel Embedded Options, delivering longer availability lifetime for those seeking to invest in a long-term platform.