Someone got lucky with an early purchase of an MSI Radeon RX 570 Gaming X graphics card, ahead of its April 18th launch, and wasted no time in posting pictures of it, before selling it off on eBay for $329. Pictures reveal the card to look not much different from the RX 470 Gaming X, given that it features the same TwinFrozr VI cooling solution. This particular card features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. While the box doesn't reveal clock speeds, it highlights "3rd gen FinFET 14" technology, proving that AMD is building the RX 570 and RX 580 chips on a newer, more advanced 14 nm FinFET node than the one it built Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" on.

AMD Ryzen 5 series desktop processors are officially available from today. The lineup is designed to compete with Intel's Core i5 quad-core "Kaby Lake" processor family, and consists of 6-core and 4-core parts carved out of the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon. The lineup begins with the $169 Ryzen 5 1400 and $189 Ryzen 5 1500X quad-core parts, featuring SMT that enable 8 logical CPUs, 8 MB of L3 cache, unlocked multipliers, and XFR on the 1500X. The 1400 is clocked at 3.20 GHz with 3.40 GHz boost, while the 1500X ticks at 3.50 GHz with 3.70 GHz boost, and XFR enabling higher automatic overclocks.

While the Ryzen 5 1400 and 1500X compete with Core i3 and Core i5 "Kaby Lake" models under $200; the $219 Ryzen 5 1600 and $249 1600X six-core parts target the Core i5-7600K, with their 6 cores, 12 threads, 16 MB of L3 caches, and unlocked multipliers. The 1600 is clocked at 3.20 GHz with 3.60 GHz boost, while the 1600X ticks at 3.60 GHz core and 4.00 GHz boost. All four chips are available immediately.

Following its launch of the Ryzen 5 series performance-segment six-core and quad-core processors later this month, AMD could launch entry-level quad-core chips based on the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon in the second half of 2017. This lineup will be called the Ryzen 3 series, and will occupy several sub-$150 price points.

The Ryzen 3 series parts will compete with Intel's Core i3 dual-core "Kaby Lake" processors, and will offer four cores, even if lacking SMT (that's 4 cores, 4 threads), and up to 8 MB of L3 cache, making for a compelling deal against Core i3 "Kaby Lake" dual-core parts that have 2 cores and 4 threads enabled through HyperThreading, and just 3-4 MB of L3 cache. What's more, the Ryzen 3 series chips will come with unlocked base-clock multipliers. One of the prominent Ryzen 3 series SKUs revealed by leaky taps among the motherboard industry is the Ryzen 3 1200.

AMD is preparing new SKUs based on its "Polaris 10" silicon, which are built on a more refined 14 nm FinFET process, to facilitate higher GPU clock speeds, and improved energy efficiency. These include the Radeon RX 580 and the Radeon RX 570. The reference-design boards of the two were pictured, and aren't strictly "rebadged" RX 480 and RX 470. The two feature higher clocks, and are supported by a redesigned VRM. The RX 570 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the RX 580 draws it from a single 8-pin connector.

The core-configurations of the RX 580 and RX 570 aren't different from their predecessors - the RX 580 still features 2,304 stream processors, and the RX 570 features 2,048, but clock speeds are increased across the board. The RX 580 ticks at about 1340 MHz (vs. 1266 MHz of the RX 480), with its memory speed unchanged at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), while the RX 570 is clocked at 1244 MHz (vs. 1206 MHz of the RX 470), with its memory clock slightly increased to 7.00 GHz. The two cards also seem to do away with the DVI port. According to VideoCardz, the two cards could launch on the 18th of April, 2017.

Over 12 hours ahead of its unveiling, Guru3D accidentally (timezone confusion) posted some juicy details about AMD's exciting Ryzen 5 desktop processor lineup. What makes these chips particularly exciting is that they occupy several sub-$250 price points, and offer the kind of gaming performance you'd expect from the larger 8-core Ryzen 7 series chips, since not a lot of games need 8 cores and 16 threads. The Ryzen 5 series will launch with two 6-core, and two 4-core SKUs, all four of which feature SMT (simultaneous multi-threading), and unlocked base-clock multipliers.

The Ryzen 5 series is topped by the Ryzen 5-1600X, priced at USD $249. This 6-core/12-thread chip features the full 16 MB of L3 cache available on the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon, and backs it with clock speeds of 3.60 GHz core and 4.00 GHz TurboCore, with the XFR (extended frequency range) feature enabling higher clocks depending on the effectiveness of your CPU cooling. This chip could be AMD's power move against the Intel Core i5-7600K. Next up, is the Ryzen 5-1600 (non-X), priced at $219. This chip lacks the XFR feature, and comes with slightly lower clocks out of the box, with 3.20 GHz core, and 3.60 GHz TurboCore. You still get an unlocked base-clock multiplier, which Intel's $220-ish competitor to this chip, the Core i5-7500, sorely lacks.

AMD Wednesday launched its much awaited Ryzen performance desktop processor lineup with three top 8-core models, the Ryzen 7-1800X priced at USD $499, followed by the Ryzen 7-1700X at $399, and the Ryzen 7-1700 at $329. You're probably curious as to the rest of the lineup, especially the cheaper six-core SMT-enabled parts. Here they are. The Ryzen 5-1600X is designed to lure buyers away from the Core i5-7600K, and probably even the i7-7700K. This six-core chip with SMT, which enables 12 logical CPUs for your software to deal with, is endowed with the full 16 MB of L3 cache, and is not only unlocked, but also features the XFR (extended frequency range) technology. It's clocked at 3.60 GHz, with 4.00 GHz TurboCore. The Ryzen 5-1600X is priced at $259, and is sure to draw some attention.

Next up, is the Ryzen 5-1500. This 6-core/12-thread chip lacks XFR, but is still unlocked, ticks at 3.20 GHz with 3.50 GHz TurboCore, and features the full 16 MB of L3 cache. At $229, and with a TDP of 65W, this chip is sure to disrupt Intel's "Kaby Lake" Core i5 lineup. The quad-core Ryzen lineup is built by disabling one of the two 4-core CCX complexes on the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon, and feature 8 MB of L3 cache. The lineup is led by the $199 Ryzen 5-1400X. This quad-core chip ticks at 3.50 GHz, with 3.90 GHz TurboCore, and features XFR and SMT, which enables 8 threads. Next up, is the quad-core Ryzen 5-1300, priced at $175, with the Core i3-7350K in its crosshairs, clocked at 3.20 GHz and 3.50 GHz Turbo. At the bottom of the pile is the Ryzen 3 quad-core lineup, which lack SMT. The Ryzen 3-1200X is priced at just $149, but you get 3.40 GHz clocks with 3.80 GHz Turbo, and XFR, and 8 MB of L3 cache. The cheapest Ryzen chip is just $129. The Ryzen 3-1200 lacks XFR, but gives you 3.20 GHz clocks with 3.50 GHz Turbo.

At a press event by AMD, company CEO Lisa Su unveiled the first three AMD Ryzen desktop processor models, the top-dog Ryzen 7-1800X, the Ryzen 7-1700X, and the Ryzen 7-1700. The R7-1800X is priced at USD $499, followed by the R7-1700X at $399, and the R7-1700 at $329. The three chips will be available for purchase on the 2nd of March, 2017. The R7-1800X is clocked at 3.60 GHz, with a TurboCore frequency of 4.00 GHz, and the XFR (extended frequency range) feature, which further overclocks the chip, depending on the effectiveness of your CPU cooler.

The Ryzen 7-1700X ships with 3.40 GHz clocks, with 3.80 GHz TurboCore frequency, and the XFR feature. The Ryzen 7-1700 lacks XFR, and comes with slightly lower clocks, at 3.00 GHz core, and 3.70 GHz TurboCore. All three are true 8-core chips, with 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache. Also featured are dual-channel DDR4 integrated memory controllers, and an integrated PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex. The Ryzen 7-1700 has a TDP of just 65W (for a performance 8-core chip that's a kick in the butts of Intel's engineers), and will include an AMD Wraith Max cooling solution, while the 1700X and 1800X have TDP rated at 95W, and will come without coolers. At its media event, CEO Lisa Su stated that at $499, the Ryzen 7-1800X "smokes" the Intel Core i7-6900K eight-core processor. The company also unveiled the branding of its Radeon Vega enthusiast graphics family. Lastly, feast your eyes on the beautiful, 14 nm, Made-in-USA die-shot of Ryzen.

At an investor meeting in February, Intel touched upon its performance guidance for its 8th generation Core processor family due for later this year. Based on the 14 nm "Cannon Lake" silicon, these processors are expected to have a bigger performance gain over the preceding 7th gen Core "Kaby Lake" micro-architecture, than Kaby Lake had over its predecessor, the 6th gen Core "Skylake."

In a slide titled "advancing Moore's Law on 14 nm," Intel illustrated how Kaby Lake processors are on average 15 percent faster than Skylake parts, in SYSmark. While Kaby Lake has negligible IPC gains over Skylake, the newer chips are clocked significantly higher, making up Intel's performance targets. Unless Cannon Lake is a significantly newer micro-architecture than Kaby Lake, we could expect them to come with even higher clock speeds. Will the Core i7-8700K be a 5 GHz chip?

A Reddit user brought to the playing field the news that AMD's upcoming ZEN CPU's have surfaced in a "pre-order" form through AMD Shangai's official Taobao channel (though you should nevertheless take these with a measure of salt). Details on which CPU we are actually looking at here are still scarce, unfortunately, but the chip is listed at ¥1999.00 (roughly $295). While the chip's process is listed at the expected 14 nm, the base CPU frequency reads 4.2 GHz.

Looking at the supposed AMD Ryzen launch line-up, though, no model is listed at these clockspeeds. However, we should recall that AMD's Ryzen chip used on CES 2017 (an engineering sample) carried clockspeeds of 3.6 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost, so it is certainly conceivable that newer, release steppings have bumped the frequencies to 3.9 GHz/4.2 GHz respectively (4.2 GHz base clock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting"). We should now have a more firm launch window for Ryzen chips though: previous rumors have pegged the launch at March 2nd, but a February 28th launch window should now be considered to be correct. Can we just have these on our hands already?

For a while there, the only competitive foundries that we've been hearing about have been TSMC and GlobalFoundries (Intel's foundries are such a well-known fact that they sometimes - and paradoxically - fade into obscurity). However, according to UMC's CEO, the company is poised to become another option in the 14 nm field this year.

This represents a general acceleration of UMC's plans to bring the manufacturing process to market, where it would supposedly only be ready for primetime on Q2 2017. However, following intensive engineering activities, UMC's 14-nanometer transistor performance has delivered speed and leakage results which are comparable with the industry's 14-nanometer standards. Initial 14nm manufacturing capacity should be 2,000 wafers per month, and the company already has numerous customers running test chips.

Hot on the heels of AMD Ryzen, Intel is planning to launch the pro-consumer targeted Xeon Gold line of processors. The company is reportedly "freaked out" at the cost/performance of AMD Ryzen R7-1800X in creative productivity applications, and is preparing a new line of processors targeting that niche of the market, which uses MacPro desktops and media production workstations using HEDT processors, but needs a bit of "reliability." The Xeon Gold series will be based on the 14 nm "Skylake-EP" silicon, and will feature up to 18 CPU cores. The first model in the series is the Xeon Gold 6150.

The Xeon Gold 6150 features 18 CPU cores, with HyperThreading enabling 36 logical CPUs. Intel increased the L2 cache amount per core to 1 MB, from 256 KB found on other implementations of the "Skylake" architecture. The chip features 25,344 KB (24.75 MB) of shared L3 cache. The core clock speed is 2.70 GHz, with a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 3.70 GHz. The chip features a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface. Going by its specs, the Xeon Gold 6150 will clearly occupy a higher market segment than the Ryzen R7-1800X, but could lure orders from the likes of Apple, for its next-generation MacPro workstations.

After spending almost 4 years developing and perfecting (as much as can be perfected in such an amount of time) it's ZEN CPU architecture, AMD is looking to extract some mileage out of it. Mark Papermaster, AMD's chief technology officer, confirmed the four-year lifespan in a conversation with PC World at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, though he declined to discuss specifics. When asked how long ZEN would last (especially comparing to Intel's now-failing two-year tick-tock cadence, Papermaster confirmed the four-year lifespan: "We're not going tick-tock," he said. "ZEN is going to be tock, tock, tock."

NVIDIA today announced the mobile variants of GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Not only do the two SKUs feature unchanged core-configurations from their desktop counterparts, but also feature higher clock speeds. The GTX 1050 Ti Mobile ships with 1493 MHz core and 1620 MHz GPU Boost (compared to 1290/1392 MHz of the desktop GTX 1050 Ti); while the GTX 1050 Mobile ships with 1354/1493 MHz (compared to 1354/1455 MHz of its desktop sibling). Both SKUs are being offered to notebook designers with up to 4 GB of GDDR5 memory.

Based on the 14 nm GP107 silicon, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile features 768 CUDA cores, 48 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The GTX 1050 Mobile is based on the same silicon, but features 640 CUDA cores, 40 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. At the 2017 International CES expo, various notebook designers are expected to unveil gaming notebooks with these two chips. The GTX 1050 Ti is being mooted as being ideal for notebooks with 1080p displays, while the GTX 1050 Mobile is targeted at 1600x900 displays.

French tech print magazine "Canard PC" is ready with early benchmarks of an AMD Ryzen 8-core processor. The scan of a page from its Ryzen performance review article got leaked to the web, revealing three key performance takeaways. In the first selection of tests, Canard PC put Ryzen through synthetic CPU-intensive tests that take advantage of as many CPU cores/threads as you can throw at them. These include the likes of H.264 and H.265 video encoding, WPrime, Blender, 3DSMax 2015, and Corona. Ryzen was found to be faster than the quad-core Core i7-6700K, and the six-core i7-6800K, but somewhere between the i7-6800K and the eight-core i7-6900K.

The next selection of tests focused on PC gaming, with a list of contemporary AAA titles, including "Far Cry 4," "Battlefield 4," "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," "Anno 2070," "GRID: Autosport," and "ARMA III." Here, the Ryzen sample was found to be underwhelming - it was slower than the Core i5-6600 quad-core chip clocked at 3.30-3.90 GHz; but faster than the i5-6500, clocked at 3.20-3.60 GHz. The fastest chip in the table is the i7-6700K (4.00-4.20 GHz). The reviewer still notes that Ryzen has a decent IPC gain unseen from the AMD stable in a while.

Ahead of its launch, a Core i5-7600K processor (not ES) made its way to Chinese tech publication PCOnline, who wasted no time in putting it through their test-bench, taking advantage of the next-gen CPU support BIOS updates put out by several socket LGA1151 motherboard manufacturers. Based on the 14 nm "Kaby Lake" silicon, the i5-7600K succeeds the current i5-6600K, and could be positioned around the $250 price-point in Intel's product-stack. The quad-core chip features clock speeds of 3.80 GHz, with 4.20 GHz max Turbo Boost frequency, and 6 MB of L3 cache. Like all its predecessors, it lacks HyperThreading.

In its review of the Core i5-7600K, PCOnline found that the chip is about 9-10% faster than the i5-6600K, but that's mostly only due to its higher clock speeds out of the box (3.80/4.20 GHz vs. 3.50/3.90 GHz of the i5-6600K). Clock-for-clock, the i5-7600K is just about 1% faster, indicating that the "Kaby Lake" architecture offers only negligible IPC (instructions per clock) performance gains over the "Skylake" architecture. The power-draw of the CPU appears to be about the same as the i5-6600K, so there appear to be certain fab process-level improvements, given the higher clock speeds the chip is having to sustain, without a proportionate increase in power-draw. Most of the innovation appears to be centered on the integrated graphics, which is slightly faster, and has certain new features. Find more performance figures in the review link to PCOnline below.

AMD today unveiled a new family of power-efficient graphics processors, Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics. Available first in the all-new 15-inch MacBook Pro, select Radeon Pro 400 Series graphics deliver extraordinary performance and efficiency gains over the prior generation to fuel modern creative efforts from anywhere inspiration strikes.

Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics are designed specifically for today's makers -- the artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, visualizers and engineers that shape the modern content creation era. Harnessing AMD's acclaimed Polaris architecture, Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics are built on the industry's most advanced process technology for graphics processors in production today, 14 nm FinFET, resulting in incredibly small transistors.

To enable the thinnest graphics processor possible, AMD also employs a complex process known as 'die thinning' to reduce the thickness of each wafer of silicon used in the processor from 780 microns to just 380 microns, or slightly less than the thickness of four pieces of paper. Operating in a power envelope under 35W, the Radeon Pro 450, 455, and 460 Series graphics processors deliver spectacular energy efficiency and cool, quiet operation to speed through the most demanding tasks in popular creative applications.

ASRock introduced a trio of low-cost embedded motherboards for entry-level desktops based on Intel's newest 14 nm "Apollo Lake" Pentium/Celeron SoCs. These include J3455-ITX and J3455M based on the Celeron J3455 quad-core SoC; and the J4205-ITX, based on the Pentium J4205 quad-core SoC. The J3455-ITX and J4205-ITX are based on a common board design, differing only with the SoC, while the J3455M features a narrow, 3-slot micro-ATX design.

The J4205-ITX and J3455-ITX take in power from a 24-pin ATX connector. The SoC is wired to two DDR3L SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to DDR3-1866 MHz spec. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express x1, and an M.2 (PCIe x2 electrical) connector. Besides this M.2, storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and four USB 3.0 ports complete its connectivity. The J3455M features a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x1) besides two other PCIe x1 slots, and features two standard DDR3 DIMM slots instead of SO-DIMM; and features 6-channel HD audio instead of 8-channel. The rest of its connectivity is the same as its ITX siblings.

Could the upcoming "GP107" ASIC by NVIDIA be its first on the 14 nanometer silicon fabrication process? That's what 3DCenter.org uncovered. Informed sources tell the German tech-site that the GP107 could be the first GPU built by NVIDIA's partnership with Samsung Electronics, after it emerged that the Korean silicon giant could manufacture certain GeForce "Pascal" GPUs on its 14 nm LPP (low-power plus) node. There's also talk of NVIDIA optical-shrinking its existing GeForce Pascal chips to 14 nm, built by Samsung.

The GP107 silicon will power two known mid-range desktop SKUs slated for launch later this month, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, and the GTX 1050. Bound for mid-October, the GTX 1050 Ti features 768 CUDA cores, 48 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 4 GB of memory; with GPU clocks above the 1.50 GHz mark. The GTX 1050, on the other hand, could launch in late-October, featuring 640 CUDA cores, 40 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across the chip's 128-bit memory interface, with the possibility of custom-design 4 GB SKUs. NVIDIA is targeting the $150 and $120 price-points with these SKUs. The company could also work on mobile SKUs based on the chip.

Intel's silicon fabrication has evidently hit a huge roadblock. It turns out that not just "Kaby Lake," but its two successors "Cannon Lake" and "Coffee Lake" could also be built on the 14 nm node, at best with a few process-level improvements. "Coffee Lake" is the company's 9th generation Core architecture, which is two steps ahead of even the "Kaby Lake" architecture, which is due later this year. "Kaby Lake" makes its way to the 45W mobile (H-segment) and 15W mobile (U-segment), in Q4-2016 and Q3-2016, respectively. The 15W U-segment will be augmented by "Cannon Lake" (8th generation Core) in Q4-2017. By mid-2018, Intel plans to launch "Coffee Lake" across both H- and U-segments.

According to a "Hot Hardware" report, based on a job listing for a systems engineer at the company, Intel could be staring at the scary prospect of holding out on 14 nm for the next three years, only to be relieved by the stopgap 10 nm node, which makes its debut with the 10th generation Core "Tiger Lake" architecture, due for 2019. "Tiger Lake," its succeeding "Ice Lake," and one other architecture could be launched on 10 nm, before finally deploying 7 nm around 2022.

AMD announced that it has entered into a long-term amendment to its Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (GF) for the period from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020. "The five-year amendment further strengthens our strategic manufacturing relationship with GLOBALFOUNDRIES while providing AMD with increased flexibility to build our high-performance product roadmap with additional foundries in the 14 nm and 7 nm technology nodes," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "Our goal is for AMD to have continued access to leading-edge foundry process technologies enabling us to build multiple generations of great products for years to come."

GLOBALFOUNDRIES' Fab 8 in Malta, N.Y. is playing a significant role in providing leading-edge capacity for AMD's graphics and processor products, including the recently launched AMD Radeon Polaris GPUs and upcoming "Zen"-based processors.

Someone with access to a Core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake" processor and an ASRock Z270-Extreme4 motherboard put the chip through SiSoft SANDRA 2015 CPU tests. Engineering sample or not, the clock speeds of the chip appear to check out with those of the lineup as we know it. The core ticks at 4.20 GHz, with a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 4.50 GHz. You also get 8 MB of L3 cache, and HyperThreading. The benchmark confirms that Intel is working on a new platform refresh chipset, with the Z270 chipset succeeding the existing Z170. Existing LGA1151 could support the new chips, with BIOS updates.

At its stock speeds, the i7-7700K churns out a SANDRA 2015 "Processor Arithmetic" score of 151.94 GOPS. Its "Processor Multimedia" score yielded is 379.8 Mpix/s. To put things in perspective, a Core i7-6700K "Skylake" processor running at its stock speed of 4.00 GHz core with 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost typically yields 140.88 GOPS in "Processor Arithmetic" and 353.8 Mpix/s in "Processor Multimedia" tests, according to LegitReviews. Intel is expected to launch the 7th generation Core processor family, alongside the 200 series chipset, later this year. Kaby Lake is Intel's third CPU micro-architecture for the 14 nm process, after "Skylake" and "Broadwell."

Intel is preparing a broad lineup of enterprise CPUs based on the upcoming 14 nm "Kaby Lake" silicon, besides the first wave of its desktop lineup, with no less than 8 quad-core SKUs. What makes the lineup of the Xeon E3-1200 V6 family more comprehensive than previous generations is the fact that some of the SKUs feature integrated graphics. Predecessors of the E3-1200 V6 series generally lack integrated graphics. Intel denoted parts that feature integrated graphics with Xeon E3-###5 V6, and endowed them with the GT2 graphics available on the "Kaby Lake" common silicon shared between the Xeon E3-1200 V6 and 7th generation Core series.

All eight SKUs launched by Intel are quad-core and feature 8 MB of L3 cache, six of them feature HyperThreading. Three of the SKUs feature integrated graphics. The SKUs without integrated graphics have 74W TDP rating, the ones with it have 78W TDP rating. Some of the notable SKUs include the E3-1280 V6, with 3.90 GHz nominal clocks, E3-1275 V6 with 3.70 GHz clocks and GT2 integrated graphics; and E3-1225 V6, featuring 3.30 GHz clocks, and integrated graphics. The Xeon E3-1200 V6 series processors will be built in the LGA1151 package, and will be compatible with the C232 and C236 chipset motherboards. The company could launch these chips by the end of 2016.

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.