AMD reportedly put out its IPC (instructions per clock) performance guidance for its upcoming "Zen 2" micro-architecture in a version of its Next Horizon investor meeting, and the numbers are staggering. The next-generation CPU architecture provides a massive 29 percent IPC uplift over the original "Zen" architecture. While not developed for the enterprise segment, the stopgap "Zen+" architecture brought about 3-5 percent IPC uplifts over "Zen" on the backs of faster on-die caches and improved Precision Boost algorithms. "Zen 2" is being developed for the 7 nm silicon fabrication process, and on the "Rome" MCM, is part of the 8-core chiplets that aren't subdivided into CCX (8 cores per CCX).

According to Expreview, AMD conducted DKERN + RSA test for integer and floating point units, to arrive at a performance index of 4.53, compared to 3.5 of first-generation Zen, which is a 29.4 percent IPC uplift (loosely interchangeable with single-core performance). "Zen 2" goes a step beyond "Zen+," with its designers turning their attention to critical components that contribute significantly toward IPC - the core's front-end, and the number-crunching machinery, FPU. The front-end of "Zen" and "Zen+" cores are believed to be refinements of previous-generation architectures such as "Excavator." Zen 2 gets a brand-new front-end that's better optimized to distribute and collect workloads between the various on-die components of the core. The number-crunching machinery gets bolstered by 256-bit FPUs, and generally wider execution pipelines and windows. These come together yielding the IPC uplift. "Zen 2" will get its first commercial outing with AMD's 2nd generation EPYC "Rome" 64-core enterprise processors.Update Nov 14: AMD has issued the following statement regarding these claims.

As we demonstrated at our Next Horizon event last week, our next-generation AMD EPYC server processor based on the new 'Zen 2' core delivers significant performance improvements as a result of both architectural advances and 7nm process technology. Some news media interpreted a 'Zen 2' comment in the press release footnotes to be a specific IPC uplift claim. The data in the footnote represented the performance improvement in a microbenchmark for a specific financial services workload which benefits from both integer and floating point performance improvements and is not intended to quantify the IPC increase a user should expect to see across a wide range of applications. We will provide additional details on 'Zen 2' IPC improvements, and more importantly how the combination of our next-generation architecture and advanced 7nm process technology deliver more performance per socket, when the products launch.

Intel today announced to press that they've scheduled an event for December 11th. The scheduled event should take the form of a small gathering of both Intel and press professionals, where Intel will be giving insights into its thought process and technologies with some in-depth presentations for technicians and engineers from the blue giant. Intel has become more and more secluded when it comes to the workings and architecture details of its technology advances, with the company even going so far as to cancel the (previously annual) Intel Developer Forums.

The event is apparently focusing on "architecture" considerations for future Intel products, so information shared could be strung with NDAs, and could fall under any product family Intel is working on (CPU, GPU, FPGA, AI...). We'll see what Intel has to share, and what kind of details (or watercolor ideas) can be painted on any future Intel products.

Intel today announced two new members of its Intel Xeon processor portfolio: Cascade Lake advanced performance (expected to be released the first half of 2019) and the Intel Xeon E-2100 processor for entry-level servers (general availability today). These two new product families build upon Intel's foundation of 20 years of Intel Xeon platform leadership and give customers even more flexibility to pick the right solution for their needs.

"We remain highly focused on delivering a wide range of workload-optimized solutions that best meet our customers' system requirements. The addition of Cascade Lake advanced performance CPUs and Xeon E-2100 processors to our Intel Xeon processor lineup once again demonstrates our commitment to delivering performance-optimized solutions to a wide range of customers," said Lisa Spelman, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon products and data center marketing.

With a November deadline for feature freeze fast approaching, GNU toolchain developers are now adding the last feature additions to GCC 9.0 (GNU Compiler Collection). Ahead of that deadline, AMD has released their first basic patch adding the "znver2" target and therefore Zen 2 support to GCC. While the patch uses the same cost tables and scheduler data as Znver1, it does feature three new instructions that will be available to AMD's next-gen CPUs which include; Cache Line Write Back (CLWB), Read Processor ID (RDPID), and Write Back and Do Not Invalidate Cache (WBNOINVD).

These three instructions are the only ones that have been found thus far by digging through the current code. Taking into account this is the first patch it can be considered a jumping off point, making sure that the GCC 9.1 stable update, which comes out in 2019, has support for Zen 2. Further optimizations and instructions may be implemented in the future. This is likely since AMD has yet to update the scheduler cost tables and by extension means they may not want to reveal everything about Zen 2 just yet. You could say AMD is for now playing it safe, at least until their 7nm EPYC 2 processors launch in 2019.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2018 of $1.65 billion, operating income of $150 million, net income of $102 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.09. On a non-GAAP1 basis, operating income was $186 million, net income was $150 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.13.

We kept seeing hints regarding Intel's 9000-series processors running hot, including from their own board partners. As it turned out, the actual results are a mixed bag with some running very hot and most others ending up being power-limited more so than temperature-limited. Our own review sample showed overall better load temperatures relative to the predecessor 8000-series processors thanks to the soldered TIM (sTIM) used here, to give you some context. But that did not stop overclocker extraordinaire Roman "Der8auer" Hartung from de-lidding the processor to see why they were not generally better as expected.

As it turns out, there are a few things involved here. For one, replacing sTIM with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (Der8auer has a financial interest in the company, but he does disclose it publicly) alone improves p95 average load temperatures across all eight cores by ~9 °C. This is to be expected given that the liquid metal has a vastly higher thermal conductivity than the various sTIM compositions used in the industry. Of more interest, however, is that both the PCB and the die are thicker with the Core i9-9900K compared to the Core i7-8700K, and lapping the die to reduce thickness by a few microns also does a lot to lower the CPU temperatures relatively. Overall, Intel have still done a good job using sTIM- especially compared to how it was before- but the current state of things means that we have a slightly better stock product with little scope for improvement within easy means to the consumer.

Back on September 27th, MSI talked candidly with PConline at the MSI Gaming New Appreciation Conference, in Shanghai. Multiple MSI executives were available to answer questions regarding products, launches, and potential issues. The first question asked was about the brewing US-Chinese trade war and if it will affect prices of graphics cards and CPUs. To which, Liao Wei, Deputy General Manager of MSI Global Multimedia Business Unit, and MSI Headquarters Graphics Card Products gave an actual answer. Stating that the since NVIDIA's GPU core is handled by a TSMC in Taiwan and memory is handled by Samsung and Hynix in South Korea and the United States respectively, there is little chance of further graphics card price hikes. However CPU side prices may increase on the Intel side, however, AMD is expected to be unaffected.

In a recent live stream, MSI gave a sneak peek at their next generation of motherboards. The first one shown was a new red and black themed Gaming Plus model reminiscent of the early days in the MSI Gaming brand. It features a few quality of life improvements one of which is an enlarged PCIe latch making GPU removal a bit easier in cramped environments or when you happen to have a beefy air cooler. Keep out zones were also highlighted on the back of the motherboard giving users a visual cue to make sure other components, standoffs, screws etc do not come into contact with those particular regions. Furthermore, they also included an angled slot in the board's design for easier access to both the SATA ports and USB 3.0.

Fera 3 RGB HE1224 brings highly anticipated RGB illumination while still providing the ultimate blend of compact dimensions, high efficiency at an competitive price. In other words, the versatility that Fera users praised so much. Newly implemented illumination system lights up the fan and the top plate with stunning yet discreet colors and effects. Supporting all major motherboard RGB systems such as ASUS Aura as wells as manual control via the included Nano RGB controller, the Fera RGB is a ready-to-go RGB solution on a budget.

Based on a proven thermal platform, the Fera 3 RGB utilizes an asymmetrical heatsink design with four 6 mm high performance copper heatpipes with HE technology - direct contact with the CPU for fast and efficient heat dissipation. To ensure the cooler is as quiet as it is efficient, it was paired with the Sigma HP RGB 120 mm PWM-controlled fan. Optimized blade design significantly reduces noise while providing sufficient airflow at 1.600 RPM, allowing the cooler to work even with high TDP processors.

It's been a tumultuous few days for AMD, as the company has seen Jim Anderson, Computing and Graphics Group leader after the departure of Raja Koduri, leave the company, at a time of soaring share value for the company (hitting $25.26 and leaving short positions well, short, by $2.67 billion.) However, there's one particular piece of news that is most relevant for the company: Globalfoundries' announcement to stop all ongoing development on the 7 nm node.

This is particularly important for a variety of reasons. The most important one is this: Globalfoundries' inability to execute on the 7 nm node leaves AMD fully free to procure chips and technology from competing foundries. If you remember, AMD's spin-off of GlobalFoundries left the former with the short end of the stick, having to cater to GlobalFoundries' special pricing, and paying for the privilege of accessing other foundries' inventories. Of course, the Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) that is in place will have to be amended - again - but the fact is this: AMD wants 7 nm products, and GlobalFoundries can't provide.To the forumites: this piece is marked as an editorial

Denuvo's impact on gaming performance has been spoken of immensely - as always has been the case for any and all DRM solution that finds its way into games. However, evidence always seemed to be somewhat anecdotal on whether or not Denuvo really impacted performance - for a while, the inability to test games with Denuvo implemented and officially removed (which, unsurprisingly, isn't the same as it being cracked) was a grand stopgap to any sort of serious testing.

Now, courtesy of Overlord's YouTube channel, we can see whether or not Denuvo impacts performance. In a total of seven games tested on a platform with an Intel Core i7 2600K stock CPU (for adequate testing of whether Denuvo really impacts more the CPU than any other system component) paired with a stock clocked 1080 ti. You really should take a look at the video; it's a short, informative one, but the gist of is this: Some games revealed performance improvements with Denuvo being removed: Mass Effect: Andromeda saw a huge boost from an average of 57 FPS all the way to 64 FPS due to the removal of the DRM solution; and Mad Max saw a more meager 54 to 60 FPS increase. The other games (which included Hitman, Abzu, and others, didn't see any performance difference.

A storepage for AMD's upcoming 32-core, 64-thread monster of a CPU Threadripper 2990X popped up at Canadian hardware etailer CanadaComputers. The processor, listed for $2399 CAD, converts to some $1850 US dollars and doesn't stray too far from its earlier cameo over at German Cybersport.de.

The chip over at Canada Computers is being sold in a "in-store back order" template, so this pricing is likely close to the final mark - it does make sense that AMD would edge out its profits a little more on this behemoth of a CPU. Packaging seems to be a regurgitated, first-gen Threadripper box - it's unlikely AMD would simply keep the product packaging from first gen, especially since AMD themselves are branding these "Threadripper II". We still don't have confirmation on actual TDP - Cyberport listed some 180 W, CanadaComputers lists 250 W.

A new variant of the "Spectre" CPU vulnerability was discovered affecting Intel processors, by security researchers Vladimir Kiriansky and Carl Waldspurger, who are eligible to bag a USD $100,000 bounty by Intel, inviting researchers to sniff out vulnerabilities from its processors. This discovery, chronicled under CVE-2018-3693, is among 12 new CVEs Intel will publish later this week. The company is also expected to announce quarterly CPU microcode updates to allay fears of its enterprise customers.

The new vulnerability, like most other "Spectre" variants, targets the speculative execution engine of the processor, in a bounds-check bypass store attack. A malicious program already running on the affected machine can alter function pointers and return addresses in the speculative execution engine, thereby redirecting the flow of data out of protected memory address-spaces, making it visible to malware. This data could be anything, including cryptographic keys, passwords, and other sensitive information, according to "The Register." Intel chronicled this vulnerability in section 2.2.1 of its revised speculative execution side-channel attacks whitepaper. You can also catch a more detailed whitepaper from the researchers themselves.

One nifty new feature currently being deployed to Windows 10 Fast Ring users is the ability to see exactly how much power a given process is consuming in your system's hardware (CPU, GPU & Disk). The new feature, which appears as two additional Task Manager tabs, showcases the instantaneous power usage of a given process, but also features a trend calculator that covers a two-minute interval. This should be pretty handy, if the measurement process is close enough to the real power consumption. This could even be used as another flag for cryptomining malware or scripts in a given webpage. You can check the source for the additional updates that have been brought to build 17704 of the Windows Insider Program.

According to a report from WCCFTech, Intel is prepping the release of the Z390 chipset and is gearing up to bring their Core i9 branding series to the mainstream desktop platforms. Apparently, Intel's renaming scheme serves as a way to add the required "branding impact" to the fact that the i9 series of processors is finally hitting the mainstream - but don't be deluded. As we've previously covered, Intel's Z390 chipset may well become a rebrand of sorts from the current Z370 chipset, after Intel found insufficient capacity at its 14 nm node (which has to cope with the vast majority of Intel silicon production, following the smattering of delays hitting its 10 nm process). Basically, Intel's Z390 chipset will bring forward features that weren't built on the Z370 chipset at its inception, but have since become part of Intel's lineup (read, for example, its H370 chipset): Intel Wireless-AC 802.11 AC and Bluetooth 5.0; Intel Wireless-AC Adapter; and up to 6 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Ports.

According to WCCFTech, there's only confirmation of an 8-core, 16-thread CPU (Intel Core i9-9900K); a 6-core, 12-thread one (Intel Core i7-9700K) and a six-core, six-thread part (Intel Core i5-9600K ). No confirmation on an i3 part has been had yet, but it's very unlikely Intel has shelved that part of their lineup. A 4-core CPU is simply too important - from a yield perspective, mainly - for Intel to shelve it - and there's still enough demand for these, even with AMD's many-core democratization push.

Lead developer for OpenBSD Mark Kettenis has announced that OpenBSD will no longer enable Hyper-Threading on Intel processors by default. This move is intended to mitigate security exploits from the Spectre ecosystem as well as TLB and cache timing attacks, because important processor resources are no longer shared between threads. Their suspicion is that some of the unreleased (or yet unknown) attacks can be stopped using this approach.

This move is supported by the fact that most newer motherboards no longer provide an option to disable Hyper-Threading via BIOS. OpenBSD users who still want to use Hyper-Threading can manually enable support for it using the sysctl hw.smt. The developers are also looking into expanding this feature to other CPUs from other vendors, should they be affected, too.

Ahead of Computex 2018 CRYORIG announces new M.2 cooler Frostbit and RGB enhanced C7 RGB CPU Cooler. CRYORIG's Frostbit is not only the industry first aftermarket M.2 NVMe SSD cooler with dual heatpipes, it allows full adjustment of the Secondary Heatpipe and large volume Heatsink. The C7 RGB is based on CRYORIG's award winning ITX cooler C7, with a 12v RGB lighting enhanced 92 mm fan. Both products will be shown at CRYORIG's Computex booth at Nangang Exhibition Hall I0527.

What is the most recognized CPU water block shape on the market? Which is the most sold CPU water block on the market? That's right! The EK-Supremacy EVO! This is the moment when we pay respect to the most successful water block on the market up to this day. The EK-Supremacy Edge is a special Limited Edition package made to celebrate the success of the EK-Supremacy EVO CPU water block. It features a low polygon structure covering the front face of the block, symbolizing our never-ending pursuit to bring the best possible liquid cooling experience to our customers all around the world.

Only a 100 pieces are made of each model and color combination which makes these water blocks a rare collector's item! Each block is delivered in a custom designed box which just adds more flavor to the whole experience.

Cooler Master, a global leader in manufacturing CPU coolers, computer components and peripherals, introduces its first addressable RGB all-in-one (AIO) liquid CPU coolers. The MasterLiquid ML240R RGB and MasterLiquid ML120R RGB are certified compatible with ASUS, MSI and ASRock motherboards and feature addressable RGB LEDs on both the fans and water block.

16.7 Million Color Customizing with Software or Wired Controller
The MasterLiquid ML240R RGB and MasterLiquid ML120R RGB feature a newly designed pump with 12 addressable RGB LEDs on the water block and eight addressable RGB LEDs on each fan, capable of 16.7million color options. Users can easily customize each LED, individually, through the addressable RGB software from ASUS, MSI and ASRock motherboards, or with Cooler Master's upcoming MasterPlus+ software for complete ambient control.

The world's first waterblock designed for naked die cooling throws years of conventional wisdom out of the window. It features six unique patentable features including its "in-frame" mounting mechanism. The man behind NUDEcnc, Arek Tobiszewski has started this Kickstarter campaign in order to get a professional CNC machine, which will enable this inventor to deliver Ncore and other cool projects to the audience. He has been brave enough to send the Ncore for a review to Kyle Bennett from HardOcp; Linus tech tips; buildzoid, and Techlipton. Some of the reviews are already up, and are very promising.

Xilinx, Inc., the leader in adaptive and intelligent computing, today announced a new breakthrough product category called adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP) that goes far beyond the capabilities of an FPGA. An ACAP is a highly integrated multi-core heterogeneous compute platform that can be changed at the hardware level to adapt to the needs of a wide range of applications and workloads. An ACAP's adaptability, which can be done dynamically during operation, delivers levels of performance and performance per-watt that is unmatched by CPUs or GPUs.

An ACAP is ideally suited to accelerate a broad set of applications in the emerging era of big data and artificial intelligence. These include: video transcoding, database, data compression, search, AI inference, genomics, machine vision, computational storage and network acceleration. Software and hardware developers will be able to design ACAP-based products for end point, edge and cloud applications. The first ACAP product family, codenamed "Everest," will be developed in TSMC 7nm process technology and will tape out later this year.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe launches the 5th Generation of its legendary Ninja CPU Cooler Series. Scythe bundles the Ninja 5 with two Kaze Flex 120 PWM fans with the goal to offer a significantly more silent solution without compromising the high performance that users expect from the Ninja Series. This goal has been achieved by mounting the two fans using the Push/Push principle and setting the fan rotation limit to only 800 rpm. Outstanding RAM compatibility is assured even when used with LGA 2066 Mainboards with 8 RAM-Slots thanks to a new heatsink optimization. In addition to that, Ninja 5 is equipped with the third generation of the Hyper Precision Mounting System (H.P.M.S.) which further simplifies the installation procedure and supports all the major AMD and Intel sockets.

Welcome back to "Confessions of a Crypto Miner," my column about a crypto miner from 2013 trying to get caught up with the latest standards. I'm presently mining and reporting to you from a dual-GTX 1080 based rig mining zCash.Today we are going to take a look at mining again - using the CPU in particular. CPU mining is the original form of mining cryptocoins.

The Spectre/Meltdown road is long and pocked with lawsuits and security holes as it is, and Microsoft is one of the players that's trying to put the asphalt back to tip-top, Autobahn-worth shape. The company has already improved users' security to the Meltdown and Spectre exploits on its OS side; however, hardware patches, and specifically BIOS-editing ones are much harder to deploy and distribute by the PC chain. That may be one of the reasons why Microsoft is now again stepping up with software-based mitigations for Intel-based systems, specifically.

The new updates introduce a software-based CPU microcode revision update, and work at the OS-level to plug some security holes on your Intel processors that might otherwise remain unpatched. The reasons for them remaining unpatched can be many: either Intel taking even more time to deploy patches to the still vulnerable systems; your OEMs not deploying the Intel CPU microcode revisions via a BIOS update; or the good old "I forgot I could do it" user story. Of course, being software based means these Microsoft patches will have to be reapplied should users format their Windows system. The update can for now only be manually downloaded and installed, and can only be applied to version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) and Windows Server version 1709 (Server Core), but that's definitely better than the alternative of forcing less knowledgeable users to try and find their way through BIOS updates. Of course, that is assuming OEMs will ever push BIOS updates to their products.

The Alphacool XPX RGB frame is intended for users of the Eisblock XPX CPU cooler who are looking for the perfect lighting for their cooler. The RGB frame simply slides over the Eisblock XPX cooler and is then connected to the RGB controller. With an impressive 15 RGB LEDs evenly distributed over the XPX Eisblock CPU cooler, perfect lighting is guaranteed. The RGB controller lets you change not only the colors, but also add color effects like gradients, blinking, slow color changes, and much more. Many controllers also include a dimmer function. The Alphacool XPX RGB frame leaves nothing to be desired.