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Apple M2 Processor is Reportedly in Mass Production

Apple's M1 processors are a big success. When Apple introduced the M1 processors in the MacBook lineup, everyone was impressed by the processor performance and the power efficiency it offered. Just a few days ago, Apple updated its Mac lineup to feature these M1 processors and made it obvious that custom silicon is the way to go in the future. Today, we have information coming from Nikkei Asia, that Apple's next-generation M2 chip has entered mass production and that it could be on the way for as early as July when Apple will reportedly refresh its products. The M2 chip is made inside TSMC's facilities on a 5 nm+ N5P node. While there is no more information coming from the report about the SoC, we can expect it to be a good generational improvement.

AMD 4700S Processor Could be Repurposed Xbox Series X/S APU

The AMD 4700S is a new processor being advertised by Chinese manufactures as a complete ITX compatible solution. The processor is soldered to a custom "Cardinal" motherboard produced by AMD which lacks memory slots and instead features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory located around the processor. These specifications seem to closely reflect those of the Xbox Series X APU. The 4700S is an 8-core 16-thread 7 nm Zen 2 CPU with 12 MB cache and a boost clock of 4.0 GHz which is actually higher than that of the Xbox Series X/S at 3.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz respectively. This higher boost clock is likely due to the exclusion of an integrated GPU which increases the power available for the processor.

The seller also provided benchmarks for the processor in various Cinebench configurations where it outperformed the Intel Core i7-9700 and performed just below the AMD Ryzen 7 4750G. The processor paired with an RX 550 GPU also outperformed the Intel Core i7-9750H paired with an RTX 2060 and 32 GB memory in Cinebench and x264/x265 video encoding. The seller has a picture of the Xbox Series X APU in their advertising material for the new processor lending weight to the theory that these are reused processors which failed qualification.

Intel's Upcoming Sapphire Rapids Server Processors to Feature up to 56 Cores with HBM Memory

Intel has just launched its Ice Lake-SP lineup of Xeon Scalable processors, featuring the new Sunny Cove CPU core design. Built on the 10 nm node, these processors represent Intel's first 10 nm shipping product designed for enterprise. However, there is another 10 nm product going to be released for enterprise users. Intel is already preparing the Sapphire Rapids generation of Xeon processors and today we get to see more details about it. Thanks to the anonymous tip that VideoCardz received, we have a bit more details like core count, memory configurations, and connectivity options. And Sapphire Rapids is shaping up to be a very competitive platform. Do note that the slide is a bit older, however, it contains useful information.

The lineup will top at 56 cores with 112 threads, where this processor will carry a TDP of 350 Watts, notably higher than its predecessors. Perhaps one of the most interesting notes from the slide is the department of memory. The new platform will make a debut of DDR5 standard and bring higher capacities with higher speeds. Along with the new protocol, the chiplet design of Sapphire Rapids will bring HBM2E memory to CPUs, with up to 64 GBs of it per socket/processor. The PCIe 5.0 standard will also be present with 80 lanes, accompanying four Intel UPI 2.0 links. Intel is also supposed to extend the x86_64 configuration here with AMX/TMUL extensions for better INT8 and BFloat16 processing.

Qualcomm Extends the Leadership of its 7-Series with the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the latest addition to its 7-series portfolio, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform. Snapdragon 780G is designed to deliver powerful AI performance and brilliant camera capture backed by the Qualcomm Spectra 570 triple ISP and 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine, allowing users to capture, enhance, and share their favorite moments seamlessly. This platform enables a selection of premium-tier features for the first time in the 7-series, making next generation experiences more broadly accessible.

"Since introducing the Snapdragon 7-series three years ago, more than 350 devices have launched based on 7-series mobile platforms. Today, we are continuing this momentum by introducing the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform," said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "Snapdragon 780G was designed to bring in-demand, premium experiences to more users around the world."

HPE Lists 40-Core Intel Ice Lake-SP Xeon Server Processor

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the company focused on making enterprise hardware and software, has today mistakenly listed some of Intel's upcoming 3rd generation Xeon Scalable processors. Called Ice Lake-SP, the latest server processor generation is expected to launch sometime in the coming days, with a possible launch date being the March 23rd "Intel Unleashed" webcast. The next generation of processors will finally bring a new vector of technologies Intel needs in server space. That means the support for PCIe 4.0 protocol for higher speed I/O and octa-channel DDR4 memory controller for much greater bandwidth. The CPU lineup will for the first time use Intel's advanced 10 nm node called 10 nm SuperFin.

Today, in the leaked HPE listing, we get to see some of the Xeon models Intel plans to launch. Starting from 32-core models, all the way to 40-core models, all SKUs above 28 cores are supposed to use dual die configuration to achieve high core counts. The limit of a single die is 28 cores. HPE listed a few models, with the highest-end one being the Intel Xeon Platinum XCC 8380 processor. It features 40 cores with 80 threads and a running frequency of 2.3 GHz. If you are wondering about TDP, it looks like the 10 nm SuperFin process is giving good results, as the CPU is rated only for 270 Watts of power.

Intel Launches 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake": Unmatched Overclocking and Gaming Performance

The 11th Gen Intel Core S-series desktop processors (code-named "Rocket Lake-S") launched worldwide today, led by the flagship Intel Core i9-11900K. Reaching speeds of up to 5.30 GHz with Intel Thermal Velocity Boost, the Intel Core i9-11900K delivers even more performance to gamers and PC enthusiasts.

Engineered on the new Cypress Cove architecture, 11th Gen Intel Core S-series desktop processors are designed to transform hardware and software efficiency and increase raw gaming performance​. The new architecture brings up to 19% gen-over-gen instructions per cycle (IPC) improvement for the highest frequency cores and adds Intel UHD graphics featuring the Intel Xe graphics architecture for rich media and intelligent graphics capabilities. That matters because games and most applications continue to depend on high-frequency cores to drive high frame rates and low latency.

TYAN Now Offers AMD EPYC 7003 Processor Powered Systems

TYAN, an industry-leading server platform design manufacturer and a MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation subsidiary, today introduced AMD EPYC 7003 Series Processor-based server platforms featuring efficiency and performance enhancements in hardware, security, and memory density for the modern data center.

"Big data has become capital today. Large amounts of data and faster answers drive better decisions. TYAN's industry-leading server platforms powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors enable businesses to make more accurate decisions with higher precision," said Danny Hsu, Vice President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation's Server Infrastructure BU. "Moving the bar once more for workload performance, EPYC 7003 Series processors provide the performance needed in the heart of the enterprise to help IT professionals drive faster time to results," said Ram Peddibhotla, corporate vice president, EPYC product management, AMD. "Time is the new metric for efficiency and EPYC 7003 Series processors are the perfect choice for the most diverse workloads, helping provide more and better data to drive better business outcomes."

BIOSTAR Z490 Motherboards Support the Latest Intel 11th Generation Rocket Lake Processors

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces that their Z490 series motherboards are ready to support the latest Intel 11th gen Rocket Lake processors.

In anticipation of the imminent launch of Intel's 11th gen processors, BIOSTAR has wasted no time in preparing their products to support the new chips. The Z490 series motherboards, which consists of 5 models (RACING Z490GTA EVO, RACING Z490GTA, RACING Z490GTN, Z490A-SILVER and Z490T-SILVER) have received optimized BIOS updates (ME 14.1) to support the 11th gen Intel processors and can be easily updated just by downloading and installing the new BIOS patch from the official product page.

AMD Overtakes Intel in Puget Systems Processor Sales

Historically, system builders have been very good indicators of the market situation and demand for the latest processors available. Today, we have the report coming from Puget Systems, a system builder making PCs and laptops for any task needed. Having been present in the PC building business for 21 years, the company was able to notice some trends and look at the market like no one else could, simply by analyzing its orders. Today, we have the report that showcases just how much the CPU market has fluctuated and how dominant forces have shifted. The two main players, AMD and Intel, have been present for lots of years and we now get to see the latest trends in the consumer marketplace.

Back in 2015, Puget Systems quietly dropped AMD processors from their offerings, amid the very low demand the company saw for them. The sales of AMD processors accounted for a single-digit percentage of all of the total sales, and no one was interested in such systems. With the introduction of the Ryzen generation, Puget Systems re-introduced AMD processors back in their offerings. As the company analyzes its processor sales, it has concluded that, currently, AMD processors account for over 50% of the total CPU sales. That is quite a comeback for AMD, as the latest generation Ryzen 5000 series processors have taken the performance crown, and consumer demand is showing the need for new high-performance processors. You can take a look at the graph representing processor sales in the last five years below.

AMD to Launch 3rd Gen EPYC Processors on March 15

AMD today announced that its 3rd generation EPYC enterprise processors will launch on March 15, 2021. Codenamed "Milan," these processors are expected to leverage the company's latest "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture to significantly increase IPC (single-threaded performance), and retain compatibility with the the SP3 socket. AMD set up a micro-site where it will stream the 3rd Gen EPYC processor launch event on March 15, at 11 ET (16:00 UTC). "Milan" is rumored to be AMD's final processor architecture on this socket, before transitioning to SP5 and the next-gen processor codenamed "Genoa," sometime in 2022. "Genoa" marks a switch to next-gen I/O such as DDR5 memory and PCIe gen 5.0, along with an increase in CPU core counts.

AMD is Preparing RDNA-Based Cryptomining GPU SKUs

Back in February, NVIDIA has announced its GPU SKUs dedicated to the cryptocurrency mining task, without any graphics outputs present on the chips. Today, we are getting information that AMD is rumored to introduce its own lineup of graphics cards dedicated to cryptocurrency mining. In the latest patch for AMD Direct Rendering Manager (DRM), a subsystem of the Linux kernel responsible for interfacing with GPUs, we see the appearance of the Navi 12. This GPU SKU was not used for anything except Apple's Mac devices in a form of Radeon Pro 5600M GPU. However, it seems like the Navi 12 could join forces with Navi 10 GPU SKU and become a part of special "blockchain" GPUs.

Way back in November, popular hardware leaker, KOMACHI, has noted that AMD is preparing three additional Radeon SKUs called Radeon RX 5700XTB, RX 5700B, and RX 5500XTB. The "B" added to the end of each name is denoting the blockchain revision, made specifically for crypto-mining. When it comes to specifications of the upcoming mining-specific AMD GPUs, we know that both use first-generation RDNA architecture and have 2560 Stream Processors (40 Compute Units). Memory configuration for these cards remains unknown, as AMD surely won't be putting HBM2 stacks for mining like it did with Navi 12 GPU. All that remains is to wait and see what AMD announces in the coming months.

Intel Kills Extended Warranty Program for Overclocking

Some time ago, Intel has introduced the Performance Tuning Protection Plan (PTPP), which was used as a warranty for any damage that has occurred during overclocking. Customers of PTPP, mainly buyers of Intel Core processors having a "K" tag were able to get a replacement processor whenever they damaged their CPU by overclocking it. When it comes to the pricing of such a service, typical plans were spanning from $19.99 to $29.99, depending on the processor you had. However, there will no longer be such a program, as Intel is discontinuing its PTPP extended overclocking warranty. The company has updated its site to refer to End-Of-Life (EOL) page displaying a quote below.

Apple M1 Processor Manages to Mine Ethereum

Ethereum mining has been a crazy ride over the years. In recent times, it has become very popular due to a huge surge in Ethereum prices, following those of the main coin currently present on the market - Bitcoin. However, Ethereum miners use a customized PC stocked with many graphics cards to mine the Ethereum coin. Any other alternative is not viable and graphics cards have a high hash rate of the KECCAK-256 hashing algorithm. But have you ever wondered could you mine Ethereum on your shiny new Apple M1-equipped Mac? Our guess is no, however, there are still some people making experiments with the new Apple M1 processor and testing its capabilities.

Software engineer Yifan Gu, working for Zensors, has found a way to use Apple's M1 GPU to mine Ethereum. Mr. Gu has ported Ethminer utility to Apple's macOS for Apple Silicon and has managed to get GPU mining the coins. While technically it was possible, the results were rather poor. The integrated GPU has managed to get only 2 MH/s of mining power, which is rather low compared to alternatives (desktop GPUs). Being possible doesn't mean it is a good idea. The software will consume all of the GPU power and it will limit your work with the GPU, so it isn't exactly a profitable solution.

Intel Alder Lake Processor Tested, Big Cores Ramp Up to 3 GHz

Intel "Alder Lake" is the first processor generation coming from the company to feature the hybrid big.LITTLE type core arrangement and we are wondering how the configurations look like and just how powerful the next-generation processors are going to be. Today, a Geekbench submission has appeared that gave us a little more information about one out of twelve Alder Lake-S configurations. This time, we are getting an 8-core, 16-threaded design with all big cores and no smaller cores present. Such design with no little cores in place is exclusive to the Alder Lake-S desktop platform, and will not come to the Alder Lake-P processors designed for mobile platforms.

Based on the socket LGA1700, the processor was spotted running all of its eight cores at 2.99 GHz frequency. Please note that this is only an engineering sample and the clock speeds of the final product should be higher. It was paired with the latest DDR5 memory and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. The OpenCL score this CPU ran has shown that it has provided the GPU with more than enough performance. Typically, the RTX 2080 GPU scores about 106101 points in Geekbench OpenCL tests. Paired with the Alder Lake-S CPU, the GPU has managed to score as much as 108068 points, showing the power of the new generation of cores. While there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the Alder Lake-S series, we have come to know that the big cores used are supposed to be very powerful.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Goes Beyond Driver Version, Could Expand to More SKUs

Yesterday NVIDIA announced the company's first Crypto Mining Processor (CPM) that serves the purpose of having a dedicated processor only for mining with no video outputs. Alongside the new processors, the company has also announced that in the next driver update the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU will get Etherium mining performance halved, limiting the use of this GPU SKU by miners. However, up until now, we have thought that NVIDIA is limiting the mining performance of this card by simply having a driver detect if crypto mining algorithms are in place and limit the performance. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver.

According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." This means that essentially, NVIDIA can find any way to cripple the mining hash rate even if you didn't update your driver version. At the same time, according to Kopite7Kimi, we are possibly expecting to see NVIDIA relaunch its existing SKUs under a different ID, which would feature a built-in anti-crypto mining algorithm. What the company does remains to be seen.

Alleged Apple M1X Processor Specifications Leaked Again

Apple impressed everyone with the launch of their M1 processor last year and it would appear they are preparing to do it again with an upgraded version named the M1X for the 2021 Mac lineup. The Apple M1X will reportedly include an upgraded 12-core CPU consisting of eight Firestorm performance cores and four Icestorm power-efficiency cores compared to the 8-core 4+4 configuration of the M1. The M1X GPU is rumored to include an even greater upgrade with 16 cores and 256 execution units which is exactly double then found on the M1 CPU. The chip will also include an increased TDP of 35 W - 45 W and will double the maximum RAM configuration to 32 GB. This information is not official so take it with a heavy dose of skepticism, the Apple M1X is expected to be announced by Apple in the coming months and will likely power the 2021 MacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16, and 27" iMac.

Intel Core i9-11900T "Rocket Lake" Processor Allegedly Catches Up with Zen 3 in Single-Threaded Performance

When AMD announced its Ryzen 5000 series of processors based on the new Zen 3 architecture, the performance of these processors was the best on the market. Even in our own testing, we have found that AMD's Zen 3 core is the highest performing core on the market, even beating Intel's latest and greatest, the 10th generation of Core processors. However, Intel has been doing some silent work and the company has developed a new core to be used in the 11th generation "Rocket Lake" platform. Codenamed Cypress Cove, the design is representing a backport of the 10 nm Sunny Cove design, supposed to bring around 19% IPC improvement across the board.

If you were wondering if that was enough to catch up with AMD's Zen 3 IPC performance, look no further because we have Geekbench 5 performance results of Intel's 35 Watt Core i9-11900T processor. Having a base frequency of only 1.51 GHz, the CPU is capable of boosting one or two cores to the very high speed of 4.9 GHz, giving us a good example of the single-threaded performance we can expect from this CPU. In GB5 tests, the Core i9-11900T has managed to score 1717 points in the single-threaded test and 8349 points in multi-threaded results. Comparing that to something like AMD Ryzen 5800X, which scores 1674 points in single-threaded results, Rocket Lake's Cypress Cove core has managed to be 2.5% faster than Zen 3. However, in multi-threaded results, the AMD chip is unmatched as the low TDP of the Intel processor is stopping it from reaching full performance.

AMD Announces Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors, Additional Ryzen Desktop Models, and Ryzen Threadripper PRO Availability for Consumers

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the full portfolio of AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors, bringing the highly-efficient and extremely powerful "Zen 3" core architecture to the laptop market. New AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors provide unprecedented levels of performance and incredible battery life for gamers, creators, and professionals. New laptops powered by Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile processors will be available from major PC manufacturers including ASUS, HP and Lenovo, starting in Q1 2021. Expanding its leadership client computing product portfolio featuring the "Zen 3" core, AMD also announced the AMD Ryzen PRO 5000 Series Mobile Processors, delivering enterprise-grade security and seamless manageability to commercial users. Throughout the course of 2021, AMD expects a broad portfolio of more than 150 consumer and commercial notebooks based on the Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors.

"As the PC becomes an even more essential part of how we work, play and connect, users demand more performance, security and connectivity," said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, Client business unit, AMD. "The new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop and Mobile Processors bring the best innovation AMD has to offer to consumers and professionals as we continue our commitment to delivering best-in-class experiences with instant responsiveness, incredible battery life and fantastic designs. With our PC partners, we are delivering top-quality performance and no-compromise solutions alongside our record-breaking growth in the notebook and desktop space in the previous year."

AMD 32-Core EPYC "Milan" Zen 3 CPU Fights Dual Xeon 28-Core Processors

AMD is expected to announce its upcoming EPYC lineup of processors for server applications based on the new Zen 3 architecture. Codenamed "Milan", AMD is continuing the use of Italian cities as codenames for its processors. Being based on the new Zen 3 core, Milan is expected to bring big improvements over the existing EPYC "Rome" design. Bringing a refined 7 nm+ process, the new EPYC Milan CPUs are going to feature better frequencies, which are getting paired with high core counts. If you are wondering how Zen 3 would look like in server configuration, look no further because we have the upcoming AMD EPYC 7543 32-core processor benchmarked in Geekbench 4 benchmark.

The new EPYC 7543 CPU is a 32 core, 64 thread design with a base clock of 2.8 GHz, and a boost frequency of 3.7 GHz. The caches on this CPU are big, and there is a total of 2048 KB (32 times 32 KB for instruction cache and 32 times 32 KB for data cache) of L1 cache, 16 MB of L2 cache, and as much as 256 MB of L3. In the GB4 test, a single-core test produced 6065 points, while the multi-core run resulted in 111379 points. If you are wondering how that fairs against something like top-end Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 Cascade Lake 28-core CPU, the new EPYC Milan 7543 CPU is capable of fighting two of them at the same time. In a single-core test, the Intel Xeon configuration scores 5048 points, showing that the new Milan CPU has 20% higher single-core performance, while the multi-core score of the dual Xeon setup is 117171 points, which is 5% faster than AMD CPU. The reason for the higher multi-core score is the sheer number of cores that a dual-CPU configuration offers (32 cores vs 56 cores).

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Series "Genesis Peak" Processor Lineup Could Begin with a 16-Core Model

AMD is set to introduce its next-generation of Ryzen Threadripper processors in the coming weeks, and rumors are suggesting that it may happen at this year's CES. The new Ryzen Threadripper platform is codenamed Genesis Peak. If we take a look at the current 3000 series "Castle Peak" Threadripper processors, they were launched on CES 2020, with availability in February. So we are assuming that the upcoming 5000 "Genesis Peak" series is going to launch at the virtual CES event, during AMD's show. Thanks to the information from Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy, we found out that AMD is going to start the next-generation Threadripper lineup with a 16 core processor. "1usmus" posted a riddle on Twitter, that is actually a hex code that translates to "GENESIS 16 CORES".

The current generation of Threadripper Castle Peak processors is starting at 24 cores, and going up to 64-core models, so it would be interesting to see where AMD sees the 16-core model in the stack and why it chose to do it. The exact specifications of this processor are unknown, so we have to wait for the announcement event. It is also unknown if the existing TRX40 motherboard will offer support for Zen 3 based Genesis Peak 5000 series Threadripper processors or will AMD introduce a new platform for it.

EU Signs Declaration for 2 nm Node and Custom Processor Development

European Union has today processed a declaration that was signed by 17 member states about the development of a 2 nm semiconductor node and an advanced low-power processor. The declaration signed today proposes that the EU puts away 145 billion Euros for the development of the technologies needed to manufacture a 2 nm semiconductor manufacturing process, along with the development of a custom, low-power embedded processor designed for industrial applications. The 17 member countries include Belgium, France, Germany, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, Greece, Malta, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Finland, and Cyprus. All of the countries listed are going to join the development of these technologies and will have the funds to do it over the next 2-3 years.
EU DeclarationTo ensure Europe's technology sovereignty and competitiveness, as well as our capacity to address key environmental and societal challenges and new emerging mass markets, we need to strengthen Europe's capacity to develop the next generation of processors and semiconductors. This includes chips and embedded systems that offer the best performance for specific applications across a wide range of sectors as well as leading-edge manufacturing progressively advancing towards 2 nm nodes for processor technology. Using connectivity, where Europe enjoys global lead, as a major use case driver for developing such capacity enables Europe to set the right level of ambition. This will require a collective effort to pool investment and to coordinate actions, by both public and private stakeholders.

Tachyum Prodigy Software Emulation Systems Now Available for Pre-Order

Tachyum Inc. today announced that it is signing early adopter customers for the software emulation system for its Prodigy Universal Processor, customers may begin the process of native software development (i.e. using Prodigy Instruction Set Architecture) and porting applications to run on Prodigy. Prodigy software emulation systems will be available at the end of January 2021.

Customers and partners can use Prodigy's software emulation for evaluation, development and debug, and with it, they can begin to transition existing applications that demand high performance and low power to run optimally on Prodigy processors. Pre-built systems include a Prodigy emulator, native Linux, toolchains, compilers, user mode applications, x86, ARM and RISC-V emulators. Software updates will be issued as needed.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600H "Cezanne" Processor Benchmarked, Crushes Renoir in Single Core and Multi Core Performance

With the launch of AMD's next-generation mobile processors just around the corner, with an expected launch date in the beginning of 2021 at the CES virtual event. The Cezanne lineup, as it is called, is based on AMD's latest Zen 3 core, which brings many IPC improvements, along with better frequency scaling thanks to the refined architecture design. Today, we get to see just how much the new Cezanne generation brings to the table thanks to the GeekBench 5 submission. In the test system, a Ryzen 5 5600H mobile processor was used, found inside of a Xiaomi Mi Notebook, paired with 16 GB of RAM.

As a reminder, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H is a six-core, twelve threaded processor. So you are wondering how the performance looks like. Well, in the single-core test, the Zen 3 enabled core has scored 1372 points, while the multi-threaded performance result equaled 5713 points. If we compare that to the last generation Zen 2 based "Renoir" design, the equivalent Ryzen 5 4600H processor, the new design is about 37% faster in single-threaded, and about 14% faster in multi-threaded workloads. We are waiting for the announcement to see the complete AMD Cezanne lineup and see the designs it will bring.

Microsoft is Engineering Custom Processors for Servers and Surface PCs

Designing a custom processor can be a rewarding thing. You can control your ecosystem surrounding it and get massive rewards in terms of application-specific performance uplift, or lower total cost of ownership. It seems like cloud providers have figured out that at their scale, designing a custom processor can get all of the above with the right amount of effort put into it. If you remember, in 2018, Amazon has announced its Graviton processor based on Arm instruction set architecture. Today, the company has almost 10% of its AWS instances based on the Graviton 1 or 2 processors, which is a massive win for a custom design.

Following Amazon's example, the next company to join the custom server processor race is going to be Microsoft. The Redmond based giant is looking to build a custom lineup of processors that are meant to satisfy Microsoft's most demanding sector - server space. The company's Azure arm is an important part where it has big and increasing revenue. By building a custom processor, it could satisfy the market needs better while delivering higher value. The sources of Bloomberg say that Microsoft is planning to use Arm ISA, and start building independence from the x86 vendors like Intel and AMD. Just like we saw with AWS, the industry cloud giants are starting to get silicon-independent and with their scale, they can drive the ecosystem surrounding the new processors forward rapidly. The sources are also speculating that the company is building custom processors for Surface PCs, and with Windows-on-Arm (WoA) project, Microsoft has laid the groundwork in that field as well.

AMD Readies Ryzen 9 5900 and Ryzen 7 5800 Processors for OEMs

With the launch of the Ryzen 5000 series of processors, AMD has set a goal to put its Zen 3 cores everywhere. Starting from desktop, mobile, and soon server space, AMD is delivering its best products. However, AMD is also preparing to satisfy another segment. The OEMs are in need of processors that are specifically designed for their purposes and their clients, that don't require as many features as the desktop segment does. Usually, that means some overclocking capability is cut off. Today, thanks to the two hardware leakers Patrick Schur and Momomo_US we get to see the first sightings of AMD's upcoming Zen 3 offerings for OEMs.

The first in the lineup is the Ryzen 9 5900 processor. It features 12 cores with 24 threads, running at unknown frequencies for now. All we know is that the CPU is a bit lower-clocked than its 105 W "X" Ryzen 9 5900X variant. Unlike the "X" variant, this CPU is supposed to bring TDP down to 65 Watts. Another differentiator is the cache configuration. The Ryzen 9 5900 features 64 MB of L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache. The "X" version for desktops features 64 MB of L3, however, there is 6 MB of L2 cache present there. Next up comes the smaller eight-core variant - Ryzen 7 5800. Featuring 8 cores and 16 threads running at an also unknown frequency. The chip features a TDP of 65 Watts and cache configuration with 32 MB of L3 cache and 4 MB of L2, with the only difference from the Ryzen 7 5800X being the lower frequency.
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