Ahead of its launch later this month, notebook OEMs are beginning to tease their upcoming gaming notebooks powered by 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" mobile processors that come in core counts of up to 8. ASUS will be hosting a media event tomorrow (May 11) launching its first "Tiger Lake-H" notebooks, which probably follows Intel's own public unveiling of the new processors. The teaser video to the ASUS event reveals at least two notebooks under the company's ROG Zephyrus brand, the Zephyrus S17, and the Zephyrus M16.

The M16 looks to be the more compact of the two, with styling characteristic of past generations of ROG Zephyrus notebooks. The lid-mounted LEDs now come in color. while the S17 is a whole different beast. The teasers reveal an elevated keyboard+touchscreen on the lower half of the clamshell. The gap between this elevation and the base probably opens up additional vents to cool the processor and GPU underneath. This could be the notebook from ASUS's lineup that uses the 65-Watt Core i9-11980HK, the 8-core/16-thread beast that can tick at speeds of 5.00 GHz.

Intel has quietly let out details of its latest-generation Xeon W series workstation processors based on the 14 nm "Rocket Lake" silicon. These chips are built in the same Socket LGA1200 package as the 11th Gen Core desktop processors, but compatible with the W580 chipset. The lineup includes two 6-core/12-thread; and five 8-core/16-thread parts. Leading the pack is the Xeon W-1390P, with clock speeds of up to 5.30 GHz, followed by the W-1390, at 5.20 GHz. These two SKUs feature Thermal Velocity Boost, and are analogous with the 11th Gen Core i9 series.

Next up, are the Xeon W-1370P and W-1370, clocked at speeds of up to 5.20 GHz, and 5.10 GHz respectively, These parts lack Thermal Velocity Boost, and are comparable in many ways to the 11th Gen Core i7 SKUs. The slowest of these 8-core parts is the energy-efficient W-1390T, ticking at nominal clocks of just 1.50 GHz, with 4.90 GHz maximum boost, but a TDP of just 35 W. Among the other SKUs, the "P" SKUs have rated TDP of 125 W, while the non-P ones have 80 W. The 6-core/12-thread SKUs include the W-1350P and W-1350, clocked up to 5.10 GHz and 5.00 GHz, respectively. All Xeon W processors support up to 128 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory with ECC support.

Yesterday, we got information that Intel's upcoming DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner". That means that we are inching closer to the launch of Intel's discrete GPU offerings, and we are going to get another major player in the current GPU market duopoly. Today, however, we are in luck because Igor from Igor's LAB has managed to get ahold of the specifications of Intel's Xe-HPG DG2 graphics card. For starters, it is important to note that DG2 GPU will first come to laptops later this year. More precisely, laptops powered by Alder Lake-P processors will get paired with DG2 discrete GPU in the second half of 2021. The CPU and GPU will connect using the PCIe 4.0 x12 link as shown in the diagram below, where the GPU is paired with the Tiger Lake-H processor. The GPU has its subsystem that handles the IO as well.

As AI technology becomes ubiquitous, the impact of unusual weather also gains more attention. The most impressive case was the sudden weather change in Denver, the US, last September that the temperature dropped from 37°C to minus overnight. Faced with such fluctuation, the devices which maintained the daily life of the city in order, like the facilities for traffic flow analysis, surveillance, and AI visual analytics, could no longer operate normally, or even damaged, due to the lack of endurance to the extreme weathers.

Inspired by the situation, DFI brought an innovative design into the newly-released CS551, the "World's First 3.5" desktop SBC with auto heat-up". This breakthrough gives devices high performance with smaller footprint for image analysis or heavy workloads, no matter at subzero temperatures or under heat waves.

A senior game developer relations engineer at Intel, Pete Brubaker, Tweeted late Wednesday that the company's DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner," and that "it's about to get exciting." Brubaker's Tweet comes as the company is looking to recruit more engineers to work with its developer relations, the team that interfaces with game devs to optimize their engines and games for Intel's graphics architectures.

While the DG1, which was productized as the Iris Xe MAX graphics card, was essentially an iGPU-on-a-stick, the DG2 should spark a lot more interest. Based on a third-party foundry process, the DG2 is the first client graphics product based on the Xe HPG (high performance gaming) graphics architecture, and allegedly crams up to 512 execution units or 4,096 unified shaders—a 4.3x gain over the Iris Xe MAX. It's also rumored to ship with up to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. Whether it features DirectX 12 Ultimate features or not, remains to be seen, but it's becoming clear that Intel wants a crack at the high-volume e-sports market, with a product that's fast enough for competitive e-sports gaming, and capable of AAA.

Today, Lenovo in partnership with Intel has announced that Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) is building a supercomputer powered by Intel's next-generation technologies. Specifically, the supercomputer will use Intel's Sapphire Rapids CPUs in combination with the highly-teased Ponte Vecchio GPUs to power the applications running at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre. Along with the various processors, the LRZ will also deploy Intel Optane persistent memory to process the huge amount of data the LRZ has and is producing. The integration of HPC and AI processing will be enabled by the expansion of LRZ's current supercomputer called SuperMUG-NG, which will receive an upgrade in 2022, which will feature both Sapphire Rapids and Ponte Vecchio.

Mr. Raja Koduri, Intel graphics guru, has on Twitter teased that this supercomputer installment will represent a combination of Sapphire Rapids, Ponte Vecchio, Optane, and One API all in one machine. The system will use over one petabyte of Distributed Asynchronous Object Storage (DAOS) based on the Optane technologies. Then, Mr. Koduri has teased some Ponte Vecchio eye candy, which is a GIF of tiles combining to form a GPU, which you can check out here. You can also see some pictures of Ponte Vecchio below.

IBASE Technology Inc. (TPEx: 8050), IBASE, a leading provider of industrial motherboards and embedded systems, launches its latest 3.5" SBC IB953 powered by 11th Gen Intel Core processors (codenamed Tiger Lake). Measuring 146 x 102 mm in a compact footprint, the single board computer offers impressive I/O and computing performance, making it an ideal platform for a broad range of demanding applications in factory automation, machine vision, healthcare, as well as retail environments.

The IB953 features a 5G compatible M.2 3052 socket and the latest 11th Gen. Intel Core and Celeron processors built on 10 nm SuperFin process, delivering up to 25% faster performance and greater AI acceleration. With the Intel Core i7-1185G7 (IBASE model IB953AF-I7) comes the new Iris Xe (Xe-LP) graphics architecture supporting 96 EUs (Execution Units) which equals 768 cores and runs at 1.35 GHz, an increase of 250 MHz over the previous 11-gen graphics to provide up to twice the performance and improved power efficiency. The graphics engine's hardware acceleration can drive up to four simultaneous 4K HDR displays (via 2x DisplayPort + eDP and LVDS).

Intel's fabled 8-core "Tiger Lake-H" silicon built on the 10 nm SuperFin process, is close to reality. The company's upcoming 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" processors for performance- and gaming notebooks, leverages this die. An HD Tecnologia report leaks alleged company slides from Intel that detail the processor line up and feature-set. To begin with, the 11th Gen Core-H series processors come in core-counts ranging from 4-core/8-thread, to 6-core/12-thread, and 8-core/16-thread. Look at the embargo date on the leaked slides, one could expect a formal launch as close as May 11, 2021.

The 10 nm SuperFin "Tiger Lake-H" silicon features 8 "Willow Cove" CPU cores, and an updated iGPU based on the company's latest Gen12 Xe LP graphics architecture. Each of the eight CPU cores has 1.25 MB of L2 cache, and they share a massive 24 MB of L3 cache. The Gen12 Xe LP iGPU only has 32 execution units (EUs), according to the slides, 1/3rd those of the 96 EUs on the "Tiger Lake-U." The uncore component is also updated, now featuring dual-channel DDR4-3200 native support, and a 28-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root-complex. 16 of these lanes are wired out as PEG (PCI-Express Graphics), four as a CPU-attached NVMe slot, and eight toward the 8-lane DMI 3.0 chipset bus.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake generation of processors is going to be the first iteration of heterogeneous x86 architecture. That means that Intel will for the first time combine smaller, low-power cores, with some big high-performance cores to provide the boost to all the workloads. If a task doesn't need much power, as some background task, for example, the smaller cores are used. And if you need to render something or you want to fire up a game, big cores are used to provide the power needed for the tasks. Intel has decided to provide such an architecture on the advanced 10 nm SuperFin, which represents a major upgrade over the existing 14 nm process.

Today, we got some information from Igor's Lab, showing the leaked specification of the Intel Core-1800 processor engineering sample. While this may not represent the final name, we see that the leaked information shows that the processor is B0 stepping. That means that the CPU will see more changes when the final sample arrives. The CPU has 16 cores with 24 threads. Eight of those cores are big ones with hyperthreading, while the remaining 8 are smaller Atom cores. They are running at the base clock of 1800 MHz, while the boost speeds are 4.6 GHz with two cores, 4.4 GHz with four cores, and 4.2 GHz with 6 cores. When all cores are used, the boost speed is locked at 4.0 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 125 Watts, while the PL2 configuration boosts the TDP to 228 Watts. The CPU was reportedly running at 1.3147 Volts during the test. You can check out the complete datasheet below.

Intel is giving finishing touches to the NUC 11 Essential, its next-generation entry-level NUC desktops powered by Pentium Silver and Celeron SoCs based on the 10 nm "Jasper Lake" silicon. Among the SoC options are the Pentium Silver J6005, packing a 4-core/4-thread CPU based on the "Tremont" microarchitecture, a Gen11 iGPU with 32 execution units, and a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface. The Celeron J5105 is the next best option, with slightly lower clock speeds, and the Celeron J4505, a 2-core/2-thread part.

The NUC 11 Essential comes with two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2933 memory. The Gen11 iGPU is leveraged to put out an HDMI 2.0b port, and a DisplayPort 1.4, both of which support 4K displays up to 60 Hz. Connectivity includes 802.11ax + Bluetooth 4.2 with audio offload; 1 GbE wired LAN, four 5 Gbps USB 3.1 type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports.A 65-Watt power brick is included. It measures 135 mm x 115 mm x 36 mm.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today presented two gaming systems of Intel Z590 platform with AORUS MODEL X and mini system AORUS MODEL S, which adopt the top-notch components and materials for extreme performance. Enhanced by the strict verification and leading technology, GIGABYTE provides the PC system of premium performance with optimized heat dissipation and acoustic control. The system maintains cool and quiet even under the overclocking, which balance the high performance and low temperature to keep the system acoustic under 40dB without throttling. Furthermore, the three-year warranty of full system offers reassuring and comprehensive service for users.

"When tackling the uplift of PC performance, multi-core, high frequency, and copious storage become a standard to the premium PC platform, as well as how to make the best components matrix to provide the optimized performance with reliability turns into more inevitable." indicated by Eddie Lin, Vice President of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions. "The new AORUS system is well-tempered by multiple verification and tuning of GIGABYTE's R&D team, which provide a perfect match of cool, quiet, and powerful performance with optimized compatibility, Expandability, and three-year warranty of whole system.

Intel over the weekend announced that it will make new investments into its Rio Rancho manufacturing facility in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The company will hold a media event later today, describing the nature of the investment. Keyvan Esfarjani its VP and GM for manufacturing and operations will be joined by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, along with a few Members of Congress from the state, in this event. Given the substantial participation of elected representatives, this is likely to be an expansion to the facility. Intel describes the Rio Rancho facility as focusing on mass production of the company's 3D XPoint memory, NAND flash, and silicon photonics products.

Update 16:13 UTC: Intel outlined its expansion plans with Rio Rancho, with a $3.5 billion investment, which could create at least 700 high-tech jobs and 1,000 construction jobs and support an additional 3,500 jobs in the state.The press release follows.

Researches from the University of Virginia and University of California San Diego have published their latest case study. The two universities have worked hard to discover a new Spectre vulnerability variant that can pass all of the existing Spectre mitigations and exploit all of the existing processors coming from Intel and AMD. The vulnerability exploits all of the existing x86 processors, and as it is new, there are not implementations of hardware mitigation. The whitepaper called "I see dead μops" takes the implementation of exploiting micro-op caches that could lead to a potential data leak in the processor, which is leading to a Spectre-type exploit.

Modern x86 processors break down complex instructions into smaller RISC-like units called micro-ops, in the frontend, where it makes the design of the backend part much simpler. The micro-ops are stored in the micro-ops cache. The paper is describing micro-op cache-based timing channel exploits in three primary settings: "a) across code regions within the same thread, but operating at different privilege levels, (b) across different co-located threads running simultaneously on different SMT contexts (logical cores) within the same physical core, and (c) two transient execution attack variants that leverage the micro-op cache to leak transiently accessed secrets, bypassing several existing hardware and software-based mitigations, including Intel's recommended LFENCE."

MSI, the world's leading gaming motherboard brand, proudly announces the new flagship Intel Z590 MEG Series motherboards - the MEG Z590 ACE GOLD EDITION, MEG Z590 UNIFY, and MEG Z590 UNIFY-X. They're not only tailored for enthusiast gamers but also offered more possibilities to satisfy various desires - the luster of gold against endless darkness.

Gold symbolizes a unique attribute of pride and elites. The pure luster of gold, 24K presents utmost in color and luminosity. With craftsmanship and hours of dedication, the 24K gold and state-of-the-art technology have been harmonized into one. The MEG Z590 ACE GOLD EDITION boasts premium aesthetics with a brand new color scheme - the platinum color finish and genuine 24K-gold foil heatsink perfectly show off the concept of beauty.

Intel's upcoming Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" enterprise processor come come with CPU core-counts as high as 80, according to the latest round of photo-leaks. An earlier article predicted the chip cram up to 56 cores alongside on-package HBM. The processor reportedly features up to 80 cores, spread across four 20-core chiplets. Unlike on the latest AMD EPYC processor, there doesn't appear to be a centralized I/O controller die. This particular processor is based in the LGA4189 package, which features additional pins compared to the LGA4577-X socket from the 56-core leak. The newer socket has additional pins that enable next-gen I/O, which include PCI-Express Gen 5.0, and CXL 1.1 interface.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces the latest B560MX-E PRO and B560MH-E PRO motherboards. Designed to support Intel's 10th/11th Generation Intel Core Processors and professional graphics cards, the new B560 series motherboards are highly versatile. Powered by Intel's B560 chipset, these two new motherboards are efficient and robust in any use case.

PCI-e 4.0 and PCIe M.2 4.0 & M.2 Cooling, among other cutting-edge technology, adds up to a great platform, tailor-made for business or even casual use. The two new motherboards support up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory across 4 DIMM with an overclocking capability of up to 4000+(OC)MHz. Backed by BIOSTAR's proprietary Digital PWM technology, the new B560MX-E PRO, and B560MH-E PRO motherboards are safe and long-lasting, capable of supporting the best hardware with ease. Both motherboards pack all the essentials in their rear I/O panel with almost identical layouts on a Micro-ATX form factor.

Linksys, a global leader in home and business Wi-Fi solutions, today announces the availability of the market's first Wi-Fi 6E certified systems, the Linksys Hydra Pro 6E and award-winning Linksys Atlas Max 6E. Built with Velop Intelligent Mesh and utilizing the newly opened 6GHz band, the Linksys Hydra Pro and Linksys Atlas Max expand the user's network for the fastest speeds possible to every corner of the home. Wi-Fi 6E offers the 6GHz band connection that is needed for device-heavy homes and ensures optimal performance for video conferencing, working and learning from home, as well as the latest AR and VR devices.

"Wi-Fi 6E is driving a surge in technology innovation and we're proud to deliver next-level solutions that harness 6E speeds and efficiency, coupled with built-in Velop Intelligent Mesh," says Harry Dewhirst, vice president of business development, Linksys. "As the market's first Wi-Fi 6E system certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance we remain steadfast in our commitment to provide our customers reliable, innovative and secure Wi-Fi solutions."

AAEON, an industry leader of AI and IOT solutions, is excited to celebrate the launch of Intel's latest scalable platform, the 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors (formerly Ice Lake-SP). As an associate member of the Intel IoT Solutions Alliance, AAEON is excited to bring this new technology to market with the ARES-WHI0 industrial ATX server board and other future products.

The 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors deliver the next generation of high-end computing performance and support for vital data integrity and security technologies. This new generation of Xeon SP brings higher processing speeds and Intel's Deep Learning Boost technology, allowing for greater acceleration and more efficient processing for AI server applications.

Starting today, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint expands its use of Intel Threat Detection Technology (Intel TDT) beyond accelerated memory scanning capabilities to activate central processing unit (CPU) based cryptomining machine learning (ML) detection. This move further accelerates endpoint detection and response for millions of customers without compromising experience.

"This is a true inflection point for the security industry as well as our SMB, mid-market and enterprise customers that have rapidly adopted Windows 10 with built-in endpoint protections. Customers who choose Intel vPro with the exclusive Intel Hardware Shield now gain full-stack visibility to detect threats out of the box with no need for IT configuration. The scale of this CPU-based threat detection rollout across customer systems is unmatched and helps close gaps in corporate defenses," said Michael Nordquist, senior director of Strategic Planning and Architecture in the Business Client Group at Intel.

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2021 financial results. "Intel delivered strong first-quarter results driven by exceptional demand for our leadership products and outstanding execution by our team. The response to our new IDM 2.0 strategy has been extraordinary, our product roadmap is gaining momentum, and we're rapidly progressing our plans with re-invigorated focus on innovation and execution," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "This is a pivotal year for Intel. We are setting our strategic foundation and investing to accelerate our trajectory and capitalize on the explosive growth in semiconductors that power our increasingly digital world."

First-quarter 2021 GAAP operating margin, net income, tax rate, and EPS results reflect the impact of a charge related to VLSI litigation. Intel strongly disagrees with the jury's verdict in March and intends to appeal. In the first quarter, the company generated $5.5 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.4 billion, and used $2.3 billion to repurchase stock.

AAEON, an industry leader in embedded solutions, announces the GENE-CML5 3.5" subcompact board featuring the 10th Generation Intel Core processors (formerly Comet Lake). The GENE-CML5 brings the latest in computing technology and flexibility, enabling developers to deploy their next generation industrial and AI Edge applications.

The GENE-CML5 brings the LGA1200 socket 10th Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors, as well as Intel Pentium and Celeron processors to the 3.5" subcompact form factor. Supporting processors up to 4.4 GHz CPU frequency, the GENE-CML5 leverages the socket-type chipset to allow developers and end users to easily maintain, scale, and upgrade the platform to suit their processing requirements. Combined with 64 GB DDR4 memory, the GENE-CML5 delivers fast processing speeds on par with desktop systems. Additionally, the chipset allows the compact board to take advantage of Intel vPro and Intel Active Management Technology (iAMT), enabling remote system monitoring and management.

AMD via its official YouTube channel shared a video of two of its Epyc chips destroying Cinebench's R23 benchmark, setting a new world record in the process. The record-setting feat was achieved with two off-the shelf Epyc 7763 CPUs - the ones with 64 physical CPUs and 128 threads of Zen 3 IPC. The system, which was built on top of a reference server motherboard and paired with server-grade aircooling, reached a grand total of 113,631 points - completing the benchmark run is around ten (10) measly seconds and soaring through the previous record-holder, a heavily overclocked Ryzen Threadripper 3990X (105,170 points).

The AMD system crushes the closest-priced Intel Xeon CPUs in performance - a dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 (Ice Lake-SP generation) configuration reached a comparably paltry 74,630 points - and AMD wins in the price-performance ratio again, with each of its Epyc 7763 CPUs costing $7,890 compared to $8,100 for each of the Intel Xeon platinum 8380. AMD's name of choice for their server-grade CPUs offering up a justification for its admittedly 15-year-old naming scheme. Catch the AMD video after the break.

Prices of retail 11th Gen Intel Core "Rocket Lake" desktop processors are beginning to settle down close to the "1,000-unit tray" prices on Amazon (US). The 1K-unit tray prices have traditionally served as a de facto baseline for retail prices, and as of today (April 16), we see several SKUs popular with gamers and PC enthusiasts approach levels close to the baseline. This wouldn't strictly be a price-cut, since they are still higher than the baseline, but would be a trimming of the retailer mark-ups traditionally attached to new processor launches.

As of this writing, the retail Core i7-11700K is listed on Amazon (US) for USD $404, practically identical to the $399 1K-unit tray price. The i7-11700 (non-K) can be had for $339.99, very close to the $323.99 tray price. The Core i5-11600K is going for $264.99, which is almost identical to the $262 tray price. Lesser "locked" SKUs such as the i5-11500 are within $10-15 of their tray pricing. It's only the top-dog Core i9-11900K and i9-11900KF that remain heavily marked up by sellers on Amazon. At these prices, the 11th Gen Core processors are expected to apply pressure on sellers of AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors to review the prices of SKUs such as the Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 5 5600X; and on AMD to release cheaper Ryzen 5000 series SKUs in the retail channel.

CPU-Z, the CPU monitoring tool used to gather information about the processor your system is running on, has been updated with version 1.96. This new update doesn't change the software much but rather brings support for new hardware. Starting from this revision, Intel's upcoming Alder Lake CPUs have received preliminary support in the tool. To go along with CPUs, the software is now also enabled to recognize Intel's Z6xx motherboards that pair with Alder Lake processors. Alongside that, the software now also brings support for next-generation DDR5 memory, which is supposed to feature speeds anywhere from 4800 to 8400 MT/s. When it comes to AMD, the tool received an update that enables it to read information about AMD's Ryzen 5700G, 5600G, and 5300G APUs, and Radeon RX 6900 XT, 6800 (& XT), 6700 XT GPUs.Download CPU-Z Version 1.96 Here.

NVIDIA has recently announced the company's first standalone Grace CPU that will come out as a product in 2023. NVIDIA has designed Grace on Arm ISA, likely ARM v9, to represent a new way that data centers are built and deliver a whole new level of HPC and AI performance. However, the CPU competition in a data center space is considered one of the hardest markets to enter. Usually, the market is a duopoly between Intel and AMD, which supply x86 processors to server vendors. In the past few years, there have been few Arm CPUs that managed to enter the data canter space, however, NVIDIA is aiming to deliver much more performance and grab a bigger piece of the market.

As a self-proclaimed leader in AI, Intel is facing hard competition from NVIDIA in the coming years. In an interview with Fortune, Intel's new CEO Pat Gelsinger has talked about NVIDIA and how the company sees the competition between the two. Mr. Gelsinger is claiming that Intel is a leader in CPUs that feature AI acceleration built in the chip and that they are not playing defense, but rather offense against NVIDIA. You can check out the whole quote from the interview below.