Intel's upcoming Xe discrete GPUs will feature hardware-acceleration for real-time raytracing, similar to NVIDIA's "Turing" RTX chips, according to a company blog detailing how the company's Rendering Framework will work with the upcoming Xe architecture. The blog only mentions that the company's data-center GPUs support the feature, and not whether its client-segment ones do. The data-center Xe GPUs are targeted at cloud-based gaming service and cloud-computing providers, as well as those building large rendering farms.

"I'm pleased to share today that the Intel Xe architecture roadmap for data center optimized rendering includes ray tracing hardware acceleration support for the Intel Rendering Framework family of API's and libraries," said Jim Jeffers, Sr. Principal Engineer and Sr. Director of Intel's Advanced Rendering and Visualization team. Intel did not go into technical details of the hardware itself. NVIDIA demonstrated that you need two major components on a modern GPU to achieve real-time raytracing: 1. a fixed-function hardware that computes intersection of rays with triangles or surfaces (which in NVIDIA's case are the RT cores), and 2. an "inexpensive" de-noiser. NVIDIA took the AI route to achieve the latter, by deploying tensor cores (matrix-multiplication units), which accelerate AI DNN building and training. Both these tasks are achievable without fixed-function hardware, using programmable unified shaders, but at great performance cost. Intel developed a CPU-based de-noiser that can leverage AVX-512.

PATRIOT , a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals, and flash storage solutions, today has announced the release of their latest Signature Premium series line of DDR4 UDIMM memory, which are Non-ECC unbuffered memory designed to deliver outstanding quality, rock solid stability and great performance expected by today's mainstream PC builder.

Signature Premium DDR4 memory provides a wide range of capacities allowing the builder to choose from a variety of speeds and capacities starting with 4GB single modules up to 32GB dual channel kits. The minimalist heat spreader design offers great heat dissipation and is made from high-purity aluminum. Signature Premium DDR4 series modules offer reliability to those who upgrade or build systems for work or business and are cost effective too.

The headline of this post makes it seem a touch more innocuous than the story may lead to, at least if you believe the rumor mills abound. There has been an ongoing issue with AMD systems using Ryzen CPUs and the HTC Vive wireless adapter (powered by Intel WiGig) to where the systems have frozen or even had a BSOD. HTC acknowledged this as early as Nov, 2018, noting that they have seen this with a subset of Ryzen-based motherboards when the PCIe wireless adapter is installed and running. It took until last week to get a solution of sorts, and unfortunately reports from users indicate this is not a true fix for everyone.

The hotfix update 1.20190410.0 was made available April 25 to attempt to combat this issue, which was garnering a lot of attention in the VR-community on whether there was more Intel could be doing to help AMD customers. This hotfix update is available automatically once an end user with the Vive wireless adapter checks for an update, and HTC acknowledge that they continue to test this, as well as partner with Intel and AMD to help resolve this once and for all. In the meantime, users report mixed success to date, including some we know personally as well, and it remains a thorn in the side of wireless VR to get to the PC successfully.

A lot of us could be wondering how Intel could number its client-segment processors after the i9-9980XE, or the 9th generation Core in general, and hoping for a major branding change or at least a change in the model numbering scheme. It turns out, Intel will brazen it out with a 5-digit model number and stick to the current scheme. Going by this scheme, the successor to the Core i7-9700K could be the Core i7-10700K, for example. Intel jumped from 3-digit to 4-digit as it transitioned from 1st gen Core to 2nd gen as it ran out of 3-digit numbers with the Core i7-9xx. It's now running out of 4-digit numbers.

Evidence of 5-digit number surfaced when Thai enthusiast TUM_Apisak tweeted a screenshot of a UL Benchmarks Systeminfo page describing an unreleased Core i5-10210U, which is probably a mobile processor based on the 10 nm "Ice Lake-U" silicon slated for late-2019. With a nominal clock-speed of 1.60 GHz and "reported" speed of 2.10 GHz, the Turbo Boost frequency of this 4-core/8-thread chip is rated at almost 3.80 GHz. Japanese enthusiast Komachi Ensaka confirmed this with three other model numbers: i3-10110U, i5-10510U, and i7-10710U.

Bitspower, a leading supplier of water-cooling equipment for performance computers, has announced the release of their latest Intel CPU block, the Bitspower Touchaqua CPU Block Summit MS OLED for Intel Platform. This product combines the best of both performance and aesthetics to give you an ideal cooling solution for LGA 115x and LGA 2066 socket CPUs. In addition to a CNC-machined block top made of hardwearing acrylic and base made of high-quality copper, the block features a digital thermal sensor and a bright OLED display so you can monitor your water-cooling loop temperature in real time, as well as dazzling DRGB lighting.

The block incorporates a single piece of wiring that runs power to both the DRGB lighting, as well as the temperature gauge - ensuring that you can keep the design of your build as clean as possible. Furthermore, the water block's RGB LED Strip has been certified by ASUS AURA Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync, ASRock Polychrome and Razer Chroma-so it's highly compatible with a range of setups. Bitspower Touchaqua range offers the same quality as Bitspower's regular product lines, but features a range of unique functions and designs.

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2019 financial results. In the first quarter, the company generated approximately $5.0 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.4 billion and used $2.5 billion to repurchase 49 million shares of stock.

"Results for the first quarter were slightly higher than our January expectations. We shipped a strong mix of high-performance products and continued spending discipline while ramping 10nm and managing a challenging NAND pricing environment. Looking ahead, we're taking a more cautious view of the year, although we expect market conditions to improve in the second half," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. "Our team is focused on expanding our market opportunity, accelerating our innovation and improving execution while evolving our culture. We aim to capitalize on key technology inflections that set us up to play a larger role in our customers' success, while improving returns for our owners."

Intel put out interesting details about its upcoming 10 nanometer "Ice Lake" CPU microarchitecture rollout in its recent quarterly financial results call. The company has started qualification of its 10 nm "Ice Lake" processors. This involves sending engineering samples to OEMs, system integrators and other relevant industry partners, and getting the chips approved for their future product designs. The first implementation of "Ice Lake" will not be a desktop processor, but rather a low-power mobile SoC designed for ultraportables, codenamed "Ice Lake-U." This SoC packs a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Sunny Cove" core design, and Gen11 GT2 integrated graphics with 64 execution units and nearly 1 TFLOP/s compute power. This SoC will also support WiFi 6 and LPDDR4X memory.

Intel CEO Bob Swan also remarked that the company has doubled its 10 nm yield expectations. "On the [10 nm] process technology front, our teams executed well in Q1 and our velocity is increasing," he said, adding "We remain on track to have volume client systems on shelves for the holiday selling season. And over the past four months, the organization drove a nearly 2X improvement in the rate at which 10nm products move through our factories." Intel is prioritizing enterprise over desktop, as "Ice Lake-U" will be followed by "Ice Lake-SP" Xeon rollout in 2020. There was no mention of desktop implementations such as "Ice Lake-S." Intel is rumored to be preparing a stopgap microarchitecture for the desktop platform to compete with AMD "Matisse" Zen 2 AM4 processors, codenamed "Comet Lake." This is essentially a Skylake 10-core die fabbed on existing 14 nm++ node. AMD in its CES keynote announced an achievement of per-core performance parity with Intel, so it could be interesting to see how Intel hopes 10 "Skylake" cores match up to 12-16 "Zen 2" cores.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood in a quarterly financial results conference call with investors this Wednesday hinted that the worst could be over with Intel CPU shortages. "In Windows, the overall PC market was stronger than we anticipated, driven by improved chip supply that met both unfulfilled Q2 commercial and premium consumer demand as well as better-than-expected Q3 commercial demand." It's important to note that Hood did not name Intel, as PCWorld otherwise observed, but it's highly likely that she was referring to Intel, given that it continues to dominate pre-built notebook and desktop markets.

PCWorld uses Hood's statement from the previous quarter's results call to zero in on Intel. "The overall PC market was smaller than we expected primarily due to the timing of chip supply to our OEM partners, which constrained an otherwise healthy PC ecosystem and negatively impacted both OEM Pro and non-Pro revenue growth," she had said. Prices of 9th generation Core desktop processors in the retail channel appear to be normalizing, with the Core i5-9400 selling for $184 on Newegg, which is close to MSRP, its iGPU-devoid twin, the i5-9400F selling at a discounted price of $169; the overclocker-friendly i5-9600K selling for $264, and the i7-9700K at $409, which is a tiny $20 markup over MSRP.

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2019 financial results. "Results for the first quarter were slightly higher than our January expectations. We shipped a strong mix of high performance products and continued spending discipline while ramping 10nm and managing a challenging NAND pricing environment. Looking ahead, we're taking a more cautious view of the year, although we expect market conditions to improve in the second half," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. "Our team is focused on expanding our market opportunity, accelerating our innovation and improving execution while evolving our culture. We aim to capitalize on key technology inflections that set us up to play a larger role in our customers' success, while improving returns for our owners."

In the first quarter, the company generated approximately $5.0 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.4 billion and used $2.5 billion to repurchase 49 million shares of stock. In the first quarter, Intel achieved 4 percent growth in the PC-centric business while data-centric revenue declined 5 percent.

Today Team Group releases three new products from the T-FORCE gaming series: T-FORCE T1 gaming memory, T-FORCE VULCAN Z gaming memory and T-FORCE VULCAN high speed gaming solid state drive. T-FORCE T1 gaming memory's unique look is specially designed for entry gamers. T-FORCE VULCAN Z gaming memory's cooling performance has fully evolved to perfectly protect the memory. T-FORCE VULCAN high speed gaming solid state drive has focused on overall details and offering large capacity and high speed read/write performance at the same time. All three products have inherited the unique and classic design of T-FORCE gaming series, which makes building your own pc cooler than ever.

T-FORCE T1 gaming memory's impressive racing style is specially designed for entry gamers. Created using exclusive patented color printing and special ink, the racing design enhances the overall style of the DIY PC. The selected high-quality IC chips are exceptional in durability, stability and compatibility, allowing gamers to have excellent combat status on the battlefield of eSports. T-FORCE T1 gaming memory supports both Intel & AMD platform. Plug & play allows gamers to be ready for battles at any time.

Tesla held an investor panel in the USA yesterday (April 22) with the entire event, focusing on autonomous vehicles, also streamed on YouTube (replay here). There were many things promised in the course of the event, many of which are outside the scope of this website, but the announcement of Tesla's first full self-driving hardware module made the news in more ways than one as reported right here on TechPowerUp. We had noted how Tesla had traditionally relied on NVIDIA (and then Intel) microcontroller units, as well as NVIDIA self-driving modules in the past, but the new in-house built module had stepped away from the green camp in favor of more control over the feature set.

NVIDIA was quick to respond to this, saying Tesla was incorrect in their comparisons, in that the NVIDIA Drive Xavier at 21 TOPS was not the right comparison, and rather it should have been against NVIDIA's own full self-driving hardware the Drive AGX Pegasus capable of 320 TOPS. Oh, and NVIDIA also claimed Tesla erroneously reported Drive Xavier's performance was 21 TOPS instead of 30 TOPS. It is interesting how one company was quick to recognize itself as the unmarked competition, especially at a time when Intel, via their Mobileye division, have also given them a hard time recently. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come in that self-driving cars, and AI computing in general, is getting too big a market to be left to third-party manufacturing, with larger companies opting for in-house hardware itself. This move does hurt NVIDIA's focus in this field, as market speculation is ongoing that they may end up losing other customers following Tesla's departure.

CyberPower Inc., a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs and gaming laptops today announced a new series of 15 and 17-inch gaming laptops, dubbed Tracer III, which are based on Intel's new 9th Generation i7 mobile processor.

The CyberPowerPC Tracer III series stuffs desktop gaming rig performance into a slim form that measure 15.2" x 10.4" x 1.13" and weighs just 5.5 pounds, with pricing that starts at $1259 for the 15-inch model. The Tracer III 17-inch models have two versions - a turbo and a slim line that starts at $999 and $1269 respectively.

Today, Intel launched the most powerful generation of Intel Core mobile processors ever: the new 9th Gen Intel Core mobile H-series processors, designed for gamers and creators who want to push their experience to the next level. "Our new 9th Gen platform is designed to delight gamers, creators and performance users by giving them more of what they want. We are bringing desktop-caliber performance with up to 5 GHz and 8 cores in a range of thinner systems and new level of connectivity with Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) so users can game or create where they want," said Fredrik Hamberger, general manager of the Premium and Gaming Laptop Segments at Intel.

There are 580 million enthusiast PC gamers and 130 million PC-based content creators today who care about raw performance as much as they do responsiveness of their PC. They require PCs that can handle everything from demanding AAA games to taxing creative workloads like editing, rendering and transcoding massive 4K video - all while on the go. The 9th Gen Intel Core mobile processors deliver desktop-caliber performance in a mobile form factor and feature amazing performance; the fastest, most reliable wireless with Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (Gig+); the most versatile wired connectivity with Thunderbolt 3; and support for Intel Optane memory technology.

Intel's Xe discrete GPU project head Raja Koduri recently visited a Samsung Electronics silicon fabrication facility in Korea at the backdrop of the company's major 5 nm EUV announcement. This sparks speculation that Koduri could be exploring Samsung's portfolio of sub-10 nm contract-manufacturing offerings to mass-produce Xe discrete GPUs. Intel's own foundry business is reeling with mounting pressure from the company's main breadwinner, the client and enterprise processor businesses, to get its 10 nm node on the road. Koduri's GPU would need to leverage higher transistor densities than what Intel's 10 nm could offer, given that rival AMD is already implementing 7 nm, and NVIDIA is expected to go sub-10 nm with its future generation of GPUs.

Intel in addition to updating its 5G strategy, also announced availability of its 8th generation Core vPro "Whiskey Lake" mobile processor SoCs. Built as multi-chip modules with the CPU and PCH dies sitting on a single package, the new Core vPro i7-8665U has identical specifications to the original i7-8665U from Q3-2018, but with the addition of vPro, a set of additional features relevant to large organizations, such as AMT (active management technology), and TXT (trusted execution technology). OEM majors Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Panasonic are giving finishing touches to enterprise notebooks based on the new chip, which by itself could be priced around $500.

Intel Corporation today announced its intention to exit the 5G smartphone modem business and complete an assessment of the opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in PCs, internet of things devices and other data-centric devices. Intel will also continue to invest in its 5G network infrastructure business. The company will continue to meet current customer commitments for its existing 4G smartphone modem product line, but does not expect to launch 5G modem products in the smartphone space, including those originally planned for launches in 2020.

"We are very excited about the opportunity in 5G and the 'cloudification' of the network, but in the smartphone modem business it has become apparent that there is no clear path to profitability and positive returns," said Intel CEO Bob Swan. "5G continues to be a strategic priority across Intel, and our team has developed a valuable portfolio of wireless products and intellectual property. We are assessing our options to realize the value we have created, including the opportunities in a wide variety of data-centric platforms and devices in a 5G world." Intel expects to provide additional details in its upcoming first-quarter 2019 earnings release and conference call, scheduled for April 25.

Rivet Networks announced general availability of its Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) capable Killer WiFi 6 AX1650 WLAN network controllers for sale to PC motherboard and notebook manufacturers. The AX1650 is based on Intel "Cyclone Peak" PHY, mated with a custom firmware and drivers by Rivet Networks that are optimized for competitive online multiplayer gaming. The controller supports 2x2 MU-MIMO with 160 MHz channels, delivering up to 2.4 Gbps theoretical maximum WLAN bandwidth over the card's main PCIe gen 3.0 x1. It also supports Bluetooth 5.0 over a separate USB 2.0 connection.

Besides minimizing CPU overhead, Killer drivers provide a highly specialized QoS solution called Killer Intelligence Engine, which shapes the Internet traffic of your game and streaming software ahead of other apps that seek Internet access. Advanced Stream Detect 2.0 can detect Internet traffic from thousands of games and gaming websites to optimize your Internet access on the fly. GameFast Technology works to reduce the Wi-Fi controller's CPU overhead by up to 10 percent compared to other WLAN solutions. The controller is also DoubleShot Pro (teaming) capable. The controller ships in M.2-2230 and 1216 modules, with PCIe and USB interfaces.

BIOSTAR today announced that their entire 300 series motherboards have a BIOS update available that brings immediate, drop-in compatibility with Intel's new 9th generation processors. What kind of update this new stepping (which updates the old P0 stepping to the new R0) brings is unclear - Intel hasn't officially said what this change introduces at the silicon level. TDP fixes, clock increases, fixing mere errata in the CPU ID, or even some other silicon-level changes - these are all fair game for such a nebulous release. Look after the break for the entire list of updated BIOSTAR motherboards.

Intel today revealed details about Intel Optane memory H10 with solid-state storage - an innovative device that combines the superior responsiveness of Intel Optane technology with the storage capacity of Intel Quad Level Cell (QLC) 3D NAND technology in a single space-saver M.2 form factor. "Intel Optane memory H10 with solid-state storage features the unique combination of Intel Optane technology and Intel QLC 3D NAND - exemplifying our disruptive approach to memory and storage that unleashes the full power of Intel-connected platforms in a way no else can provide," said Rob Crooke, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group.

Combining Intel Optane technology with Intel QLC 3D NAND technology on a single M.2 module enables Intel Optane memory expansion into thin and light notebooks and certain space-constrained desktop form factors - such as all-in-one PCs and mini PCs. The new product also offers a higher level of performance not met by traditional Triple Level Cell (TLC) 3D NAND SSDs today and eliminates the need for a secondary storage device.

European PC enthusiasts continue to see value in choosing AMD Ryzen processors over Intel Core, as the latest public data by German retailer Mindfactory.de, which ships across the EU, shows AMD processors outselling Intel 2:1. Although earlier Intel would have the upperhand in revenue despite lower volumes, this time around, AMD shored up revenues on the backs of high-margin products such as the Ryzen 7 2700X and the HEDT Ryzen Threadripper series.

The 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 2600 is the most popular processor offering high value under the 200€-mark. It is followed by the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 2700X. Buyers prefer the 2700X to the cheaper 2700 non-X. The Ryzen 5 2600X is another strong seller. Over in the Intel camp, the Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K are strong sellers, followed by the i5-9600K and the newly released i5-9400F. Pricing graphs show Intel processor pricing steadily rise over 2018, while AMD chips remained largely flat. These numbers are not indicative of the overall market, since Mindfactory caters to DIY PC gamers and enthusiasts only.

CXL, short for Compute Express Link, is an ambitious new interconnect technology for removable high-bandwidth devices, such as GPU-based compute accelerators, in a data-center environment. It is designed to overcome many of the technical limitations of PCI-Express, the least of which is bandwidth. Intel sensed that its upcoming family of scalable compute accelerators under the Xe band need a specialized interconnect, which Intel wants to push as the next industry standard. The development of CXL is also triggered by compute accelerator majors NVIDIA and AMD already having similar interconnects of their own, NVLink and InfinityFabric, respectively. At a dedicated event dubbed "Interconnect Day 2019," Intel put out a technical presentation that spelled out the nuts and bolts of CXL.

Intel began by describing why the industry needs CXL, and why PCI-Express (PCIe) doesn't suit its use-case. For a client-segment device, PCIe is perfect, since client-segment machines don't have too many devices, too large memory, and the applications don't have a very large memory footprint or scale across multiple machines. PCIe fails big in the data-center, when dealing with multiple bandwidth-hungry devices and vast shared memory pools. Its biggest shortcoming is isolated memory pools for each device, and inefficient access mechanisms. Resource-sharing is almost impossible. Sharing operands and data between multiple devices, such as two GPU accelerators working on a problem, is very inefficient. And lastly, there's latency, lots of it. Latency is the biggest enemy of shared memory pools that span across multiple physical machines. CXL is designed to overcome many of these problems without discarding the best part about PCIe - the simplicity and adaptability of its physical layer.

Intel has hired another of AMD's top executives as Raja Koduri hopes to basically rebuild RTG under Intel's banner and its resources. This time it's Heather Lennon, who led AMD Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) marketing and had been with AMD for over 10 years. She directed the Team Red community and won PR Week award for Campaign of the Year 2014. Lennon bagged 40 awards for digital marketing for AMD, and is widely believed to be the brains behind the PR upper-hand AMD enjoys among tech forums and the DIY community.

Lennon now joins Intel as Senior Manager, Digital Marketing for Graphics, and will work closely with Mark Taylor, an ex-NVIDIA exec who now leads technical marketing at Intel Graphics. Other ex-AMD and ex-NVIDIA honchos include Chris Hook and Tom Peterson, respectively. Raja Koduri is overseeing Intel's ambitious project to make inroads to the discrete GPU market under the new Xe brand, not just to serve gamers and PC enthusiasts, but more importantly GPU compute, cloud compute, and AI markets. Koduri is also reportedly lending insights to Intel's new Gen11 integrated graphics architecture, which debuts with its 10 nm "Ice Lake" processors.

Steam's latest hardware survey has been released, and while there is no real head scratching changes, it does continue to give us a glimpse into current market trends. In regards to CPU adoption, both six-core and eight-core processors now account for 12.2% and 2.2% respectively. Looking at just Windows data shows six-core processors gained a bit over 2% market share in 3 months. Meanwhile, eight-core offerings saw a market share increase of roughly 0.5%. Speaking of processors, Intel still dominates the market capturing an 82% share. AMD, while competitive in many tasks besides gaming still only has an 18% share. Looking at the data would lead one to believe AMD is gaining back market share; however looking at previous hardware surveys their current share is mostly holding steady. Considering Intel still offers better gaming performance for the time being its unlikely AMD will make any real gains in the Steam hardware survey until gaming performance reaches true parity.

Looking at graphics cards, NVIDIA still reigns supreme holding the same 75% market share they have been clutching for quite some time. AMD, on the other hand, continues to struggle, holding a paltry 15% share with Intel and their integrated graphics still managing to hold a 10% share. Considering AMD's only release as of late was the Radeon VII it is not all that surprising to see no change here. That said, NVIDIA's dominance is indeed not a good thing as it means competition is minimal, and pricing is likely to remain high. Right now according to the Steam hardware survey, NVIDIA currently holds the first 12 spots in regards to today's most popular graphics cards, which combine for a 52.8% share. The most popular of these being the GTX 1060. You have to go all the way down to 13th place to find an AMD graphics card which just so happens to be the Radeon RX 580 with its 1.1% share. To find the next AMD graphics card you have to go all the way down to 19th where the companies Radeon R7 Graphics holds steady at 0.87%. Hopefully, AMD's upcoming Navi graphics architecture can bring them back to prominence and drive more competition.

At The National Association of Broadcasters Show (NAB Show) today, Intel and Netflix announced a new high-performance video codec that is available as open source and royalty-free to content creators, developers and service providers. Scalable Video Technology for AV1 (SVT-AV1) offers performance and scalability in video processing.

"The SVT-AV1 codec offers both high performance and efficiency. And compared to today's most popular codec (H.264 AVC), SVT-AV1 can help service providers save up to half their bandwidth, delivering leading-edge user experiences that can be quickly and cost-effectively delivered at a global scale. This codec makes it possible for services ranging from video on demand to live broadcast of 4Kp60/10-bit content on Intel Xeon Scalable processors, including the recently launched 2nd-Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor," said Lynn Comp, Intel vice president of the Network Platforms Group and general manager of the Visual Cloud Division.

Optane Persistent Memory is being touted by Intel as the "hottest" storage medium between DRAM and NVMe SSDs in the short-term, and a successor to DRAM-based memory in the long-term, aided by its ability to hold data even in the absence of power. The company's latest Xeon Scalable "Cascade Lake" processors support Optane Persistent Memory, allowing data-centers to cram larger amounts of data accessible at DRAM-like speeds, even if at much higher latencies. It remains significantly faster than NVMe SSDs. Component retails began listing 512 GB modules of the Optane Persistent Memory, and its prices are nothing like your 512 GB NVMe SSD. CompSource lists the 512 GB module (model: NMA1XXD512GPSU4) for a whopping USD $7,816, although the product is out of stock.