Intel could launch the first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processors in the retail channel, on the 5th of October, 2017. It's also becoming ominous that with increasing core counts across the lineup, Intel is also raising prices by anywhere between 12.5 to 25 percent. For example, the Core i7-8700K, which logically succeeds the $339 Core i7-7700K, could be priced upwards of $400. The i5-8600K, which succeeds the $249 i5-7600K, could be priced a little over $300. One can expect similar price-hikes across the board for other Core i5 six-core and Core i3 quad-core SKUs.

The first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processor launches could be limited to certain overclocker-specific Core i7 and Core i5 SKUs. It is also launching just one compatible motherboard chipset option with this first wave, the Z370 Express, which supports CPU overclocking. Among the SKUs to look out for, are the top-dog Core i7-8700K six-core processor with HyperThreading enabling 12 threads, 12 MB of L3 cache; and the Core i5-8600K, which is also a six-core part but lacks HyperThreading, and comes with 9 MB of L3 cache.

Intel's Skylake architecture, which christened the 6000 series of CPUs, has had its time in the sun, there's no denying that. However, as has been the case with Intel, who usually don't keep more than two architectures in the market at any given time, the Skylake series of processors have seen the end of their days. This is the announced death of an architecture that was competent in offering a token improvement for Intel's Core performance. Yet despite that, it certainly didn't set the world on fire with anticipation and acclaim. It was a sound business decision for Intel, however, allowing the company to maximize profits and capitalizing on a virtually outclassed competitor, which offered, at the time, the ill-spoken Bulldozer architecture and derivatives.

This comes mere months before Intel ships out their 8000 series CPUs on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture. This one is the most interesting from the blue giant in years, seeing a core count democratization towards the masses and the virtual elimination of dual-core CPUs, which have been overstaying their welcome for some time now. Expect decreasing availability in the following moths as retailers work through their available inventories. According to Intel, Skylake processors can be ordered until March 2018, with deliveries finalizing by September 2018. This applies particularly to the (arguably) most interesting models in the lineup, in the form of the Core i7-6700K, Core i5-6600K, and the Core i5-6402P and Core i3-6098P models which shipped with less powerful HD510 iGPUs. I say arguably, because for this editor, an i5-6400 which was overclockable through BIOS settings was the price-performance champion of this generation.

Overclocking poster-boy Der8auer has seemingly gotten his hands on some early samples of Intel's Skylake-X high core count (HCC)HEDT CPUs. The upcoming 12 to 18-core enthusiast-class CPUs are being launched on the same X299 platform on socket LGA 2066 that Intel has already launched 4 (Kaby Lake-X), 6, 8 and 10-core parts already, and are supposed to bring Intel towards a level playing field - and then some - with competitor AMD's Threadripper CPUs, which boast of up to 16 cores.

From this delidding process with Der8auer's own delidding tool, Delid-Die-Mate-X, seems to result a die that is much larger - as expected - than Intel's 10-core i9-7900X. At the same time, it seems that Intel is still opting, again, for not soldering its enthusiast-targeted CPUs, which would result in better temperatures and, potentially, overclocking potential. The fact that Der8auer managed to delid the i9-7920X and didn't recommend against doing it likely means that there is minimal risk of damaging your CPU while subjecting it to this process. This is something the renowned overclocker did do when he recommended that users shouldn't delid their Ryzen or Threadripper CPUs looking for better temperatures, since the fact that these were soldered would likely result in both catastrophic damage and a much diminished chance of operating temperatures improvement through the application of special purpose thermal compounds. The Facebook post from Der8auer with the delidded 7920X likely serves as an appetizer for an upcoming delid video on YouTube, as has been the overclocker's MO.

Intel is preparing to expand its Skull Canyon line of high-performance NUC compact desktops, with new models based on its upcoming "Coffee Lake-U" silicon. The company is preparing variants based on 28W TDP Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 ultra-low power processors, and 300-series chipset. The Core i3 based parts offer 4-core/4-thread CPU configuration, while the Core i5 and Core i7 ones offer 4-core/8-thread configurations. One of these could even feature a large onboard graphics core cushioned by on-package eDRAM L4 cache. The three "Coffee Lake-U" based NUCs could be released in Q2-2018, which is quite a wait.

Processor sales numbers of leading German retailer Mindfactory.de show AMD Ryzen processors to be outselling Intel processors for the first time in over a decade. German and EU DIY PC buyers seem to have developed a taste for AMD Ryzen processors, which is reflecting in Mindfactory's sales figures. Since March 2017, when AMD launched its Ryzen 7 series, AMD processor sales have seen a steady growth from 28% (vs. 72% of Intel), to a stunning 56% by the end of August 2017. Mindfactory's sales is a test case of AMD's growth in the DIY processor market, which forced Intel to rush in its Core X family, and its 8th generation Core processor family, which could be out in Q3-2017.

Ryzen 5 1600 appears to be the most popular AMD choice among Mindfactory's customers, as the 6-core/12-thread processor strikes a price-performance sweet-spot at 198€. The chip is outselling the similarly-priced Core i5-7500 by two times, and the i5-7600K by three times. The 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 1700 is the second most popular AMD Ryzen part, priced at 288€. From the Intel camp, the Core i7-7700K still commands the single biggest chunk of Mindfactory's CPU sales. As expected, the Ryzen 7 1700X outsells the 1800X by five times. Also, the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is outselling the Core i9-7900X by over three times. Find more interesting data in the beautifully drawn graphs by Redditor "Type-21."

In a response to AMD's current uptake in the consumer, HEDT and server markets with its vertical slice of the Zen architecture, Intel has started rebranding their products and image, changing product names and placement in a bid to increase the "freshness" factor of its offerings. E5 and E7 Xeons are gone, with the introduction of a metallic naming scheme: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum are now Intel's Xeon products, and Xeon-W takes the spot as Intel's workstation-oriented product stack. They do this by being - essentially - a conversion of Intel's Core i9 X299 family of processors towards the professional market with inclusion of professional-geared features. And as is usual with Intel, a new chipset - C422 - is needed in order for these to properly function.

The new Xeon-W product family will still make use of the LGA 2066 socket, bringing with them ECC and vPro support. The Xeon-W CPU family will feature 4 to 18 cores, support up to 512GB of ECC RDIMM/LRDIMM memory, support dual 512-bit FMAs, and peak clocks of 4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz Turbo. All the parts will support 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the processor,and CPUs in the Xeon-W stack are rated at 140W TDP: with exception of the quad cores, which come in at at 120W. Xeon-W processors only support Turbo Boost 2.0, instead of their Core i9 counterparts' Turbo 3.0.

Acer today announced new additions to its premium Predator gaming line, which include the Predator Orion 9000 series gaming desktops with Windows 10, its most powerful to date; and the Predator X35 monitor leveraging NVIDIA G-SYNC and Acer HDR Ultra technologies for ultra-smooth performance and stunning visuals.

Designed to intimidate enemies and inspire game play, the commanding aesthetics of the Predator Orion 9000 series feature a black-and-silver spacecraft-like exterior with customizable RGB lighting along the sides of the front bezel. A massive side window panel showcases the striking and powerful interior with a design that keeps electromagnetic interference (EMI) levels in check despite the size of the opening. Optional fans with customizable RGB lighting create a virtual light show for an even more arresting appearance. Outfitted with two handles and wheels covered with a carbon fiber pattern, the new rigs can be easily moved from one location to another. Tool-less side panels make component upgrades easy and the push-open top gives users a quick way to switch fans. A front-access headset cradle and cable management help keep the game area tidy.

After years of continued innovation in PCIe's bandwidth, we've hit somewhat of a snag in recent times; after all, the PCIe 3.0 specification has been doing the rounds on our motherboards ever since 2010. PCI-SIG, the 750-member strong organization that's in charge of designing the specifications for the PCIe bus, attribute part of this delay to industry stagnation: PCIe 3.0 has simply been more than enough, bandwidth-wise, for many generations of hardware now. Only recently, with innovations in storage mediums and innovative memory solutions, such as NVMe SSDs and Intel's Optane, are we starting to hit the ceiling on what PCIe 3.0 offers. Add to that the increased workload and bandwidth requirements of the AI field, and the industry now seems to be eager for an upgrade, with some IP vendors even having put out PCIe 4.0-supporting controllers and PHYs into their next-generation products already - although at the incomplete 0.9 revision.

Intel is giving finishing touches to a mobile 8th generation Core i7 processor which features the full complement of 6 cores present on the "Coffee Lake-H" silicon. This is firmly a mobile SKU, and not desktop-on-mobile. According to specs put out in a Geekbench database entry, the processor features 6 cores, 12 threads (HyperThreading), 9 MB of L3 cache, and a nominal clock speed of 2.60 GHz.

Intel tends to keep the nominal clocks of its mobile processors low, while compensating with higher single-core or two-core Turbo Boost clocks. The processor in the Geekbench DB entry packs enough punch to dethrone desktop quad-core parts in multi-threaded scores, with a score of 19,129 points. The single-threaded score isn't groundbreaking at 4,013 points, but that's probably because of the low clock speeds and aggressive power-management inherent to mobile platforms.

Ahead of their launch later this quarter, SiSoft SANDRA benchmarks of Intel 8th generation Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400 six-core processors surfaced in benchmark databases, which were promptly compared to their predecessors by HotHardware. The results put to the test Intel's claims of "over 40 percent more performance" compared to the 7th generation Core processors, which the company made in its 8th Generation Core Launch Event presentation. A bulk of these performance increases are attributed to the increasing core-count over generation, which directly yields higher multi-threaded performance; while a small but significant portion of it is attributed to increases in single-threaded performance. Since the "Coffee Lake" micro-architecture is essentially a refresh of the "Skylake" architecture, single-threaded performance increases could be attributed to higher clock speeds.

The Core i7-8700K is the top-dog of the 8th generation Core mainstream-desktop processor family. This six-core chip was compared to the product it succeeds in Intel's MSDT product-stack, the quad-core Core i7-7700K. There is a 45 percent increase in performance, in the "processor arithmetic" test; and a 47 percent increase in the "processor multimedia" test. These two test-suites are multi-threaded, and hence benefit from the two added cores, which in turn add four additional logical CPUs, thanks to HyperThreading. "Processor cryptography" sees a 12 percent increase. The single-precision and double-precision "Scientific Analysis" tests, which again are multi-threaded, see 26 percent and 32 percent performance gains over the i7-7700K, respectively.

GIGABYTE is gearing up for the release of the first GPU-supporting server based on Intel's Skylake Purley architecture. Leveraging the latter's scalability - which can be applied across compute, network and storage applications - GIGABYTE has committed its design expertise to a high-performance system with GPU-focused, OCP-based and other add-on functionality. This server adopts Intel's new product family - officially named the 'Intel Xeon Scalable' and its increased I/O options to deliver a truly high-performance, flexible system.

GIGABYTE's new system takes advantage of the performance benefits that Intel has built in to target a range of segments and created a system that meets HPC needs.

This is the latest report from Jon Peddie Research on the GPUs used in PCs. It is reporting on the results of Q2'17 GPU shipments world-wide. Overall GPU shipments increased 7.2% from last quarter, AMD increased 8% Nvidia increased 10% and Intel, increased 6%. Year-to-year total GPU shipments increased 6.4%, desktop graphics increased 5%, notebooks increased 7%.

Up to now, the GPU and PC market had been showing a return to what has been normal seasonality. That pattern is typically flat to down in Q1, a significant drop in Q2 as OEMs and the channel deplete inventory before the summer months. A restocking with the latest products in Q3 in anticipation of the holiday season, and mild increase to flat change in Q4. All, of that subject to an overall decline in the PC market since the great recession of '07 and the influx of tablets and smartphones. However, this year, Q2 dGPU shipments were completely out of sync, and remarkably high, as shown in the following chart.

Intel is rushing in its 8th generation Core mainstream-desktop (MSDT) processor lineup, codenamed "Coffee Lake," later within Q3-2017. The first four of these will be six-core SKUs, which while built in the "LGA1151" package, the same ones as the 7th generation "Kaby Lake" and 6th generation "Skylake," will not be compatible with motherboards based on the older 100-series and 200-series chipsets, for reasons unknown. Upcoming motherboards based on the 300-series chipset, could support not just 8th generation "Coffee Lake" processors, but also older LGA1151 processors. The chipset lineup consists of the Z370 Express, which features support for CPU overclocking and 2-way multi-GPU; and the mid-range B360 Express chipset, which could launch either in late-2017 or early-2018, alongside the first Core i3 "Coffee Lake" chips. The first wave of motherboards to go with "Coffee Lake" processors will hence be Z370-based. VideoCardz compiled a partial, but growing list of motherboards which could make up the first wave.

Intel today announced its 8th generation Core processor family, with new mainstream desktop (MSDT) processor SKUs. The company is stressing on these chips featuring "40% more performance over the previous-generation," even though the "Coffee Lake" micro-architecture is essentially based on the "Skylake" and "Kaby Lake" architectures. The company is arriving at 40% by across the board increases in core-counts. Quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 SKUs now have 6 cores as opposed to 4 (a 33% multi-threaded performance increase straight off the bat), and the remaining 7% from higher clocks or micro-architecture level incremental updates; while Core i3 now includes quad-core SKUs.

Here are the first pictures of the retail boxes of 8th generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors. The first wave of processors based on Intel's new 14 nm "Coffee Lake" silicon will be 6-core parts in the Core i5 and Core i7 brands, which will be launched on 22 August; with Core i3 following on much later in the year, or even early-2018. The boxes confirm several things about these chips, beginning with the fact that their integrated graphics cores will be branded "Intel UHD Graphics 6xx," and that they will require motherboards based on Intel 300-series chipset, even though their socket is "LGA1151."

There doesn't appear to be a socket key difference between these processors and "Kaby Lake," so it's possible that while 300-series chipset motherboards support older "Kaby Lake" and "Skylake" processors, "Coffee Lake" will only work on 300-series chipset, and not older 200-series or 100-series. Intel making the bold move of branding its new integrated graphics "UHD" could hint at its credentials with hardware-accelerated decoding of new video formats such as 10-bit VP9 at 4K without breaking a sweat; and new display connector standards such as HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.4. The various models that make up the first wave of 8th generation Core i5 and Core i7 desktop processors, are tabled below.

Ahead of their unveiling later this week, four Intel Core i5 and Core i7 U-series (ultra-low power) mobile processor SKUs surfaced in Intel's public price-lists. The prices in the list are meant for notebook manufacturers, for each chip purchased in 1,000-unit tray quantities. The specifications of these SKUs put out in the price-list indicate that Intel is keeping up with its drive to increase core-counts across its product-stack, even with TDP as tight as 15W (that's 15W for quad-core chips). The nominal clock speeds of these chips are kept very low, and their Turbo Boost frequencies are kept high, so there's tighter control over when the processor wants to spend power on performance.

The lineup is led by the Core i7-8650U, which is a 4-core/8-thread SKU with a clock speed of 1.90 GHz, and max Turbo Boost over 4.00 GHz; 8 MB of L3 cache, and a price of USD $409. Selling at the same exact price is the i7-8550U, with a slightly lower clock speed of 1.80 GHz, and 4.00 GHz Turbo Boost. The Core i5 lineup, interestingly, is 4-core/8-thread (includes HyperThreading support), even through its L3 cache amount is 6 MB. The i5-8350U ticks at 1.70 GHz, and an unknown Turbo Boost clock, and is priced at $297; while at the same price, the i5-8520U is clocked at 1.60 GHz, with 3.40 GHz Turbo Boost. The four chips will already be up for order in August 2017, and the first finished-products based on these chips could launch by Holiday.

BIOSTAR proudly announces an exclusive partnership with ethOS, a 64-bit Linux OS; giving miners the simplest possible way to set up a mining rig. This comes as great news for anyone who wanted to dabble with mining, but was not sure how. With the ethOS mining OS, there is no need to install drivers, configure Windows or compile software, while BIOSTAR crypto mining motherboards are tried and tested with the ethOS mining OS, making it as simple as boot and mine. Get ready to collect your Ethereum, Zcash, Monero and many other gpu-minable coins.

BIOSTAR Mining Boards with Intel B250, B85 and H81 Chipsets
BIOSTAR crypto mining motherboards (including previous generation chipsets in B85 and H81) continue to win high praises for easy-to-use, long-term stability under heavy usage and high return on investment. BIOSTAR mining boards with Intel chipsets supports 12 to 6 graphics cards, the models currently available are: BIOSTAR TB250-BTC PRO, BIOSTAR TB250-BTC+, BIOSTAR TB250-BTC, BIOSTAR TB85 and BIOSTAR H81A. Whether you are a pro, mainstream or newbie to mining, one of these will fit the bill.

Naming schemes are pretty interesting nowadays, with AMD firing some warning shots across Intel's bow with their X399 HEDT chipset (thus superseding Intel's X299 by a whole hundred.) This may seem like nothing, and it actually should be nothing; naming schemes are not to be considered indicative of actual performance, especially in regards to competing companies' products. However, as we all know, there is power in numbers. Namely, there is power in bigger numbers, as an i7 will be above an i5, and a Ryzen 7 will be above a Ryzen 3.

AMD threw a curve ball towards Intel with their B350 chipset, which stands in the way of Intel's own historical nomenclature (after the B150 and B250 chipsets from Intel, a B350 would surely follow.) Now, reports say Intel will be upping AMD by releasing a B360 chipset, thus regaining footing in the "bigger is better" battle of wits over consumer's hearts. My Drivers, the source of the information, goes on to say that these chipsets won't be released in 2017 (only Intel's Z370 chipset is expected this year), and that despite using the same socket, Intel's Coffee Lake won't be a drop-in upgrade for Z170 and Z270 platforms, since Intel "changed the alignment of the design." This information had already been advanced by a motherboard maker's social media channel as well.

Intel recently concluded an event intended for local distributors in China, a key presentation slide of which was snapped and posted online. The slide confirms the company's product-stack for the mainstream desktop platform, and its augmentation with the first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" SKUs. The slide also confirms that Intel will be replacing current Core i7 4-core/8-thread SKUs with Core i7 6-core/12-thread ones; Core i5 4-core/4-thread SKUs with 6-core/6-thread ones, and Core i3 2-core/4-thread SKUs with 4-core/4-thread ones, marking the biggest fundamental update to the product stack since the Core MSDT family started out a decade ago, with the Core "Lynnfield" and "Clarkdale" processors.

The slide further describes per-core performance increases ranging between 11-29 percent owing to higher clock-speeds and a slightly newer micro-architecture, and 51-65 percent increases in multi-threaded performance owing to the increasing core-counts across the board. While these SKUs are expected to logically replace the various Core "Kaby Lake" SKUs from their current price-points, there could be a tiny price increase, across the board, which Intel could justify using the higher core-counts.

A pretty underwhelming post on Intel's official page has pulled the curtains of the company's architecture name post their 8th generation processors. Actually, it's a little more puzzling than that, since Intel is actually detailing the codename of an architecture that's supposed to come right after their 8th generation - read, Coffee Lake - processors. Keep in mind that Coffee Lake, whilst being supposed to bring a reorganization of Intel's product stack in response to AMD's Ryzen success, will still be in the 14 nm++ process - the third such architecture in the same process, after Skylake (14 nm) and Kaby Lake (14 nm+) before it. Cannon Lake, however, is supposed to be the company's first tick into the 10 nm process.

Intel has moved over from their famed tick-tock (where tick is a process shrink and tock is a new architecture on the same process) cadence, and are now telling customers to expect at least three "tocks" per process. It's expected that Intel will launch mobile processors on the 10 nm process before any desktop parts are launched on the same process; this could stem from the fact that mobile parts are typically lower-power, smaller-sized dies, which are easier and cheaper to produce out of a still maturing 10 nm process, which usually implies lower than ideal yields.

Today, Microsoft announced a new framework that enables businesses to adopt blockchain technology for increased enterprise privacy and security, and named Intel as a key hardware and software development partner. As part of this collaboration, Microsoft, Intel and other blockchain technology leaders will build a new enterprise-targeted blockchain framework - called the Coco Framework - that integrates Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) to deliver improved transaction speed, scale and data confidentiality to enterprises. This first-of-its-kind innovation accelerates the enterprise readiness of blockchain technology, allowing developers to create flexible and more secure enterprise blockchain applications that can be easily managed by businesses.

Thermaltake is thrilled today to launch the next generation of all-in-one liquid cooling solution - the Floe Riing RGB TT Premium Edition Series. Available in 240mm, 280mm and 360mm, the Floe Riing RGB is the world's first 16.8 million colors liquid CPU cooler series with extraordinary performance, superior quality and addressable LEDs design. The large surface radiator plus high-performance waterblock and pump delivers the ultimate CPU cooling for gaming or other GPU intense tasks.

The waterblock and fans are manufactured with multiple addressable LEDs that can be controlled by the Riing Plus RGB Software. Functions within the software also allow users to monitor fan performance and track CPU temperature. Most importantly, this brand-new cooler series supports all the latest Intel and AMD CPU socket, including Intel LGA2066 and AMD AM4. Thermaltake Floe Riing Plus RGB TT Premium Edition Series is now available for purchase on the TT Premium online shop.

It appears that Intel's response to AMD's Ryzen desktop processors will be quite a departure from the norm for the blue company. That Ryzen CPUs with their price points are a disruptive piece of silicon is a well-known fact by now. However much we knew that, though, it appears that Intel really is giving a bold (some might say necessary) response to Ryzen's threat to their immutable (for so many years) CPU lineup.

There has already been a leak for the i3-8350K and i3-8100 CPUs for Coffee Lake; this second one comes more as a confirmation of what image was already forming in our minds. And it seems that Intel really is relegating their four-core, four-thread processors to the i3 tier, thus dropping its entire lineup by a rung. Some questions remain regarding Intel's i5 lineup: likely, entry-level processors of this tier ship with four cores and HyperThreading enabled. It's expected that some i5 models will carry six physical cores (absent of HyperThreading), though. This means Intel's clean segmentation, which started with Nehalem almost a decade ago (on the 45 nm process; do you remember that?) has been brought to an end. It also means my puny i5 will now be relegated to i3 territory, but that's... Life.

On Aug. 21, Intel will unveil the 8th Generation Intel Core processor family on Facebook Live. Watch as two exciting moments align: the Great American Solar Eclipse and the unveiling of Intel's most powerful family of processors for the next era of computing. Hear from those who are at the center of creating this technology and from creators who are using the power of 8th Gen Intel Core technology in new and exciting ways.

It turns out that the Core i3-8300 isn't the only upcoming quad-core processor bearing the value-segment Core i3 badge; with Intel planning two other quad-core SKUs, according to leaked company documents that surfaced on the forumscape. The two other SKUs are the Core i3-8350K and the Core i3-8100. While the specs-sheet puts out only a limited number of specifications, it confirms that both the SKUs are quad-core, and that the i3-8350K features an unlocked multiplier. It also confirms that Core i3 quad-core chips (including the i3-8300) lack HyperThreading.

The Core i3-8100 could position itself at the lower-end of the value-segment, below the Core i3-8300. The Core i3-8350K could be a logical successor to the unlocked i3-7350K, which is being sold at $189. One can expect a pricing overlap between this unlocked quad-core SKU, and the cheapest "locked" six-core SKU bearing the Core i5 badge, such as the Core i5-8400. The i3-8350K is clocked at 4.00 GHz out of the box, and the i3-8300 at 3.60 GHz. Both chips lack Turbo Boost. The i3-8350K has a TDP rated at 91W, which is marginally below the 95W rating of its six-core siblings. The i3-8100 has its TDP rated at 65W.