Intel is planning to drop the "Atom" brand name, as it's sounding synonymous with "entry-level" or "cheap." The brand could be actually affecting popularity of Intel's "Clover Trail+" mobile SoCs, which are intended by Intel to compete with high-performance SoCs, under the Qualcomm Snapdragon and NVIDIA Tegra brands. Given how Atom makes up the slowest CPUs Intel has to offer, on the desktop and notebook platforms, its popularity in other emerging platforms could take a hit. Intel could brand Atom successors in its roadmaps to some of its more reputable brands, such as Celeron or Pentium. In the coming few years, Intel will have transitioned entry-level CPUs from its Celeron, Pentium, and even Core i3 brands to BGA (ball-grid array) packages, which could reduce their board footprint to nearly as much as today's Atom CPUs.

More benchmarks of Intel's upcoming socket LGA2011 flagship client processor, the Core i7-4960X "Ivy Bridge-E," surfaced on the web. Tom's Hardware scored an engineering sample of the chip, and wasted no time in comparing it with contemporaries across three previous Intel generations, and AMD's current generation. These include chips such as the i7-3970X, i7-4770K, i7-3770K, i7-2700K, FX-8350, and A10-5800K.

In synthetic tests, the i7-4960X runs neck and neck with the i7-3970X, offering a 5 percent performance increment at best. It's significantly faster than the i7-3930K, Intel's $500-ish offering for over 7 quarters running. Its six cores and twelve SMT threads give it a definite edge over quad-core Intel parts in multi-threaded synthetic tests. In single-threaded tests, the $350 i7-4770K is highly competitive with it. The only major surprise on offering is power-draw. Despite its TDP being rated at 130W, on par with the i7-3960X, the i7-4960X "Ivy Bridge-E" offers significantly higher energy-efficiency, which can be attributed to the 22 nm process on which it's built, compared to its predecessor's 32 nm process. Find the complete preview at the source.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter revenue of $12.8 billion, operating income of $2.7 billion, net income of $2.0 billion and EPS of $0.39. The company generated approximately $4.7 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.1 billion, and used $550 million to repurchase 23 million shares of stock.

"In the second quarter, we delivered on our quarterly outlook and made several key product announcements," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "In my first two months as CEO, I have listened to a wide variety of views about Intel and our industry from customers, employees and my leadership team and I am more confident than ever about our opportunity as a company."

CyberPower Inc., a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, today announced the Zeus HTPC, a sleek new series of Windows-based home-theatre PCs that can double as your primary desktop. The Zeus HTPC combines the compact and stylish design of a home theatre system with the power and performance of a gaming PC. The Zeus HTPC is your DVR, enthusiast home theatre PC, gaming console and DVD/Blu-Ray Player all in one thin micro-ATX chassis that fits perfectly in your home theatre stack or on your desk. The chassis utilizes a passive cooled heatsink technology paired with razor fins for maximum heat dissipation and minimal noise. CYBERPOWERPC will offer six Zeus HTPC models.

The Zeus HTPC is a multimedia monster powered by your choice of a 4th Generation Intel Core processor or AMD APU to provide easy access to all your favorite multimedia applications from PC gaming and movie streaming to surfing the web. Combined with discrete graphics with the AMD Radeon HD 7750 users can dive into the latest PC gaming titles in full HD and beautifully rendered graphics in rich detail.

Intel's first processors in the BGA (ball-grid array) package, arrive by the end of 2013, according to a leaked roadmap slide. Some of the first of these processors will span across entry-level market segments, covering the Celeron and Pentium brands. The term system-on-chip (SoC) better defines these chips than processors, as they completely integrate the processor as we know it, with the motherboard chipset. Motherboards with BGA processors come with the processors non-replaceable, and hard-wired to the board, with a stock fan-heatsink.

Intel's first SoCs for the desktop are based on the "BayTrail-D" silicon. These include the Celeron J1750, Celeron J1850, and Pentium J2850. Celeron J1750 is a dual-core part, with the CPU cores clocked at 2.41 GHz, GPU at 792 MHz, and a TDP rated at just 10W. Celeron J1850, on the other hand, is a quad-core part, with its CPU cores clocked at 2.00 GHz, and the same 792 MHz GPU. Pentium J2850 tops the series, being a quad-core part with CPU cores running at 2.41 GHz, and GPU at 792 MHz. Both these quad-core parts stick to 10W TDP. Being SoCs, these chips integrate connectivity otherwise handled by a PCH, into the processor package. According to an Intel roadmap slide, the three parts will spearhead Intel's BGA CPU lineup deep into 2014, at least as far as late-June.

Lenovo is getting all ready to launch their new ThinkPad T440s Ultrabook. Powered by Intel's latest and greatest 4th Generation Haswell Core processor, the ThinkPad T440s gives you the option to pick either a 1600 x 900 resolution IPS display or a 1920 x 1080 Full HD IPS panel, both 14" in size.

Other features include NFC, Power Bridge battery (which allows you to swap batteries without having to power down the device) and a precision enhanced keyboard. The 3.5 pounds weighing Ultrabook launch date is not known as of yet, but seeing as it is already listed with a lot of details, the date can't be too far away.

While Intel's quad-core Haswell architecture based 4th generation Core processors are already out there dominating benchmark charts (even if only by a small margin) and scoring new accolades in power efficiency, the dual-core Core processors have been left in the dark. At least, in the desktop segment. Not anymore though, as PC Games Hardware managed to score a sample of the energy efficient Core i5-4570T, a dual-core Haswell based processor for the desktop with a very impressive, and low, 35W TDP only.

Now your K-Series CPUs don't necessarily need to go along with Z-Series chipsets to experience the joy of overclocking. ECS recently announced that its motherboards with all Intel 8 Series chipsets, including H87, B85, and H81, have the CPU overclocking ability, giving non Z-Series motherboard users the benefit of additional performance through CPU overclocking.

ECS has achieved Non-Z Series CPU overclocking with H87, B85, and H81 motherboards by simply adjusting the CPU Ratio inside the BIOS, offering an extremely easy way of overclocking your CPU. More importantly, H87, B85, and H81 CPU overclocking ability provides an affordable solution for seasoned or casual overclockers at a wide range or price levels.

Intel's first chips based on the company's new, and Industry first, 14-nanometer manufacturing process are expected to hit markets in late 2015. With Skylake, Intel will introduce their new 9th-generation Intel HD IGP. The new platform will be the first to bring dual-channel DDR4 memory support. Skylake won't be the first platform to support DDR4 memory. In the 2H of 2014, Intel will launch their enthusiast grade Haswell-E platform, with support for quad-channel DDR4 memory. Skylake will be more of an evolution of Broadwell, which in turn is essentially an die shrink of Haswell to 14nm.

Additionally, the new mainstream platform will bring in support for PCI-E 4.0, essentially doubling the bandwidth offered by the current PCI-E 3.0 standard. More powerful GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD should be able to take advantage of the improved bandwidth, as their cards keep getting more and more powerful with each passing generation. Skylake will also introduce support for SATA Express. The advantage? SATA Express allows for a max bandwidth of about 16 Gb/s, more than 2.5x the 6 Gb/s bandwidth offered by the current SATA standard. While the product slide doesn't specify exactly as to when the first Skylake based products are scheduled to hit the market, our best guess places it at the end of 2015.

According to a leaked SSD product stack roadmap by Intel, scored by VR-Zone, the company is close to launching its next-generation performance-segment consumer SSDs, the SSD 530 series. The line succeeds Intel's SSD 520 and SSD 525 series, features the latest 20 nm MLC NAND flash, but the same LSI-SandForce SF-2281 controller (probably the latest revision, backed by a better firmware). According to the roadmap, the series should have debuted back in June, which never happened. Apparently, it's off by a month, and Intel moved its launch window to some time between the 8th and 12th of this month.

Intel's SSD 530 series will be available in three form-factors, including the familiar 2.5-inch SATA (7 mm-thick), NGFF M2, and mSATA. The drives will be available in 80 GB, 180 GB, 240 GB, and 360 GB for the M2 and mSATA form-factors; and 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, and 480 GB for the 2.5-inch form-factor. At this point, nothing is known about their rated performance or pricing. Elsewhere in the lineup, SSD 335 series will continue throughout the year, going into Q1 2014, as Intel's mid-range SSD offering.

EVGA launched its flagship socket LGA2011 motherboard, the X79 Dark (model: 150-SE-E789-KR). It made its debut at this year's International CES event. Designed for open-air benches, this motherboard requires a case that can seat E-ATX motherboards. It measures 304.8 x 263.5 mm (LxW). It draws power from a combination of a 24-pin ATX input, two 8-pin EPS inputs, and a 6-pin PCIe input, to stabilize bus-supplied power for add-on cards. The X79 Dark from EVGA comes with a plethora of features for CPU and VGA overclockers alike. In addition to onboard controls, EVBot support, consolidated voltage measurement points, EVGA deployed a brand new UEFI setup program interface, which debuted with some of its premium Z87-based motherboards.

EVGA X79 Dark features a 12-layer PCB. It uses a 12+2 phase VRM to power the CPU, a 4-phase VRM for the memory, and features power-gating to individual PCI-Express slots. On the expansion front, you get five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, from which two are electrical x16-capable, and all five electrical x8-capable, depending on how the slots are populated. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, two of which are from the X79 PCH, four from third-party controllers; four SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the PCH, and two eSATA 3 Gb/s. The rest of its connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces (both driven by Intel-made controllers), six USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by header), Bluetooth, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. EVGA X79 Dark bear a street-price of US $399.99.Many Thanks to Radrok for the tip

Who ever said that only K series CPUs and the Z-family platform are capable of being overclocked? The avant-garde company ASRock has broken this limitation with an exciting new feature named Non-Z OC! Via this feature overclockers may install their K series CPUs to ASRock's Fatal1ty H87 Performance or any other H87 B85 chipset motherboards and start overclocking immediately!

The first ASRock motherboard that implements the Non-Z OC feature is Fatal1ty H87 Performance, which is also the H87 motherboard with the most number of power phases in the market currently. Along with its powerful 8 Power Phase design, the CPU frequency can be effortlessly overclocked up to 26%! Simply update to the latest version of our UEFI, then you'll find the Non-Z OC feature sitting in the OC Tweaker page, select a frequency from a couple of preset settings, restart, kick back to enjoy your drink and voila!

Coolaler.com community member "Toppc" scored an engineering sample of Intel's upcoming Core i7-4960X "Ivy Bridge-E" socket LGA2011 processor, and wasted no time in taking a peek inside its integrated heatspreader (IHS). Beneath the adhesive layer that holds the IHS to the package, which could be fairly easily cut through, "Toppc" discovered that Intel is using a strong epoxy/solder to fuse the processor's die to the IHS, and not a thermal paste, like on Core i7-3770K. Solders tend to have better conductivity than pastes, but make it extremely difficult to de-lid the processors, not to mention potentially disastrous. In the process of delidding this chip, "Toppc" appears to have knocked out a few components around the die. Unless you're good at precision soldering, something like that would be a fatal blow to your $1000 investment.

The EUROCOM X5 has been stress tested and benchmarked with an Intel Core i7-4930MX processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M graphics with extreme results. "Eurocom created the X5 gaming laptop so our gaming warrior clients could discover their dark side, the performance and design are unmatched" Mark Bialic, Eurocom President. The EUROCOM X5 will be equipped with high resolution 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS and 3D displays, upgradeable extreme processors, next generation NVIDIA GTX 700M graphics, multiple storage options (up to 5 physical drives) and up to 32 GB of DDR3-1600 memory.

Personalize your own Eurocom laptop weapon with a custom backlit keyboard, with 7 colours, 3 zones and 8 modes to dominate and stand out. To store the latest games and software the X5 can support up to 5 storage drives, with 2 mSATA solid state drives for fast boot up times and blazing responsiveness. The following 4th gen CPUs will be available: Intel Core i7-4930MX with 4 cores and 8 threads running at 3 GHz with 8 MB L3 cache, Intel Core i7-4900MQ, Intel Core i7-4800MQ and Intel Core i7-4700MQ.

Lenovo today announced its new ThinkPad S531, a premium laptop PC featuring an ultra-thin bezel and bevelled edges, giving the illusion that the PC is floating. Optimized for Windows 8, the ThinkPad S531 offers small businesses enhanced performance and 15 per cent faster processor speed than previous generations. The ThinkPad S531 is being launched today at the Xander Zhou fashion show at London Fashion Week in conjunction with the designer's new men's fashion collection.

Lenovo's first 15-inch ThinkPad Ultrabook delivers high style and performance to image-conscious small businesses and is ideal for professionals who want a combination of design and substance. It is also a fit for small businesses that need a laptop to do it all - great performance for work tasks and an excellent experience for personal computing

Acer America today announced that a new model in its Acer C7 Chromebook line, the Acer C710-2856, is now available at 2,800 Walmart stores for the low price of only $199. The new Acer C710-2856 Chromebook has a 16GB Solid State Drive (SSD) that provides fast boot times and quick access to apps and media for speedier all-around performance.

The affordable price and wide range of capabilities make the new Acer C7 Chromebook the ideal additional laptop for families, students and professionals who need a fast, easy and secure way to get online to do their computing in the cloud, such as using Gmail, keeping up on social networks, shopping and paying bills. The new model is available at an ideal time, since many consumers are looking for a portable computer for summer travel, or are already planning ahead for back-to-college.

A system built with thousands of Intel processors and co-processors was just named the most powerful supercomputer in the world in the 41st edition of the Top500 list of supercomputers. The system, known as "Milky Way 2," includes 48,000 Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors and 32,000 Intel Xeon processors and operates at a peak performance of 54.9 PFlops (54.9 quadrillion floating point operations per second) -- more than twice the performance of the top rated system from the last edition of the Top500 list in November 2012. This is the first exclusively Intel-based system to take the top spot on the list since 1997.

Intel also announced the expansion of the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors portfolio and revealed details of the second generation of Intel Xeon Phi products code named "Knights Landing." The new products and technologies will continue to radically increase the energy efficiency and performance of supercomputers worldwide.

Another day, another Intel leak and a few surprises as well. During the last few days we covered Intel's desktop roadmap for the next twelve months, bringing you news and insights on Intel's plans for the aforementioned time interval. Today we bring you news on what's to follow in the second half of 2014, specifically, on Intel's Premium Desktop plans for the interval, namely Haswell-E, DDR4 and the X99 PCH.

Haswell-E will be Intel's last and best offering using the 22 nm fabrication process, it will come in two versions, core count wise, 8 core part(s) as well as 6 core part(s) with hyper-threading enabled, therefore, boasting no less that 16 execution threads for the 8 core chips and 12 execution threads for the 6 core version(s). Judging by that alone, Haswell-E should constitute a far superior upgrade over Ivy Bridge-E, compared to what the latter will be in relation to Sandy Bridge-E, Haswell-E offering two additional physical cores that translate into four additional execution threads. The new chips will boast 2.5 MB of L3 Cache per core, summing up to 20 MB total L3 cache for the 8 core parts. TDP will remain in the same neighborhood it was in the case of its predecessors, around 130-140 W.

We know from older reports that Intel will refresh its socket LGA2011 HEDT (high-end desktop) product family with three new parts, based on the new 22 nm "Ivy Bridge-E" silicon. A table detailing their clock speeds was leaked to the web. In addition, we got details of what Intel's entry-level Core i3 "Haswell" line of dual-core processors would look like, specs-wise. The Ivy Bridge-E silicon, is to a large part an optical shrink of the Sandy Bridge-E silicon, with a few improvements. The chip is fabricated on Intel's 22 nm node with tri-gate transistors, the IMC natively supports DDR3-1866 MHz, the PCI-Express root complex is gen 3.0 certified, and the CPUID features the new RdRAND instruction set. Aside from these clock speeds are increased across the board, although TDP isn't lowered from the previous 130W.

Leading the Core i7 "Ivy Bridge-E" pack is the Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition, with its 3.60 GHz core, 4.00 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, unlocked base-clock multiplier, and 15 MB L3 cache. This six-core chip will command a four-figure price. Next up, is the Core i7-4930K, with 3.40 GHz core, 3.90 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, unlocked base-clock multiplier, and 12 MB L3 cache. This chip could be 30-40 percent cheaper than the i7-4960X. The cheapest of the lot, though, is the Core i7-4820K. This quad-core part, interestingly, features unlocked base-clock multiplier, unlike its predecessor, the i7-3820. Perhaps Intel didn't want a repeat of Core i7-3770K cannibalizing the i7-3820. The i7-4820K features 3.70 GHz core, 3.90 GHz Turbo Boost, and 10 MB of L3 cache. The chip may be priced in the same range as the i7-4770K. All three parts feature quad-channel DDR3 integrated memory controllers, with native support for DDR3-1866.

AsRock, the renowned motherboard manufacturer, earlier today updated the CPU Support List for its LGA 2011 platform products with Intel's next generation Xeon E5 processors, using Ivy Bridge-EP silicon and scheduled for launch in Q3 this year. Along with the part number list, specifications such as clock frequency, cache size and TDP value were made public as well. Information from which we can deduce that the new chips will come in three core count versions, specifically 8 core, 10 core and 12 core parts. TDP ranges from 70 W for the E5-2650L v2, a 10 core chip running at 1.7 Ghz, to 150 W for the E5-2687W v2, also a 10 core chip but running at 3.4 Ghz.

Intel Corporation today announced the Intel Solid-State Drive DC S3500 Series, its latest solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers and cloud computing. Designed for read-intensive applications such as Web hosting, cloud computing and data center virtualization, the Intel DC S3500 Series is an ideal replacement for traditional hard disk drives (HDD), allowing data centers to save significant costs by moving toward an all-SSD storage model.

Intel SSDs, including the Intel SSD DC S3500 Series, enable transformational improvements in cloud infrastructure, fostering new and enriching Web experiences. End customers experience quicker Web page loads and improved response times as a result of dramatically improved data access times and reduced latency. IT managers and cloud developers are rewarded with improved total cost of ownership as a result of reduced power consumption, more consistent performance and smaller space requirements. More than half of U.S. businesses now employ cloud computing applications, and IDC predicts that worldwide spending on cloud services will reach $44.2 billion this year. Data centers powering these cloud applications need to quickly, efficiently and reliably scale to handle the tremendous growth of connected users and data traffic.

At an industry event in Taipei today, Hermann Eul, general manager of Intel's Mobile and Communications Group, unveiled new details about the company's forthcoming Intel Atom processor-based SoC for tablets ("Bay Trail-T") due in market for holiday this year. Based on the new Silvermont microarchitecture, the next generation 22nm Intel technology for tablets and ultra-mobile devices will enable sleek designs with 8 or more hours of battery life2 and weeks of standby, as well as support Android* and Windows 8.1*.

Eul also spoke to recent momentum and announcements around the smartphone business and demonstrated the Intel XMM 7160 multimode 4G LTE solution, now in final interoperability testing (IOT) with Tier 1 service providers across North America, Europe and Asia. "The mobile category is undergoing a tremendous amount of innovation and constant change," said Eul. "As we look at growing it, we continue to invest in and accelerate our efforts across all aspects of mobility with a focus on smartphones, tablets and wireless communications. Intel's unique assets will enable more compelling and differentiated products and experiences, while at the same time helping to shape and lead markets in the future."

Today Intel introduced the new Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v3 product family based on Haswell microarchitecture and the company's 22nm manufacturing process. When deployed in cloud data center environments, the new Intel Xeon processors will help reduce costs and increase media processing capabilities for cloud-based media service providers to better support customers wanting to upload and share videos with friends across different mobile devices. In addition to a better offering for cloud media workloads than discrete graphic-based servers, new Intel Xeon processors offer exceptional energy efficiency and lowest TDP ever at 13 Watts for highly dense environments like microservers. Get the Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v3 product family fact sheet.

Creative Technology Ltd today announced the new Creative Senz3D interactive gesture camera, introducing an immersive multi-dimensional gaming, video conferencing and voice control experience for PC enthusiasts and early adopters. Designed for use with 2nd generation and later Intel Core processors, the Creative Senz3D will be on display at Computex Taipei, Taiwan from June 4 - 8 at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) Nangang Exhibition Hall, Intel Booth #M410.

Creative Senz3D combines advanced depth sensor technology with a camera and dual array microphones to deliver a new multi-dimensional interactive experience. Users can play PC games using hand and finger gestures to control and interact with characters and environments. Its 3D sensing technology is able to enhance facial recognition and also extract a person's image for various applications. In addition to a variety of games and applications that ship with the Creative Senz3D, users will experience a robust bundle of software which enables interactive video conferencing, voice control of a PC, creation of video blog environments, and much more.

ASUS launched its socket LGA1150 motherboard lineup with three products in its coveted Republic of Gamers (ROG) lineup, the flagship Maximus VI Extreme, the micro-ATX Maximus VI Gene, and the mid-range Maximus VI Hero. A little earlier today, the mini-ITX Maximus VI Impact joined the team with a stunning feature-set for its size. At Computex, we pictured the last piece of the puzzle, the Maximus VI Formula. Pictured below, this ATX motherboard based on the Z87 chipset is best suited for liquid-cooled rigs with 3-way graphics cards. It borrows a piece of technology over from the TUF series, a thermal armor that covers most parts of the board. The armor makes contact with a water block that actively cools the board's CPU VRM.

The Maximus VI Formula uses an identical CPU VRM to the Maximus VI Extreme. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS. A 4-pin ATX and Molex can be optionally connected to stabilize overclocks. The LGA1150 socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, and three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4), it lacks the PEX8747 bridge chip of its bigger sibling. Three other PCI-Express 2.0 x1 chips make for the rest of the expansion. Connectivity on the Maximus VI Formula includes ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, eight USB 3.0 ports, SupremeFX audio, gigabit Ethernet (Intel controller), 802.11 ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0. ASUS didn't reveal launch plans.