CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 2

Once again, a Meteor Lake mobile chip has been spotted with a new name that contains 'Ultra,' backing up a previous leak and chatter from the grapevine that Intel is ditching its traditional Core naming format.

The CPU in question is the Intel Core Ultra 7 1003H, so the theoretical switch is to call the processor Core Ultra 7 rather than Core i7. Benchleaks spotted this on Twitter, and it's from a PugetBench result.

Previously, we saw a Core Ultra 5 (rather than i5) in a leaked Ashes of the Singularity benchmark, so this is the second time we've seen this potential 'Ultra' branding as mentioned.

Intel has changed the packaging of its Core i9-12900KS processor, dropping the gold wafer that was previously included in the box with the Alder Lake flagship chip.

The Core i9-12900KS now comes in a slimmer box with no wafer (Image Credit: Intel / VideoCardz)

As VideoCardz spotted, the Core i9-12900KS now comes in a plain 'tier 4' box with no mock gold wafer (which is plastic, and not silicon, ahem - in case there was any doubt).

This is according to a Product Change Notification from Intel regarding the 12900KS, which is a highly-binned version of the 12900K that's pushed further with its clock speeds.

Intel's Meteor Lake processors are definitely coming to laptops, but as for desktop chips, that's been a controversial point for the rumor mill - and now it seems that desktop CPUs won't be made after all.

One of the regular hardware leakers on Twitter, @OneRaichu, tells us that Intel has finally decided to cancel Meteor Lake desktop processors.

You may recall that the rumors around Meteor Lake being laptop-only are fairly old now, but more recently, there was a resurgence of hope that Intel might again be considering desktop models - just mid-range Core i5 chips, though (and maybe lower-end, too).

A leaked roadmap from Giga Computing, GIGABYTE's server and enterprise division, outlines what the next generation of data center technology from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA will look like regarding power-draw. And when it comes to cooling data center hardware like CPUs and GPUs, it's looking like that could become a serious problem by 2025.

Image credit: HXL/Twitter.

The slide shows a substantial increase in CPU power consumption from Intel and AMD, with 500W and 600W CPUs due sometime in 2024-2025. Compared to 2022 general-purpose CPU hardware, this is essentially a 2X increase.

PCIe-based GPUs will also see a power consumption increase, with GPUs from NVIDIA set to hit 500W with GPUs from AMD set to hit 400W. Things get a little crazier when it comes to different sets of hardware, with the slide mentioning NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip and Grace Hopper Superchips that could feature SKUs with power consumption going all the way up to 1000W.

A new leak about AMD Ryzen 8000 (Granite Ridge) processors fills in a good deal more info about the next-gen chips (bring your own salt), but it may disappoint because it puts forward a later timeframe for arrival than previously expected.

If this leak is right, Ryzen 8000 X3D processors may not arrive until spring 2025, perhaps (Image Credit: AMD)

Let's get that nugget out of the way upfront, with a new report from Hilbert Hagedoorn at Guru3D claiming that the Zen 5 release date will be the second half of 2024.

Previously, we'd heard chatter from the rumor mill - courtesy of YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead - that Zen 5 desktop chips might be out in the first half of next year, and quite possibly Q1 2024.

Rapidus Corp. is a newly-formed Japanese semiconductor manufacturing company with pretty lofty goals, making it a significant player in the chip space in just four years. This would put it in direct competition with TSMC and Samsung, with Rapidus producing its 2-nanometer chips by 2027.

Rapidus Corporation looking to bring 2nm semiconductor manufacturing to Japan, image credit: IBM.

The company is already investing billions in the new plant, with strategic investments from the likes of Sony and Toyota and even the Japanese government. According to Bloomberg, the government has already budgeted over USD 2.4 billion (or ¥330 billion) annually for the new semiconductor manufacturer.

"Huge opportunities are ahead of us if we can become first in the market and focus on making chips for specific areas, such as AI," Rapidus chairman Tetsuro Higashi tells Bloomberg.

Intel's Arrow Lake processors, which in theory are set to follow Meteor Lake (and Raptor Lake refresh), could arrive late next year with a massive performance boost.

That's according to YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), whose latest video concerns Intel's upcoming processor ranges, encompassing all the aforementioned Core families.

For us, the most significant piece of news here is that 15th-gen Arrow Lake's performance cores will be hugely faster than Meteor Lake. MLID asserts that Arrow Lake will offer an IPC (Instructions per Clock) boost of 22% to 34%.

Recently we reported on a new and mandatory AMD AGESA 1.0.0.7 BIOS Firmware for all AM5 motherboards built for the new Ryzen 7000 CPUs. This a direct response to the burnout issues found on some Ryzen 7000X3D chips that were damaging both the chip and motherboard.

AMD's root cause for the issue was around voltage. The new firmware limits the SoC voltage to 1.3V. It adds other measures/fixes to ensure processors don't exceed their temperature specifications - while not affecting memory overclocking via AMD EXPO profiles.

With potentially damaged hardware on the line, no doubt there's a rush to get this out to as many customers (and board partners) as possible, but with ASUS using a BETA release of the new AGESA 1.0.0.7 BIOS firmware, it looks like there are still issues to work out, which could delay the proper and final rollout of firmware to fix the burnout issue by weeks.

Regarding non-memory chip manufacturing, Samsung has been trailing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in terms of cutting-edge process nodes and yields for some time. Even so, the company believes that when it comes to rolling out a 2-nanometer semiconductor manufacturing process, it will catch up to TSMC and even surpass it.

Samsung's foundries, image credit: Samsung.

Samsung's president and manager of the company's foundry business, Dr. Siyoung Choi, made these remarks during a keynote at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in South Korea (via Wccftech) where he put a timeline of five years for Samsung to catch up to TSMC.

Dr. Siyoung Choi did note that TSMC is currently ahead of Samsung when it comes to chip production. However, he cites Samsung's use of GAA technologies for current 3nm production as a step ahead of TSMC, which still utilizes the tried and true FinFET.

AMD's next-gen Zen 5 processors are once again the subject of chatter on the grapevine, with a YouTube leaker toning down expectations (slightly) on how fast Ryzen 8000 chips could be.

The latest video from RedGamingTech (RGT) still sticks to the line that Zen 5 might offer an IPC (Instructions per Clock) uplift of between 20% and 25%, as the YouTuber said in their last leak.

This time around, though, RGT notes that while multiple sources in both cases are pegging IPC gains at about 20% and 25% respectively, the leaker believes that 20% is the more likely figure.