CPU, APU & Chipsets News - Page 4

AMD Radeon RX 580 GPUs are finding a new use, with the graphics chips being made into keychains, as seen over in China.

These novelty keychains consist of a GPU and a pair of memory modules on a PCB, although they look like rather chunky and impractical keychains, it has to be said.

As spotted by Olrak on Twitter, the keychains are being sold on a second-hand site in China, with a few of them on offer (apparently only one is left up for grabs now, though).

Yesterday we got word that the upcoming ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld PC would feature a custom AMD Ryzen Z1 Series processor. Built using AMD Phoenix silicon with Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architectures, a new leak via the Geekbench tool gives us more info on what's powering ASUS's Steam Deck competitor.

ASUS ROG Ally, image credit: ASUS.

The processor is the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, with 8-cores and 16-threads and a maximum boost clock frequency of 5 GHz. The Geekbench results also confirm the existence of Radeon Graphics, but the exact model specs outside of the iGPU using 8GB of VRAM and featuring 6 Compute Units still need to be confirmed.

Still, this is more confirmation that ROG Ally's Z1 Extreme CPU is a customized version of the Ryzen 7 7840U CPU - with the benchmark results putting its performance in line with laptops sporting the processor and Radeon 780M integrated graphics. The overall score is on par with the GeForce GTX 1060 in OpenCL.

The ASUS ROG Ally is a gaming handheld running Windows 11, launching soon. However, we still don't have official word on the underlying hardware and specs apart from ASUS stating that it will feature the "fastest" AMD APU built on a custom 4nm process with Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architecture.

ROG Ally hardware breakdown, image credit: Papaytop.

But, as with hardware mysteries, we have more info from two sources. One is a marketing image outlining the capabilities and broad specs of the ROG Ally handheld. The other is a shipping manifest calling out a specific Ryzen hardware as part of the "Handheld Console PC." Namely the Ryzen 7 7840U.

The marketing slide mentions a custom AMD Ryzen Z1 Series processor, which could be the Ryzen 7 7840U with modifications and specific custom features. Either way, the ROG Ally will ship with an AMD Phoenix APU, which can deliver double the in-game performance of Valve's Steam Deck with improved power efficiency.

Intel's Meteor Lake processors might hit 5.4GHz in their mobile configuration, which could make these CPUs top-notch for gaming laptops - providing Intel isn't too slow off the mark with getting them out of the door.

This is the latest spillage from well-known YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), who chews over fresh chatter on the subject of Meteor Lake in his latest video (among other topics).

MLID's source assures us that Meteor Lake will not fall short on clock speeds, even if it won't reach the same levels as Raptor Lake. We're told that currently, the top-end Meteor Lake laptop CPU is running at 4.7GHz, and it's expected to hit 5GHz - but the hope is it'll end up as high as 5.4GHz. The latter isn't something the source is confident about, but it's certainly what Intel is aiming for right now.

We've had an initial sighting of AMD's Zen 6 processors, although this is a leak we should be very careful around, as you'll see.

The spillage comes from a purported AMD engineer's LinkedIn profile, as flagged up by Wccftech, but we should note that the details were swiftly removed from the site (which isn't particularly surprising).

Furthermore, a tweet from Maraux David, pointing out the profile, has also since been deleted (although another source Wccftech followed to find this info, Kepler_L2, has not removed their tweet).

A new multigeneration deal between Intel and Arm will enable third-party chip designers and manufacturers to build mobile SoCs on the 18A process node. Using Intel's manufacturing to create Arm-based SoCs is a pretty big deal in that it will lead to Arm chip designs using Intel's 18A node and third parties hiring Intel to make their chips.

The 18A process technology has been designed for improved power and performance, and this deal is the latest step in Intel expanding its manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and EU. And positions Intel to compete directly with TSMC and offer more cutting-edge manufacturing globally.

"This collaboration will enable a more balanced global supply chain for foundry customers working in mobile SoC design on Arm-based CPU cores," writes Intel. "By unlocking Arm's leading-edge compute portfolio and world-class IP on Intel process technology, Arm partners will be able to take full advantage of Intel's open system foundry model, which goes beyond traditional wafer fabrication to include packaging, software, and chiplets."

AMD's Zen 5 processors are expected to debut next year, and of late, we've been hearing a lot of exciting predictions about how fast these next-gen CPUs might be - and here's another one that takes the form of an actual benchmark this time.

Yes, it's still very early days for Zen 5, but we now have a Cinebench result brought to us by well-known YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead (MLID).

Arm up with all the usual caveats around rumors at this point, but MLID tells us that a system with a pair of 64-core Zen 5 Turin CPUs (next-gen server processors) in two sockets (for a total of 128-cores) scored over 123,000 in Cinebench R23.

That AMD's Zen 5 processors will be much faster than current-gen Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) chips is something we've heard before, but this time around, the spinning of the rumor mill comes from a fascinating source: Jim Keller.

In case you weren't aware, Keller is a renowned processor guru, and in fact led the development of the original Zen architecture at AMD way back in 2012.

He left Team Red three years later and is now CEO of Tenstorrent, but clearly he knows a thing or two about the Zen microarchitecture - and he's provided a pretty impressive guestimate of how effective it might be.

YouTube channel SkatterBencher, with ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard and EK custom loop water cooling, has managed to push the new AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU to 5.4 GHz with some clever overclocking.

Overclocking the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU to 5.4 GHz, image credit: SkatterBencher (YouTube).

The Ryzen 7000X3D series, with 3D V-Cache technology, are CPUs not designed for overclocking. AMD has manually disabled manual overclocking on the chip outside of a few exceptions-Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and AMD's Curve Optimizer.

So if you're wondering how SkatterBencher managed to push the single-core clock speeds to 5.4 GHz and 4.85 GHz on all eight cores, it was a somewhat complicated process that took advantage of the features of the ASUS motherboard - namely two external clock generators.

Intel has issued a Product Change Notification outlining that several 11th Generation Tiger Lake CPUs will be discontinued as of January 26, 2024.

The list primarily covers mobile processors, including Core i5, i7, and even the powerful Intel Core i9-11900H processor, as Intel shifts the focus to 12th Generation Alder Lake and 13th Generation Raptor Lake line-ups. This makes sense, as these CPUs are the only real options out there for DIY builders.

The list doesn't cover all models, and the desktop line-up is limited to 11th Generation Tiger Lake B-series processors with a 65W TDP. These CPUs, like the Intel Core i9-11900KB, are mainly used for smaller systems like Intel NUC.