The mention of "170 W" in one of the slides of AMD's Computex 2022 reveal of the upcoming Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" desktop processors, caused quite some confusion as to what that figure meant. AMD issued a structured clarification on the matter, laying to rest the terminology associated with it. Apparently, there will be certain SKUs of Socket AM5 processors with TDP of 170 W. This would be the same classical definition of TDP that AMD has been consistently using. The package-power tracking (PPT), a figure that translates as power limit for the socket, is 230 W.

This does not necessarily mean that there will be a Ryzen 7000-series SKU with 170 W TDP. AMD plans to give AM5 a similar life-cycle to AM4, which is now spanning five generations of Ryzen processors, and the 170 W TDP and 230 W PPT figures only denote design goals for the socket. AMD, in a statement, explained why it needed to make AM5 capable of delivering much higher power than AM4 could—to enable higher CPU core-counts in the future, more on-package hardware, and for new capabilities like power-hungry instruction-sets (think AVX-512). AMD has been calculating PPT as 1.35 times TDP, since the very first generation of Ryzen chips. For a 105 W TDP processor, this means 140 W PPT, and the same formula continues with Ryzen 7000 series (230 W is 1.35x 170 W).The AMD statement follows.

Many companies, including Intel and AMD, have stopped product shipments to Russia amidst the war in Ukraine in the past few months. This has left the Russian state without any new processors from the two prominent x86 designers, thus slowing down the country's technological progress. To overcome this issue, it seems like the solution is embedded in the Chinese Zhaoxin x86 CPUs. According to the latest report from Habr, a motherboard designer called Dannie is embedding Chinese Zhaoxin x86 CPUs into motherboards to provide the motherland with an x86-capable processor. More precisely, the company had designed a BX-Z60A micro-ATX motherboard that embeds Zhaoxin's KaiXian KX-6640MA SoC with eight cores based on LuJiaZui microarchitecture. The SoC is clocked at a frequency range of 2.1-2.7 GHz, carries 4 MB of L2 cache, 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, and has integrated graphics, all in a 25 Watt TDP.

As far as the motherboard is concerned, it supports two DDR4 memory slots, two PCIe x16 connectors, M.2-2280 and M.2-2230 slots, and three SATA III connectors for storage. For I/O you have USB ports, DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA/D-Sub, GbE, 3.5-mm audio, and additional PS/2 ports. This is a pretty decent selection; however, we don't know the pricing structure. A motherboard with KaiXian KX-6640MA SoC like this is certainly not cheap, so we are left to wonder if this will help Russian users deal with the newly imposed restriction on importing US tech.

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 40 series of graphics cards, codenamed Ada Lovelace, is shaping up to be a powerful graphics card lineup. Allegedly, we can expect to see a mid-July launch of NVIDIA's newest gaming offerings, where customers can expect some impressive performance. According to a reliable hardware leaker, kopite7kimi, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card will feature AD102-300 GPU SKU. This model is equipped with 126 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), which brings the total number of FP32 CUDA cores to 16128. Compared to the full AD102 GPU with 144 SMs, this leads us to think that there will be an RTX 4090 Ti model following up later as well.

Paired with 24 GB of 21 Gbps GDDR6X memory, the RTX 4090 graphics card has a TDP of 450 Watts. While this number may appear as a very power-hungry design, bear in mind that the targeted performance improvement over the previous RTX 3090 model is expected to be a two-fold scale. Paired with TSMC's new N4 node and new architecture design, performance scaling should follow at the cost of higher TDPs. These claims are yet to be validated by real-world benchmarks of independent tech media, so please take all of this information with a grain of salt and wait for TechPowerUp reviews once the card arrives.

Extreme overclocking is an enthusiast discipline where overclockers try to push their hardware to extreme limits. Combining powerful cooling solutions like liquid nitrogen (LN2), which reaches sub-zero temperatures alongside modified hardware, the silicon can output tremendous power. Today, we are witnessing a custom XOC (eXtreme OverClocking) BIOS for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card that can push the GA102 SKU to impressive 890 Watts of power, representing almost a two-fold increase to the stock TDP. Enthusiasts pursuing large frequencies with their RTX 3090 Ti are likely users of this XOC BIOS. However, most likely, we will see GALAX HOF or EVGA KINGPIN cards with dual 16-pin power connectors utilize this.

As shown below, MEGAsizeGPU, the creator of this BIOS, managed to push his ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF with XOC BIOS to 615 Watts, so KINGPIN and HOF designs will have to be used to draw all the possible heat. The XOC BIOS was uploaded to our VGA BIOS database, however, caution is advised as this can break your graphics card.

A few days ago, Intel announced its first official discrete graphics card efforts, designed for laptops. Called the Arc Alchemist lineup, Intel has designed these SKUs to provide entry-level to high-end options covering a wide range of use cases. Today, AMD has responded with a rather exciting Tweet made by the company's @Radeon Twitter account. The company compared Intel's Arc Alchemist A370M GPU with AMD's Radeon RX 6500M mobile SKUs in the post. These GPUs are made on TSMC's N6 node, feature 4 GB GDDR6 64-bit memory, 1024 FP32 cores, and have the same configurable TDP range of 35-50 Watts.

Below, you can see AMD's benchmarks of the following select games: Hitman 3, Total War Saga: Troy, F1 2021, Strange Brigade (High), and Final Fantasy XIV. The Radeon RX 6500M GPU manages to win in all of these games, thus explaining AMD's "FTW" hashtag on Twitter. Remember that these are vendor-supplied benchmarks runs, so we have to wait for some media results to surface.

AMD is slowly preparing to transition its consumer base into a new platform and processor architecture with the launch of Ryzen 7000 series processors codenamed Raphael. Based on the new AM5 LGA socket, these processors will come with up to 16 cores and 32 threads at the top-end configurations. Thanks to the latest round of rumors, we managed to find out just what TDP rating two SKUs will carry. According to a well-known leaker @graymon55, AMD is rating the 12-core SKU with a TDP of 105 Watts. On the other hand, the top-end 16-core 7000 series SKU replacing the current Ryzen 9 5950X will carry a large TDP of 170 Watts.

The 170 Watt TDP configuration will likely require better cooling efforts. AMD will probably advise users to invest in better cooling solutions, such as AIO liquid coolers or giant air coolers.

During the GTC 2022 keynote, NVIDIA announced its newest addition to the accelerator cards family. Called NVIDIA H100 accelerator, it is the company's most powerful creation ever. Utilizing 80 billion of TSMC's 4N 4 nm transistors, H100 can output some insane performance, according to NVIDIA. Featuring a new fourth-generation Tensor Core design, it can deliver a six-fold performance increase compared to A100 Tensor Cores and a two-fold MMA (Matrix Multiply Accumulate) improvement. Additionally, new DPX instructions accelerate Dynamic Programming algorithms up to seven times over the previous A100 accelerator. Thanks to the new Hopper architecture, the Streaming Module structure has been optimized for better transfer of large data blocks.

The full GH100 chip implementation features 144 SMs, and 128 FP32 CUDA cores per SM, resulting in 18,432 CUDA cores at maximum configuration. The NVIDIA H100 GPU with SXM5 board form-factor features 132 SMs, totaling 16,896 CUDA cores, while the PCIe 5.0 add-in card has 114 SMs, totaling 14,592 CUDA cores. As much as 80 GB of HBM3 memory surrounds the GPU at 3 TB/s bandwidth. Interestingly, the SXM5 variant features a very large TDP of 700 Watts, while the PCIe card is limited to 350 Watts. This is the result of better cooling solutions offered for the SXM form-factor. As far as performance figures are concerned, the SXM and PCIe versions provide two distinctive figures for each implementation. You can check out the performance estimates in various precision modes below. You can read more about the Hopper architecture and what makes it special in this whitepaper published by NVIDIA.

AMD today launched its first Ryzen Threadripper processors based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture, with the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000WX series. Designed to be drop-in compatible with workstations and motherboards based on the AMD WRX80 chipset, these processors come in core-counts of up to 64-core/128-thread, with an enormous I/O offering that includes 8-channel DDR4 memory with ECC support, and a 128-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root complex. The biggest change over the previous generation Threadripper PRO 3000WX series has to be the use of "Zen 3" CCDs, each with 8 CPU cores, sharing a common 32 MB of L3 cache. AMD isn't using the "Zen 3" chiplets with 3DV Cache.

The full AMD PRO management feature-set from Ryzen PRO is available on these processors, including PRO Security, PRO Management, and a special support channel that includes planned parts and software availability. What's more, AMD has been working with ISVs of most professional content-creation software since the past generation of Ryzen Threadripper PRO, to optimize their software for the processors (high core-counts, NUMA topology, etc.). The benefits of these are shared with all generations of Threadrippers. Although all parts in the Threadripper PRO 5000WX series are rated for a TDP of 280 W, AMD claims to have worked on power-management, offering up to 67 percent lower power per core, compared to the competition (2P Xeon Scalable Platinum 8280).

During the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2022, Intel gave us a more significant look at its upcoming Ponte Vecchio HPC accelerator and how it operates. So far, Intel convinced us that the company created Ponte Vecchio out of 47 tiles glued together in one package. However, the ISSCC presentation shows that the accelerator is structured rather interestingly. There are 63 tiles in total, where 16 are reserved for compute, eight are used for RAMBO cache, two are Foveros base tiles, two represent Xe-Link tiles, eight are HBM2E tiles, and EMIB connection takes up 11 tiles. This totals for about 47 tiles. However, an additional 16 thermal tiles used in Ponte Vecchio regulate the massive TDP output of this accelerator.

What is interesting is that Intel gave away details of the RAMBO cache. This novel SRAM technology uses four banks of 3.75 MB groups total of 15 MB per tile. They are connected to the fabric at 1.3 TB/s connection per chip. In contrast, compute tiles are connected at 2.6 TB/s speeds to the chip fabric. With eight RAMBO cache tiles, we get an additional 120 MB SRAM present. The base tile is a 646 mm² die manufactured in Intel 7 semiconductor process and contains 17 layers. It includes a memory controller, the Fully Integrated Voltage Regulators (FIVR), power management, 16-lane PCIe 5.0 connection, and CXL interface. The entire area of Ponte Vecchio is rather impressive, as 47 active tiles take up 2,330 mm², whereas when we include thermal dies, the total area jumps to 3,100 mm². And, of course, the entire package is much larger at 4,844 mm², connected to the system with 4,468 pins.

During the CES 2022 keynote, we have witnessed NVIDIA update its GeForce RTX 30 series family with GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3090 Ti. However, this is not an end to NVIDIA's updates to the Ampere generation, as we now hear industry sources from Wccftech suggest that we could see a GeForce RTX 3080 GPU with 12 GB of GDDR6X VRAM enabled, launched as a separate product. Compared to the regular RTX 3080 that carries only 10 GB of GDDR6X, the new 12 GB version is supposed to bring a slight bump up to the specification list. The GA102-220 GPU SKU found inside the 12 GB variant will feature 70 SMs with 8960 CUDA, 70 RT cores, and 280 TMUs.

This represents a minor improvement over the regular GA102-200 silicon inside the 8 GB model. However, the significant difference is the memory organization. With the new 12 GB model, we have a 384-bit memory bus allowing GDDR6X modules to achieve a bandwidth of 912 GB/s, all while running at 19 Gbps speeds. The overall TDP will also receive a bump to 350 Watts, compared to 320 Watts of the regular RTX 3080 model. For more information regarding final clock speeds and pricing, we have to wait for the alleged launch date - January 11th.

AMD is slowly preparing the launch of the latest and greatest Ryzen processor family based on the Zen 4 CPU core design. Among various things that are getting an overhaul, the Raphael processor generation is now getting revamped temperature reading and better power management circuitry. According to an Igor's Lab report, AMD has prepared a few new improvements that will make temperature reading and power management easier for PC enthusiasts. Currently, the reported CPU temperature is called Tcontrol (Tctl), which is what the cooling solution sees. If Tctl is high, the fans spin up and cool the system. If Tctl is low, the fans slow down to reduce noise.

With Raphael, the CUR_TEMP (current temperature) output part of Tctl has been upgraded to reflect a much smoother curve, and avoid jittering with fans as they are not spiking so suddenly anymore. This is helping contribute to the noise output and has made it run at a consistent fan speed in the system. Another note about Raphael is a new power management technique. AMD has designed the AM5 platform to avoid sudden power spikes, to maintain maximum efficiency over time. It is a design decision made from the very start, and the CPU will try to constrain itself in the TDP range that it is configured for. For more details about the circuitry, please head over to the Igor's Lab article.

ID-COOLING today announced SE-226-XT ARGB and SE-226-XT BLACK CPU air coolers. Both coolers include the same black heatsink with 6 heatpipes and copper base. 120 mm ARGB fan and Black fan are used on ARGB / BLACK version respectively. SE-226-XT Series is designed to cool those processors with a TDP up to 250 W. Both models are built with a solid heatsink which is specially design with 100% RAM compatibility. Black coating is applied for a stealthy looking.

For SE-226-XT ARGB, the included 120x120x25mm fan is built with 2Ball bearing and has 8pcs rubber dampeners on all corners of both sides, running at 800 to 2000rpm with PWM support while pushing 56.6CFM air at maximum speed, noise level measured 16.2 to 31.5dB (A). For SE-226-XT BLACK, the included standard 120x120x25mm fan has 8pcs rubber dampeners on all corners of both sides, running at 700 to 1800rpm with PWM support while pushing 76.16CFM air at maximum speed, noise level measured 15.2 to 35.2dB (A).

Intel's upcoming Core i7-12700 (non-K) processor matches AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X in the Geekbench 5 benchmark. The i7-12700 is a locked 65 W TDP processor with 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores, and 4 "Gracemont" E-cores. 4 fewer E-cores, lower clocks, and lack of features such as Thermal Velocity Boost, is what differentiates the 12th Gen Core i7 from 12th Gen Core i9.

The Core i7-12700 allegedly scored 1595 points single-thread, along with 10170 points in the multi-threaded test. This puts it within 5% of the Ryzen 7 5800X in the single-threaded test (averaged from the Geekbench database), and within 2% in the multi-threaded. One has to consider that the i7-12700 lacks an unlocked multiplier, but should Intel 600-series chipset motherboards come with the same power-limit unlocks as the 400-series and 500-series; more performance can be squeezed out.

be quiet!, the German manufacturer for premium PC components, is announcing Dark Rock TF 2. This high-end top-flow CPU cooler combines maximum cooling performance of up to 230 W TDP with virtually inaudible operation, thanks to its dual-heatsink design, six high-performance 6 mm heat pipes, and two Silent Wings 135 mm fans. Dark Rock TF 2 also looks the part with its brushed aluminium top cover and special black coating with ceramic particles, making it the ideal choice for all who strive for the highest yet quiet cooling performance in style.

For anyone looking for a true high-end cooler, Dark Rock TF 2 ticks all the right boxes. The dual-heatsink design with six high-performance copper heat pipes offers maximum performance even under extreme overclocking conditions and the top-flow design provides ideal cooling not only for the CPU but also for the surrounding motherboard components. Even so, Dark Rock TF 2 is virtually inaudible, thanks to a funnel-shaped Silent Wings 3 135 mm as the upper fan, and a Silent Wings 135 mm (without funnel-shaped entry) as the lower fan. Both fans are equipped with a durable fluid-dynamic bearing, smooth six-pole motors, and up to nine airflow-optimized fan blades, resulting in a low noise level of 27.1 dB(A) at 100% PWM speed. Anti-vibration rubber inserts on the heat sink fins further dampen unwanted operational sounds.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced the new series of AIO liquid coolers - AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES, which come in 3 radiator sizes and fans corresponding to those different radiator dimensions. The new AIO coolers are available in 360 mm, 280 mm and 240 mm sizes to cater various needs. AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES support all modern and upcoming high performance multi-core CPU sockets. Besides the high compatibility with a multitude of builds, AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES inherit the advanced functions and designs from WATERFORCE X SERIES including the 330 degrees manually rotatable cap design that allows users to rotate the cap to adjust your preferred angle, the 7.8 mm Tube Diameter that improves the water flow by 37% and it's engineered with ceramic axis to optimize durability and heat-dissipation. The leading graphene Nano lubricant bearing with ultra-low friction and noise which reduces the carbon deposit while extending the life of the fan. According to the above, AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES provide enhanced heat-dissipation and durability. Even with 240 mm radiator, AORUS WATERFORCE delivers efficient heat-dissipation when running all-cores at 5.1 GHz on 8 cores pairing stress test with Intel Core i9-11900K processor.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake generation of processors is going to be the first iteration of heterogeneous x86 architecture. That means that Intel will for the first time combine smaller, low-power cores, with some big high-performance cores to provide the boost to all the workloads. If a task doesn't need much power, as some background task, for example, the smaller cores are used. And if you need to render something or you want to fire up a game, big cores are used to provide the power needed for the tasks. Intel has decided to provide such an architecture on the advanced 10 nm SuperFin, which represents a major upgrade over the existing 14 nm process.

Today, we got some information from Igor's Lab, showing the leaked specification of the Intel Core-1800 processor engineering sample. While this may not represent the final name, we see that the leaked information shows that the processor is B0 stepping. That means that the CPU will see more changes when the final sample arrives. The CPU has 16 cores with 24 threads. Eight of those cores are big ones with hyperthreading, while the remaining 8 are smaller Atom cores. They are running at the base clock of 1800 MHz, while the boost speeds are 4.6 GHz with two cores, 4.4 GHz with four cores, and 4.2 GHz with 6 cores. When all cores are used, the boost speed is locked at 4.0 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 125 Watts, while the PL2 configuration boosts the TDP to 228 Watts. The CPU was reportedly running at 1.3147 Volts during the test. You can check out the complete datasheet below.

AMD has today decided to launch the next generation of Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), now in form of the 5000G lineup codenamed Cezanne. The APUs are getting launched as OEM-exclusive products for now, which means that only manufacturers like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. can have access to them. AMD is set to announce these processors for wider masses, such as consumer DIYers, later this year. So you must be wondering what is new about the 5000G APUs. For starters, the new APUs feature AMD's improved Zen 3 core with a notable IPC boost over Zen 2 found in last generation 4000G APUs. When it comes to graphics, the new APUs feature anywhere from 6-8 GPU cores, based on the Vega architecture.

When it comes to the available models, AMD lists six SKUs, all differentiating in CPU/GPU core count, TDP, and frequency. There are three regular SKUs, with their power-efficient variants. The regular SKUs are AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, Ryzen 5 5600G, and Ryzen 3 5300G. They are normal SKUs that have a TDP of 65 Watts, meaning a higher base frequency needing a more adequate cooling solution. However, as there are regular SKUs, there are also power-efficient, TDP-constrained models present. Called the AMD Ryzen 7 5700GE, Ryzen 5 5600GE, and Ryzen 3 5300GE, these models bring the TDP down to 35 Watts and reduce base frequency by a couple of hundreds of MHz.

Intel has just launched its Ice Lake-SP lineup of Xeon Scalable processors, featuring the new Sunny Cove CPU core design. Built on the 10 nm node, these processors represent Intel's first 10 nm shipping product designed for enterprise. However, there is another 10 nm product going to be released for enterprise users. Intel is already preparing the Sapphire Rapids generation of Xeon processors and today we get to see more details about it. Thanks to the anonymous tip that VideoCardz received, we have a bit more details like core count, memory configurations, and connectivity options. And Sapphire Rapids is shaping up to be a very competitive platform. Do note that the slide is a bit older, however, it contains useful information.

The lineup will top at 56 cores with 112 threads, where this processor will carry a TDP of 350 Watts, notably higher than its predecessors. Perhaps one of the most interesting notes from the slide is the department of memory. The new platform will make a debut of DDR5 standard and bring higher capacities with higher speeds. Along with the new protocol, the chiplet design of Sapphire Rapids will bring HBM2E memory to CPUs, with up to 64 GBs of it per socket/processor. The PCIe 5.0 standard will also be present with 80 lanes, accompanying four Intel UPI 2.0 links. Intel is also supposed to extend the x86_64 configuration here with AMX/TMUL extensions for better INT8 and BFloat16 processing.

When AMD introduced RDNA 2 architecture and higher-end Navi 21 GPU SKUs, it was only a matter of time before the company launches these GPUs inside professional-grade graphics cards. Today, thanks to the Chiphell forums, we have pictures and some specifications of AMD's upcoming Radeon Pro workstation graphics card. Pictured below is a new RDNA 2 based design that features AMD's Navi 21 GLXL GPU SKU. The new GLXL GPU SKU is supposed to be rather similar to the Navi 21 XL GPU found inside AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card, judging by the number and arrangement of capacitors on the back of the card.

When it comes to memory, the upcoming Radeon Pro workstation card is featuring 16 GB of VRAM, likely a variant of GDDR6 found on gaming-oriented graphics cards from RDNA 2 generation. When it comes to cooler design, the Radeon Pro graphics card has a blower-type cooler helping tame the Navi 21 GLXL GPU. Given that blower-type coolers are suitable for situations with less airflow, the TDP of this card could be around or under 250 Watts. You can take a look at the card below, however, do note that it is an engineering sample and the final product can look a bit different.

MonsterLabo, the maker of fanless PC cases designed for gaming with zero noise, has today tested its upcoming flagship offering in the case lineup. Called The Beast, the case is designed to handle high-end hardware with large TDPs and dissipate all that heat without any moving parts. Using only big heatsinks and heat pipes to transfer the heat to the big heatsink area. In a completely fanless configuration, the case can absorb and dissipate a CPU TDP of 150 Watts and a GPU TPD with 250 Watts. However, when equipped with two 140 mm fans running below 500 RPM, it can accommodate a 250 W CPU, and 320 W GPU. MonsterLabo has tested the fully fanless configuration, which was equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT processor, paired with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere graphics card.

There were no fans present in the system to help move the heat away, and the PC was being stress-tested using Microsoft's Flight Simulator. The company has posted a chart of CPU and GPU temperatures over time, where we see that the GPU has managed to hit about 75 degrees Celsius at one point. The CPU has remained a bit cooler, where the CPU package hit just above the 70-degree mark. Overall, the case is more than capable of cooling the hardware it was equipped with. By adding two slow-spinning fans, the temperatures would get even lower, however, that is no longer a fanless system. MonsterLabo's The Beast is expected to get shipped in Q3 of this year when reviewers will get their hands on it and test it for themselves. You can watch the videos in MonsterLabo's blog post here.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the company focused on making enterprise hardware and software, has today mistakenly listed some of Intel's upcoming 3rd generation Xeon Scalable processors. Called Ice Lake-SP, the latest server processor generation is expected to launch sometime in the coming days, with a possible launch date being the March 23rd "Intel Unleashed" webcast. The next generation of processors will finally bring a new vector of technologies Intel needs in server space. That means the support for PCIe 4.0 protocol for higher speed I/O and octa-channel DDR4 memory controller for much greater bandwidth. The CPU lineup will for the first time use Intel's advanced 10 nm node called 10 nm SuperFin.

Today, in the leaked HPE listing, we get to see some of the Xeon models Intel plans to launch. Starting from 32-core models, all the way to 40-core models, all SKUs above 28 cores are supposed to use dual die configuration to achieve high core counts. The limit of a single die is 28 cores. HPE listed a few models, with the highest-end one being the Intel Xeon Platinum XCC 8380 processor. It features 40 cores with 80 threads and a running frequency of 2.3 GHz. If you are wondering about TDP, it looks like the 10 nm SuperFin process is giving good results, as the CPU is rated only for 270 Watts of power.

As we are getting closer to the launch of Intel's next-generation Alder Lake processors, more information is getting leaked. Today, thanks to the leaked presentation slide, we have some more details regarding Intel's Alder Lake offerings in the laptop sector. As a reminder, Alder Lake uses a hybrid approach to core configuration with the similar mindset Arm's big.LITTLE works. There are a few smaller cores for processing smaller tasks that don't need much power and, of course, there are a few big cores that are used for heavyweight processing as some advanced applications require. The small cores are going to be based on the Gracemont microarchitecture, while the big one will use the Golden Cove design.

Thanks to @9550pro on Twitter, we have a slide that showcases 19 different Alder Lake configurations for the laptop segment. At the very bottom, there are configurations with a TDP of just five Watts. That is achieved by having just one big, four smaller cores, 48 EU Gen 12 GPU and that is meant for the tablet segment. Going up, we have different ranges depending on the application device, and the highest end is a chip with 55 Watts of power. That model has eight small and eight big cores, combined with 32 EUs of Gen 12 graphics. All models include integrated graphics. The variations of big and small cores have allowed Intel to have as many as 19 different SKUs, that cover every segment needed, by simply balancing the core count. You can check out the rest of the models below for yourself.

When AMD announced its Ryzen 5000 series of processors based on the new Zen 3 architecture, the performance of these processors was the best on the market. Even in our own testing, we have found that AMD's Zen 3 core is the highest performing core on the market, even beating Intel's latest and greatest, the 10th generation of Core processors. However, Intel has been doing some silent work and the company has developed a new core to be used in the 11th generation "Rocket Lake" platform. Codenamed Cypress Cove, the design is representing a backport of the 10 nm Sunny Cove design, supposed to bring around 19% IPC improvement across the board.

If you were wondering if that was enough to catch up with AMD's Zen 3 IPC performance, look no further because we have Geekbench 5 performance results of Intel's 35 Watt Core i9-11900T processor. Having a base frequency of only 1.51 GHz, the CPU is capable of boosting one or two cores to the very high speed of 4.9 GHz, giving us a good example of the single-threaded performance we can expect from this CPU. In GB5 tests, the Core i9-11900T has managed to score 1717 points in the single-threaded test and 8349 points in multi-threaded results. Comparing that to something like AMD Ryzen 5800X, which scores 1674 points in single-threaded results, Rocket Lake's Cypress Cove core has managed to be 2.5% faster than Zen 3. However, in multi-threaded results, the AMD chip is unmatched as the low TDP of the Intel processor is stopping it from reaching full performance.

On a request from Tweakers, ASUS has decided to reveal full GPU specifications for the entire laptop GPU lineup. Having NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series GPUs in their laptops, companies were not committed to listing the TGP and whatever the GPU inside was a Max-Q or Max-P variant. That would confuse the average consumer and a GPU variant they got could be significantly slower than what they have expected. So to clear up the confusion, ASUS has decided to provide us with the table of GPU TGPs and frequencies found inside the company's laptops. Not only has ASUS published a table of TGPs and frequencies, but the company has also updated its website to reflect the exact TDP and exact frequency of any GPU used in a laptop to avoid any confusion and give consumers reassurance in their purchase. You can find the table of laptops with their exact GPU TGP and GPU clock speeds below.

AMD is readying its upcoming EPYC processors based on the refined Zen 3 core. Codenamed "Milan", the processor generation is supposed to bring the same number of PCIe lanes and quite possibly similar memory support. The pricing, along with the specifications, has been leaked and now we have information on every model ranging from eight cores to the whopping 64 cores. Thanks to @momomo_us on Twitter, we got ahold of Canadian pricing leaked on the Dell Canada website. Starting from the cheapest design listed here (many are missing here), you would be looking at the EPYC 7543 processor with 32 cores running at 2.8 GHz speed, 256 MB of L3 cache, and a TDP of 225 Watts. Such a processor will set you back as much as 2579.69 CAD, which is cheaper compared to the previous generation EPYC 7542 that costs 3214.70 CAD.

Whatever this represents more aggressive pricing to position itself better against the competition, we do not know. The same strategy is applied with the 64 core AMD EPYC 7763 processor (2.45 GHz speed, 256 MB cache, 280 W TDP) as the new Zen 3 based design is priced at 8069.69 CAD, which is cheaper than the 8180.10 CAD price tag of AMD EPYC 7762 CPU.