The Power Stamp Alliance (PSA) has posted some details on Intel's upcoming high-performance, 10 nm architecture. Code-named Ice Lake, the Xeon parts of this design will apparently usher in yet another new socket (socket LGA 4189, compared to the socket LGA 3647 solution for Kaby lake and upcoming Cascade Lake designs). TDP is being shown as increased with Intel's Ice Lake designs, with an "up to" 230 W TDp - more than the Skylake or Cascade Lake-based platforms, which just screams at higher core counts (and other features such as OmniPath or on-package FPGAs).

Digging a little deeper into the documentation released by the PSA shows Intel's Ice Lake natively supporting 8-channel memory as well, which makes sense, considering the growing needs in both available memory capacity, and actual throughput, that just keeps rising. More than an interesting, unexpected development, it's a sign of the times.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is announcing a dedicated EK-Annihilator EX/EP water block that is specifically developed for LGA 3647 (Socket P) Intel processors. The entire CPU block was designed from the ground up to fit the requirements of the new socket and to integrate multiple connectivity options for server rack requirements. With that said, the new server-grade CPU block is 1U chassis type compatible for use server and workstation type motherboards.

EK-Annihilator EX/EP
With Intel releasing the future generation of Skylake-based Xeon and Skylake-E HEDT CPUs with a larger LGA 3647 socket, came the need for a water block with a larger cold plate contact surface. The goal in designing of the new EK-Annihilator EX/EP CPU water block was to cover the entire IHS of Intel HEDT processors. An additional task was to make the new CPU block server ready with multiple connectivity options. The EK-Annihilator EX/EP water block features a total of 6 ports, which allow for versatile connectivity options. Two top ports are standard G1/4" threaded, while the side ports are G3/8" threaded.

Cloudfest is a summit of sorts, a running line of conferences and announcements that focus on the cloud side of computing. With the increasing market value and demand of cloud services and providers, it's no surprise that industry behemoths are in attendance. AMD is one such, and it took the opportunity to throw a slight jab at Intel. Making the best it can from its long-coming favorable position in the server market, AMD put up a banner with an EPYC pun, touting its 3.3x performance per dollar advantage versus the Xeon competition... and then some. Just take a look at the image for yourself. It's all in good sport... Right?

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, an industry leader in competitive, high performance server platforms & embedded solutions continues to expand its Intel Xeon Scalable product family by adding three new density optimized systems: H231-H60, H261-H60, and H261-H61, giving our customer a wider range of choices to meet their ever increasing needs for efficiency in the server room.

Today Wacom announced the Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine, a creative PC module available in two configurations that fully integrates into the Cintiq Pro 24-inch pen display (announced today in a separate release). Designed for professional illustrators, designers, engineers and motion graphics users who require professional computing power and graphics performance, the modular Cintiq Pro Engine slots into the back of the Cintiq Pro 24, eliminating the space, cable clutter and compatibility issues that often result from using external computers and laptops.

"It is our mission to help professionals create with the least amount of distraction and clutter and to give them the power to tackle the new spaces of creating content for AR, VR and MR. The Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine provides a beautiful, easy to use solution for creatives everywhere," said Faik Karaoglu, Executive Vice President of the Creative Business Unit at Wacom.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, today announced several new additions to its edge computing and network appliance portfolio based on the new Intel Xeon D-2100 SoC (System-on-a-Chip) processor.

Leveraging its deep expertise in server technology, Supermicro is bringing customers some of the first Intel Xeon D-2100 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) processor-based solutions. The company's X11SDV series motherboards offer infrastructure optimization by combining the performance and advanced intelligence of Intel Xeon processors into a dense, lower-power system-on-a-chip. Supermicro is introducing a wide range of new systems to the market including compact embedded systems, rackmount embedded systems, as well as multi-node MicroCloud and SuperBlade systems.

Compulab is introducing Airtop2 - a high-performance ruggedized fanless PC for edge computing and industrial applications that require deployment in harsh conditions. Based on Intel Xeon Processor E3-1275 v6 with an optional NVIDIA Quadro P4000 - both passively cooled using Compulab proprietary Natural Airflow technology and with a volume of just 7.5 liter - Airtop2 redefines the performance level of compact fanless PCs.

Other remarkable features of Airtop2 are up to 64 GB DDR4, high-performance storage sub-system with 2x NVMe + 4x 2.5" SATA SSDs / HDDs, tool-free service and a broad selection of FACE Module extensions. Airtop2 is available at an industrial temperature range of -40°C to 70°C and ships with 5 year warranty.

Today, Intel announced the Intel SSD DC P4510 Series for data center applications. The P4510 Series uses 64-layer TLC Intel 3D NAND to enable end users to do more per server, support broader workloads and deliver space-efficient capacity. The P4510 Series enables up to four times more terabytes per server and delivers up to 10 times better random read latency at 99.99 percent quality of service than previous generations. The drive can also deliver up to double the input-output operations per second (IOPS) per terabyte. The 1 and 2TB capacities have been shipping to cloud service providers (CSPs) in high volume since August 2017, and the 4 and 8TB capacities are now available to CSPs and channel customers. All capacities are in the 2.5-inch 15 mm U.2 form factor and utilize a PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 connection.

To accelerate performance and simplify management of the P4510 Series PCIe SSDs and other PCIe SSDs, Intel is also delivering two new technologies that work together to replace legacy storage hardware. Intel Xeon Scalable processors include Intel Volume Management Device (VMD), enabling robust management such as surprise insertion/removal and LED management of PCIe SSDs directly connected to the CPU. Building on this functionality, Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC) uses Intel VMD to provide RAID to PCIe SSDs. By replacing RAID cards with Intel VROC, customers are able to enjoy up to twice the IOPs performance and up to a 70 percent cost savings with PCIe SSDs directly attached to the CPU, improving customer's return on their investments in SSD-based storage.

Intel today introduced the new Intel Xeon D-2100 processor, a system-on-chip (SoC) processor architected to address the needs of edge applications and other data center or network applications constrained by space and power. The Intel Xeon D-2100 processor extends the record-breaking performance and innovation of the Intel Xeon Scalable platform from the heart of the data center to the network edge and web tier, where network operators and cloud service providers face the need to continuously grow performance and capacity without increasing power consumption.

"To seize 5G and new cloud and network opportunities, service providers need to optimize their data center and edge infrastructures to meet the growing demands of bandwidth-hungry end users and their smart and connected devices," said Sandra Rivera, senior vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group at Intel. "The Intel Xeon D-2100 processor allows service providers and enterprises to deliver the maximum amount of compute intelligence at the edge or web tier while expending the least power."

At SOLIDWORKS World, HP today announced it will power its bestselling performance workstation, the HP Z4, with a choice of Intel Xeon or Core X processors and support dual extreme graphics. HP's latest technology was showcased at SOLIDWORKS World, where it also unveiled its low-cost, full-color 3D printers -- highlighting the company's comprehensive end-to-end solutions for product developers.

"The revamped Z4 workstation, along with our latest HP Windows Mixed Reality Headset and new customer-friendly VR solutions and services, will transform the way products across industries are developed," said Xavier Garcia, vice president and general manager, Z Workstations, HP Inc. "Over the past year, HP has launched the world's most powerful workstation, the most powerful detachable PC and the first-ever professional VR backpack. Today's news reflects our focus on continuously raising the bar with a portfolio of workstations and VR capabilities that will enable amazing new experiences and define the future of computing."

ASUS expanded its socket LGA2066 workstation-class motherboard lineup with the WS C422 Pro SE. The board is physically identical to the WS X299 Pro SE, but is based on the Intel C422 chipset. Designed for single-socket Intel Xeon W ("Skylake-W") processors, this board is targeted at workstation builders who require ECC memory support.

"Skylake-W" is an enterprise variant of the "Skylake-X" silicon, with support for up to 512 GB of ECC quad-channel DDR4 memory. It features up to 18 CPU cores, and is different from the Xeon Scalable "Skylake-SP" silicon. The board supports up to 512 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory with support for ECC, over its eight memory slots. The rest of its feature-set is identical to that of the WS X299 Pro SE.

GE Healthcare today announced an expanded partnership with Intel that aims to enhance patient care and reduce costs for hospitals and health systems using digital imaging solutions, deployed via edge and cloud. Together, the companies anticipate their solutions will offer greater hospital efficiency through increased asset performance, reduced patient risk and dosage exposure - with faster image processing - and expedited time to diagnosis and treatment.

Through the expanded partnership, GE Healthcare will use the new Intel Xeon Scalable platform with an aim towards lowering the total cost of ownership for imaging devices by up to 25 percent. Paired with GE Healthcare's imaging solutions, the Intel Xeon Scalable platform may improve radiologists' reading productivity compared to the prior generation by reducing first image display down to under 2 seconds and full study load times down to under 8 seconds.

"Radiologist workdays can be enhanced by use of real-time data analytics and increased performance," said Jonathan Ballon, vice president Internet of Things Group at Intel. "The combination of innovative imaging solutions from GE Healthcare with the breakthrough speed of Intel processors promises great advances in imaging that could make a real difference in patient care."

The fiftieth TOP500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world has China overtaking the US in the total number of ranked systems by a margin of 202 to 143. It is the largest number of supercomputers China has ever claimed on the TOP500 ranking, with the US presence shrinking to its lowest level since the list's inception 25 years ago.

Just six months ago, the US led with 169 systems, with China coming in at 160. Despite the reversal of fortunes, the 143 systems claimed by the US gives them a solid second place finish, with Japan in third place with 35, followed by Germany with 20, France with 18, and the UK with 15.

Intel Xeon Scalable processors are deployed by today's cloud service providers to deliver disruptive performance efficiency across a diverse range of cloud workloads. Today, Intel announced Amazon Web Services' (AWS) public cloud customers can now harness the workload-optimized performance that the Intel Xeon Scalable platform delivers in Amazon's latest cloud instance. Available now, the Amazon EC2 C5 instances are AWS' latest generation, most powerful compute-optimized instances with the best price-to-compute performance.

Intel Xeon Scalable processors are highly agile, high-performance compute engines that allow public cloud environments to seamlessly transition among general purpose compute, high-performance computing (HPC) and AI/deep learning compute. This agility provides public cloud users a wide range of options for their target workloads. Intel Xeon Scalable processors are uniquely architected for today's evolving cloud data center infrastructure, offering energy efficiency and system-level performance that average 1.65x higher performance over the prior generation Xeon processors.

Kontron, a leading global provider of Embedded Computing Technology (ECT), introduces a new member of its high-end industrial computer platforms for control cabinet environments - the Kontron KBox C-102-4. The new model allows the integration of up to four PCIe expansions slots and is thus ideally suited for users requiring a large number of additional interfaces, industrial I/Os, or fieldbuses.

The KBox C-102 series is now available in four alternative design variants: the compact KBox C-102-0 without additional expansion slots, the KBox C-102-1 and KBox C-102-2 with one or two PCI(e) expansion slots respectively, and the new KBox C-102-4 with four PCI(e) expansion slots. The industrial computers are used mainly for control, visualization, and inspection in the production process.

Intel Corporation today reported third-quarter 2017 financial results. "We executed well in the third quarter with strong results across the business, and we're on track to a record year," said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. "I'm excited about our progress and our future. Intel's product line-up is the strongest it has ever been with more innovation on the way for artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and more." "In the third quarter, we delivered record earnings, exceeded our EPS expectations, and increased our profit expectations for the full year," said Bob Swan, Intel CFO. "We feel great about Intel's transformation and where we are nine months into our three year plan." In the third quarter, the company generated approximately $6.3 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.3 billion, and used $1.1 billion to repurchase 31 million shares of stock.

In the third quarter, Intel saw strength across the business. The data center, Internet of Things and memory businesses all achieved record quarterly revenue, and Intel extended its performance leadership with the launches of 8th Gen Intel Core and Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Intel's FPGA business, the Programmable Solutions Group, is experiencing strong momentum, winning designs with automotive and cloud service provider customers that advance Intel's position in artificial intelligence. The company also furthered its autonomous driving efforts with exciting customer wins and the completion of the Mobileye tender offer, four months earlier than expected.

Built on Intel's C621 chipset, ASUS's new WS C621E SAGE motherboard possesses some interesting traits. For a start, this workstation motherboard not only supports one LGA-3647 socket processor, but two of them in tandem. That's right. Enterprise users in need of raw processing power can drop in a pair of Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processors and build themselves a beastly workstation with 56 cores and 112 threads at their disposal. But, what really separates the WS C621E SAGE from the competition is the motherboard's overclocking capability. Since Intel locks the multiplier for their Xeon processors, owners are accustomed to settle for factory clock speeds. However, ASUS has engineered a method to allow Xeon owners to overclock their processors to take their performance to a next level. Given the locked multiplier, we assume that overclocking is probably done through base clock adjustments.

Processing power is crucial for productivity, but having enough memory for heavy-duty tasks is equally important. For that same reason, ASUS has incorporated 12 DDR4 memory slots into the WS C621E SAGE. Users can go with either RDIMM or LR-DIMM ECC modules with speeds up to DDR4-2666. This opens the door to running 1.5 TB of memory. Now that's something you don't see everyday.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, today announced the launch of its new enterprise class 8-socket server.

Supermicro's 7089P-TR4T supports eight Intel Xeon Scalable processors with three Intel Ultra Path Interconnects (UPIs) per CPU at 10.4 GT/s to deliver next-generation 8-socket server performance. Customers can unleash the ultimate potential of their high-performance computing (HPC) clusters or in-memory databases by installing up to 12TB of DDR4 memory, 41 NVMe devices (32 hot-swap), 23 PCI-E 3.0 cards, or eight double-width GPU cards. For virtualization, imagine the confidence customers will feel while running their Virtual Machines (VMs) on 224 Intel Xeon processor cores (448 threads), or as they scale to meet their rapidly growing compute requirements.

Intel's next-generation "Cannon Lake" CPU micro-architecture could see the introduction of the AVX-512 instruction-set to the mainstream segments (MSDT or mainstream-desktop, and mobile). It is currently available on the company's Core X "Skylake-X" HEDT processors, and on the company's Xeon "Skylake-W," Xeon Scalable "Skylake-SP," and in a limited form on the Xeon Phi Knights Landing and Knights Mill scalar compute chips.

The upcoming "Cannon Lake" mainstream silicon will feature AVX512F, AVX512CD, AVX512DQ, AVX512BW, and AVX512VL instructions, and will support AVX512_IFMA and AVX512_VBMI commands, making it a slightly broader implementation of AVX-512 than the "Skylake-SP" silicon. The new AVX-512 will vastly improve performance of compute-intensive applications that take advantage of it. It will also be a key component of future security standards.

Intel this Tuesday, issued a curious-looking product-change notification (PCN) directed at retail-channel distributors, which points to the re-branding of 7th generation Pentium "Kaby Lake" desktop processors under the new Pentium Gold brand (PCN #115827-00). The re-brand affects retail SKUs of the Pentium G4560, G4620, and G4600. Intel is borrowing the precious-metal nomenclature from its Xeon product-line over to the Pentium brand, which will help consumers tell the MSDT (mainstream-desktop) Pentium processors from the ULP (ultra low-power) chips branded Pentium.

When this product-change comes into effect from the 2nd of November, 2017, MSDT Pentium dual-core chips will be branded Pentium Gold, while low-power "Gemini Lake" SoCs will bear the Pentium Silver brand, besides Celeron. Re-branded names apart, the Pentium Gold SKUs will be identical to the parts they are replacing. The Pentium G4560, for example, will be re-branded Pentium Gold G4560 (or simply "4560") and will carry an identical feature-set. You probably won't even need to update your motherboard BIOS (of your 100-series and 200-series chipset motherboards) to use these chips. It's not likely that these chips will work on 300-series chipset motherboards since they feature a different pin-map, and the retail box design will reflect that with clear markings. The name change also comes with a refreshed case-badge and a slightly modified box design.

IBASE, a global leader in the manufacture of embedded computing and IIoT solutions, launches its new IB990 PICMG 1.3 full-size CPU card. The board supports the latest 7th/6th Generation Intel Xeon/Core i7/i5/i3 processors with speeds up to 4.0GHz. Based on the chipset family formerly known as Skylake, Intel C236 and Q170 Express chipsets, the high-performance IB990 SBC is built with two DIMM sockets to support DDR4 2133 MHz memory modules with up to 32GB in total and six superfast SATA III ports featuring RAID 0/1/5/10 and 6 Gb/s speed.

As a perfect solution for control systems in factory automation and other industrial applications, IB990 is designed for compute, data and graphics intensive applications and enables up to three independent displays via DVI-I, VGA and DVI-D interface. This long-life single board computer incorporates a rich set of I/O connectivity including two Gigabit Ethernet, four COM, two USB 2.0 and three USB 3.0 ports, plus a Mini PCI-E expansion socket for optional wireless modules. Additionally, the IB990 takes advantage of Intel AMT 11.0 for remote management and powering-on functionalities.

The following is an opinion editorial provided by Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel Corporation. At Intel, we have an optimistic and pragmatic view of artificial intelligence's (AI) impact on society, jobs and daily life that will mimic other profound transformations - from the industrial to the PC revolutions. Our belief is that AI will bring significant new opportunities to transform business - from retail to healthcare to manufacturing - and have an immensely positive impact on society.

AI will make the impossible possible: advancing research on cancer, Parkinson's disease and brain disorders; helping to find missing children; and furthering scientific efforts in climate change, space exploration and oceanic research. To drive AI innovation, Intel is making strategic investments spanning technology, R&D and partnerships with business, government, academia and community groups. We are deeply committed to unlocking the promise of AI: conducting research on neuromorphic computing, exploring new architectures and learning paradigms. We have also invested in startups like Mighty AI, Data Robot and Lumiata through our Intel Capital portfolio and have invested more than $1 billion in companies that are helping to advance artificial intelligence.

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.

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.

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.