cpu

Recently, AMD has been in quite a bit of turmoil. While their graphics division leads that market and has been highly successful for the last couple of years now, their CPU division still lags far behind the competition, their best CPUs being forced down into the bargain bin by Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPUs. Additionally, while a strong force in the mobile GPU market, their mobile CPUs are arguably worse off than their desktop CPUs, and until recently, ULV offerings were non-existent. Through this, the majority of AMD's leadership was ousted, including CEO Dirk Meyer. There were even rumors of the company being up for sale. However, AMD seems to be working towards having a fully-functional leadership again shortly, starting with the hiring experienced executive Mike Wolfe from Freescale Technologies as their Chief Information Officer. ...read more

No, this isn't some conspiracy, Intel-can-kill-your-PC-remotely freakout. First, some background. vPro is meant for mid-performance, high-security business computing. It includes some business features that the standard Intel Core CPUs lack, and also contains some extra security sauce for sensitive data. Otherwise, the vPro CPUs are architecturally identical to their mainstream counterparts. One interesting feature that vPro CPUs have, however, is to give the owner the ability to deactivate their vPro CPU remotely through an SMS text. ...read more

Many of you may not know this, but Intel's longest-running processor line is actually Itanium. When most people think of Itanium, they think of Intel's original Itaniums released in 2001, targeted at the ultra-high-end server market. However, most have not heard from Itanium since. This week, however, Intel has Previewed a new Itanium 9300-series processor, continuing the lineup. Itanium is designed to run only code that is carefully optimized for it, and when it does run well-optimized code, it far-outstrips the performance of any other x86 processor on the market. ..read more

The same day that Intel released the Core i7-990X, they flew a potentially much jucier tidbit in under the radar. Most people aren't going to drop $1000 on a CPU, but most enthusiasts are certainly willing to spend $300 on a good CPU. Additionally, those who were hoping for a more reasonably-priced Intel 6-core to hit the market should be very happy with Intel's price cuts to the i7-960 and i7-970. What exactly are the new price points of these two CPUs? read more to find out.

Recently, AMD's stock shares have shot up 42 cents, or 5%, and the reason appears to be that there are rumors abounding that AMD might be up for sale, and that Dell might be interested in buying. With the vast majority of AMD's top leadership leaving, the rumor only has extra fuel, with analysts making comments such as Patrick Wang's quote: "there is no management team there[at AMD]." Whilst some thought that top shareholders simply wanted new leadership to take the reigns, no mention has been made of replacements for the departed executives, and it is being speculated that AMD just might be up for sale. ...read more

Intel continues its dominance of the extreme high-end desktop market with the release of the Core i7-990X, which, according to several leaked roadmaps, is the last Nehalem-based CPU that will be released, aside from a possible Core i7-880. Otherwise, it appears this is Nehalem's last big show before the architecture bows out into history. A follow-up on Intel's unmatched 980X, the 990X is merely a new clock speed and a new, even more extreme price. ...read more

Today AMD is announcing the release of five new Opteron server processors. Intended for multi-socket server systems, two of the new CPUs have 8 cores, and three have an impressive 12 cores. All additions to AMD's expanding Opteron 6100 series, they range in clock from 1.8Ghz to a relatively speedy 2.6Ghz. With this release, AMD is pumping up the scalability of their Magny-Cours architecture, as some of the processors have good performance with low power usage, whilst the top-end SE Opteron guns for the top Xeons with a more generous power envelope. So which CPUs are included in this release? ...read more

"Many years ago, overclocking was not limited by Intel/AMD like nowadays. As it is usual, when they see they can make extra money from the consumers by limiting their features to those who pay more, they don't hesitate to take advantage of that. In the last years, the Intel made it a little bit "impossible" for those who want to buy a CPU with unlocked multiplier. Intel was limiting that feature to the Extreme Edition CPUs. AMD took this as an opportunity to approach consumers with a feature their competition wouldn't give and so the AMD Black Edition CPUs appeared. AMD has been kindly enough to offer Black Edition products for each segment in the market, and that means you can find a BE (Black Edition) CPU for less than $100. Intel is striking back with a pair of new processors which feature an unlocked multiplier without the $999 tag. Today, Benchmark Reviews will analyze the Intel Core i5 655K Unlocked CPU which basically is a Clarkd! ale based 2-cores/4-threads processor with Intel HD graphics and specially aimed at overclockers. Is the unlocked multiplier good enough to pay that little extra or isn't it worth it? Is it better to overclock with multiplier or should I to raise the BCLK? Those answers and more will be covered as Benchmark Reviews tests the Intel Core i5-655K Clarksdale processor, model BX80616I5655K." READ MORE

File this one between "What the frack just happened?" and "Should Intel be concerned?," because those are the first two questions that come to mind regarding the new licensing agreement between Microsoft and ARM.

"Microsoft is an important member of the ARM ecosystem, and has been for many years," said Mike Muller, CTO, ARM. "With this architecture license, Microsoft will be at the forefront of applying and working with ARM technology in concert with a broad range of businesses addressing multiple application areas."

Microsoft was a bit more direct in its statement, saying, "With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products."

Indeed, these two have been hanging and doing what friends do dating back to 1997, but they've just taken their relationship up a notch, even if neither one is fully really to detail just how entwined they've become. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does with this new licensing freedom, and what it spells for Intel's x86 architecture in the mobile computing market. source