Tag: turbo-boost

Intel’s 8th-gen desktop CPUs boost gaming and streaming speeds

Intel has launched its 8th-generation mainstream desktop chips, calling the flagship $359 Core i7-8700K its “best gaming desktop processor ever.” The six-core, 12-thread 3.7GHz chipboosts Gears of War 4 frame rates up to 25 percent compared to 7th-gen desktop chips . It can also do 4K video editing up to 32 percent faster. The best gains are with multitasking, as Intel says gaming, streaming and recording with Player Unknown: Battlegrounds will be 45 percent fast than before. What’s more, it can be overclocked to 4.7 GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost 2.0, and 5GHz and higher speeds are easily achieved with air or basic liquid cooling. The speed gains are even more impressive if your system is over three years old, but probably won’t push many folks with 7th-gen Intel chips into upgrading. For multimedia, it’s worth noting that Intel has implemented some new 4K tech, which will make for smoother streaming of 10-bit, HDR Ultra HD video now on services services like Netflix and many new 4K TVs. The 8th-gen Core i5 and Core i3 chips in the lineup might be more interesting for consumers. The Core i3 chips start at $117 and have quad-cores and base clock speeds up to 4 GHz, while the Core i5 models, starting at $182, are six-core units. Neither are multi-threaded, but four physical cores and four threads is a lot better than two cores and four threads, which is what the i3 lineup had before. If you have Intel’s 7th-gen Core i7 chip and want to upgrade to get every ounce of gaming or graphics speed, it’s not as simple as a chip swap. The new CPUs will require Intel’s Z370 chipset-based motherboards, so they’re not at all compatible with whatever model you have right now. That chipset has a few advantages over the last gen, like improved power delivery for 6-core chips and better support for DDR4-2666 memory, but nothing dramatic. Some pundits have noted that Intel could have made them compatible with older motherboards, but elected not to . Intel is also touting its Optane storage for gamers, but as we’ve mentioned , this won’t help you much if you already have an SSD, and not at all if you have M.2 PCIe-based storage. The mainstream 8th-gen desktop chips are a bit less interesting than the 8th-gen laptop CPUs, which offered more performance than expected , Meanwhile, Intel recently unveiled the 7th-gen X-series i9 chips, which rocked up to 18 cores , dramatically boosting performance over the top-spec 10-core i7-6950X previous-gen models. The new eighth-gen desktop chips will arrive starting on October 5th, and as mentioned, the flagship Intel Core i7-8700K will cost you $359. Source: Intel

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Intel’s 8th-gen desktop CPUs boost gaming and streaming speeds

Intel’s eighth-gen CPUs will be more powerful than we thought

Earlier this year, we didn’t expect much from Intel’s upcoming eighth-generation Core processors. But at Computex in May, the company surprised us all by revealing they’ll be 30 percent faster than last year’s chips. That alone would have been notable, but now Intel is making an even bolder claim: They’re actually 40 percent speedier. At least, that’s the case for one of its laptop chips when running through the Sysmark benchmark. And when it comes to five-year-old computers — the kind Intel expects the majority of consumers to upgrade from — they’re twice as fast at productivity tasks. So how did Intel manage this feat? For the first time, it managed to cram four CPU cores into its U-series chips, which have typically been intended for ultraportable laptops and hybrid devices. To go quad-core with the company’s previous chips, you’d have to step up to its H-series CPUs, which are designed for more performance-focused notebooks. Additionally, Intel managed to squeeze another 500MHz of Turbo Boost performance into the chips, allowing them to reach speeds up to 4.2GHz. Whereas last year’s seventh-generation CPUs were focused on improving 4K performance, the upcoming offerings will feature far more raw performance. The eighth-generation Core family for ultraportables ranges from the i5-8250U, with speeds between 1.6GHz and 3.4GHz, and the i7-8650U, clocking from 1.9GHz to 4.2GHz. They’re all quad-core chips, but as usual, you can expect better performance from the i7 lineup. As for other notable stats, Intel claims the 8250U can encode a 4K video 14.7 times faster than a five-year-old PC running a comparable chip. In real-world terms, the eighth-gen chip converted the 4K clip in three minutes, compared to 45 minutes with its third-gen sibling. Unsurprisingly, then, the older your computer is, the bigger performance jump you’ll notice. Despite having more power under the hood, Intel says the new CPUs won’t be a step backwards when it comes to battery life. Unfortunately, there’s nothing really pushing battery life forward either. Its current benchmarks indicate that laptops running these chips should feature around 10 hours of battery life when playing 4K video. That’s pretty much the same as before. To be fair, though, last year’s chips also reclaimed some battery life with more efficient 4K performance. Intel is basically following through with its typical game plan: Release a new batch of chips for ultraportables, and then ramp things up on the desktop end. With quad-core performance, we might finally be able to see ultraportable notebooks that can go toe to toe with last year’s beefier machines. And the company continues to look ahead as well. During a private briefing, I got a chance to see a few device prototypes that looked nothing like PCs we have today. I can’t say much about them, but overall, they made it clear that Intel isn’t just planning to coast on traditional PCs forever. You can expect the first batch of laptops with eighth-generation Intel CPUs in September. Desktop models will follow later in the fall. Looking ahead even further into next year, the company expects to release its first 10-nanometer chips as part of this generation as well.

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Intel’s eighth-gen CPUs will be more powerful than we thought

Intel 18-core Core i9-7980XE launches September 25 for $2,000

Enlarge Intel’s monstrous 18-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980XE CPU launches September 25 for a whopping $2,000, Intel announced today. It will be joined by the $1,700 16C/32T i9-7960X and the $1,400 14C/28T i9-7940X, while the 12C/12T i9-7920X launches a month earlier on August 28 for $1,200. UK prices are TBC, but the top-end chip will likely start at around £1,900, and then work its way down from there. Alongside release dates, Intel also revealed TDPs and boost clock speeds—information that was curiously missing from the original X299 announcement back in May. The Core i9-7980XE features a 2.6GHz base clock, a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2GHz, and a Turbo Boost 3.0 clock (up to two cores) of 4.4GHz. That’s accompanied by 24.75MB of L3 cache, 44 PCIe lanes, and a 165W TDP (the 10-core  i9-7900K has a 140W TDP). Boost and turbo clocks for the remaining i9 chips are largely the same, with a mere 100MHz variance, although the i9-7940X sports a higher 3.1GHz base clock. PC Gamer dug up a more detailed look at stock clock speeds, which shows the variance depending on how many cores are under load. In the case of the i9-7980XE, clock speeds vary from 4.2GHz to 3.9GHz up to 12 cores, dropping to 3.4GHz when all 18 cores are active. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel 18-core Core i9-7980XE launches September 25 for $2,000

Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU

Intel made a big splash at Computex with its new Core i9 X-series family , which is spearheaded by its first 18-core processor for desktops. But we haven’t much in the way of technical details, until now. Today, Intel revealed that the 18-core i9-7980XE will feature a base speed of 2.6GHz, with a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2GHz. And using Turbo Boost 3.0, which speeds up performance of its fastest two cores, it’ll reach 4.4GHz. That’s just below the 4.5GHz top speed of Intel’s Core i7-7700K, its fastest mainstream processor for desktops. Basically, that means the 18-core chip will be no slouch when it comes single-threaded performance for games. (Check out our in-depth story on the development of the 18-core processor here .) Yes, it might seem strange to see the company’s most powerful processor with a base clock speed under 3GHz. But what’s more important are the boost figures, which will kick in when you actually need more computing power. As for the other members of the X-series family, the 16-core model will feature speeds between 2.8GHz and 4.4GHz, while the 14-core version starts at 3.1GHz. As usual, Intel can reach higher speeds on chips with fewer cores, since there’s less of a heat issue to worry about. It’ll be a while until we get full benchmarks from these chips, but Intel gave us a small preview from its own testing. The 16-core i9 CPU reached a Cinebench R15 score of 3200, while running an NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti GPU. That’s below a 24-core Xeon E5 2697, according to 3D Fluff’s database . The quad-core i7-7700K, meanwhile, scored just 966 on that same benchmark. You can nab the 14-18 core i9 CPUs on September 25th, while the 12-core version is coming sooner, on August 28th. The other chips are already available on the market. Intel Source: Intel

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Intel unveils full specs for its 18-core i9 Extreme Edition CPU

Intel’s Core i9 Extreme Edition CPU is an 18-core beast

Last year at Computex, Intel unveiled its first 10-core consumer CPU , the company’s move into the world of a “megatasking.” It was a pricey chip, launching at around $1, 700, but it satisfied the needs for users who needed to juggle several intensive tasks at once. Now, Intel is upping the ante with a whole new family of processors for enthusiasts, the Core X-series, and it’s spearheaded by its first 18-core CPU, the i9-7980XE. Priced at $1, 999, the 7980XE is clearly not a chip you’d see in an average desktop. Instead, it’s more of a statement from Intel. It beats out AMD’s 16-core Threadripper CPU , which was slated to be that company’s most powerful consumer processor for 2017. And it gives Intel yet another way to satisfy the demands of power-hungry users who might want to do things like play games in 4K while broadcasting them in HD over Twitch. And as if its massive core count wasn’t enough, the i9-7980XE is also the first Intel consumer chip that packs in over a teraflop worth of computing power. If 18 cores is a bit too rich for you, Intel also has other Core i9 Extreme Edition chips in 10, 12, 14 and 16-core variants. Perhaps the best news for hardware geeks: the 10 core i9-7900X will retail for $999, a significant discount from last year’s version. All of the i9 chips feature base clock speeds of 3.3GHz, reaching up to 4.3GHz dual-core speeds with Turbo Boost 2.0 and 4.5GHz with Turbo Boost 3.0. And speaking of Turbo Boost 3.0, its performance has also been improved in the new Extreme Edition chips to increase both single and dual-core speeds. Rounding out the X-Series family are the quad-core i5-7640X and i7 models in 4, 6 and 8-core models. While it might all seem like overkill, Intel says its Core i9 lineup was driven by the surprising demand for last year’s 10-core chip. “Broadwell-E was kind of an experiment, ” an Intel rep said. “It sold… Proving that our enthusiast community will go after the best of the best… Yes we’re adding higher core count, but we’re also introducing lower core counts. Scalability on both ends are what we went after.” As you can imagine, stuffing more cores into a processor leads to some significant heat issues. For that reason, Intel developed its own liquid cooling solution, which will work across these new chips, as well as some previous generations. All of the new Core i9 processors, along with the 6 and 8-core i7 chips, feature scorching hot 140W thermal design points (TDPs), the maximum amount of power that they’ll draw. That’s the same as last year’s 10-core CPU, but it’s still well above the 91W TDP from Intel’s more affordable i7-7700K. Over the past few years, Intel’s laptop chips have been far more interesting than its desktop CPUs. Partially, that’s because the rise of ultraportables and convertible laptops have shifted its focus away from delivering as much computing power as possible, to offering a reasonable amount of processing power efficiently. The new Core i9 X-series processors might not be feasible for most consumers, but for the hardware geeks who treat their rigs like hot rods, they’re a dream come true.

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Intel’s Core i9 Extreme Edition CPU is an 18-core beast