The miniature, modular gaming PC system known as Razer Tomahawk was released today with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founder's Edition GPU inside. This small form factor (SFF) desktop works with Intel NUC and a modular "tool-less sled system." This desktop gaming-oriented computer was released both with or without the RTX GPU, making a difference of approximately $800 USD.
Currently, there's a global shortage of semiconductors used in many industries that has seen some major industries in the US grind to a halt. The semiconductor shortage has particularly hit automakers in America hard, causing several major companies to cease production. The Biden administration has promised to make aggressive moves to address the global semiconductor shortage.
Soon devices running Chrome with x86 processors that do not support SSE3 will no longer be able to run said web browser. In a document made public all the way back in September of 2020, Google suggested that Chrome will indeed require SSE3 in the future, and that all platforms running x86 architecture without said SSE instruction set will crash Chrome and will not be able to install Chrome in the future.
Apple's M1 processor and Macs were undoubtedly the biggest tech news that closed last year. Its performance, especially for a first try at a desktop-class ARM-based processor, left many questioning Intel's supremacy in that space. There are, of course, still things that Apple's silicon may not be capable of at this time but that is also just a matter of time. Meanwhile, Intel is seemingly going on the offensive with a set of benchmarks that it claims show how actually inferior the Apple M1 is.
It's hard to argue that Qualcomm's 5G modems dominate the market, not just in phones but also in any computing or networking products that need to support the next-gen network. MediaTek, of course, didn't take that sitting down and has launched its own line of Dimensity mobile application processors or APs to give phone manufacturers another option, prompting Qualcomm to fire back with 5G-capable mid-range processors in the Snapdragon 6-series and even the 4-series. Now MediaTek is making the next move to strike at one area where Qualcomm used to be unchallenged, support for mmWave 5G.
While Intel still holds the lion's share of the CPU market, it has never really been known to have any solid footing when it comes to the graphics department. Sure, its integrated GPUs power many a laptop or tablet but those still pale in comparison to even the mobile versions of NVIDIA's and AMD's chips. Intel has been making strides and heavily pushing its new Iris Xe architecture and now its first-ever discrete graphics cards for desktops have arrived, but you won't be able to buy them just yet.
As with a number of other laptop manufacturers, MSI took the stage at CES 2021 today to announce a new lineup of gaming laptops for the year ahead. Like many of the other laptops we heard about yesterday, a number of these new laptops are sporting mobile versions of NVIDIA's new RTX 30-series GPUs. Some of MSI's flagship gaming laptops are getting refreshed for 2021, so let's dive in and see what's new.
Intel has introduced its four new lines of processors designed for a variety of platforms and users, including for education, gaming, and business. The new lineup includes the 11th-Gen Intel Core vPro designed for business, N-series Pentium Silver and Celeron processors for education, and 11th-Gen Intel Core H-series mobile processors for gaming.
Intel and Mobileye have developed a pair of new sensors for autonomous vehicles, aiming to bring radar and LIDAR down in price and help power driverless cars that can train each other to deal with new locations. Announced at CES 2021, the new sensors look to tackle one of the biggest hurdles for making autonomous vehicles more prevalent, by bringing down the cost of the comprehensive sensor suites that they use to see the world around them.
Intel has launched a new facial recognition system, aiming to bring Face ID-style biometric access to ATMs, smart locks, and more. Intel RealSense ID pulls together an active depth sensor to scan the user's face, with a special neural network running on a local chipset for increased security without PINs, passwords, or having to scan your fingerprint.
Intel's breakup with Apple may only be the start of the chip-maker's problems, with Microsoft rumored to be planning a similar strike out for independence with its own processor designs. While Intel's long-standing rivalry with AMD has given the computing world two main choices for the past decades, industry heavyweights are increasingly looking to Arm-based chips as an alternative.
Intel has taken quite a beating this year, from AMD's unwavering onslaught to the damning benchmarks of the Apple Silicon M1. The launch of its 11th-gen Tiger Lake processors for laptops has seemingly been pushed to the sidelines as a consequence and it is looking for ways to get back into the spotlight. What better way to do that than by calling out its eternal rival AMD over the latter's battery performance and, sure enough, the benchmarks ran by Intel show it having the upper hand in that particular use case.