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'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.
If you have a 1440p monitor and a gaming PC that's in need of a graphics card upgrade, look to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. As NVIDIA revealed today, and as reviews of the card have proven in the first hours after the card's official reveal, the RTX 3060 Ti is the 2020-generation NVIDIA graphics card that delivers the biggest bang for your buck. Let's take a peek at the reasons why.
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.
MediaTek still has a large share of the mass-market smartphone segment, primarily because of its more accessible price tag for its processors on that tier. It has recently set its guns higher, aiming for mid-tier and high-end devices with its 5G-enabled line of Dimensity chips, but it hasn't exactly reached performance figures that can be considered comparable to the top contender in that space. That could slowly be changing if these leaked benchmarks for an upcoming MediaTek flagship is accurate, showing it might finally be catching up to Qualcomm.
The first MacBook Air powered by Apple's first M1 Silicon has started shipping and there's reason to be excited, even if you're not a MacBook or Apple fan yourself. This new breed of Macs represents not just another turning point in Apple's history but, given the company's reputation as a trendsetter, could also make waves in the computing industry in general, tipping the scales away from the likes of Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD. While we take the Late 2020 MacBook Air for a thorough testing, we're just a little bit too excited to share our first impressions of this important milestone in Apple's story thus far.
Apple's first-ever ARM-based Silicon, the M1, will be powering its next generation of Macs and MacBooks, some of which will be used for more than just casual computing tasks. Naturally, there are concerns about its performance versus tried and tested processors from the likes of Intel and AMD. Early CPU benchmarks already proved that the M1 can run circles around MacBooks running on recent Intel chips and now GPU benchmarks are proving Apple's claims of impressive graphics performance.
There is still no official confirmation but there have been several reports that key companies have been granted licenses to export their products to Huawei. If true, things could be looking up for the Chinese tech giant, especially if Qualcomm is part of that list. It might have been too early to break out in celebration, though, as more information is surfacing on the terms of that exception. It turns out that while Huawei might not be running out of smartphone processors, it still won't be able to make smartphones that will be able to compete in an increasingly 5G market.
Qualcomm may have the lion's share of the mobile AP market but it's hardly the only one. Huawei's HiSilicon is probably out for now because of US bans but MediaTek is making up for lost time by flooding the market with countless chips. Samsung isn't taking this sitting down either, even if rumors about its semiconductor business are less than encouraging. In fact, it has just announced the new Exynos 1080 5G which, at least on paper, could give mid-range phones high-end features without going all out on the costs.
Like it or not, and some definitely don't, Qualcomm's Snapdragons are pretty much the king of smartphone processors, especially more premium ones. MediaTek has traditionally been the choice for mid-tier to entry-level devices but Qualcomm has started to invade its turf, especially with mid-range 5G chips. MediaTek's strategy to fight back has been to flood the market with a confusing number of choices, including its latest MediaTek 700 aimed at giving mass-market phones some 5G capabilities.
Today we're taking a look at the full AMD Ryzen 5000 desktop CPU collection with Zen 3 core architecture. This includes the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, and the monstrous AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. These units work with 6 core, 8 core, 12 core, and 16 core configurations respectively, and they'll cost anywhere from around $300 all the way up to approximately $800 USD (for the CPU alone).
Arm's CPU designs and technologies practically power a large chunk of the computers in the world, from the ones we put in our pockets to those that drive our cars' brains. The one segment that Arm-based chips haven't yet truly taken over is the desktop and laptop market. That might be changing quickly, especially with Apple Silicon close to launching, and Arm itself is launching a new Cortex-A78C CPU that it envisions will power on-the-go devices, a.k.a. Arm-powered laptops like those pushed by Microsoft.