x86

Intel has announced two new x86-64 instruction sets designed to bolster and offer more performance in AVX-based workloads with their hybrid architecture of performance (P) and efficiency (E) cores. The first of Intel's announcements is their latest Intel Advanced Performance Extensions, or Intel APX as it's known. It is designed to bring generational, instruction set-driven improvements to load, store and compare instructions without impacting power consumption or the overall silicon die area of the CPU cores. Intel has also published a technical paper detailing their new AVX10, enabling both Intel's performance (P) and efficiency (E) cores to support the converged AVX10/256-bit instruction set going forward. This means that Intel's future generation of hybrid desktop, server, and workstation chips will be able to support multiple AVX...

SPEC Updates SERT Suite for ISO-Compliant Server Energy Efficiency Benchmarking

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation's SPEC SERT Suite has evolved as the industry-standard for measuring the energy efficiency of servers over the last decade. Regulatory authorities such as the...

4 by Ganesh T S on 6/15/2021

Intel’s x86 Designs No Longer Limited to Intel on Intel: IP Blocks for Foundry, Cores on TSMC

Today Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has outlined two key changes to Intel policy: one derived from Intel’s plans to offer foundry services to external partners, and the other from...

70 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 3/23/2021

The Next Phase: Apple Lays Out Plans To Transition Macs from x86 to Apple SoCs

After many months of rumors and speculation, Apple confirmed this morning during their annual WWDC keynote that the company intends to transition away from using x86 processors at the...

241 by Ryan Smith on 6/22/2020

Intel Discloses Lakefield CPUs Specifications: 64 Execution Units, up to 3.0 GHz, 7 W

Over the past 12 months, Intel has slowly started to disclose information about its first hybrid x86 platform, Lakefield. This new processor combines one ‘big’ CPU core with four...

79 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/10/2020

Testing a Chinese x86 CPU: A Deep Dive into Zen-based Hygon Dhyana Processors

In 2016, through a series of joint ventures and created companies, AMD licensed the design of its first generation Zen x86 processors to be sold into China. The goal...

133 by Dr. Ian Cutress & Wendell Wilson on 2/27/2020

Spotted at Computex: Let Bygones be Bygons, with a Sugon Hygon

Big credit to Patrick Kennedy from ServeTheHome for spotting this gem on the show floor, but it looks like if you want a Chinese branded EPYC CPU with some...

58 by Ian Cutress on 5/30/2019

Chinese Zen-Based CPU on Sale: Sugon Workstation with 8-Core Hugon Dhyana Processor

Sugon, an OEM of servers and workstations in China, has started selling of machines equipped with the Hugon Dhyana processors. These are processors based on AMD’s 1st Generation Zen...

47 by Anton Shilov on 5/23/2019

Zhaoxin Displays x86-Compatible KaiXian KX-6000: 8 Cores, 3 GHz, 16 nm FinFET

Zhaoxin, a joint venture between Via Technologies and the Chinese government, this week for the first time displayed its upcoming x86-compatible CPU, the KaiXian KX-6000. The SoC features eight...

78 by Anton Shilov on 9/24/2018

Intel’s Last Atom in Smartphones: A 2018 Benchmark

Intel's push into smartphones over the last 10 years has been well documented, as well as the subsequent downfall after its Broxton smartphone SoCs were cancelled in April 2016...

56 by Ian Cutress on 3/28/2018

The AMD Zen and Ryzen 7 Review: A Deep Dive on 1800X, 1700X and 1700

For over two years the collective AMD vs Intel personal computer battle has been sitting on the edge of its seat. Back in 2014, when AMD first announced it...

574 by Ian Cutress on 3/2/2017

AMD Gives More Zen Details: Ryzen, 3.4 GHz+, NVMe, Neural Net Prediction, & 25 MHz Boost Steps

In the eternal battle to drive more details out of AMD ahead of the full launch of its new Zen microarchitecture based CPUs, today AMD is lifting the lid...

170 by Ian Cutress on 12/13/2016

AMD Zen Microarchiture Part 2: Extracting Instruction-Level Parallelism

Hot Chips is an annual conference that allows semiconductor companies to present their latest and greatest ideas or forthcoming products in an academic-style environment, and is predominantly aimed as...

106 by Ian Cutress on 8/23/2016

China Calling: AMD Forms Joint Venture for x86 Server SoCs in China

As part of the release of AMD’s Q1 2016 financial results (more on that later today) the company is announcing that they are forming a new joint venture to...

32 by Ryan Smith on 4/21/2016

Examining Soft Machines' Architecture: An Element of VISC to Improving IPC

Last week, Soft Machines announced that their 'VISC' architecture was available for licensing, following the announcement of the original concepts over a year ago. The concepts behind their VISC...

97 by Ian Cutress on 2/12/2016

Understanding Intel's Dynamic Power and Thermal Framework 8.1: Smarter Throttling

In mobile, thermal throttling is effectively a fact of life as modern, thin tablets and smartphones leave little room for implementing high-performance fans. We can use CMOS scaling to...

32 by Joshua Ho on 8/21/2015

Lenovo Acquisition of IBM's x86 Server Business Closing October 1

Lenovo announced today that they have satisfied the conditions needed to complete the acquisition of IBM's x86 server business, and the parties expect to finalize the deal and close...

18 by Jarred Walton on 9/29/2014

Asustor AS-304T: 4-Bay Intel Evansport NAS Review

Intel's Evansport NAS platform was meant to take on ARM's dominance in the low to mid-range consumer / SOHO NAS market. We covered it in detail while reviewing the...

34 by Ganesh T S on 3/26/2014

AMD G-Series Brings APUs to the x86 Embedded Market

The embedded market is dominated by SoCs based on RISC processors such as ARM and MIPS. The low power consumption of these SoCs make them attractive. Other than ARM...

77 by Ganesh T S on 1/19/2011

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