Author: Jan Olšan

Intel Titan Lake, Hammer Lake CPUs detailed: Unified Core and HT

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

We previously covered information about Intel’s future Razor Lake processors, expected to launch as the Core Ultra 500 generation likely at the end of 2027 (that is, after the upcoming Nova Lake generation). Moore’s Law is Dead, who leaked those details, also revealed information about the following generations—Titan Lake and Hammer Lake. These are even further out, but they will introduce a long‑awaited, radical architectural shift. Read more “Intel Titan Lake, Hammer Lake CPUs detailed: Unified Core and HT” »

AMD has started mass production of Zen 6. Only for Epycs for now?

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

It’s been nearly two years since AMD’s Zen 5 architecture launched (in late July and early August 2024) and time is ripe for a successor—especially given how far competitors such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite and Apple’s M5 have advanced in the meantime. AMD’s answer in the form of the Zen 6 architecture is now finally getting closer—the company has announced the ramp up of production, which could signal a launch later this year. Read more “AMD has started mass production of Zen 6. Only for Epycs for now?” »

Intel confirms work underway on 1.0nm and 0.7nm process nodes

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan initially seemed to doubt efforts to turn around the company’s own fabs and warned that Intel’s 1.4nm process could be the last one, but the company’s stock is now ironically rising thanks to hopes placed in the fabs rather than the products, in part due to investor hopes for contracts with Elon Musk and Apple. And it now appears that Intel’s manufacturing process technology once again have a future. Read more “Intel confirms work underway on 1.0nm and 0.7nm process nodes” »

Advanced Shader Delivery on AMD: No more waiting for compilation

Graphics, News | | Jan Olšan

Gamers definitely know the experience: You want to launch a game, but it starts to compile shaders, which can take several minutes. The reason is that shaders have to be built from code specifically for your hardware. And the compilation must be repeated after every GPU driver update, so you can end up seeing this waiting screen quite frequently. But Windows is now getting an improvement that should largely eliminate this waiting. Read more “Advanced Shader Delivery on AMD: No more waiting for compilation” »

FSR 4.1 AI upscaling finally coming to older Radeon GPU users

Graphics, News | | Jan Olšan

When AMD launched the FSR4 AI-based upscaling technology for games last year, it was exclusively available for the new Radeon RX 9000 generation GPUs using the RDNA 4 architecture. This was despite the fact that a version using INT8 compute compatible with older GPUs had leaked out, apparently by accident. But owners of older Radeon cards are finally in luck now: FSR 4.1 is coming to RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 as well. Read more “FSR 4.1 AI upscaling finally coming to older Radeon GPU users” »

Future Apple Silicon processors will be fabbed by Intel Foundry

News, Processors, Technology | | Jan Olšan

For a while, we’ve been seeing reports that Apple could become one of the key major customers Intel signed up for chip production in its Foundry fabs—a critical factor in Intel’s long-term effort to turn the fab division around. At first, this may have been little more than Intel shareholder’s wishful thinking, but it appears the contract may indeed happen, with Intel set to manufacture Apple chips—for laptops as well as mobile phones. Read more “Future Apple Silicon processors will be fabbed by Intel Foundry” »

PCI Express 8.0 may introduce incompatible slots and connectors

Graphics, Motherboards, News | | Jan Olšan

Last summer, it was reported the PCI-SIG consortium is working on PCI Express 8.0 technology to succeed PCI Express 6.0 and 7.0 and deliver transfer speeds eight times higher than today’s PCI Express 5.0. Deployment is still a long way off, but work on the draft has now advanced to version 0.5. PCIe 8.0 could prove to be a major turning point in PC development, because it may involve changes to connectors and slots. Read more “PCI Express 8.0 may introduce incompatible slots and connectors” »

AV2 video for everyone: Dav2d decoder will play it even on older PCs

News, Software, Technology | | Jan Olšan

The problem with new video formats is their performance requirements as that they generally assume playback via dedicated hardware. The catch is that it often takes years before such decoders appear in GPUs and processors, leaving all devices purchased before then without support. Fortunately, the new AV2 format should remain accessible even on older devices thanks to the work of open-source developers behind the VLC media player. Read more “AV2 video for everyone: Dav2d decoder will play it even on older PCs” »

AMD reportedly preparing new AM5 boards or chipsets for summer

Chipsets, Motherboards, News | | Jan Olšan

AMD is expected to launch the first Ryzen desktop CPUs based on the new Zen 6 architecture either in autumn this year or early next year. Until now, there had been no indications that these CPUs would also bring the arrival of new chipsets. However, it now appears that a new wave of AM5 socket motherboards for these processors is in preparation. These models could come equipped with new capabilities and potentially a new chipset. Read more “AMD reportedly preparing new AM5 boards or chipsets for summer” »

x86 ACE Instructions: AMD Zen 7 core’s AI acceleration detailed

Analysis, Processors | | Jan Olšan

Longtime rivals AMD and Intel have established a joint consortium seeking to make their x86 processors and their future extensions more compatible instead of using the differences and exclusive features as (anti)competitive advantages. In autumn they settled on several extensions to be made standard: AVX10/AVX-512, APX, ChkTag, FRED, and also the ACE matrix extension for AI compute, about which very little had been known until now. Read more “x86 ACE Instructions: AMD Zen 7 core’s AI acceleration detailed” »

DDR6 memory is still far away: 2028–2029 at the earliest, or later

Memory, News | | Jan Olšan

It has been quite a while since we learned details about the upcoming LPDDR6 and DDR6 technology—new generations of random access memory which are expected to be a significant shift, likely moving to “non‑binary” channel widths to increase RAM bandwidth. Originally, it seemed these memory types might arrive relatively soon. But at least for DDR6, it now appears we’ll be waiting considerably longer, according to current reports. Read more “DDR6 memory is still far away: 2028–2029 at the earliest, or later” »

Radeon GPU drivers for Linux will finally get HDMI 2.1 support

Graphics, News | | Jan Olšan

Valve’s incoming Steam Machine gaming PC/console drew new attention to one long‑standing weakness of the Linux ecosystem: HDMI 2.1 support. It works with Nvidia hardware (thanks to closed‑source drivers and firmware), but the open‑source drivers used for Radeon GPUs could not support it because the HDMI Forum did not allow HDMI 2.1 support in open‑source code. However, it looks like this problem may finally be coming to an end. Read more “Radeon GPU drivers for Linux will finally get HDMI 2.1 support” »

Overclocking for all? Intel will unlock cheaper boards and CPUs

Chipsets, Motherboards, News | | Jan Olšan

Recently we wrote about how Intel plans to step back from frequent socket changes for desktop CPUs, giving motherboards a longer useful “life” in the sense that they could be upgraded with newer processors. But this is not the only area where Intel, feeling pressure, is moving closer to AMD’s approach. Intel will also allow overclocking on cheaper boards and CPUs—something they have blocked until now, making it a “premium” privilege. Read more “Overclocking for all? Intel will unlock cheaper boards and CPUs” »

EXPO 1.2 brings support for CUDIMM memory to the AMD platform

Memory, Motherboards, Processors | | Jan Olšan

The launch of AMD’s next‑generation desktop processors (Zen 6 architecture) is apparently still many months away. It is therefore surprising that a new feature is coming to AM5 motherboards at the current time: AMD has introduced EXPO 1.2, a new generation of DDR5 memory overclocking profiles for the AM5 platform. EXPO 1.2 adds several previously missing capabilities, especially initial support for higher‑speed CUDIMM modules. Read more “EXPO 1.2 brings support for CUDIMM memory to the AMD platform” »

Next-gen chips: TSMC announced 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm processes

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

A year ago TSMC introduced 1.6 nm and 1.4 nm chip technologies, which represent—or better said will represent—the most advanced manufacturing nodes for silicon logic circuits that power all modern electronics. Now TSMC has revealed the next milestone: 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm nodes, pushing capabilities even further. Practically all chipmakers and the innovations we’ll see from them in the coming decade depend on TSMC’s technology. Read more “Next-gen chips: TSMC announced 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm processes” »

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