GPUs are damn tricky
Intel is finding out just how tricky they can be!
AMD gets ‘Zen’ at recent media presentation
AMD just announced the long-awaited news: Their newest CPUs are finally coming to the market. This first set of Zen 4 CPUs will be the 7950X, the 7900X, the 7700X, and the 7600X. The prices of the processors range from $299 for the 7600X to $699 for the 7950X, the new flagship model. They will all be available on September … Read more
The hottest chips conference
This was the 34th year of the Hot Chips conference, which has traditionally been presented in Silicon Valley during August. The name “Hot” is a play on words for the weather and the performance of the latest designs. Hot Chips is like a second act to ISSCC during February in San Francisco. ISSCC is a formal academic research paper presentation … Read more
Esports moves to mobile
This is the IEM, or Intel Extreme Masters. It is German esports organizer ESL’s desktop tournament series and is currently the longest-running global pro gaming tour in the world (established in 2006). At the ESL One event in Cologne, Germany, 15,000 fans paid to attend each day. Electronic sports, better known as esports, involves spectator competitive PC gaming tournaments … Read more
Apple’s footprint
As you’ve heard by now, maybe a hundred times, Apple has a new multi-chip SoC called M1 Ultra. They also have a new workstation, a new set of smartphones, and more stuff in the Apple tube-o’-plenty of consumer products. How did a struggling PC vendor with a small MP3 player get to have such a reach? They did it with … Read more
RX 6500 XT: AMD’s first entry-level AIB featuring RDNA 2 technology
AMD has released its first entry-level AIB based on its RDNA 2.0 architecture. The new Radeon RX 6500 XT is optimal for gaming at 1080p, targeted at new PC builds
Q4’21 sees a nominal rise in GPU and PC shipments quarter-to-quarter
The PC GPU market shipments increased by 0.8% sequentially from last quarter and decreased by -15% year-to-year.
AMDlinx—and now they are one
In October 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic, AMD surprised the computer industry by announcing it would acquire FPGA inventor and maker Xilinx for $35 billion in stock. Xilinx was founded one year after Altera. In 2015, Intel acquired Altera for $16.8 billion, and its revenue at the time was $1.9 billion; Xilinx’s revenue was $2.4 billion. At … Read more
AMD’s Q4 2021 results
AMD reported record quarterly revenue of $4.8 billion up 49% year-over-year and record full-year revenue of $16.4 billion up 68%. Gross margin expanded and operating income more than doubled from the prior year. “2021 was an outstanding year for AMD with record annual revenue and profitability,” said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. “Each of our businesses performed extremely … Read more
AMD’s new Ryzen 6000 processor
AMD announced the Fusion project in 2006 after the acquisition of ATI: the integrating of a GPU with the CPU. However, Intel beat AMD to it and in January 2011 introduced the Clarkdale with an integrated GPU. AMD came out in June 2011 with the Llano and called it an APU—Accelerated Processing Unit. AMD always had more shader cores than … Read more
China okays AMD bid to buy Xilinx
Red on red gets red approval One of the reasons AMD wanted to acquire Xilinx is because Xilinx’s company color is red and AMD calculated in their offer prices how money could be saved by not having to do a rebranding of Xilinx’s collateral. (AMD previously said that it expects to achieve about $300 million in annualized cost savings … Read more
AMD backfills workstation lineup with the Radeon Pro W6400 and W6300 Pro graphics boards
AMD is all about the sweet spot, and the company’s latest entries into the workstation market are aimed at a good-sized market: mainstream CAD. As promised in an enigmatic Twitter promo, AMD has rolled out new boards in its Radeon Pro W6000 workstation series targeting CAD designers, engineers, and creatives. The new products include the new Radeon Pro W6400 graphics … Read more