Intel’s latest generation of Xeon processors are specifically designed for workstations, and the company has cleverly designated them the W series. Workstations are a growing market segment and have been for quite some time. They run 24-7, are extremely reliable, and have features and specifications you can’t find in a PC. Therefore, workstations can command high price points because of … Read more
When Intel decided to develop an alternative AIB to compete with discrete GPUs, they choose to use a ring of x86 processor, and called it Larrabee, named after Larrabee State Park in Whatcom County, Washington. The chip was to be released in 2010 as the core of a consumer 3D graphics AIB. Those plans were cancelled four years later in … Read more
With 25 new products coming, Intel is going for breadth
Intel used an announcement about its new Cascade Lake-based Xeon 9200 Platinum to show off all the stuff they are bringing to the data center, which introduces many multiple SKUs and a range of supporting products with the intent of giving customers the ability to build custom server applications covering HPC, AI, edge, memory, and super-sized particle chasing servers. Intel … Read more
We, along with just about anyone with a keyboard and internet access, reported on Intel’s comments at its Architecture day about its forthcoming GPU. In the rush to scoop something, anything, interesting or possibly even meaningful about Intel’s promised GPU, the news and pundits have decided Intel has branded it as the Xe chip. It hasn’t. What Intel actually said … Read more
Intel officially announced its 9th Gen Intel Core processors based on their 14 nm++ process. The processors are initially targeted at the high-end and bring some exciting new features and performance capabilities. The 9th Gen Intel Core processors (i5-9600K, i7-9700K, and i9-9900K), have up to 8-cores and 16 threads, up to a 16 MB Intel Smart Cache, up to 5 … Read more
In a world where much of the burden of smartphone differentiation rests on the quality of the camera, Google’s otherwise unremarkable Pixel 2 has been praised as one of the best cameras out there. This distinction comes in part from the inclusion of the Google-designed ‘Pixel Visual Core,’ a companion chip intended to “make it so your Snapchat pictures don’t … Read more
It’s been roughly two decades since workstation OEMs were building new models on their own schedules. Back in the 90’s, vertically integrated industry pioneers like SGI, HP, Sun, IBM, and DEC produced everything, from the chassis and operating systems to the CPU and GPU chips inside. They introduced new workstations whenever they were able to deliver all the key components … Read more
Eleven years ago, the Larrabee project was started in 2007. In 2010, the company killed the project. Then in 2011, Intel introduced the Xeon Phi, an accelerator card based on the 22-nm “Knights Corner” chip. A vestige of Intel’s ill-fated Larrabee project, Knights Corner was the first realization of Intel’s Many Integrated Cores (MIC) architecture. MIC was a cache-coherent multiprocessor … Read more
Intel virtually owns the market for workstation CPUs. However, with its Zen generation processors, AMD can mount its most significant threat in years. Here, we look at the very top end of the market, assessing both massively-core’d dual socket Intel Xeon Scalable and AMD Epyc platforms.
The Lenovo workstation group has shown a real knack for adding edge to their products. The Lenovo ThinkPad P52 line has already carved out a niche for a small, light, powerful workstation. The base model, starts at $1010.65 (Why 65 cents?) and is 4.39 lbs. and 0.79-inch thick. The more you can see, the more you can do: The latest … Read more
