A lot of CPU news is coming out of Computex 2016.
Intel has launched its new Broadwell-E "Extreme Edition" CPUs for "enthusiasts". The top-of-the-line model, the i7-6950X, now includes 10 cores instead of 8, but the price has increased massively to around $1,723. Compare this to a ~$999 launch price for the 8-core i7-5960X or 6-core i7-4960X flagships from previous generations.
Intel has also launched some new Skylake-based Xeons with "Iris Pro" graphics.
AMD revealed more details about the Radeon RX 480, a 14nm "Polaris" GPU that will be priced at $199 and released on June 29th. AMD intends to compete for the budget/mainstream gamer segment falling far short of the $379 launch price of a GTX 1070, while delivering around 70-75% of the performance. It also claims that the RX 480 will perform well enough to allow more gamers to use premium virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
While 14nm AMD "Zen" desktop chips should be coming later this year, laptop/2-in-1/tablet users will have to settle for the 7th generation Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge APUs. They are still 28nm "Excavator" based chips with "modules" instead of cores.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2016, @12:34AM
"They have pretty much lost the entire server market to Intel which makes their ARM opteron seem like a foolish endeavour." (endeavor *)
It's all relative. The server of yesterday is obsolete today and my phone is more powerful than it. However by having server options AMD can force Intel to keep upgrading its server offerings to compete, at least to some extent, which takes away money and resources from producing other stuff that AMD can better compete with them on. So AMD can invest a little bit at a time and make Intel invest more to keep ahead of the game and insure they stay ahead of the game. If Intel doesn't invest at all or if they reduce their investment they are threatened to eventually be surpassed by AMD as technology moves so fast that a regular/constant small investment would move quick relative to not investing at all since past investments, even large ones, quickly result in obsolete technology if they aren't meet with constant investing and advancement going forward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2016, @12:36AM
errr ... ensure not insure *