Maximum PC - UK (2019-12)

(Antfer) #1
the beginning of the magazine, where the articles are small

10 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2019 maximumpc.com


quickstart


Intel’s HEDT chips get a little


faster and a lot cheaper


Intel’s New


Top Dogs


between 100 and 200MHz for
the most part. There are some
useful new features, too. You
get 48 PCIe lanes on the chip—
four more than the existing
X-series chips, bringing the
platform number up to 72
lanes. You also get Wi-Fi 6
support, and four-channel
DDR4-2933 memory, with a
m a x imum of 2 5 6 GB, d o ub le th e
previous maximum. There’s
also Intel’s Turbo Boost Max
3.0, which “intelligently”
manages core speeds for
optimal performance, and
knows which core can
be pushed the hardest.
Thunderbolt 3 and Optane
905P SSD are supported, too.
The feature Intel is making
the biggest noise about is its
Deep Learning Boost, which
accelerates AI performance
by around 2.2 times. Intel
claims it puts “new classes of
computing performance and
AI acceleration into the hands
of professional creators and
PC enthusiasts.” AI is rapidly
becoming an important metric,

as it works its way into many
applications, particularly on
servers; it’s creeping into
games, too.
It’s the pricing that makes
these new processors stand
out, though. The i9-10980X
is just $979, the rest of the
chips come in at $784, $689,
and $590 respectively. This
is a huge drop from existing
models; the old 18-core
i9-7980XE was listed at $1,
when Intel announced these.
The new chips cost between
half and three-quarters of
the price of the chips they’ve
replaced. The cost per core
has dropped from around $
to about $50—at a stroke,
Intel has lopped hundreds of
dollars off the price of building
an HEDT. That can’t be bad.
Intel also has a new
batch of W-series chips for
workstations, eight in all,
from the W-2295 through to
a W-2223. These sit at the
top of the W-series 2000
models, aimed at single-chip
systems. Performance gains
are modest, AI aside, but again
the pricing is paramount. They
start from just $294 for the
W-2223, and run to $1,333 for
the 18-core W-2295. The older
18-core W-2195 was $2,779.
Why such dramatic price cuts?
In a word: Threadripper. AMD
has put so much pressure on

Intel, it had to respond, and the
simplest way to do that is to
drop prices. Intel doesn’t have
a new core architecture ready
yet, so it has thrown every
feature it has at the chips, and
slashed prices. The company
has resisted a price war until
now, but it is losing market
share. AMD has more to
come, too; its third-generation
Threadripper is due this year.
Intel has also revised the
pricing on its Core S-series
(the regular desktop ranges)
without integrated graphics
(the ones with the F suffix).
When these first appeared,
they were priced the same as
chips with integrated graphics,
which was disappointing.
This has been adjusted, and
prices have dropped across
the range. The changes affect
OEM bulk prices, so will take
a little time to filter through.
Before you get too excited, it’s
only a drop of $25, but that’s
better than nothing.
Is this the beginning of a
price war between AMD and
Intel? Probably not—both
companies are struggling to
meet demand, and the PC
market is still quite buoyant.
Neither company can afford a
protracted bout of price cuts,
but Intel has certainly made a
strong statement of intent. The
fight is on. –CL

INTEL HAS some new high-end
processors: 12 chips aimed
at the HEDT and workstation
market. No, they don’t sport a
new core architecture or a die
shrink. They are all iterations
of existing designs, but they
are faster. And much cheaper.
Of most interest to us are
the four new Cascade Lake
X-series chips, aimed at the
high-end desktop market.
The top model is the Core
i9-10980XE, with 18 cores, a
base clock speed of 3.0GHz, an
all-core boost of 3.8GHz, and
a maximum boost clock of
4.8GHz using Intel’s Turbo
Boost Max 3.0. Below this is
a i9-10940X, with 14 cores, a
base clock of 3.3GHz, and a
maximum boost of 4.8GHz.
Then we have the 12-core
i9-10920X, with a base
of 3.5GHz, and the same
maximum. At the bottom is
the i9-10900X with 10 cores,
a base clock of 3.7GHz, and a
maximum boost of 4.7GHz.
These are decent rather
than startling speed bumps,

Intel has thrown every


feature it has at the chips,


and slashed prices. ©^


INT

EL
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