Latest news with #NovaLake
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Intel's Nova Lake-AX CPUs Could Be Monsters For Gaming, With 28 CPU Cores and A Powerful GPU
Intel is rumored to be gunning hard for the lightweight, high-performance, high-efficiency gaming market segment with its next-generation Nova Lake processors. A new class of CPU, called Nova Lake-AX, will reportedly sit above its "H-series" processors, offering greater performance without the need for a discrete GPU for gaming. Where AMD uses the term APU to differentiate its chips with powerful onboard graphics from its usual CPUs with more modest onboard GPUs, Intel doesn't do that. That's exactly what this new Nova Lake-AX design appears to be, though. Alongside a reported 28 CPU cores, it could include 384 execution units on Intel's Xe3P GPU architecture, which could make it much more capable than even Intel's second-generation Arc graphics cards. These are all rumors for now, and Intel hasn't made any kind of official announcement. But serial leaker OneRaichu on X (formerly Twitter) revealed some details on the leaked CPU range (via Videocardz). They suggested the top chip would have up to eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, alongside four low-power efficiency cores. If this chip is based on the same architectures as the main desktop and mobile chip lines, these AX CPUs will use Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf designs for the performance and efficiency cores, respectively. Credit: OneRaichu Raichu also revealed that the new chips will have a 256-bit memory bus and offer support for LPDDR5X memory at up to 10667 MHz—a new record for any kind of commercial chip design. The one big caveat to all this (besides the fact that it's purely a rumor for now) is that the product might not launch at all. Raichu suggests that the CPU was originally considered as an option, but that it may have been shelved in Intel's recent reshuffle and refocus on future chip lines using tighter process nodes. However, if Intel can make a very powerful APU, it may be able to persuade some of the mobile handheld gaming system developers that its chips deserve inclusion instead of AMD. Although AMD is dominating desktop CPU sales, it's arguably the only game in town when it comes to handheld systems like the Xbox Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go S. Intel might have a stake in the laptop gaming market, but that is swiftly dwindling too, as its Core Utra 200 range struggles to find relevance.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Intel Stock (NASDAQ:INTC) Continues Slide as it Abandons AI Training
Honestly, right now, it is hard to tell whether to give chip stock Intel (INTC) credit for a newfound focus or be terrified that it is on its way to producing virtually nothing. In fact, Intel recently called it quits in the artificial intelligence (AI) training market, a move which left shareholders shaken. Intel shares dropped nearly 2% in Wednesday afternoon's trading. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. In something of a bold move, Intel departed one market to focus instead on another: inference. Specifically, Intel is now set to focus on '…edge and agent-based' inference, a move which might actually be better for Intel in the long run. Reports suggest that the inference market may ultimately surpass the training market in terms of overall value. After the Gaudi 3 chip failed to make much impact on the market, Intel instead pulled back to edge AI, agentic AI, and foundry services. Edge AI refers to both 'local' systems that do not need data center or cloud data deployments and some remote systems not connected to larger operations. Agentic AI, meanwhile, focuses on chips that can act without much, if any, human intervention. 18A Process Remains Uncertain There were some signs, first seen not so long ago, that suggested Intel may be planning to shut down the 18A process. And new reports lend at least some credence to that theory, though not a complete admission of abandonment. The new reports suggest that Intel is likely to use the 18A process to fabricate the Panther Lake line of mobile processors. But the Nova Lake processors are instead being taped-out through the N2 process from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM). Intel was already an 'early client' for the N2 process, and it seems like it may be putting that process to work before it can get the 14A process, which was to ultimately replace the 18A process, up and running. Given some reports that suggested 18A would be used internally, as opposed to being used for foundry customers, the new revelation about Nova Lake may provide some support for that notion. Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 33.49% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.60 per share implies 4.21% downside risk.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel's new Nova Lake CPU is reportedly being made on TSMC N2 right now, pointing to a hybrid 18A node and late 2026 launch
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. It hasn't exactly been the best year for Intel. The chip giant has faced major struggles recently with chips flopping and fab partners seemingly nowhere to be found. Even Bill Gates has lamented the current state of the company, but maybe the upcoming Nova Lake-S CPUs, will turn all that around. We've seen a lot of rumours around the Nova Lake launch, and while some make more sense than others one has likely been confirmed. According to SemiAccurate (Via TechPowerUp) the next generation CPUs have been taped out on TSMC's N2 node in fabrication centres in Taiwan. Well, kind of. SemiAccurate is actually pretty slim on the details. "Intel taped out a major product a few weeks ago, a little late but they got there. SemiAccurate took longer than usual to confirm this one but we finally did. "Sorry, no hints this time." reads the website. I guess that is semi-accurate. Assuming this is the Nova Lake chipset, this likely confirms the hybrid nature of the tech, using a mix of both the N2 node as well as Intel's highly anticipated 18A node. It could be Intel has gone with a mix due to a lack of faith in the 18A, or just to maximise manufacturing capabilities with more fallback on the established N2 nodes. The chase of Intel's 18A node is an interesting one. We expected to see these chips launch in PCs but it seems Intel just didn't have the faith to launch them. Of course with these CPUs only being taped out now, these processors could be a fair way off, with at least a few months being the norm from taped to manufacturing, let alone retail availability. We'll likely be waiting at least a year to get our hands on these, but with delays around the 18A chipset maybe it'll be even longer. Hopefully we'll see the 18A powered Nova Lake chips before the end of 2026. In terms of performance, the numbers look good. The CPUs are reportedly delivering up to 25% faster processing with up to 36% more efficiency than before. Intel's new chips are also rumoured to have over double the cores of its previous Arrow Lake's offerings. And though we'll probably be waiting another year for them, a new chip being taped down is always cause for celebration.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel's next-gen Nova Lake CPU rumoured to get up to 52 cores, over double the count of Arrow Lake across all segments
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. According to a detailed post on X, Intel's next-gen Nova Lake desktop CPU will be getting over double the cores of its existing Arrow Lake chips. The top Core Ultra 9 model allegedly packs a staggering 52 cores. But it's arguably the mid-range Ultra 5 that's most interesting given it boasts more cores in every category than Intel's incumbent top desktop processor. The current Intel Core Ultra 9 285K has eight Performance and 16 Efficient cores. However, according to the X post, there will be a Nova Lake Core Ultra 5 model with eight Performance, 16 Efficient and another four Low Power Efficient cores. Meanwhile, the top Core Ultra 9 model crams in 16 Performance, 32 Efficient and four Low Power Efficient cores for that grand total of 52 cores. Even the very lowest end Nova Lake gets 12 cores, with a 4P, 4E and 4 LP-E split. If true, Nova Lake will be the biggest jump in raw CPU performance from Intel in some time. Intel's desktop chips have topped out at eight Performance cores since the Alder Lake generation launched back in late 2021. That generation also offered eight Efficient cores. But while the Raptor Lake follow-up boosted the E-Core count to 16 a year later, Intel hasn't increased core counts since. Indeed, Intel actually deprecated the total thread count when Arrow Lake arrived in October last year on account of removing support for HyperThreading, which enables Performance cores to support two software threads in parallel when present. Anyway, if these core counts are correct, the multi-threading performance of Nova Lake will be pretty epic. If Nova Lake also brings improved IPC from its Performance cores, thought to be codenamed Coyote Cove, and Efficient cores, codenamed Arctic Wolf, then the overall performance uptick could be spectacular. As for how this compares with AMD's future plans, it isn't totally clear. Various rumours point to anywhere from 12-core to 32-core chiplets in AMD's next-gen CPU plans using the upcoming Zen 6 architecture. The former would probably mean a 24-core top desktop CPU, the latter as many as 64 cores given AMD's top desktop CPU conventionally has two CPU core chiplets. However, the 32-core chiplet is probably based on the Zen 6c architecture with compact cores with the full Zen 6 chiplet topping out at either 12 or 16 cores. That would give total core counts of 24 and 32 respectively. With multithreading, you'd be looking at 48 or 64 threads. If you take a pessimistic view, that's 48 threads from 24 full fat Zen 6 cores versus 52 mixed cores from Intel. Game on. However you slice it, it certainly looks like desktop PCs will benefit from a very meaty upgrade when Nova Lake and Zen 6 arrive. Your next upgrade Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest. As for exactly when that will happen, we'd bank on late 2026 for Nova Lake in terms of a launch date with early 2027 a more realistic target for widespread availability. It's not yet clear what production node Intel will use for Nova Lake, with Intel's own 18A and 14A nodes, along with TSMC N2 all mooted as possibilities by various rumours. AMD's Zen 6, meanwhile, may be based on TSMC's N2 node when it arrives, likely in the second half of 2026. AMD has confirmed that the server variant of Zen 6 will definitely use TSMC's next-gen N2 node, which heavily implies, though doesn't absolutely guarantee, that Zen 6 for PCs will use the same technology. Anywho, the latter half of 2026 is certainly shaping up to be pretty exciting for the PC in terms of new CPUs.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Yahoo
Intel's next-gen Nova Lake CPUs rumoured to take on AMD's X3D CPUs at last thanks to gaming-friendly cache memory tile
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. AMD launched its first X3D CPU with 3D V-Cache back in April 2022 in the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Since then, AMD's X3D chips have pretty much been the weapon of choice for well-funded gamers. Where, you might ask, for art thou, Intel? According to the latest rumour, it might finally have an answer to X3D when it launches its next-gen Nova Lake CPUs in 2026, or perhaps early 2027. X user Haze2K1 has posted some specifications of purported Nova Lake CPU models and one detail stands out (via Club386). Along with listing core counts and TDP, both CPU models allegedly get something called "bLLC". That, supposedly, refers to something known as big Last Line Cache. And it's very much analogous to AMD's 3D V-Cache. Indeed, we know for sure Intel has such a technology, because it's incorporated in the new Clearwater Forest generation of Xeon server CPUs. But Intel has previously said it has no immediate plans to bring that technology to the desktop. The specifics of bLLC, at least as it pertains to that Xeon chip, entails what Intel calls Local Cache integrated into the base tile. The base tile is a chiplet in a modern Intel CPU package that sits beneath the active tiles, largely serving as an interconnect. At least, that's it's job in multi-die CPUs available today from Intel such as Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. By adding cache to the base tile, Intel would end up with a similar broad approach to AMD's latest X3D CPUs. AMD's first two generations of X3D chips had the V-Cache attached to the top of the CPU dies, which was not optimal for thermal performance and therefore clock speed. However, for its third generation X3D CPUs, including the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the V-Cache was moved below the CPU chiplets, essentially banishing the clock speed disadvantage of previous X3D CPU models and turning the latest generation into absolute gaming beasts. But before we all assume Intel's Nova Lake CPUs will therefore be killer for gaming, simply adding cache memory isn't a guarantee of better frame rates. The whole point of cache memory is to improve memory latency by reducing the need to go out over the main memory bus to the system RAM. And that, in turn, improves performance, especially in games. But for that cache to be really effective, it has to offer very low latency itself, which isn't a given. AMD's memory bus and cache architecture is highly optimised for low latency, but it's yet to be seen if Nova Lake will match AMD by that measure. AMD's has a super fast point-to-point internal interconnect for its CPUs, while Intel currently uses a ring bus to connect cores, graphics and higer-level cache memory. That ring interconnect is generally slower and suffers higher latency. By some measures, that gives Intel's Arrow Lake 512 GB/s of internal bandwidth to the 2.5 TB/s of AMD's equivalent technology. Anyway, the point is that Intel will need to do more than merely stuff some cache into the base tile to match the impact of AMD's 3D V-Cache in games. In other words, watch this space.
