What’s new? Intel’s 10 nm, AMD’s successes and Nvidia Turing

26.08.2019

It’s time for some news again: While CPUs are getting smaller and smaller, Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards are getting better and better. Keyword: ray tracing. Microsoft has also researched the current state of the Internet of Things.

The wait is over: Intel's 10 nm chips are coming

After years of delay, Intel has finally started production of processors using 10-nanometer technology. The first Ice Lake CPUs are to be installed in notebooks and will be launched on the market in fall 2019. What can the newcomers do? In contrast to chips from 14 nm production, they are more energy-efficient and at the same time much more powerful. These include better graphics, WiFi 6 support, the option to connect four Thunderbolt 3 ports and integrated AI. The previously produced CPUs of the Ice Lake generation belong to the U and Y series, but Intel makes it a little more complicated for us and no longer names them clearly. Find out more at Tom's Hardware. Incidentally, Intel is already planning 7 nm chips, which are due to arrive from 2021.

Sources: wired.com, intel.de, heise.de.

Success for AMD Ryzen: Higher demand than expected

AMD's latest business figures are impressive. The Ryzen 3000 CPUs, which were launched for the desktop segment at the beginning of July, have got off to a successful start. Not least thanks to their good performance and low power consumption. However, demand for the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3800X processors is so high that they are currently barely available. AMD stated that it had not expected this success. A subsequent delivery should be made shortly. AMD also announced that a high-end graphics chip based on the RDNA architecture (which also includes the current "Navi" chips) is currently being developed and that mobile CPUs from 7-nanometer production will also be released in the near future.

Sources: PC Games Hardware, Gamestar.

Moon landing proven: Ray tracing with Nvidia Turing

To show the possibilities of the new Turing graphics cards, Nvidia has come up with something special. The demo video of the moon landing published back in 2014, with which Nvidia wanted to prove that the Apollo 11 mission really took place, has been enhanced with ray tracing and now also shows what the lighting conditions were actually like at the time of the moon landing. The graphics card manufacturer has examined various details, such as the material of the spacesuits and the dust on the lunar surface. Ray tracing was used to calculate several million virtual sunbeams for the video, which are reflected by the moon and cast shadows.

Sources: Techcrunch.com, golem.de, Computerbase.de.

More acceptance for the Internet of Things: The Microsoft IoT Signals Report

In its IoT Signals research report, Microsoft gives us a great overview of the spread of IoT. Over 3,000 decision-makers worldwide were surveyed and the results speak for themselves: Of the 85 percent of respondents who already carry out their own IoT projects, 88 percent consider them to be crucial to the success of their business. However, 97 percent of respondents also expressed security concerns. Other challenges include the complexity of the technology, the shortage of skilled workers and, in some cases, excessively high costs. Nevertheless, IDC market researchers expect around 41.6 billion devices to be networked by 2025.

Source: blogs.microsoft.com, Computerwelt.

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