10 Hot New Processors From Intel, AMD And Nvidia At CES 2019

New CPUs, GPUs Could Create New Refresh Opportunities

It was a big week for the processor market at CES 2019, with Intel, AMD and Nvidia all revealing new processors for next-generation computing. These new client and data center CPUs, as well as new desktop GPUs, are likely to reopen new refresh opportunities for the channel in both PCs and servers. Here's a look at 10 new processors from Intel, AMD and Nvidia.

AMD Third-Generation 7nm Ryzen CPU

AMD unveiled its much-anticipated 7-nanometer CPU, the third-generation Ryzen, during CEO Lisa Su's keynote Wednesday. The processor line will launch in mid-2019, with the top processor featuring eight cores and 16 threads. The CPU will also support PCIe 4.0, a first for a PC platform, according to Su. During her keynote, the company demonstrated the 7nm Ryzen's performance against Intel's flagship Core i9-9900K, showing a higher score using the benchmarking tool Cinebench while requiring 30 percent less power.

Intel Ice Lake 10nm Mobile CPU

Intel revealed its long-awaited 10-nanometer Ice Lake CPU during its press conference Monday. The company indicated this processor type would specifically target mobile PCs, a la laptops and other portable form factors. On top of having a smaller transistor density than Intel's current generation of chips, Ice Lake will be the company's first CPU to use its new Sunny Cove microarchitecture, Gen11 integrated graphics and DL Boost technology for accelerating inference-based workloads. Ice Lake will also be Intel's first processor to natively support Thunderbolt 3 and Wi-Fi 6. The CPU is launching for the holiday 2019 season.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

After revealing its next-generation Turing GPU architecture last year, Nvidia showed off a more affordable version of its GeForce RTX graphics card, the GeForce RTX 2060. Priced at $349, the RTX 2060 provides high-performance graphics enhanced by artificial intelligence and ray tracing capabilities. Ray tracing, which is supported natively by the Turing architecture, enables realistic lighting and reflections in real time, akin to CGI technology used in movies. The RTX 2060 provides 60 percent faster performance than the previous generation GTX 1060. The graphics card comes with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 240 Tensor Cores. It's available Jan. 15.

AMD 7nm Radeon VII

AMD's Radeon VII is the world's first 7nm GPU, providing 29 percent performance gains for gaming over the previous Radeon FX 590, Su said. The product will go on sale for $699 on Feb. 7. The high-end graphics card, which is based on AMD's Vega architecture, features 60 computing units running up to 1.8GHz, 16 GB of high-bandwidth memory and 1TB/second in memory bandwidth, providing 25 percent more performance with the same power.

Intel Lakefield Hybrid CPU

Lakefield is a new hybrid CPU architecture that uses Intel's new Foveros 3-D packaging technology, which stacks logic chips on top of each other for the first time. Lakefield includes a 10nm Sunny Cove core for high performance and four Atom-based cores for power efficiency. The nature of the 3-D stacking technology will give Intel's OEM partners the ability to design thinner and lighter form factors that provide long battery life, performance and connectivity. The company expects to begin producing Lakefield chips this year.

AMD 7nm Epyc CPU

After first revealing its 7nm Epyc server CPU last fall, AMD shared more details about the processor, code-named Rome, during Su's Wednesday keynote. Su said the processor line will launch in mid-2019 and provide a 2X increase in performance per socket and a 4X increase in floating point performance over the company's first-generation Epyc CPU, which launched in 2017. In a live demonstration, AMD showed it can run about 15 percent faster than two Intel Xeon 8180 processors.

Intel Core i9-9900KF

The Intel Core i9-9900KF is among six new processors in the company's ninth-generation Core family that were unveiled Monday. The i9-9900KF is nearly identical to Intel's flagship gaming CPU launched last fall, the i9-9900K, except for the fact that the integrated graphics are disabled. Like the i9-9900KF, some of the other new CPUs also support overclocking with no integrated graphics, like the i7-9700KF, while the i5-9400F only lacks integrated graphics support but can't be overclocked. The chip expansion also introduced a lower-end CPU to the ninth-generation Core family with the i3-9350F. The new processors launch this month.

Intel Nervana Neural Network Processor For Inference

The Intel Nervana Neural Network Processor for Inference, also known as NNP-I, is a new artificial intelligence chip that is being jointly developed by Intel and Facebook. The new chip is designed to accelerate inference-based workloads, and it's expected to come out sometime this year. Intel revealed that it's also planning to release a Neural Network Processor for Training, code-named Spring Crest, this year. The line of AI processors stem from Intel's 2016 acquisition of Nervana.

AMD Ryzen 7 3750H Mobile

At the beginning of the week, AMD revealed a line of new mobile CPUs from its much-anticipated Ryzen 3000 Series. At the top of the new lineup is the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H, which comes with four cores, eight threads and a turbo clock frequency of 4GHz. The processor, like the others in the lineup, comes with Vega-based Radeon graphics. The Ryzen 7 3750H and its counterpart, the Ryzen 5 3550H, run on a 35-watt power envelope while the others run on 15 watts. All of the processors are based on AMD's current generation 12-nanometer manufacturing process.

AMD A6-9220C

The AMD A6-9220C is one of two CPUs the company introduced specifically for AMD-based Chromebooks. The processor and its counterpart, the A4-9120C, feature two cores and two threads. Like the new Ryzen mobile processors, these two CPUs include Radeon graphics technology. The higher-end A6-9220C includes slightly higher base clock and turbo frequencies at 2.7GHz and 1.8GHz, respectively, with a higher GPU frequency at 720MHz.