Anandtech News

**FEED** · 03-03-21, 01:25 PM

From a post by ASUS's Technical Product Marketing Manager (u/ASUSTechMKTJJ) on Reddit, ASUS looks to be readying up a new B550 motherboard based on its ProArt series. The ASUS ProArt series primarily aims to provide to creators, and its new ProArt B550-Creator is the first AMD AM4 motherboard to benefit from Intel's updated Thunderbolt 4 controller. Also included are an advertised 12+2 phase power delivery and dual 2.5 GbE networking.
Similar to previous iterations of its ProArt motherboard, such as the ASUS ProArt Z490-Creator 10G, it follows a simplistic design with straight lines provided by a pair of rectangular M.2 and an L-shaped power delivery heatsink. Keeping in line with its basic theme, it omits any integrated RGB LED lighting. ASUS advertises the B550-Creator as including a 12+2 phase power delivery with teamed power stages, with an 8-pin and 4-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input pairing providing power to the processor.

Currently, ASUS hasn't revealed detailed specifications, but we can see that the ProArt B550-Creator includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top likely conforming to PCIe Gen4 with the bottom slot most probably driven by the B550 chipset. It includes two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, with four SATA ports for storage, with possibly two PCIe M.2 slots due to the location and length of the pair of M.2 heatsinks featured on the board. It includes four memory slots with up to 128 GB of capacity, but ASUS hasn't provided information on supported speeds.

Much of the fanfare surrounding this announcement is the inclusion of Intel's latest Thunderbolt 4 controller, which looks to be the first time it has been implemented on an AM4 model. This is present on the rear panel of the ProArt B550-Creator with two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, a single DisplayPort input, four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Also present on the rear panel is a pair of 2.5 GbE ports which ASUS hasn't specified which controller it's using, with a PS/2 combo port, one HDMI video output, and a small BIOS Flashback button. Finishing off the rear panel is five 3.5 mm audio jacks and single S/PDIF optical output, which is powered by a Realtek ALC1220A HD audio codec.
The ASUS ProArt B550-Creator motherboard is expected to be released sometime in April with an expected MSRP of $299.
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**FEED** · 03-04-21, 09:35 AM

Today Xiaomi is updating one of its most popular and successful phone models with a slew of new Redmi Note 10 variants. Alongside the Note 10, Note 10S and the Note 10 5G, we’ve had the Redmi Note 10 Pro for a few days to get our first impressions of the low-cost device.

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**FEED** · 03-04-21, 11:57 AM

Today Qualcomm is announcing the new “Snapdragon Sound” branding initiative, essentially an umbrella term that covers the company’s various audio related hardware and software products, promising improved end-to-end interoperability for a better audio experience.

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**FEED** · 03-04-21, 11:57 AM

GlobalFoundries this week reiterated plans to invest $1.4 billion this year in expansion of its manufacturing capacities across the world. Around one third of the sum will be co-invested by GlobalFoundries' customers who want to ensure that they have capacity allocation for years to come. The world's fourth largest foundry is also mulling to bring forward its IPO to late 2021 ahead of its original 2022 date.
In any typical year, GlobalFoundries spends about $700 million on expansion of its production capacities, however growing demand for chips has made clear the need for faster than normal groth - as a result the company is to invest $1.4 billion on expansion this year. The money will be divided equally between GlobalFoundries' sites in Dresden, Malta (New York) and Singapore, according to Reuters. Production capacity is expected to increase by 13% this year and by 20% next year as a result of the increased funding.
Last year GlobalFoundries said that it planned to significantly increase capacity it its Fab 1 located near Dresden. The company's German facility produces chips using 22FDX, 28SLP, 40/45/55NV as well as BCDLite technologies that are particularly important for automotive, mobile, IoT, and industrial applications. Capacity of Fab 1 in 2021 is expected to be in the range between 400,000 and 500,000 wafer starts per year. Increasing that number means that GlobalFoundries will be able to better address high-growth applications.
GlobalFoundries expects to raise around a third of $1.4 billion from its customers that will pre-pay to guarantee supply over the following years, the CEO of the company told Reuters. He did not name the clients.
In addition to boosting its existing production facilities, GlobalFoundries is also looking forward building another fab adjacent to its Fab 8 located in Malta, New York. Funding of the new facility will largely depend on subsidies and incentives provided by the U.S. Government and the state of New York as parts of the CHIPS for America act introduced last year. It should also be noted that Fab 8 in Malta recently recieved ITAR certification for DoD production on its 45 nm process, expanding GlobalFoundries' value as a home-grown chip manufacturer to the US government.
Back in 2020 GlobalFoundries earned approximately $5.7 billion in revenue, down from $6.176 billion in 2017. The company projects that in 2021 its revenue will grow by 9% to 10% year-over-year as a result of unprecedented demand.
Since demand for chips is growing and governments have investments almost ready to go, it would seems to be a good time for GlobalFoundries' initial public offering. Previously GlobalFoundries planned to go public in late 2022 or early 2023, but the company appears to be thinking about bringing it forward into the late 2021 timeframe. Currently GlobalFoundries is wholly owned by Mubadala, an Emerati state-owned holding company.
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**FEED** · 03-04-21, 06:02 PM

Everyone wants to know what's in Intel's new Ice Lake Xeon server platform, right? Well the first promited board has been disclosed: Axiomtek (who?) has unveiled its latest motherboard compatible with Intel's Xeon Scalable Ice Lake processors based on the LGA4189 socket. The Axiomtek IMB700 is an ATX-sized solution with six memory slots capable of supporting up to 384 GB in hex-channel, with two Gigabit Ethernet ports six SATA-600 storage slots.
During the virtual Hot Chips 2020 industry event show, during our live blog of Intel's segment, Intel unveiled some details about its upcoming Ice Lake Xeon Scalable processors. Based on Intel's 10nm+ manufacturing process, we confirmed that Intel had started production on its Ice Lake-SP chips at the beginning of the year. With not much furor surrounding expected motherboard models at the moment, Axiomtek has unveiled its IMB700 with a single LGA4189 socket based on Intel's C621A chipset. Note that this is the same family of chipsets as current Skylake and Cascade Lake Xeons.

The Axiomtek IMB700 features an ATX PCB with a very simplistic green PCB which is common on professional and industrial-grade motherboards. Some of its key features include a single LGA4189 transposed socket, with six memory slots that can accommodate both LRDIMM and RDIMM DDR4-3200 memory, with a total capacity of up to 384 GB. For storage, the IMB700 features a single PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 2280 slot and six SATA-600 ports, including support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays.
Located in the center of the board are three full-length PCIe slots, with the top two operating at PCIe 4.0 x16, with the other operating at either PCIe 3.0 x16 or x8. There's also three half-length PCIe 3.0 x8 slots, although one of the half-length slots shares bandwidth with the blue-colored full-length slot.
On the rear panel is a basic array of input and outputs, including four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, one D-Sub video output, a PS/2 keyboard, and mouse combo port, as well as an RS-232/422/485 port, and dual Intel i210-AT Gigabit Ethernet. In regards to audio, Axiomtek offers its AX93242 HD audio converter board as an additional extra.
At present, Axiomtek hasn't unveiled any pricing information, but the official product page does state the IMB700 is coming soon. We're waiting for Intel to fully disclose its Ice Lake Xeon platform.
Source: Axiomtek
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**FEED** · 03-05-21, 03:57 PM

The march on performance with desktop platforms has unique challenges compared to other platforms. Peak single thread throughput is often considered the Holy Grail, with a fast follow up of good multi-core and all-core performance given the nature of how desktop platforms are used with background processes and multiple concurrent applications. In order to bring its best single core performance to the desktop market, Intel had to redesign its 10nm product on 14nm, which combines the high throughput of the design with the high frequency of 14nm. These redesigned Cypress Cove cores form the basis of Intel’s new 11^th Gen Desktop Processor Family, Rocket Lake. Today we are reviewing the Core i7-11700K, an eight-core processor with hyperthreading able to boost up to 5.0 GHz.

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**FEED** · 03-08-21, 10:46 AM

When considering data privacy and protections, there is no data more important than personal data, whether that’s medical, financial, or even social. The discussions around access to our data, or even our metadata, becomes about who knows what, and if my personal data is safe. Today’s announcement between Intel, Microsoft, and DARPA, is a program designed around keeping information safe and encrypted, but still using that data to build better models or provide better statistical analysis without disclosing the actual data. It’s called Fully Homomorphic Encryption, but it is so computationally intense that the concept almost useless in practice. This program between the three companies is a driver to provide IP and silicon to accelerate the compute, enabling a more secure environment for collaborative data analysis.

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**FEED** · 03-08-21, 10:46 AM

We’ve known for a while that AMD was set to launch its next generation enterprise EPYC processor family, collectively known by its codename Milan, sometime in the first quarter of this year. Today AMD has put out a press release confirming the date and time of its online event – the launch of the new 7003 series processors will occur starting at 8am PT/11am ET on March 15, 2021.

The launch event will feature presentations from CEO Dr. Lisa Su, CTO Mark Papermaster, GM Enterprise and Embedded Solutions (EESC) Forrest Norrod, and GM Server Business Unit Dan McNamara. Leading data center partners and customers will also make an appearance.
To date we know that AMD’s Milan processor line will feature up to 64 Zen 3 cores, using a seemless transition from the Zen 2 EPYC Rome ecosystem with pin-compatible processors. Milan will also offer up to 128 PCIe lanes, eight channel memory, and dual socket configurations. If the desktop Zen 3-based processors are any measure, +19% IPC generational gains are expected with the new processor, despite main memory access likely remaining the same. We have questions on exact performance, frequencies and efficiency, but this launch date should showcase all the product specifications such that we will see where the solution sits compared to current market offerings.

AMD has provided some previous benchmarking numbers – at CES the company showcased weather prediction simulation code, with two new 32-core Milan processors up against two of Intel’s popular 28-core Xeon Gold 6258R units. In that first party demo, a six hour simulation showed that Milan was 46% faster in dual socket compute. Later we were shown a single socket comparison, where the difference rose to 68%. These were first party tests without any comparison system details, however we expect more data on the March 15^th launch.

Questions will be asked about AMD’s ability to supply EPYC, given it currently has a squeeze on its supply chain for a number of products. We are aware that AMD has already been providing key customers with complete silicon, and also to add to this, Dr. Lisa Su has stated that one of AMD’s key targets for 2021 is going to be the enterprise market.
We will be live blogging AMD’s launch – it can also be found online at the AMD events website.

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Gallery: AMD to Launch 3rd Generation EPYC on March 15th: Milan with Zen 3

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**FEED** · 03-09-21, 09:53 AM

Samsung's new SSD 980, with no PRO, EVO or QVO suffix, is the company's first entry-level NVMe SSD. We've got two of the capacities in for review.

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**FEED** · 03-09-21, 03:14 PM

We’re gearing up for a busy time when it comes to server announcements, with the recent news that AMD will be launching its next generation platform on March 15^th, but also we are expecting Intel to disclose its Ice Lake Xeon Scalable platform sometime soon as well. To that point, a discussion I had with Intel today, on-the-record, disclosed some interesting numbers about the state of Ice Lake Xeon Scalable deployment.

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