Intel hasn't enabled DLVR for power efficiency on Raptor Lake, but it could work on future CPUs

Rumors that Raptor Lake processors should get new DLVR technology have been circulating since March last year, but nothing was known about it at the time.
Some time later, Intel registered a patent, which described the purpose of DLVR.
As it turned out, we are talking about Digital Linear Voltage Regulator (DLVR), a new mechanism that improves the energy efficiency of processors.Image source: VideoCardzThe document explained that the digital linear voltage regulator in Intel processors works in parallel with the main one, which is installed on the motherboard.
DLVR can reduce the voltage of the processor and thus reduce power consumption by 20-25%.
At the same time, a 21% reduction in power consumption allows for up to a 7% increase in performance.Image source: VideoCardzAs you know, some of the Intel Core 13th generation processors are already on sale.
However, there is no sign of DLVR technology in them.
Intel hasn't said anything publicly about the new feature either.
However, traces of DLVR were found in fresh versions of ASUS mainboards BIOS for new processors.
It is called CPU DLVR Bypass Mode Enable.
In this case the function itself does not work.
Turning it on or off has no effect.Image source: VideoCardzThe ASUS company's in-house overclocker, a.k.a.
Shamino, has said that the DLVR function is indeed supported on the company's latest motherboards, but Intel has disabled it on Raptor Lake CPUs themselves.
He also added that there is a possibility that future Intel chips will support it.Image source: ASUS ROG ForumsThe wording \"future processors\" draws attention.
The Raptor Lake chips are expected to be the last for Intel's LGA 1700 platform.
Expected after Raptor Lake processors Meteor Lake series will almost certainly require a new processor socket.
On the other hand, rumors that Intel is allegedly working on updated Raptor Lake Refresh chips are starting to appear in the web.
Presumably, they will be able to offer up to 20% lower power consumption compared to the current Raptor Lake models due to the DLVR function.

Amazon Web Services Unveils Arm Processor Graviton3E for High Performance Computing

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a number of new products: an optimized high performance computing (HPC) Arm processor Graviton3E, an updated hypervisor Nitro capable of handling more traffic, and a network protocol designed for its operation.
Image source: techcrunch.comThe new processor is named Graviton3E - it is optimized for floating point and vector calculations, that is, the most demanded operations in the world of high-performance computing.
The company did not yet specify the chip's specifications, but said that in tests reflecting work for life science and financial disciplines, it performs better than the base Graviton3.HPC workloads are traditionally associated with transferring large amounts of data, and to optimize this process the company announced a network interface EFA (Elastic Fabric Adapter).
It was complemented by the SRD (Scalable Reliable Datagram) networking protocol, which is an alternative to TCP.
The AWS back-end infrastructure uses multipath routing, which is not supported by TCP in a basic implementation, and this affects performance.
SRD solves the problem by allowing packets to be transmitted out of order and ordered by acceptance - with lost packets transmitted in \"micro-not milliseconds,\" the company specified, and it speeds up networks in the AWS cloud infrastructure.
The company also announced an updated version of its Nitro hypervisor (fifth generation) with SRD support, offering nearly double the processing power: DRAM throughput increased by 50%, PCIe throughput doubled, the number of packets transferred per second increased by 60%, and latency reduced by 30%.
AWS announced instances like C7GN with Graviton3 and Nitro v5, and HPC7G with Graviton3E and Nitro v5.Finally, the company talked about improvements to its serverless AWS Lambda environment - it is built on small virtual machines occupying \"slots\" on the host.
The provider always tries to keep these machines running as long as possible, because their \"cold start\" takes quite a long time, and this can discourage users.
To achieve a balance, AWS has developed SnapStart technology that takes a snapshot of the Lambda function and caches it.
When the Lambda function is called later, SnapStart resumes the execution environment immediately from the cached snapshot, rather than initializing it from scratch, thus reducing startup latency.

Intel hasn't changed its mind about building plants in Ohio and Germany despite the downturn in the industry - but it may cut its project budget

This week the pages of the Intel corporate blog featured a post by Keyvan Esfarjani, executive vice president in charge of manufacturing operations for the corporation around the world.
He tried to reassure investors that deteriorating macroeconomic conditions would not force Intel to abandon its plans to build new facilities in the U.S.
and Europe, although he acknowledged that funding for these projects should be carried out in proportion to projected demand.Source image: IntelThe main idea of the message of the Intel representative was that the company should already prepare for the future growth in demand for semiconductor products.
It takes three to five years to build a plant and equip it with the necessary equipment, and the company simply cannot afford to ignore future market demands.
Intel's management shares the experts' optimism, predicting an average semiconductor market turnover growth rate of 5 percent a year by the end of the decade.
By the end of the forecast period, the market capacity should double to $1 trillion, so the company considers it necessary to invest in the construction of new enterprises, even now, when the current situation is not favorable to it.The second important idea, which broadcasts the executive vice president of Intel - the need for geographical diversification of chip production.
With 80% of capacity concentrated in one tiny region (meaning Taiwan), semiconductor manufacturing is very vulnerable, according to Intel.
Reportedly, this week the company acquired ownership of a piece of land in Magdeburg where a chip packaging and testing facility will be built, and eventually a second one will appear.
The company has also signed a contract with Bechtel, a construction contractor that will start building new Intel facilities in Ohio.
Here, the corporation expects to master mass production of chips using Intel 18A technology by 2025, with the U.S.
Defense Department mentioned among the first customers.
At the first stage, Intel expects to invest at least $20 billion at this site.
A management representative made it clear that the company will work closely with German and Ohio state authorities to determine when and how much funding is needed for the relevant projects.
Intel in this regard is going to be guided by the needs of the market and plan its major expenditures wisely.

Leaked - Prices for select 6GHz Core i9-13900KS have been revealed

Canadian retailer PC-Canada has declassified ten planned Intel processors that will expand the Raptor Lake series.
Most of them are Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5 models without a \"K\" in the name, which have a reduced to 65W TDP rating.
However, the list also includes the flagship Core i9-13900KS model.Image source: IntelThe seller has indicated the price of the expected new products.
If converted to U.S.
dollars, prices are as follows:Core i9-13900KS: 24 cores, 32 threads, n/a-6.0 GHz - $725;Core i9-13900: 24 cores, 32 threads, 2.0-5.6 GHz - $615;Core i9-13900F: 24 cores, 32 threads, 2.0-5.6 GHz - $585;Core i7-13700: 16 cores, 24 threads, 2.1-5.2 GHz - $415;Core i7-13700F: 16 cores, 24 threads, 2.1-5.2 GHz - $390;Core i5-13500: 14 cores, 20 threads, 2.5-4.8 GHz - $258;Core i5-13400: 10 cores, 16 threads, 2.5-4.6 GHz - $245;Core i5-13400F: 10 cores, 16 threads, 2.5-4.6 GHz - $218;Core i3-13100: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.4-4.5 GHz - $155;Core i3-13100F: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.4-4.5 GHz - $125.
All new products should debut in January next year.
They will compete with processors Ryzen 7000.
And, apparently, Intel will have a significant advantage over the competitor for some time in the number of models and, accordingly, more flexible pricing.
Image source: PC-CanadaAs for the Core i9-13900KS: this 24-core, 32-core processor will be able to automatically overclock multiple cores to 6.0 GHz.
Based on the prices published by the Canadian retailer, the novelty will be about a third more expensive than the Core i9-13900K model offered in the same store.The official premiere of the remaining Intel Raptor Lake series processors is expected at the international electronics show CES 2023 in early January.
They will debut at the same time as motherboards on the Intel B760 chipset.
Like the older models, they will also be compatible with Intel's 600-series motherboards for Alder Lake processors.

If the chip production in Taiwan stops completely, the industry will need at least 5 years to recover

The meeting of top political leaders of China and the US was designed to ease tensions in the Taiwan issue.
A significant portion of semiconductor components are manufactured in Taiwan, and stability in the region is extremely important for the entire global economy.
Some experts believe that in the case of a complete shutdown of Taiwan enterprises, the semiconductor industry will be able to recover only in five years.Image source: TSМSimilar estimates in his interview with Barron's shares the author of the book \"War for chips: the battle for the most important technology in the world\" Chris Miller - Tufts University professor from the United States.
In his opinion, the U.S.
authorities underestimate the possible consequences of a regional conflict that could put Taiwan`s enterprises out of business.
Not only do the island produces up to 90% of advanced semiconductor components, but also the local production volume of chips is so large that no other region in the world can compete with it so far.
Up to a third of the annual increase in computing power in the world is provided by Taiwanese enterprises, according to expert estimates.
In the professor's opinion, the semiconductor crisis of 2020 and 2021, which paralyzed the work of the global automobile industry, is only a pale shadow of the likely problems that an armed conflict involving Taiwan would cause.
Even the PRC's \"nonviolent\" methods of influencing the island's economy can have a significant impact on the determination of Taiwan's leadership to remain independent.By the way, Chris Miller highlights the role of qualified personnel in the formation of the modern semiconductor industry.
The same founder of TSMC, Morris Chang, according to the author of the book, is the man to whom the whole world should be grateful for the technology we now have at our disposal.
For the United States, however, it is important to maintain a sensible immigration policy, since many of the leaders of major technology corporations are migrant workers or their direct descendants, and their role in shaping U.S.
industry and the economy is hard to dispute.

NVIDIA took an even larger share of the discrete graphics market - Intel and AMD have 12%

The other day, thanks to a report from Jon Peddie Research (JPR), we learned that shipments of all types of graphics processors collapsed by 25% in the third quarter.
Now, thanks to the same analysts, we know how the discrete graphics card market changed over the same period.
In short - it fell even more, and AMD gave NVIDIA a serious share of this market.Image source: WCCFTechThe discrete graphics market sagged very strongly.
In the third quarter of 2022, the supply of graphics cards was only 14 million units, a drop of 41.6% compared to the same period last year, when the supply was 24 million graphics cards.
Even a quarter earlier the situation on the market was much better - in the second quarter of 2022 was delivered 19 million discrete graphics cards.Shipments of mobile and desktop graphics cards were divided equally - in each segment was delivered 7 million cards.
However, desktop cards previously dominated the market, with 10 million desktop boards shipped in the quarter versus 8.6 million mobile boards, and 13 million desktop boards versus 11.6 million mobile discrete graphics cards shipped in the third quarter of 2021.
NVIDIA saw its share of the discrete graphics market grow to 88% in the third quarter, up 8 percentage points from the quarter before.
As a result, AMD had only 8 percent of the discrete graphics market, down from 15 percent in the second quarter.
And the remaining 4 percent was taken by Intel.
In the desktop segment, AMD is doing slightly better - here it took 10 percent.
The remaining nine tenths of the market were divided between NVIDIA with 86% share and Intel with the same 4%.
As for the mobile segment, NVIDIA's dominance is even stronger - the company owns 90% of the market, while Intel and AMD equally shared the remaining 10%.Overall supply of graphics processors, both discrete and embedded, both mobile and desktop, is rapidly decreasing since the second quarter of 2021.
Then a sharp decline occurred in the third quarter, then in 2022, the market was relatively stable until the first quarter of this year, but after that again began to actively decline.
This is likely due to the economic and geopolitical instability in the world.Analysts expect that next year, sales of graphics processors will fall even more.
In 2024 the market will be steadily low, and the recovery will begin only in 2025.
But the growth will not be too significant.
These are tough times for the PC market: demand for PCs soared during the pandemic, and now the need for them is severely diminished.
The GPU market has been heavily influenced by mining, which has driven high discrete graphics sales.
Now the market is flooded with cheap used video cards from miners, and there are a lot of new gas pedals in stores now, but some are asking too much.

Arm's IPO is postponed - it will take place later in 2023

NVIDIA's deal to buy UK processor architecture developer Arm, which fell apart this spring due to opposition from regulators and activists, prompted Japan's SoftBank Corporation, the current asset owner, to bring Arm shares to the stock market, but it expected to do so by March 31, 2023.
Now there is information that the IPO could take place later next year.Image source: Getty ImagesThe fact is that in the calendar of Japanese SoftBank in March next year ends another fiscal period, and this milestone was originally seen as a benchmark for the return of Arm shares to the stock exchange.
SoftBank's priority remained the idea of placing Arm shares on the U.S.
stock exchange, as this would have raised more funds, but British authorities insisted on a dual offering that would have brought Arm shares back to the London Stock Exchange as well.
Before SoftBank bought Arm for $32 billion in 2016, the last of the companies remained public.The Register reports, citing its own sources, that Arm shareholders these days began receiving notices that a public offering would take place later in 2023.
Arm officials have confirmed that such discussions are underway, but no final decision has yet been made.
The current macroeconomic situation prevents the placement of shares at the stock market in the first quarter.
Interestingly, Masayoshi Son, head of SoftBank's parent company, made a reference to his plans to develop Arm's business for several years ahead during his recent speech, but he did not mention anything about an IPO in his speech.
However, this can be explained by a change in the structure of Arm's upcoming offering.
If SoftBank retains a large block of shares, it will still be able to significantly influence the business of the British company.

NVIDIA completely withdrew from Russia - $16 million spent to close the office

Back in spring NVIDIA announced the cessation of direct product supplies to Russia, and the company's local office has been operating in a state of uncertainty ever since.
In the quarterly report on Form 10-Q published this week, information about NVIDIA terminating its operations in Russia is stated directly.Source image: NVIDIA In July, the renewal of licenses for proprietary software for Russian customers was terminated.
By early October, rumors emerged about NVIDIA's readiness to reduce its Russian staff or offer relocation to those wishing to do so.
In the latter case, the specialists could move to another country and continue working outside of Russia.
It was reported that employees who refused to change their place of residence at the NVIDIA representative office in Russia were offered to terminate the contract with payment of the severance pay.In the text of the quarterly report on Form 10-Q risks associated with Russia for NVIDIA activities were highlighted in a separate paragraph.
The company reminded that it did not sell almost anything directly to Russia, in any case direct sales in the last fiscal year ended January 30 this year were \"insignificant\".
Basically, the company made money in Russia on graphics processors sold as part of graphics cards of its partners.
And because gaming cards are still supplied to Russia through parallel imports, NVIDIA's withdrawal from Russia should have almost no impact on gaming revenue.The company notes that the Russian market in the last fiscal year formed no more than 2% of its total revenue, and the share in the gaming segment was 4%.
Thus, in the last fiscal year Russia brought NVIDIA about $500 million in the gaming segment.
The amount seems to be decent, but on the background of total revenue of $12.5 billion the potential loss of Russian gaming market will not be a tragedy for NVIDIA.
In reality, there will be no reduction in the gaming segment as supplies of video cards from NVIDIA's partners continue to be shipped to Russia.
Perhaps only a minimal reduction in total revenue due to the cessation of supply of professional cards and gas pedals.
As highlighted in the quarterly report published this week, in the third quarter of this fiscal year NVIDIA phased out all of its activities in Russia.
In the company's calendar the corresponding reporting period ended on October 30, so the rumors about closing the Russian office, which appeared at the beginning of the same month, fit into that period.
In the comments of NVIDIA CFO on the results of the third quarter even indicated the amount of losses related to business restructuring in Russia and closing the local office - it reached $16 million.
Recall that as of the beginning of this year NVIDIA had over 300 employees in Russia, and it was previously reported that they were offered relocation.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Graphics Card Overview: One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

The flagship member of the 40th GeForce series, the RTX 4090, has taken its place among NVIDIA's most impressive releases on par with legends such as the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and GTX 1080 Ti.
Because the creators of the Ada architecture focused on GPU power efficiency and processing power, the RTX 4090 was a true leap forward in gaming performance, outperforming the previous generation 90 model by 62-72%.
In most titles, it doesn't even need frame scaling to get framerates above 60 FPS in 4K with rares.
And most importantly, the performance to price ratio has also moved up compared to the older representatives of the 30-series.
Nevertheless, even at the recommended price of $1,599 without taking into account the hype boosts (this time surely short-lived) the GeForce RTX 4090 is extremely expensive.
We advised not to rush into a purchase, because usually the top models are not the most profitable.
But after getting acquainted with the RTX 4080, the impression is that we will have to wait a little longer.
⇡#Technical specifications, pricesThe new NVIDIA consumer graphics cards are based on Ada Lovelace silicon, which is produced by Taiwanese TSMC using 4N process technology.
The latter, contrary to its name, is a kind of 5nm N5 node, tailored specifically for \"green\" chips.
Nevertheless, the transition from 8nm norm, which NVIDIA used before, provided enormous growth of transistor density and allowed to create such a GPU, as AD102 - its component budget is no less than 76.3 billion transistors.
It is on the scale, as well as high clock frequencies based performance chips Ada, because compared with Ampere \"green\" GPU architecture has not undergone major structural changes.
Only the increased throughput of raytracing blocks, tensor cores and the ability to encode AV1 video by a dedicated ASIC can be highlighted.
Otherwise, Ada is a product of extensive development - so much so that NVIDIA engineers neglected two expected features: fifth-generation PCI Express support and DisplayPort 2.0 outputs.
Whatever it was, judging by the achievements of the flagship GeForce RTX 4090, contribution to the net GPU performance has paid off handsomely.
However, a side effect of the extremely high computing power was the fact that even advanced desktop CPUs are not able to unlock the potential of RTX 4090 in any mode, except for playing on the 4K screen (and better yet with ray tracing).
The solution to this problem was found in the DLSS version 3.0 algorithm, which not only scales frames, passed the full rendering pipeline, but also generates intermediate frames using the optical flow - specifically for this block Optical Flow in Ada chips has been strengthened, and with the last generation GPU (at least formally) DLSS 3.0 is not compatible.Key features and some other not so noticeable innovations architecture Ada Lovelace we discussed in detail in the review of GeForce RTX 4090.
Today we will focus on the features and performance of the second oldest model in the series, GeForce RTX 4080.
ManufacturerNVIDIANameAD104AD103AD102Where to useN/DGeForce RTX 4080GeForce RTX 4090MicroarchitectureAda LovelaceAda LovelaceTechnology process, nm5nm (4N)5nm (4N)5 nm (4N)Number of transistors, billion35,845,976.3Chip area, mm2295378,6608, 6Number of SM/TPC/GPCStreaming Multiprocessors (SM)6084144Thread Processing Clusters (TPC)304272Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC)5712Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)CUDA Cores FP16NoNoNoCUDA Cores FP324 × 324 × 324 × 324CUDA FP64222CUDA cores INT324 × 164 × 164 × 164 × 16ALU special purpose units (SFU)4 × 44 × 44 × 4Tensor cores4 × 14 × 14 × 1RT cores111Texture mapping units (TMU)444Register file size, Kbytes256256256L1 cache size/divisible memory, Kbytes128128128Programmable Computing Units GPUCUDA Cores FP16NoNoNoCUDA Cores FP327 68010 75218 432CUDA Cores FP64120168288CUDA Cores INT323 8405 3769 216ALU Special Function Units (SFU)9601 3442 304Tensor Cores240336576RT- cores6084144GPU fixed function blocksTexture mapping units (TMU)240336576Rasterization operation units (ROP)80112192Memory configurationL2 cache size, Mbytes486496RAM Bus size, bits192256384RAM chip typeGDDR6X SGRAMGDDR6X SGRAMGDDR6X SGRAMInterface NVLINKNoNoNoInterface PCI Express4.
0 x164.0 x164.0 x16Unlike the 30th series, whose entire top tier is packed with GA102 crystals, the 80th and 90th new generation positions rely on different GPUs: AD102 and AD103 respectively.
The second echelon chip contains only 62% of the component budget of AD102 - 45.9 billion transistors, which is nevertheless 62% more than Ampere's largest chip, GA102.
At the same time, the AD103 fully replicates the formula of the GA102's main computing blocks: 84 stream multiprocessors and, respectively, 10,752 CUDA cores of standard precision, as well as 256 block

AMD has reduced prices on Ryzen 7000 processors in Europe, they also became cheaper in Russia

AMD has reduced prices on the latest Ryzen 7000 desktop processors in Europe.
According to VideoCardz, several European stores have discounted some chips with Zen 4 architecture to more than €180.Image source: AMDThe 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X, released less than two months ago, now sells for €699 instead of €849 euros.
The 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X has dropped to €550 from its starting price of €699, and the eight-core Ryzen 7 7700X is now offered for €410 instead of €479.
The youngest in the series, the six-core Ryzen 5 7600X is available for €300 instead of €359.AMD Ryzen 9 7950X price in Europe.
Image source: Check24 Image source: GeizhalsIt is curious that the Ryzen 7000 chips have also gone down in price on the Russian market.
However, since the processors in Russia are supplied by parallel imports, it is likely to be a difference in exchange rates, rather than the desire of AMD to make their new products more accessible to the Russian buyer.
Source image: \"Citilink \"So, in \"Citilink\" the cost of the boxed version of the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X fell from 56,990 to 50,990 rubles.
The eight-core Ryzen 77700X is offered for 38,990 instead of 45,590 rubles.
And the junior six-core Ryzen 5 7600X model can be purchased for 29,390 instead of 32,590 rubles.
Only the price of the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X has not changed.
It can be purchased for 68,990 rubles.
These processors in OEM version are also available at DNS.
Only Ryzen 5 7600X model is available at OnlineTrade for now.
Some models are also available in the store \"Regard\".Updated: The German store MindFactory managed to find Ryzen 7000 processors with even more affordable prices.
For example, the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X can be ordered there for 639 euros.