11th-gen Intel Core chips promise boost to desktop PC performance
PC
11th-gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named Rocket Lake-S) promise increased performance for desktop PCs (ILLUSTRATION: Handout).
The past year or so hasn’t been great for Intel if you’re thinking of PC chips – its smaller rival AMD stole much of its thunder with more powerful Ryzen chips as the market leader struggled to find a response. Well, today, Intel has unveiled its new 11th-gen Core S-series desktop processors.
More well known by the codename Rocket Lake-S, the new chips are built on a processor architecture called Cypress Cove. This is big because it finally replaces the previous Skylake architecture that has been around for the past five years – dinosaur-age in the chip industry.
Mar 16, 2021 11:00 EDT with 35 comments
After months of teasing and even being forced to tip its hand on a release date, Intel is finally detailing its 11th-generation desktop processors, codenamed Rocket Lake-S. While they re still built on a 14nm node, there s quite a bit that s new, including a new architecture with up to 19% IPC (instructions per clock cycle) improvement.
They also come with all-new integrated graphics. Called UHD Graphics 750 but using Iris Xe architecture, Intel is promising up to a 50% boost over the previous generation. The family is also getting new AI features with Intel Deep Learning Boost.
That s not all though, and we can go straight down the list of new features. Rocket Lake-S will support up to 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, whereas its predecessor only had support for PCIe 3.0, which had half the bandwidth. There s support for faster DDR4-3200 memory, integrated HDMI 2.0, support for 10-bit AV1 and 12-bit HEVC, and more overclocking features.
01:23 Review takeaway and tech details
02:46 Questions and answers
03:36 Whose fault is it? Leo’s thoughts
05:14 Leo isn’t too impressed, at this point anyway
05:57 ‘Why don’t they just smear our balls with honey’ – what do Intel need to do?
07:04 Are you really bothered if it’s 8 cores or 10 cores?
07:49 11th Gen Rocket Lake, the mobos and closing thoughts
We won’t cherry pick from Anandtech’s review as you should really have a proper read of the material HERE but instead will sum it up by saying Intel has been forced, yet again, to use a 14nm process and the result is that it cannot crank up clock speeds and has been forced to cut the maximum core count from ten to eight. While the Core i7-11700K has new Cypress Cove cores, a new DDR4 memory controller, new Xe integrated graphics and new support for PCIe Gen 4 it runs head-to-head with Core i9-10900K and consumes a huge amount of power.
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo has a relatively sober exterior
MSI Prestige 14 Evo design
Even the box that this laptop arrives in is remarkably slim. The Prestige 14 Evo measures 15.9mm thick and weighs 1.29kg which is impressively portable for a 14-inch laptop. The body is all metal and there s a choice between Pure White and Carbon Grey, plus a Rose Pink edition. I had a Carbon Grey unit, and it actually looks like a very deep blue. The lid has a matte sandblasted finish which looks pretty sober. You can see MSI s new angular logo at the top-centre. Fingerprints and smudges aren t a huge problem.
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Asus is improving its ExpertBook B9 line of professional notebooks. Even with the additions, the device will remain the world’s lightest 14-inch business laptop.
The biggest feature of the new ExpertBook B9450CEA is Intel’s vPRO technology, which brings enhanced security and improved IT management features to the laptop. Intel vPro also helps with Asus’s Two-Way AI noise-cancelling technology, a wireless feature that aims to improve signal clarity, specifically with video conferencing. Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) is also new to the ExpertBook, improving remote management.
The ExpertBook B9450CEA features up to two 2 TB SSDs that can be configured in RAID 0 or RAID 1, up to 32 GB of LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, WiFi 6, and Thunderbolt 4. Powering everything is one of the latest 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPUs with Intel Iris Xe Graphics.