Intel has just announced the Intel NUC 12 Extreme (code-named ‘Dragon Canyon’), and the Intel NUC 12 Extreme Compute Element (code-name Eden Bay), a highly modular desktop PC kit engineered to provide phenomenal performance for high-end gaming and content creation tasks.

With the latest 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors, capacity for full-size 12-inch discrete graphics cards, and a full range of I/O ports including Thunderbolt 4, the Intel NUC 12 Extreme delivers massive performance and features that enthusiast gamers and professional creators need in a compact and modular form factor.

“The Intel NUC 12 Extreme brings Intel’s new performance hybrid architecture and a socketed motherboard to the NUC line for the first time. For those who want a powerful system with a small footprint and more versatility than ever before, the Intel NUC 12 Extreme Kit is an outstanding option.”

The most powerful Intel NUC yet encompasses new features, like performance hybrid architecture and access to faster PCIe interfaces, accelerating load times, all in a footprint that can fit on any desk.

Built with flexibility in mind, the modular Intel NUC 12 Extreme Compute Element provides enthusiast gamers and creators the ability to create their own small form-factor designs, giving users the option to be creative and configure the system footprint to their liking.

The NUC 12 Extreme offers breakthrough speeds with up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, featuring eight Performance-cores (P-cores) and eight Efficient-cores (E-cores), 24 threads and up to 5.1 GHz turbo boost max frequency.

Additional features include:

• Intel UHD Graphics 770 (32EU)
• Support for up to 64 GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 MHz SODIMMs
• Support for PCIe Gen5 x16 graphics cards
• Backwards compatible with PCIe Gen4 and Gen3 devices
• Support for up to three PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSDs
• Two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211, a 10Gbps Ethernet port standard; and additional 2.5Gbps Ethernet port on Intel Corei9 processor SKUs

The Intel NUC 12 Extreme will be available starting in the second quarter of 2022.

The post Intel NUC 12 Extreme Brings Performance Hybrid Architecture to NUC appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

For the second time in a year, Intel has dropped a new generation of CPUs for our PCs.

The 12th generation Intel CPUs, codenamed Alder Lake, promise to be more powerful and more efficient than their predecessors. This is down to a totally new design that moves away from that of the past few years. This change presents users with advantages and disadvantages.

Over the past few years, Intel had been effectively been presenting the same series of CPUs each year with the odd tweak and new feature thrown in. They have been so similar that we’ve even been able to get away with using the same motherboard across generations, albeit with some restrictions.

For the 12th generation of Intel’s CPUs, it’s all changed. Intel sent over a Core i5-12600K and a Core i9-12900K for us to test.

To accommodate these new chips, PCs will need a new motherboard, and perhaps a new cooler. Users wanting to make the most of their new CPUs will also need to source some ridiculously expensive DDR5 memory, an upgrade from the current DDR4 memory that’s rather scarce at the moment but, for the moment, at least, not really that much faster.

There are 12th generation motherboards that can still use DDR4 memory and, in the absence of being able to economically procure any DDR5 modules that’s what we used to test these new CPUs.

The test machine consisted of an ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WiFi D4 motherboard with CPU cooling via a Corsair H150i Elite LCD all-in-one cooler, 16GB of Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4-4600 RAM, and Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti GPU, all encompassed in a very airy Corsair 7000D Airflow tower case.

Being “K” CPUs, both the Core i5-12600K and Core i9-12900K CPUs are unlocked and thus capable of being overclocked. For the tests, I used the AI overclock built into the Asus motherboard to give the CPUs a boost. This is not an extreme overclock by manually adjusting voltages and clock timings, just the board tweaking the CPU according to performance.

I’d expect anyone buying unlocked CPUs like these to at least take advantage of this sort of facility. With Asus boards, it’s an easy one-click solution that ensures that you get the most out of your investment, as long as you have a decent cooling solution.

Anticipating some raised temperatures with the i9 and wanting to simulate a reasonable build for housing a $1000 CPU, I figured a decent AIO cooler was in order.

The Corsair H150i Elite LCD cooler has a 360mm radiator equipped with three 120mm fans pushing an airflow between 14.86 – 58.10 CFM. This fan is one of the first to come complete with standoffs suitable for the Alder Lake CPUs’ LGA 1700 sockets. My cooler arrived without the LGA 1700 parts which could have been a problem. Thankfully, the H150i Elite LCD is essentially the same spec as an iCue H150i Elite Capellix CPU cooler, for which Corsair sells LGA 1700 update kits.

The H150i Elite LCD radiator is over 400mm long, necessitating a case that could accommodate it. With GPUs getting bigger and bigger, replacing the previous test rig case with a tower seemed like a good idea. Enter the Corsair 7000D Airflow tower case. With its three sock fans, the 7000D Airflow pushes a fair amount of air across your components.

The case has room for over a dozen fans should I wish to increase the flow to the max in the future. Even the huge ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WiFi D4 motherboard looks tiny in the huge internal cavity of the 7000D, perfect for a test rig that’s constantly having components swapped out.

For the actual testing, in addition to my old favourites, the readily available Performance Test 10.1, Cinebench R.23, and the Blender 2.931 benchmark, I drafted in a few more tests. The idea is to not only check performance from a theoretical stance but to use tools capable of simulating real-world applications.

3D Mark is a test app that I usually reserve for GPUs, but the recent addition of the CPU Profile test makes it a good tool for checking CPUs as well. As well as the new CPU Profile tests, I also ran the Timespy Extreme benchmark to obtain comparable CPU scores in a more game-like setting.

3D Mark’s stablemate, PC Mark 10, is a fairly inexpensive suite of benchmark tests that use real-world application scenarios. The test can be used to derive PC performance in a range of tasks including office productivity, video editing, and photo editing.

The suite uses freeware programs running scripts to gauge the benchmark results.

Procyon is PC Mark’s big brother, the professional benchmarking suite from UL. The office productivity test uses an installation of Microsoft Office to obtain real-world scores using Word, Excel, etc. The photo editing benchmark using Adobe Lightroom to, again, obtain real performance benchmarks. The video editing benchmark runs Adobe Premiere Pro to evaluate performance.

Using commercial software packages UL Procyon provides a valuable insight into system performance in a non-simulated, real-world environment.

CrossMark from BapCo is a cross-architecture performance benchmark program aimed at professional users. It’s an unbiased test that can be used to compare performance across multiple platforms such as Windows, iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and Android. The one test uses open-source applications to assess systems and provide scores across productivity, creativity, and responsiveness.

Performance Test 10.1 is an inexpensive benchmark that is used to score the entire system. It is available as a time-limited evaluation and good for a quick check that everything is working OK. The program not only scores each individual component (CPU, RAM, storage, etc.) but also yields a percentile comparison with other systems that have performed the tests.

Cinebench R.23 is a good freeware test as it checks not only multi-core speeds but also single-core speeds. With most marketing touting a CPU’s top speed, which is usually on a single or with only a couple of cores in use, this figure can be misleading when using software that’s making full use of the CPU. Based on the Cinebench 3D modelling and rendering suite Cinebench offers another real-world test.

Finally, the Blender 2.931 benchmark. This uses the latest version of the open-source rendering software to provide benchmark rendering times across several projects for a direct comparison of system performance with the Blender rendering engine.

Installation of the CPUs should be no trouble for anyone that has installed Intel chips in the past. The LGA 1700 socket is slightly longer than previous iterations, but providing you spot and match up the little triangles on the socket and the CPU, you can’t go wrong.

For the i5-12600K tests, I used the thermal paste reapplied to the AIO cooler, but for the i9-12900K I used a blob of Arctic MX-4 thermal paste.

As a sensibility check, I carried out the same benchmark tests using the Core i9-10900K review rig, sporting an Nvidia RTX 3090. As we are only interested in the PCU results, the superior performance of the RTX GPU isn’t an issue, as the results will reveal.

Prior to the installation of the 12th-Gen CPUs, the test rig was running a Core i9-11900K. Whilst an impressive CPU, it was not much of an upgrade from its 10th-Gen counterpart. I found the 11th-Gen Core i9 to run hot with thermal and power throttling getting in the way of its potential. The less-than-impressive performance of the 11th-Gen CPU is likely due to Intel wringing the last bit of power out of the 14nm process that they have been employing since 2014.

For the 12th Gen CPUs Intel has switched to a 10mn process which they refer to as Intel 7.

This, with the inclusion of two types of processor cores, should see some interesting gains. The performance cores (P-cores) are the main CPU cores designed for single and lightly threaded performance tasks like those associated with gaming and productivity application. The Efficient-cores (E-cores) are optimised for scaling multi-threaded workloads and minimise interruptions from background tasks. Threads and workloads are handled by the built-in thread director which works with the operating system to allocate tasks.

On the subject of operating systems, Windows 11 is recommended to get the most out of 12th-Gen CPUs, and you may see some performance gains. Most people running Windows 10 should have had the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 11 free of charge by now.

On to the results.

First up was the Core i5-12600K. I loved the bang for your buck that the i5-11600K gave me, so I was expecting big things from this CPU.

What I didn’t expect was for it to leave my Core i9-10900K in its dust. For a mid-range CPU, costing half the price of the top-of-the-range CPU from only just over a year ago, to beat it is a shocker.

The Core i5-12600K is an unlocked CPU with 10 cores. That six performance cores and four efficient cores. The stock P-core maximum turbo frequency is 4.90 GHz with the E-core maximum at 3.60 GHz. The Asus motherboard AI overclock took the P-core maximum for two active cores to 5.0 GHz, three to four active cores to 4.8 GHz, and five to six to 4.6 GHz. The one-click overclock raised the E-core frequency to 3.7 GHz across the board.

It also has integrated Intel UHD Graphics 770 which is fine for casual use but nothing else. I expect a non-GPU equipped CPU to be released soon, but for the minuscule cost-saving, it’s probably worth having the UHD GPU to fall back on or to run a supplementary display.

Across the PC Mark, UL Procyon, Crossmark, Performance Test, and Cinebench result, the Core i5-12600K beat the Core i9-10900K. It was only with the Blender result, which was pretty much in parity, and the 3D Mark CPU score that the new i5 didn’t hold its ground so much.

The 3D Mark CPU thread tests were about equal, the gap widening with fewer threads under test. The division of work between the P and E core may be something to do with this, but still an excellent result.

Checking Core i5-12600K temperatures using the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility stress test have the CPU reaching a max temp of 60-degrees with an average of around 50-degrees C. This is with all 10 cores running flat out at 100%. The utility also did not report any power or thermal throttling during the 20-minute stress test.

Whist the detailed results can be viewed below, as an overview, it would be fair to say that a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12600K performs at a similar level to that of a 2020 10th-Gen Intel Core i9-10900K CPU. These results make the Core i5-12600K a very good CPU for gaming and application performance. It also seems to be a very cool CPU, topping out at 50-degrees, making me wonder how much headroom it has for the dedicated overclocker.

The Core i9-12900K is the flagship of Intel’s 12th-generation family of CPUs. packed with a whopping 16 cores and, like the i5 manufactured using 10nm fabrication, this could be the ultimate gaming CPU. The CPU has 16 cores, that’s 8 performance cores and 8 efficient cores. The base P-core max boost is 5.1 GHz with the E-cores’ being 3.9GHz.

The ASUS AI overclock increased this to 5.3GHz for a single P-core, 5.2GHz for 2 cores, 5.1 for 3-4 cores, and 5.0 for 5-8 cores. For the E-cores the basic AI overclock boosted the frequencies to 4.0GHz. As with the Core i5, the i9 has integrated Intel UHD Graphics 770.

The i9 was tested using the same ASUS motherboard, memory, and cooling solution. I went in expecting big things but wasn’t quite expecting these results. In every test, the 12th Gen CPU performed significantly better than both my existing 10th Gen i9-10900K and the 12th Gen i5-12600K.

For the Core i9-12900K, the PC Mark 10 tests yielded an average performance increase of 29% over the 10th Gen i9 and 12% over the Core i5-12600K. Of note was the whopping 54% increase for the main PC Mark 10 score over the Core i9-10900K.

UL Procyon averaged a 34.13% increase over the 10^th-Gen Core i9 and 8.6% over the 12th-Gen Core i5. Crossmark produced similar results with a 45.22% increase over the Core i9-10800K and 14.1% over the Core i5-12600K.

The Core i9-12900K bumped the Performance Test 10.1 percentile result up to perform better than 96% of tested machines. For the Cinebench tests, the single-core result was 1821 compared to the i5’s 1784, but still significantly better than the i9-10800K’s 1269. The Cinebench multicore test raced ahead up to 25343 from the i5’s 17113 and the 10th Gen i9’s 14291.

The Blender rendering test saw the Core i9-12900K render over a minute faster than that of the Core i5-12600K across all the scenes. The 3D Mark CPU profile results showed the Core i9-12900K performing over 30% better than the i5 and the 10th Gen i9, but only marginally faster than the i5 for single the thread score. The 3D Mark TimeSpy Extreme CPU score again saw the i9 scoring over 30% better than the other CPUs.

The Intel Extreme stress test with the Core i9-12900K running at 100% across 16 cores saw the CPU reach a maximum temperature of 81-degrees C, averaging at 71-degrees. As with the i5, there was no thermal or power throttling during the test.

The results for the Core i9-12900K show a CPU that offers a significant upgrade over a two-year-old Intel i9 PC. Users putting the CPU to work on productivity applications will get the best out of the CPU, as will gamers playing games initialising multiple cores.

Older titles will likely not see much of a performance boost.

As well as performance, there are other reasons why an upgrade to Intel’s 12th-Gen CPUs may be in order. As I’ve mentioned, DDR5 is not really a good enough reason right now, but it will be as the modules get faster and (hopefully) cheaper.

PCI 5.0 is another new technology that is perhaps a little before its time with the 12th Gen CPUs, but with compatible SSD promising 13,000MB/s transfer speed just around the corner, it’s worth watching.

After the less-than-dramatic performance increases I saw from the 10th Gen to the 11th Gen, I wasn’t expecting much from the Alder Lake CPUs. It would seem that the 10nm production technology has yielded CPUs that can not only operate faster but also at lower temperatures.

As is always the case, it’s the Core i5 that offers gamers the best bang for their buck, with the i9’s price tag making it only for the most discerning gamer.

Users wanting top-of-class performance will, however, be very happy with the performance gains to had from the Core i9-12900K.

The post 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12600K & Core i9-12900K CPU Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Just under a year after the last iteration of its desktop processors were released, Intel has unleashed its 11th Generation CPUs codenamed “Rocket Lake”.

These new processors squeeze even more out of the company’s 14nm fabrication process that has been with us since 2015, but at the cost of two cores for this year’s flagship i9.

Whilst the i5-11600K has the same six cores as the i5-10600K, the i9-11900K goes from the ten cores of the i9-10600K to eight cores for the i9 11900K. This may sound like you are getting a 20% reduction in performance from this top-end CPU, but for gaming, the higher frequencies of these new CPUs trump the gains from an extra two cores (that most games won’t use anyway).

First, let’s take a look at the Core i9-11900K. The 14nm silicon is starting to cause issues with temperatures. Messing with the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility there was a fair amount of thermal throttling during stress testing. It’s not a CPU that I’d bother overclocking unless you have a meaty AIO cooler at the very least.

The CPU has a base frequency of 3.50 GHz with a max turbo frequency of 5.30 GHz. Utilising Intel’s adaptive boost allows two active cores to run at 5.30 GHz, dropping to 5.1 GHz for three-plus active cores. This also relies on a decent cooling solution to keep the silicon cooler than 70 degrees C. The plus side of this and Intel Thermal Velocity Boost is that gamers with a suitably cooled machine can get even more out of their CPUs without actually overclocking.

The Core i5-11600K has a base frequency of 3.90 GHz and a max turbo boost of 4.90 GHz. What this really means is up to two cores running at a max of 4.90 GHz, dropping to 4.60 GHz as soon as there are more than two active cores in play. Unlike the i9, the new i5 has the same number of cores as last time. The i5 runs at lower temperatures than the i9, making modest overclocks within the reach of most users.

The 11th Generation CPUs use the LGA 1200 socket of their predecessors, which means an upgrade doesn’t mean a new cooler. The both the 10th Gen and 11th Gen Intel CPUs work with last year’s motherboards based on the Z400-series chipset as well as the new Z500-series motherboards. A BIOS upgrade may be required to get the 11^th Gen CPUs working. In all fairness, if you are splashing out on an Intel 11th Gen CPU, you really need to be pairing it with a Z500-series motherboard.

Whilst there are gains to be had in upgrading from a 10th Gen CPU to an 11th Gen CPU from a processing speed point-of-view, it is minimal. You’d get better bang for your buck upgrading your graphics card (if you can find one). However, an Intel 11th Generation CPU coupled with a suitable Z500-series motherboard unlocks the PCIe 4.0 bus for some astounding storage speeds.

A Gen 4 NVMe running in a PCIe 4.0 capable M.2 slot will achieve a staggering read speed of 7000 MB/s. That’s compared to the 130 MB/s of a traditional hard drive, 400 MB/s for a SATA SSD, and 3500 MB/s of a standard NVMe SSD. You are taking instantaneous Windows boot-ups and ultra-fast game loading times.

The new Core i5 and Core i9 CPUs are not really a viable upgrade if you are already sporting the 10th Gen CPUs. For a new gaming PC build, though, both the Core i9 11900K and i5 11600K come highly recommended, especially if you are mating them up with a Z590-based motherboard.

With both the i9 and i5 CPUs, the K suffix means that it is both unlocked and has an integrated GPU, the Intel UHD Graphics 750. The slightly cheaper KF version of the CPUs comes without the on-board GPU.

Like last year, the new i5 provides gamers with the best bang for their buck. I’d also recommend looking into the Core i5-11600KF, for gaming, saving yourself some money by purchasing the version of the chip without an on-board GPU. The Core i9-11900K remains the Intel CPU of choice for ultimate bragging rights, but the 14nm silicon draws a lot of power, which in turn means it gets a bit toasty, limiting tweaks for those without a monster cooling solution.

Both CPUs, coupled with a Z500-series motherboard, support the tasty new Gen 4 SSDs. These lightning-fast drives utilise the PCIe 4.0 bus, giving a mighty boost to loading times.

If you are in the Intel camp, both the Core i9-11900K and Core i7-11900K are worth a look for a new build, but unless you are keen on PCIe 4.0 SSDs, probably not worth the upgrade from the 10th Gen CPUs.

The post Intel 11th Generation Core Processor Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Core i5-10600K and Core i9-10900K

Intel are about to unleash their 10th generation Comet Lake desktop microprocessors. These CPUs have been designed very much with PC gaming in mind.

The new range of 14nm CPUs supersedes 2018’s 9th gen Coffee Lake refresh, adding more cores and higher clock speeds. As with their predecessors, Intel’s 10th generation of desktop CPUs range from the budget Celeron to the flagship Core i9.

Intel sent us retail samples of both the top-of-the-range Core i9-10900K and their more modest, but still very capable Core i5-10600K for review. Both CPUs were tested under normal operating conditions, with a few tweaks to see what easy performance enhancement could be obtained.

Gone are the days of huge CPU frequency jumps. Both the Core i5-10600K and the Core i9-10900K are built upon the 14nm Skylake microarchitecture technology from 2015. In recent years, performance gains with each iteration of Intel CPU have dropped off, somewhat. From a consumers point-of view is perhaps a good thing, making upgrading less necessary.

Intel’s processor speeds have been flirting around the 5GHz mark for several years now. It’s only with the Comet Lake CPUs that we are actually going to see 5GHz as almost the norm, without the need for mad overclocking skills. The i5-10600K and especially the i9-10600K rely on the brute force of multiple cores (which are, effectively, what we would once call a CPU back in the single-core Pentium days) to improve performance over their predecessors.

Many of us have been enjoying the use of our Socket 1151 motherboards for several generations of Intel’s desktop CPUs. That’s all over now, as Intel’s 10th generation requires the new LGA 1200 socket with a 400-series chipset. No BIOS firmware upgrade is going to let 10th gen CPU work in your Z390 motherboard.

For the review we were also supplied with a Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master motherboard. The review CPUs were paired with an Nvidia RTX2080TI GPU and 16 GB of Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-3600 RAM. CPU cooling was via a Coolermaster Masterliquid ML240L AIO cooler.

The “K” suffix of the CPUs on test means that their clock multipliers are unlocked and thus likely suitable for overclocking. It is only really the top-end Z490 motherboard chipset that officially permits overclocking. Along with the H470, the Z490 also includes Intel Wi-Fi 6. Z490-based motherboards are likely to be compatible with Intel’s as yet unannounced 11th generation Rocket Lake CPUs.

Whilst you will need to cough-up some doe for a new motherboard, the LGA 1200 socket arrangement is compatible with your existing LGA 1151 CPU cooler. And, of course, your DDR4 memory should also work in the new 400-series motherboards. This takes a bit of the sting out of it, if you are thinking of upgrading to a 10th gen CPU.

Installing the CPUs was very easy. Modern PC component design is practically fool-proof these days. The CPU and motherboard mount are virtually indistinguishable from the last-gen of desktop CPUs. The Z490 motherboard did throw a bit a curve ball at me in that it had two 8-pin 12V CPU power sockets, with the power supply unit that we’d originally allocated to the test. Whilst I am aware that CPUs have in the past still functioned with only one 8-pin supply, I did want to see what sort of performance enhancements, without going silly, I could get out of the CPUs. To properly check the CPUs, we invested in a Gigabtye Aorus 850WPSU.

The Core i5-10600K is aimed at the discerning gamer that wants a superior gaming experience without breaking the bank. If you are not going to be using more intensive applications, like video editing, that are going to benefit from the additional cores offered by the i7s and i9s, the i5 makes good economic sense, coming in at half the price of the i9.

The i5 is not, however, some pedestrian compromise. Teamed up with the RTX 2080TI, it delivered smooth, faultless, gameplay.

It’s a six-core, twelve-thread CPU with a base frequency of 4.1 GHz. By default, running one to two cores, the turbo frequency is raised to 4.8 GHz, for three to four cores the turbo is 4.7 GHz and for five to six active cores the turbo frequency is 4.5 GHz. With one and two cores in use, the CPU may run at the stated max of 4.8GHz. This is, however, very much dependent on the CPU’s thermal velocity boost- which only works if the chip is running cooler than 70-degrees.

More modern games are starting to make use of several cores now that multi-core CPUs are the norm. With three to four cores in use, in order to reduce heat, the max possible frequency, on all cores, drops to 4.7GHz. A majority of games will use four cores, these days. If you have five or all six cores running, the max frequency lowers again to 4.5 GHz.

Getting the CPU to maintain a high frequency over as many cores as possible will deliver the best performance boost. Being able to do so without adding voltage is even better in order to keep the temperature down.

The test rig was running with a fairly ordinary AIO CPU water cooler. This is similar to that which most system builders will use on a decent gaming PC, without going crazy with the cooling. I really wasn’t expecting much in the way of overclocking success. Decent overclocking takes time to carefully push limits to maximise CPU output. Most of the time, unless you really enjoy it, you spend a lot of time to score minor gains.

The object of this review is not really to push the CPUs to breaking point. It’s more of a look at what you get out of the box. That being said, the Z490 motherboard is very feature-rich and asking to tweak the CPU performance.

The Gigabtye Z490 Aorus Master motherboard had an interesting setting in the bios, “CPU Upgrade”, which offered two overclocking setting for those with suitable cooling. The game profile added +1 to the clock ratio and the advanced profile +2 to the clock radio. Switching to the advanced profile, I was able to run all six cores at 4.8GHz without any issue, which is interesting. For the purpose of the benchmarks, this setting was left to the default, rather than the overclocked settings.

Before the formal testing I had a bit of a mess about on a few games to get a real-life feel for the rig’s performance. I played Call of Duty Modern Warfare at 4K HDR, with the settings maxed out and real-time ray tracing, and it didn’t skip a beat. Not quite 60fps, but I’d say close. Yes, the RTX 2080 Ti can be thanked for a lot of that, but the CPU is not bottlenecking the GPU performance in any way. I’d be as bold to say that you are likely to net the same sort of result pairing the i5-10600K with an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super.

I also had the opportunity to check out the new RTX-enabled, stunning ray-traced beta version of Minecraft. Again, a rock-solid frame rate for this next-generation edition of the famous building and survival game.

The i5-10600K performed well in the benchmarking tests. It’s hardly surprising that the Core i5 10600K isn’t quite as fast as the older i9 9900K, but it’s not far off though. For someone looking to buy or build a gaming PC more than capable of playing the latest games the i5 10600K is a sensible choice, the difference in cost between the i9 and i5 could be put towards a better GPU. I also felt that there is also plenty of headroom for overclocking this CPU. I’m sure enthusiasts will get into over the next few months and we should see some impressive results.

If you are looking for a CPU that is all-singing and all-dancing for processor intensive applications such as 3D modelling and rendering, as well as video editing and streaming, on top of your high-end gaming experience, you may need to look towards something else. Intel’s flagship i9-10900K CPU, currently the fastest gaming CPU on-of-the-box, may be what you are looking for.

The Intel Core i9-10900K boasts ten cores with a mooted max speed of 5.3GHz over two active cores, 5.1GHz over three cores. 5GHz over four to five cores and 4.9GHz from six to ten cores. The 5.3GHz max speed is only achieved with temperatures less than 70-degrees due to the 1th0th generation Intel CPUs relying on Thermal Velocity Boost as well as Turbo Boost 3.0 technology. Unless you can keep the CPU running cooler that 70-degrees, you are not likely to get past 5.1GHz without maxing your fans.

As I mentioned earlier, in this age of multi-core applications, it’s not the speed of a few cores that counts, it’s what frequency all the cores can run at. Saying that, I did manage to get one core running at 5.3GHz for a Passmark Performance Mark test. In fact, I got it running at 5.4Ghz, enough to get the fastest result for a Performance Test single core run. Don’t try this at home.

We utilised the benefit of having a nigh-identical Core i9 9900K system to compare with the new Core i5-10600K and Core i9-10900. The 9900K machine does have 32GB of memory as opposed to the test system’s 16GB, but it is only DDR4-3200 as opposed to DDR-3600. Both machines have an identical RTX 2080Ti.

The 10-cores of the Core i9-10900K probably make it a bit excessive for a pure gaming rig, especially considering the price. That’s not to say that the Core i9-10900K doesn’t make for a very good gaming experience.

As with the i5, I tested a couple of games on the Core i9-10900 machine running 4K HDR, just to get a real-world feel. I played Return of the Tomb Raider in 4K HDR, with the settings maxed, including the Nvidia RTX shadows. I also played Read Dead Redemption 2, with some reasonably high settings in 4K HDR. Both games ran perfectly even on these rather impractically high settings. The image quality (being verifiably 4K not console-cheating 4K) was outstanding for both games, practically CGI-movie quality rendering.

For the formal tests, both the i5-10600K and the i9-10900K were tested using Passmark’s Performance Test, the 3DMark Timespy benchmark, Maxxon’s CGI render test, Cinebench 20 and Intel’s own Extreme Tuning Utility. On the gaming front, we also used the built-in benchmarks in Red Dead Redemption, Gears Tactics and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Each game was set to 1920×1080 resolution, HDR and V-sync off and the normal/default settings. For comparison, we also ran all the same tests on the Core i9-9900K review rig.

The test results yielded no real surprises. With the i9-9900K operating at similar frequencies to both the Core i9 9900K and the i5 10600K, for the most part the benchmark results reflected the Core i9-10900’s advantage in having additional cores, with a factor on top, over the 9900K- no doubt due to the efficiencies of the Z490 motherboard.

The PassMark Performance Test 10 results were indicative of the CPU core differences. The i9-9900K system was at a disadvantage from a drive speed point-of-view. The review rig is filled with rather ordinary hard drives as opposed to the test machine’s all top-of-the-range NVMe drives. Performance mark punished the older machine, accordingly. The Performance Test PC rating fell more into the expected result, with the scores pro rata, according to the number of cores.

The 3D Mark benchmark is more of a GPU-reliant test than for a CPU. The full Time Spy score allows the Nvidia RTX 2080Ti to strut its stuff leaving the three scores very close. The CPU element of the Time Spy test produced about the same ratio between each CPU, again the core quantity being the underlining factor.

As expected, the real gains for the i9-10900K, are with multi-core, processor intensive applications. Maxxon’s Cinebench 20 scores show the 10900K’s extra cores in action compared to the old i9-9900K and the i5-10600K. The Cinebench single-core test had the 9900K and the 10900K pretty much level-pegging, with the i5, impressively, not far behind.

Intel’s XTU benchmark results, again, mimicked those of the other tests. Showing off the Core i9-10900K’s ten-core, 20-thread advantage.

The gaming benchmarks were close. Performing the tests at 1920×1080, with moderate settings really highlights the importance of processor frequency over the quantity of cores when gaming. Most games will not be pushing the cores in the same way as an application such as 3D rendering software.

The Red Dead Redemption 2 benchmark results, for frames per second, were virtually identical for all three CPUs. This would suggest that the game is more GPU-dependant and doesn’t really give the CPU enough to chew on.

The Gears Tactics benchmark, which includes the CPU result for in-game computation, highlights the higher performance yielded by the Core i9-10900K. This is likely indicative of the new i9’s advantage offered to player of processor-intensive strategy games, in general, reducing wait times between turns. Again, the Gears render scores were very similar.

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider result was a bit interesting. I’m not sure why the i5 performed so low (not that 114fps is actually low), compared to the other CPUs. Similarly, with the CPU Game score, perhaps the game does hand off work to more cores. The CPU render and GPU scores were similar, suggesting that the GPU does a most of the heavy lifting on the visual front, but this still doesn’t explain the low FPS.

The results obtained are, for the most part, unsurprising, especially when compared to the performance of the older Core i9-9900K. Both CPU perform well in

For gaming, the Core i5-10600K, is practically on par with the i9-9900K, but at half the price of the 9900K when it was new. For multi-core applications the i9-10900K really shines.

For both CPUs, actually seeing the touted maximum speeds of 5GHz for the Core i5-10600K and 5.3GHz for the Core i9-10900K using the defaults is a rarity. To be honest, it’s not really an issue, either. Most applications are going use more than two cores, making the top frequencies a bit academic.

The i5 did not seem so constrained by my cooling solution. The CPU seemed to have no trouble running at 4.8GHz across all cores and even 5GHz with the fans turned up a tad (although I’d need more time to say if this was 100% stable).

The i9, on the other hand, felt to me like I’d only reap the rewards with a more robust CPU cooler. It was happy to run on four cores at 5GHz, but with temps getting up to 80-degrees under stress, I’d need to play around a bit more before I was confident.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Core i5-10600K is the sensible gamer’s choice of the two CPUs. The six-core i5 didn’t seem to have the same thermal limits that I seemed to come across with the 10-Core i9-10900K and I think this CPU has some potential for being pushed that little bit further.

The Core i9-10900K offer gamers a premium experience at a premium price. Games will perform better, but perhaps not enough to justify spending twice as much as an i5-10600K. However, if your PC use extends beyond just gaming into the world of video editing or 3D modelling and rendering, the extra cores of the i9 10900K are going to save you time and likely justifying the extra cost.

Both CPUs are worthy successors to the 9th generation of Intel CPUs. Nothing ground-breaking, but they are squeezing more performance out of the trusty 14nm Skylake technology. My feeling is that, with a bit of tinkering under the bonnet of the Z490 motherboard, the i5-10600K and i9-10900K may both still have some surprises in store for those with the patience to look.

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MAINGEAR has announced that their all-new Intel 9th Gen Core i9-9900KS flagship processor is now available across its product line of award-winning custom gaming PCs and workstations.

Created to be the ultimate gaming processor, the i9-9900KS features up to 5.0 GHz all-core turbo frequency across 8 cores and 16 threads, gamers looking for the ultimate power boost need look no further. MAINGEAR products featuring the i9-9900KS offer an unmatched level of performance that takes your gaming and streaming experience to the next level.

To celebrate this amazing achievement in processing power, MAINGEAR is offering the i9-9900KS in select desktop configurations, like the award-winning VYBE, with a Limited Edition VYBE 9900KS Edition — in extremely limited quantities.

Powered by an 8-core Intel Core i9-9900KS, this special offering is a top-tier gaming machine and the best way to experience the incredible performance the i9-9900KS has to offer. The VYBE 9900KS Edition combines this monstrous processor with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, Asus ROG Ryujin 360 RGB AiO CPU Liquid Cooler with color display that helps users keep temperatures low and all-white VYBE chassis.

The Intel 9th Gen Core i9-9900KS  is available as a configuration option across  MAINGEAR gaming desktops and workstations — including PC Gamer’s Editor’s Choice award-winning F131, the robust and powerful RUSH, and the R1 Razer custom edition.

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Intel today announced full details and availability for the new 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition processor.

“Intel has raised the bar for desktop gaming with the new 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition processor. Based on the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K architecture, it’s the world’s best gaming desktop processor made even better and created specifically for extreme gamers who want the most performance possible. This processor demonstrates another innovation milestone for Intel, following last year’s limited edition 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8086K.” says Frank Soqui, Intel vice president and general manager of the Desktop, Workstation and Channel Group.

The i9-9900KS processor is unlocked and boasts eight cores and 16 threads, up to 4.0 GHz base frequency, 127W TDP, 16 MB Intel Smart Cache, and up to 40 platform PCIe lanes for gaming and overclocking.

Things to know:

• Up to 5.0 GHz all-core turbo frequency; up to 4.0 GHz base frequency, which allow games to run faster when they scale across more cores for higher frame rates
• Eight cores, 16 threads, 127W TDP, 16 MB Intel Smart Cache, and up to 40 platform PCIe lanes
• Compatible with existing Z390 motherboards
• Up to 27% faster mega-tasking when you simultaneously game, stream and record compared with a 3-year-old PC
• Up to 35% more frames per second compared with a 3-year-old PC
• Up to 17% faster 4K video editing compared with the previous generation and up to 78% faster compared with a 3-year-old PC
• One-year warranty
• Overclock confidently with new and enhanced features like Intel® Performance Maximizer, which makes it easy to dynamically and reliably custom-tune the unlocked processor based on the processor’s individual performance DNA

Gamers and overclocking enthusiasts will be able to take performance to the max with the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition processor. Only select chips from Intel wafers can achieve this specification to run up to 5.0 GHz all-core turbo.

The 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900KS will be available beginning Oct. 30th, 2019. This special edition processor will be available for a limited time only and can be found at retailers worldwide.

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It’s time to upgrade the review rig with an Asus Republic of Gamers STRIX Z390-E Gaming motherboard and a top-of-the range Intel Core i9 9900K CPU.

There is nothing more rewarding for a gamer than building your own PC. It’s the only way that you can get exactly what you want for the budget that have. Also, there are no warranty problems should you choose to open your PC up and make adjustments.

Of course, there are good reasons why everybody doesn’t build their own PCs. Whilst these days it is difficult to actually destroy a component whilst putting a PC together, there are still plenty that can go wrong if you don’t know wat you are doing. Things have improved in the last ten years or so, with better socket designs and colour-coding making PC building less like a complex Meccano set and more like Duplo.

Choosing good components is important. For the last few years I’ve been using Asus Republic of Gamers STRIX motherboards in our review PC. Whilst not Republic of Gamer’s top-end motherboards, Asus’s STRIX boards are excellent feature-rich bits of kit. They offer great value for money that satisfying the needs of both the novice PC builder and those wanting to really push their components to the max.

Intel enthusiasts have been enjoying the benefits of motherboard cross-compatibility between the 8th generation of Intel Core CPUs and the 9th generation, making upgrades a little less expensive. Aimed with a shiny Intel Core i9 9900K it was time to retire the admirable i7 8700K and see what I could get out of one of Intel’s 8-core CPUs.

Because both chips use the same 1151 socket, all it needed was a bios update to get the i9 9900K running in the old ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming-based review rig. It’s amazing to think I could just stuff an Intel 9th generation Core i9 9900K into a year-and-a-half old motherboard, designed for 8th generation Intel chips, without issue. It really is a credit to the quality of the components that Asus use in their kit.

To get the most out of an Intel 9th generation CPU, however, a motherboard based on the Intel Z390 chipset, is what you need.  With the Z390 chipset Intel has built on the features of its predecessors to include on-chip 802.11ac Wi-Fi and 6x USB 3.1 support. Quality motherboards that utilise the Z390 chipset are also built with the additional demands of overclocking Intel’s top-end 9th generation CPUs.

The Asus Republic of Gamers STRIX Z390-E Gaming is one of those quality motherboards, and the board that I’ve chosen to house the Intel Core i9 9900K CPU for the review rig upgrade. It’s an ATX form factor board with an LGA 1151 socket for Intel’s Coffee Lake CPUs.    

At first glance, the STRIX Z390-E Gaming is very similar to the STRIX Z370-F board it’s replacing. The CPU and memory locations are in the same location, allowing easy, independent access to both the memory modules and the CPU – essential for swapping out components for testing and reviewing.

The board supports up to 128GB of RAM across up to four DDR4 DIMM modules at a max speed of 4133MHz. It has full support for Intel’s Extreme Memory Profiles (XMP).

As with the Z370-F, the STRIX Z390-E has two M.2 sockets, one that supports the newer, super-fast PCIe 3.0 solid-state drives as well as the legacy SATA M.2 (type 2242,2260 and 2280) SSDs and the other just the PCIe 3.0 M.2 (type 2242,2260, 2280 and 22110) SSDs. The Z390-E includes heatsinks for both M.2 sockets.

Keeping me on my toes, the Z390-E has swapped the numbering of the two M.2 sockets around since the Z370, the M.2_1 socket now being on the top. As I swapped out the components from one board to another, I didn’t notice this. The fatal error reported by the BIOS pointed straight to the offending issue. Thank goodness for modern, intuitive BIOS programming.

There are 3 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots supporting Nvidia 2-way SLI and AMD 3-way CrossfireX graphics card set-ups. Whilst we have two RTX 2080ti cards available, thermal considerations due to the vapour chamber (rather than exhaust fan) design of the Nvidia Founders Editions and the lack of practical need means that only one card will be installed, but it’s good to have the option of SLI.

I have a USB 3.1 riser card, that’s certified for the HTC Vive VR kit, that I stuffed in one the three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and a SATA expansion card that I use with in the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot that is shared with the SATA 6Gb/s ports for a few extra hard drives.

The board has 6x 6Gb/s SATA ports for connecting up hard drives. But, if you are using a SATA M.2 drive in the M.2_1 port, you will lose the use of the SATA6G_2 port. But, with transfer speed up to 3470MB/s from the latest NVMe M.2 SSDs, you’ve be a fool not to take advantage of this and stick one of these in the board rather than an M.2 SATA drive.

It also has some great USB connectivity. There’s 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 front panel connector, 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (that’s three Type A and one Type C), 4x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and 6x USB 2.0 ports.   

The STRIX Z390-E Gaming features an integrated input/output panel that effortlessly pushes into the back slot of your case. No more trying to mate up the connectors on the back of the motherboard with the corresponding holes on the IO plate that you’ve pressed in to the case. It’s a minor improvement, but one that takes a bit of hassle out of the build.

Whilst ASUS previous STRIX motherboards have included a bracket for an optional fan, the Z390-E Gaming includes a 40mm fan that can be positioned over the VRMs to help with overclocking. This is particularly useful in PCs that have water-cooled CPUs, as little or no air is blown over the board unlike when using traditional CPU air-cooling.

With all the components in place on first boot the board’s UEFI BIOS Utility correctly configured itself, identifying both the CPU and memory, adjusting the settings accordingly. ASUS UEFI BIOS options are some of the most comprehensive I’ve seen. It has two modes, an EZ mode for newcomers that need a little help adjusting their set-up and a more advance mode for in-depth tweaking.

The BIOS has all the all the tools to maximise your PC performance from memory timings to fan scheduling. As long as you make sure to connect your chassis and CPU fans to the right connectors on the board, the BIOS will allow you to tune your fans to get the best out of your cooling set-up.

The BIOS does have an AI-driven overclocking mode, which I’ve successfully used with previous iterations of this motherboard, but I didn’t have any success in getting the computer stable with the i9 9900K.

The i9 9900K has a base frequency of 3.6GHz, but boasts 5GHz turbo. This is, however, only on the first two cores, after that the turbo speed starts descending to 4.8GHz for cores 3 and 4, with the rest hitting a, still none too shabby, turbo of 4.7GHz. Tweaking the BIOS setting manually I’ve managed to easily achieve what seems to be a stable 5GHz across all eight cores. With more time, I’m sure I could push it a bit more, but come-on do I really need cores running faster than 5GHz right now?

If tweaking the BIOS is not your cup of tea, the board comes with a full suite of ASUS software that allows you to reconfigure many overclocking settings form the relative safety on the Windows OS environment. Whilst seasoned overclockers will advise against the use of software overclocking solutions (and to a point they are right), ASUS’s easy-to-use AI Suite 3 does allow novice overclockers access to many of the settings that would otherwise be unavailable save for tinkering with the BIOS, itself.

A number of different performance applications are included with AI Suite 3. Duel Intelligent Processors 5 features AI Optimization and 5-Way Optimization which can both be used to improve CPU performance. TPU Insight allows things like CPU clock multipliers to be adjusted on the fly, whereby Fan Xpert 4 can tune your fans to get the optimal speeds.

Also included is RAMCAHCE III, an application that can optimise program loading speed by caching files to your system memory. Gamefirst V, prioritises network traffic and combines both Wi-Fi and Ethernet traffic to create one phat pipe for your gaming traffic. Great if you want to play competitively. If you want to control the onboard lighting scheme, you’ll need to use The Asus Aura RGB application.

Asus Republic of Gamers STRIX Z390-E Gaming motherboard is a highly configurable, easy to setup and easy to use motherboard. It is fully-featured and very stable, but without eating into your PC build’s budget. The component layout is well designed and, overall, the board is very easy to install. As motherboards go, I’d highly recommend it to both novices and overclocking enthusiasts.

The post Asus ROG STRIX Z390-E Gaming Motherboard Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

As CES 2019 began to kick in to gear, Intel leaders, Gregory Bryant, senior vice president, Client Computing Group; Navin Shenoy, executive vice president, Data Center Group; and Professor Amnon Shashua, president and CEO of Mobileye, an Intel company took to the stage to showcase the company’s commitment to continuously improve the computing and communications foundation that will advance the way we experience the world and expand human potential.

The company made several announcements spanning PCs and new devices to diverse growth segments including artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and autonomous driving (AD). And Intel’s leaders discussed the innovation necessary across the data center, cloud, network and edge to enable the new user experiences and form factors of the future.

Intel showcased its latest Intel Xeon Scalable products, shipping today with advanced AI and memory capabilities, and 9th Gen Intel Core desktop products. It also announced new 10nm products for PCs, servers and 5G wireless access base stations, the future of new chip designs based on its 3D packaging technology (Foveros).

Intel also spotlighted what’s possible when technologies work seamlessly together across the entire spectrum of computing. Comcast and Intel are working together to bring the connected home to life. New initiatives with Alibaba demonstrate how Intel AI plans to deliver athlete tracking technology during the next Olympics. Mobileye and Ordnance Survey will bring us closer to the realization of smart cities and safer roads.

Gregory Bryant, Intel senior vice president in the Client Computing Group, displays an Ice Lake system-on-chip with 10nm technology during Intel Corporation’s news event at CES 2019 on Jan. 7, 2019, in Las Vegas. Intel displays how its technology is the foundation for the world’s most important innovations and advances at CES 2019 from Jan. 8-11 in Las Vegas. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Intel’s Client Computing Group is uniquely positioned to innovate across the industry because of its broad set of technologies under one roof, enabling Intel to advance the PC and deliver the foundation for the data-centric world today.

The vision for tomorrow’s mobile PC platform is firmly aligned with Intel’s upcoming first volume 10nm PC processor, code-named “Ice Lake.” Ice Lake brings a new level of integration with Intel’s new Sunny Cove microarchitecture, instruction sets to accelerate AI usage and a graphics engine, and Intel Gen11 graphics to improve graphics performance for richer gaming and content creation experiences. Intel’s OEM partners are expected to have new devices with Ice Lake on shelves by holiday 2019.

Intel also announced Project Athena, an innovation program and new set of industry specifications developed to help usher in a new class of advanced laptops designed to enable new experiences and capitalize on next-generation technologies, including 5G and artificial intelligence. From delivering the first connected PC with integrated Wi-Fi in the Intel Centrino platform to driving mainstream adoption of super thin and light designs, touchscreens, and 2 in 1 form factors with Ultrabook, Intel is uniquely positioned to be the catalyst in delivering the next-gen PC experience. Combining world-class performance, battery life and connectivity in sleek, beautiful designs, the first Project Athena devices are expected to be available in the second half of this year.

Musicians Kawehi (left) and Kevin Doucette (center) talk with Gregory Bryant, Intel senior vice president in the Client Computing Group, about the music they produce using Intel technology during Intel Corporation’s news event at CES 2019 on Jan. 7, 2019, in Las Vegas. Intel displays how its technology is the foundation for the world’s most important innovations and advances at CES 2019 from Jan. 8-11 in Las Vegas. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Intel is accelerating client innovation by taking new approaches to hybrid CPU architecture and packaging technologies. At CES 2019, Intel provided a sneak peek of a new client platform, code-named “Lakefield,” featuring the first iteration of its Foveros 3D packaging technology. This hybrid CPU architecture enables combining different pieces of IP that might have previously been discrete into a single product with a smaller motherboard footprint, which allows OEMs more flexibility for thin and light form factor design. Lakefield is expected to be in production this year.

Intel introduced new additions to the 9th Gen Intel Core processors that expand the family for a broader spectrum of desktop products. These processors deliver world-class performance to unlock incredible new capabilities and experiences for content creators and gamers at all levels. The first of the new 9th Gen Intel Core desktop processors is expected to be available starting this month.

Gregory Bryant, Intel senior vice president in the Client Computing Group, displays a “Lakefield” reference board during Intel Corporation’s news event at CES 2019 on Jan. 7, 2019, in Las Vegas. Lakefield features a hybrid CPU architecture with Intel’s Foveros 3D packaging technology. Intel displays how its technology is the foundation for the world’s most important innovations and advances at CES 2019 from Jan. 8-11 in Las Vegas. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Additionally Intel announced the Intel Nervana Neural Network Processor for Inference, or NNP-I. This new class of chip is dedicated to accelerating inference for companies with high workload demands and is expected to go into production this year. Facebook is also one of Intel’s development partners on the NNP-I. Additionally, Intel is expected to have a Neural Network Processor for Training, code-named “Spring Crest,” available later this year.

Intel also disclosed it is expanding its decade-long investment in network infrastructure with new 10nm-based network system on chip (SoC), code-named “Snow Ridge,” that has been developed specifically for 5G wireless access and edge computing. This network SoC is intended to bring Intel architecture into wireless access base stations and allow more computing functions to be distributed out at the edge of the network. Snow Ridge is expected to be available in the second half of this year.

Navin Shenoy (left), Intel executive vice president in the Data Center Group, speaks with Dr. Paul Kruszewski, CEO and founder of Wrnch, a company that tracks human movement using artificial intelligence, during Intel Corporation’s news event at CES 2019 on Jan. 7, 2019, in Las Vegas. Intel displays how its technology is the foundation for the world’s most important innovations and advances at CES 2019 from Jan. 8-11 in Las Vegas. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Intel and Comcast are laying the foundation to deliver new immersive experiences in the home.

It is estimated that each person in North America will have 13 or more connected devices by 2022, and demands are increasing for high-resolution content streaming, gaming and more. The collaboration between Intel and Comcast will deliver faster speeds, more capacity and responsive networks that will bring new immersive experiences to millions of people, including during the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. For the next wave of gigabit and beyond broadband, Intel is working with cable industry leaders on a global standard for 10 Gigabit technology and is starting to test this in lab settings. Next up, Comcast and Intel are also working together to develop Wi-Fi 6-enabled technologies.

From next-generation communications to a new era of computing, Intel technology is the foundation for the world’s most important innovations and advances.

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From micro-processors to the world’s first conceptual mouse.

Intel has always innovated and achieved what others only dreamed of, or said it was impossible. An astounding fifty years on and still here today, forging ahead with their latest chipsets and I9 processors.

Grandfathers of the modern computer age – let’s take a wander through the years of Intel.

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The Intel Conference and PC Gaming Show at E3 2017 has brought out the latest in PC gaming to the predominantly console based industry convention. Held at the beautiful theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, Intel kicked off the event with an introduction to their new Core X series, including the i9 X, which will be available to pre-order next week.

From the conference, it seems that Intel is focusing their efforts more on VR experiences and e-sports, especially now that e-sports is being treated as a major sporting event with more fans watching than playing. This year alone the Intel Extreme Masters (“IEM”) had over 40 million viewers. As a result of their commitment to e-sports, Intel announced today that they are partnering with ESL and have been named as ESL’s global partner. In addition, Intel confirmed its $1 million prize pool in the new Intel grand slam with ESL.

For VR esports to grow, there needs to be a list of good titles and growth of the gamer base. Intel commits to this by introducing the multiplayer VR game, Echo Arena, which will be getting a free release with all Oculus Rift purchases. There will be an equivalent single-player VR alternative titled, alone Echo. Additionally, Intel will be expanding its partnership with ESL and Oculus Rift to bring together the VR Challenger League.

VR gaming isn’t all that Intel is focussed on as it has now partnered with Linkin Park to create VR Destination, a VR music experience that will provide a new experience for music fans  around the world. VR Destination will be available in July on Oculus Rift.

The event continued with the annual PC Gaming Show and was hosted by streaming and YouTube sensation Sean ‘Day 9’ Plott. The show essentially introduced upcoming PC gaming titles and all the latest in PC gaming.

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