Intel CPUs are at the center of controversy once again as yet another vulnerability is discovered by Cybersecurity researchers. The security vulnerability is named “Plundervolt” by the researchers which is a mixture of the words “plunder” and “undervolt.”
The security flaw is noted under CVE-2019-11157 and was first reported to Intel back in June of this year under the company’s bug bounty program. The program puts the findings under a 6-month NDA which is lo longer applies.
Hence, Cybersecurity researchers have made their findings public. According to their findings, the security vulnerability can compromise SGX (software guard extensions) protected by undervolting the CPU when executing protected computations, to the degree that the SGX memory encryption failed to protect data. Cybersecurity researchers also released proof of concept code. Plundervolt is similar yet different from “Rowhammer” as it flips bits inside the CPU prior to their shift to memory, so SGX isn’t able to protect the data. You can check out the entire Intel CPU research document for yourself.
For almost a decade, quad-core processors or CPUs with 4 Cores and 4 Threads have reigned supreme in 1080p gaming. This reign has come to an end and these 4 Core/ 4 Threaded Intel Core i5s or Ryzen CPUs will no longer be suitable for gaming as this console generation comes to an end.
Most of you understand why the CPU requirements of a PC game are directly proportional to console specs. For those who don’t, let me give you a brief rundown.
The fact that video game sales are significantly higher on consoles than PC, game developers focus primarily to perfect their game engines for consoles. Furthermore, to avoid disparity in visual fidelity, PC gamers are more or less bound by console specs. Hence, the only true advancement in graphics is seen when a console generation is near its end.
Both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One feature custom AMD Jaguar processor with 8 Cores. Of these 8 Cores, only 6.5 Cores are available to devs for utilization.
As this generation started, the specs for PC games started to demand CPUs with 4 Cores and 4 Threads which at the time Intel Core i5 CPUs were famous for.
Throughout the generation, we saw PC ports of video games were demanding quad-core CPUs. However, as we are reaching the end of the console cycle, PC games are now demanding 8 threaded CPUs.
There is a reason behind it and it is also the reason behind the high CPU or 100% CPU utilization in recent PC video games. At the start of the console generation, the game engines weren’t perfected to fully utilize the power of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The game engines were still being perfected and the multi-platform games launched during early-mid of this generation ran pretty well on 4 Core/ 4 Threaded Intel Core i5 processors.
But with the passage of time, developers have perfected their games engine to utilize multi-core Jaguar CPUs of PS4 and Xbox One. This resulted in PC games requiring at least 4 Core/ 8 Threaded CPUs to play games at ultra settings and even then you can’t touch 60 FPS.
Common examples are Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Monster Hunter World and many more. AC Origins and Odyssey are especially CPU demanding games and if you try to play them on 4 Core/ 4 Threaded CPUs, it’ll just bottleneck your GPU.
The reason behind their CPU intensiveness is how these games handle NPC AI. You see, both titles keep track of NPCs, their routines, what they do during the day and what they do during the night. With so much CPU utilization, expecting 60 FPS from these games with 4 Core/ 4 threaded CPUs is just unrealistic.
This is also true for Monster Hunter World. The game worlds have become so elaborate and huge that quad-core CPUs aren’t able to deliver 60 FPS while running these titles.
Not only that, the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Monster Hunter World aren’t even able to hit 60 FPS with 8 threaded CPUs at ultra settings.
This is also reflected in core/thread counts of modern CPUs. Intel Core i5 is no longer a 4 Cores/4 Threads CPU as Intel has increased the Core/thread count to 6 and Ryzen has outdone Intel in that regard.
That’s not to say you can play PC games on quad-core CPUs. While they aren’t able to reach 60 FPS, these CPUs are still capable of running games at a stable 30 FPS, which I realize isn’t an option for most PC gamers.
If you need more concrete information on this, you can check out Digital Foundry’s video which also explains that time of 4 Core/ 4 Threaded CPUs is over.
In the end, it all boils down to how developers are utilizing their tech. The game world is so huge and elaborate, they demand more Cores and threads from CPUs.
This isn’t a bad thing, this is just the price of progress in video game tech. If we want bigger and better games, then we have to leave these old CPUs behind and it has always been like this. This how we moved from dual-core CPUs to 16 Core/ 32 threaded CPUs.
Intel CPU shipment delays have been a problem for some time now and it seems that the issue not going to be resolved any time soon. In parts of the world, customers are unable to get their hands on the Intel CPUs that they want. This has made an opening for AMD and we have seen plenty of people make the shift from Intel to AMD in the recent few months.
Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the Executive Vice President, General Manager, Sales, Marketing and Communications Group at Intel apologized for the CPU shipment delays that customers are facing. Here is what she had to say regarding the matter:
I’d like to acknowledge and sincerely apologize for the impact recent PC CPU shipment delays are having on your business and to thank you for your continued partnership. I also want to update you on our actions and investments to improve supply-demand balance and support you with performance-leading Intel products. Despite our best efforts, we have not yet resolved this challenge.
We know that Intel has been having issues making 10nm chips and 14nm chip shortage is not helping sales either. Keeping in mind that AMD has already shipped 7nm CPUs and is going to reveal 7nm+ CPUs next year. We should hear more about 7nm+ at CES 2020.
Holthaus then went on to talk about what the company has been doing to solve the issue. Here is what she had to say regarding the matter:
In response to continued strong demand, we have invested record levels of Capex increasing our 14nm wafer capacity this year while also ramping 10nm production. In addition to expanding Intel’s own manufacturing capability, we are increasing our use of foundries to enable Intel’s differentiated manufacturing to produce more Intel CPU products.
She admitted that even though all these measures were taken, the company has been unable to keep up with the demand and the supply of Intel CPUs has been very tight indeed. Intel CPU shipment delays are indeed due to the lack of supply and excess demand which is ever increasing. Holthaus went on to mention the following:
sustained market growth in 2019 has outpaced our efforts and exceeded third-party forecasts. Supply remains extremely tight in our PC business where we are operating with limited inventory buffers. This makes us less able to absorb the impact of any production variability, which we have experienced in the quarter. This has resulted in the shipment delays you are experiencing, which we appreciate is creating significant challenges for your business.
While it is great that Intel has talked about the issue and has apologized for the delay in CPU shipments, it is safe to say that AMD is going to and has been taking full advantage of all this. AMD has the upper hand when it comes to value for money and core count, now AMD has the upper hand when it comes to supply as well.
We know that Intel has been working on discreet graphics for a while now and while we have been getting some hints here and there, nothing concrete has been mentioned so far. Raja Koduri is leading the team behind Intel Xe Graphics and it seems that he might be pointing towards a potential Intel Xe Graphics reveal.
Koduri recently posted a picture of a Tesla Model X on Twitter with a custom number plate the reads “Think Xe” the number plate also mentioned June 2020 and California. That is very interesting indeed. For the Twitter post, Koduri has also tagged Intel Graphics. You can check out the image below:
This could be nothing at all or an attempt to hype things up. In any case, you should take this information with a grain of salt.
Seeing how 2020, June, California and XE are all in the plate, we think that this could be a subtle hint that we might be able to learn something new about Intel Xe Graphics on this date in California.
There is not much that we know about Intel Xe Graphics at this point. Reports would have us believe that these are going to be mainstream graphics cards.
Intel has been in the CPU market for a long time now and has created integrated graphics solutions. Discreet graphics would be a major step up and that would mean that it is not only going to be up against AMD but Nvidia as well.
There is still a lot that we do not know so stay tuned for more information regarding these graphics cards from Intel. While we are on the topic of Intel, it is interesting to see that Microsoft has adopted ARM and AMD CPUs in its new Surface products. In the future, the company might ditch Intel entirely.
Microsoft has revealed its latest Surface Laptop 3. Traditionally, Microsoft has utilized Intel’s mobile processors but for Surface Laptop 3, the company has opted for AMD Ryzen chip. The chip in question is the Ryzen Surface Edition. This raises is the question, is Microsoft ditching Intel for good?
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 isn’t the first product to feature a Ryzen mobile CPU. Previously, we have seen laptop manufacturers introduce laptops based on Ryzen mobile CPUs. The reason for that is quite simple, Ryzen chips offer better performance than Intel chips.
We have seen Ryzen desktop CPUs to blow past Intel in terms of performance. This also holds true for mobile chips. Not to mention, current Ryzen CPUs are based on the 7nm process node while Intel is still struggling to introduce 10nm CPUs in the market.
Furthermore, Intel has been the target of serious security exploits which came to light in early 2018. AMD Ryzen CPUs, on the other hand, weren’t impacted by these security exploits as severely as Intel.
A lot has changed since then, Intel has lost a significant market share to Ryzen. Not only that, the data center sector is also favoring AMD’s chips over Intel on account of having a higher number of cores and threads.
With Intel struggling to keep its processors up to the task in terms of performance, it seems that Microsoft has decided to ditch Intel mobile chips for its Surface Laptops for good.
However, there is a possibility that this could be a one-time thing. But given that we live in an age with everything is in an ecosystem of its own, it’s highly likely that Microsoft is looking for a long-term partnership with AMD.
Furthermore, AMD has noted that its AMD Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition processor “inherits from the graphics core architecture of Xbox One and includes one additional compute unit more than any other AMD Ryzenmobile processor for an extra boost of graphics horsepower.”
There is a possibility that Microsoft is testing the performance of Ryzen chips with its Surface Laptop 3 before the company decides to use them for Xbox Scarlett.
Speaking of AMD, the company is also in the business of designing GPUs. One interesting discovery has come to light, which is AMD Radeon RX 5700 sees a 10% performance boost when flashed with RX 5700 XT BIOS.
Intel is trying to educate the press regarding AMD CPUs and their boost clocks. In a recently released slide deck, Intel included quotes from reviews that mentioned that AMD CPUs did not hit the advertised boost clocks on all cores. That might be true but it does not really affect a lot of people keeping in mind that the AMD Ryzen chips are more competitively priced when compared to Intel CPU.
It makes sense to pick the cores that are best and have them boost to the highest frequency possible. Boost clock is not something ideal to have on all cores at all times. You can check out the Intel slide that mentions AMD false marketing its boost clocks below:
It is a pity that Intel is trying to fire shots at AMD this way. Intel is a bigger company and should know better. AMD does make fun of Intel at times but that is cocky marketing. These slides claim that AMD is trying to mislead the consumers when it comes to the boost clocks of their CPUs.
It is safe to say that moves like these will only hurt Intel’s image as a company and its credibility. As the industry leader, Intel should do a better job at leading rather than trying to fire shots at AMD. When a company resorts to firing shots at its competitor that is a signal that something is really off behind the scenes and that might be the case with Intel.
Interestingly, in 2019, Intel is still marketing clock speeds rather than concentrating on actual performance. Consumers want to see performance gains across the board, not just clock speeds and how long a CPU is able to maintain a boost clock.
On the bright side, it is interesting to see that Intel has actually considered AMD a competitor. This means that things are getting serious. A while back an internal memo from Intel did leak and Intel admitted that AMD Matisse could outperform the 9th generation Intel CPUs. It also mentioned that Intel had a “great strategy and great roadmap” to counter AMD. Firing shots at the underdog might be part of said strategy.
AMD has not commented on the matter at the time of writing but I am sure that CEO Lisa Su has a few things on her mind right now.
Intel Xe GPUs will release in due time and people have been wondering about the price. While a mistranslation on the internet made it appear that the entry-level cards will start at $200, we did get some information out of the correct translation.
Intel’s chief architect and graphics head Raja Koduri is working on the Intel Xe graphics cards as we speak and it turns out that Intel will not only compete with AMD but will take on Nvidia for the position of the best-performing graphics card on the market. The AMD Radeon graphics cards are great and perform well but they are not powerful enough to challenge the RTX 2080 Ti.
In order for Nvidia to be competitive, we need another player in the market that can offer the same level of performance as the RTX 2080 Ti. With that kind of competition, Nvidia will have to bring something innovative to the table or will have to offer more competitive prices.
In a time where you can play games on your mobile phones or the Nintendo Switch, not many people are interested in spending $500-600 on a graphics card that is something that Raja Koduri himself pointed out. So what price point is Intel going to target with the Xe GPUs? All of them seems to be the correct answer according to Koduri. Here is what he had to say regarding the matter:
We have to hit everything; it’s just a matter of where do you start? The First one? The Second one? The Third one? And the strategy that we have within a period of roughly – let’s call it 2-3 years – to have the full stack.
Intel is not only going for the mid-range market but the entry-level and high-end market as well. This means that Intel is not only going to go up against AMD but Nvidia as well. That might not be the case right off the bat and Intel might start off with a mid-range graphics card but a high-end model is most likely in the works according to the included statement.
I hope that whatever Intel is working on is able to match or outperform the Nvidia counterpart at the time. That would be very interesting indeed. I would like to see what Nvidia does in order to counter such a threat.
Nvidia has been on top for as long as I can remember. The company has released some great product but the top tier graphics cards have been too expensive. I think that some competition could potentially bring the price down.
Intel boasted its Corei9-9900K as the world’s fastest gaming CPU. At the time it might have been the fastest gaming CPU but, with the launch of Ryzen 3000 desktop CPUs, that’s not the case at all. Even the mid-range AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X beat Intel Core i9-9900K in 1440p and 4K gaming.
For those who fail to grasp the situation, Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X cost $233 and $249 respectively. On the other hand, Intel Corei9-9900K is way more expensive and costs $449. A $233 CPU beating or keeping up with a $449 CPU, that’s what I call performance.
Even in some instances, the Ryzen 5 3600 is ahead of the Ryzen 5 3600X in 4K and 1440p gaming benchmarks. Aide from the prices, both Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X feature 6-Cores and 12 threads while the Intel Core i9-9900K features 8-Cores and 16 threads.
Specs
Intel Core i9-9900K
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Cores/threads
8/16
6/12
6/12
Processor Base Frequency
3.6GHz
3.6 GHz
3.8 GHz
Boost Frequency
5.0 GHz
4.2 GHz
4.4GHz
Cache
16 MB
32 MB
32 MB
Price
$449
$233
$249
In terms of specs, these Ryzen CPUs might be behind the Intel CPU but in 4K gaming performance, they take the lead. These gaming benchmarks were done by YouTuber Gear Seekers. You can check out these benchmarks in the video below.
These benchmarks were done with both Radeon VII and Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti. The following table will give you a better idea of the results.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p/4K
Final Fantasy XV 1440p/4K
AMD Ryzen 5 3600/ Radeon VII
93 FPS/52 FPS
7030 Points/4205 Points
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X/ Radeon VII
94 FPS/58 FPS
7418 Points/ 4300 Points
Intel Core i9-9900K/ Radeon VII
93 FPS/53 FPS
7150 Points/ 4183 Points
AMD Ryzen 5 3600/ RTX 2080 Ti
117 FPS/81 FPS
10447 Points/ 6219 Points
AMD Ryzen 5 3600/ RTX 2080 Ti
117 FPS/81 FPS
10221 Points/6171 Points
Intel Core i9-9900K/ RTX 2080 Ti
116 FPS/ 76 FPS
10304 Points/6139 Points
Also, this isn’t the only time the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 has beaten a high-end Intel CPU. We previously covered gaming performance for both Ryzen 5 3600 and Intel Core i7-8700K. The results are the same as with the Intel Core i9-9900K vs Ryzen 5 3600 CPU benchmarks. Ryzen 3600 has a significant lead over i7-8700K in gaming performance.
With Ryzen CPUs beating Intel desktop CPUs in every aspect, I wonder if Intel has something in its sleeves to counter AMD. If things keep going like this, AMD Ryzen will eventually overtake the CPU market and Intel will be left behind to catch up.
The battle between AMD and Intel has never been more intense. Intel has enjoyed the majority of the market share but things are now changing. AMD is doing impressive innovation in the processor space. Meanwhile, rival Intel has done nothing more than release slightly better yet more expensive generations every year. With AMD’s Matisse, the competition is expected to toughen.
Intel’s internal memo leaked a few hours ago and it is a very interesting look into how the company sees AMD. When you read the entire thing, one point is clear as day, Intel now sees AMD has a formidable foe. Intel itself admitted in the document that AMD is more innovative at a reasonable price. Some of AMD’s products offer better performance per dollar compared to Intel.
AMD announced its Matisse line of chips earlier this year and Intel knows the challenges it poses. According to the leaked document, Intel expects Matisse to outperform 9th-generation Coffee Lake CPUs in multi-threaded workloads, such as heavy content creation. This aspect is nothing new, AMD has mostly been favored by developers and content creators due to its ability to perform better during heavy workloads.
Intel 9th Gen Core Processors are likely to lead AMD’s Ryzen-based products on lightly threated productivity benchmarks as well as gaming benchmarks. For multi-threaded workloads, such as heavy content creation workloads, AMD’s Matisse is expected to lead.
What Is AMD Matisse and Why Intel is Concerned?
At Computex 2019, AMD officially revealed Ryzen 3000. AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed Zen 2 Chipset-based architecture. The same architecture used in PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett. AMD shared the Ryzen 9 product line with the all-powerful Ryzen 9 3900X processor. AMD’s top of the line chip runs at 4.6Ghz boost.
There are a total of fives chips coming this year and all of them are PCIe 4.0 enabled; meaning blistering fast data transfers. AMD Matisse details can be found here.
Ryzen 3900X is the most powerful and expensive member of the Ryzen 9 family. It is AMD’s very first 12-core desktop CPU with a base clock of 3.8GHz, 6MN of L2 cache and 64MB of L3 cache. The CPU is power efficient with only 105W.
AMD’s next-generation of Ryzen chips is launching on July 7.
Intel has had issues with the 7nm process and it has been delayed time and time again. AMD has been catching up in the meantime. Still, Intel claims to have a great roadmap and strategy to compete with AMD according to a leaked memo that was meant for the eye of Intel employees only.
Steve Collins, the Director of Data-centric Competitive Assessment Group at Intel talked about the great strategy and roadmap that Intel has to take on AMD Ryzen. Here is what he had to say regarding the matter:
Well, first, it’s clearly a challenging time. We have significant competitive challenges to navigate. That said, I think we have a great strategy and a great roadmap.
Intel to Emerge Better And Stronger
AMD has already announced the new Ryzen 300 CPUs that are based on the 7nm process. These chips provide improvements over the last generation and original AMD Ryzen chips.
AMD is competing on price to performance and it is clear that Intel is having some trouble keeping up. Intel has not been able to provide an 8 core CPU in the mainstream and AMD has already catered to that market for a while now. Here is what Collins had to say about Intel roadmap competing with AMD in the upcoming months:
While it has been a number of years since we’ve faced a similar competitive environment (in the early 2000s with 1 GHz barrier, integrated memory controller, 64bit, and so on) Intel has risen to every situation and almost always emerged better and stronger.
AMD has a strong roadmap and it has delivered what it promised. The new CPUs support PCIe 4.0 which is a major improvement over PCIe 3.0. We have yet to see this technology implemented on Intel’s side.
Focus On Execution And Software
Collins did admit that execution has been an issue in Intel’s side. That needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. He mentioned that better execution would help the execute the roadmap and strategy that Intel has in mind.
Our focus needs to be on getting our execution in shape as soon as possible. We’re in a competitive time partly because of our execution issues, whether that’s related to our process technology node, or to our products that intercept those nodes. So I think that execution to our roadmap and strategy will help tremendously.
Other than that, Collins mentioned that Intel needs to work on the software side of things as well. I think that Intel should take a deeper look into its security as well.
Beyond product execution, we need to lean on our software expertise and strength and amplify our software differentiation — now more than ever.
The AMD Ryzen Threat Is Real
When AMD Ryzen was first announced, Intel seemed rather cool about it. Intel mentioned that it had the products to take on this new threat. That no longer seems to be the case. Collins mentioned that this is indeed a competitive time for Intel.
In order to execute the strategy and roadmap that Intel has planned, it needs to ensure that it sents the right message to the customers. Intel needs to have the sales and marketing teams co-ordinating with one another, now more than ever.
Finally, in competitive times, overall marketing, ensuring our customers understand our differentiated value proposition, along with customer obsession, are critical. Now more than ever, we need to Lean into our sales and marketing teams to help carry us through these product challenges.
AMD Ryzen is a real threat and it is here to stay. AMD has provided better support with the AM4 platform where users do not need to change their motherboards as frequently when compared to Intel.
AMD has also delivered impressive performance and competitive prices. Intel really needs to work on bringing its A-game to the table. Intel might have a strong strategy in mind and a roadmap for people to look at but the execution is key.
I would go on to say that if 10nm CPUs are not in the consumer market in a year, Intel is going to be in deep waters.
