Within the Architecture Day event we receive important news from Intel as we finally officially have the jump to the expected 10nm with a new architecture for the Xeon and Core cores called Sunny Cove. We also have important updates in the Atom cores that are integrated into their Pentium or Celeron solutions and we have known also their new integrated Gen11 GPU that brings us a very interesting and necessary power jump. Undoubtedly the tough competition of AMD and Qualcomm is pushing Intel to present new solutions, something we had hoped for a long time.
Sunny Cove, Atom and Forevos
With the codename Sunny Cove we have the biggest leap in architecture and manufacturing process since 2015 with Intel Skylake processors, not only do we go through a 10nm process but we adopt a new 3D architecture system that allows us to mount more components in different layers to increase performance. These new processors are expected to be introduced by mid-2019, followed by Willow Cove in 2020 and Golden Cove in 2021 based on the same architecture.
In the same road map of Sunny Cove we can see the new Atom Tremont cores that surely bring us interesting news in miniPC, laptops, ultrabooks and tablets. For now we have little data on this new generation, it has not been defined if it will also jump to 10nm or if it will mount the new Gen11 GPU, but it is clear that if it wants to compete in conditions something has to incorporate in addition to a mere change of name and secondary optimizations. We also know the futures Gracemont for 2021 and Next month for before 2023.
With the name of Forevos (formidable in Greek) we are presented with the new Intel architecture in 3D that achieves a very high density of components, the first processors to use this system will be the Sunny Cove. We will also have other products such as a x86 hybrid processor of only 12×12 mm that will mount a Sunny Cove processor and four new generation Atom with a consumption of only 2 mW in sleep mode, something that leaves it at the height of the ARM.
GPU Gen11 and Xe
In this same presentation, the new Gen11 Integrated GPU for the Sunny Cove Xeon and Core processors has been announced (for now, nothing about the Atom) which theoretically means a 50% improvement in power, in a demo in this event it was possible to see the game Tekken 7 moving without problems. This new GPU goes from 24 to 64 EU and reaches a 1TFLOP level of operations per second and we also have improvements in video decoding with a VPU that has support up to 8K, optimizations in HVEC codec and more HDR support. We also have Intel Adaptive Sync support to adjust frames per second in games and avoid tearing, a move to compete against Ryzen and integrated Vega GPUs.
In this same event has been presented the future Xe technology for the discrete graphics cards from Intel, the chief engineer Raja Koduri father of this new family of products has commented his expectations for this range of GPU that will hit the market in 2020 and we hope to bring improvements also to the family of integrated GPUs.
