The Hot Take: Was almost like they were purposefully crippling their processors under past management.
Intel Nova Lake CPUs will mark the return of AVX-512, a feature that has long been abandoned by the company for its client CPUs. AVX-512 Is Coming Back To Intel's Consumer CPUs, Starting With Nova Lake Intel has had a love-hate relationship with AVX-512 on its consumer CPUs. The AVX-512 instruction set was last seen on Intel's Tiger Lake (11th Gen) family, and since then, the company has offered no support for it on its modern-day chips. Meanwhile, AMD has been offering AVX-512 support on its Zen 4 and Zen 5 chips, both client and server…
The Hot Take: I really wonder if this will deflate the Ai bubble even a little bit.
The x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group led by Intel and AMD recently firmed up the AI Compute Extensions (ACE) specification for optimizing x86 for AI computation tasks around matrix multiplication and the like for machine learning workloads. The cross-vendor ACE extension is ultimately a successor to Intel's Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX). Posted to the GCC mailing list today by Intel engineers are the initial patches in preparing the compiler support for ACE...
The Hot Take: Oh so the Ultra series aren't just crap then? /smh
It's curious to call this one a leak, exactly, since the original source is direct from AMD and live on the web, but here we go: AMD's Vishal Badole submitted a patch for the Linux Kernel that he describes as adding support for "a Low Power core type, in addition to the existing Performance and Efficiency types." That's pretty clear-cut.
Now,
The Hot Take: I just hear Tim Allen in my head from tool time.
Intel is expected to push the boundaries on power draw with its upcoming Nova Lake series processors, which will rival the best CPUs. According to newly leaked information, the flagship 52-core desktop variant is expected to feature a dual-compute tile architecture with a massive PL2 limit of 474W. The information was shared by LC Tech Leaks and confirmed by Jaykihn, who has a pretty solid track record with Intel hardware.PL2, or Power Limit 2, represents the maximum power a CPU can draw during short boost periods. That said, a PL2 target of…
Qualcomm has introduced its first-ever CPU designed for Data Centers, the Dragonfly C1000, which leverages the Oryon architecture. Qualcomm Enters The Agentic AI CPU Race With Dragonfly C1000 Chip, Oryon-Based With Over 5 GHz Clocks, Over 250 Cores, & Aims To Achieve Single-Core Leadership One of the biggest announcements by Qualcomm today was its first release of a CPU for the data center segment, called the Dragonfly C1000. This is a chip purpose-built for Agentic AI & General-Purpose workloads, delivering best-in-class power…
The Hot Take: Why did it disappear in the first place?
AMD has confirmed that it will restore Transparent Secure Memory Encryption (TSME) support on consumer Ryzen processors after previously removing the feature through AGESA firmware updates.
The Hot Take: It seems Nvidia is hedging two architectures against each other. x86 vs ARM. They've been working with MediaTek to create the Spark SoC.
According to an exclusive report by VideoCardz, Intel's first x86 system-on-chip (SoC) integrating an Nvidia RTX GPU has been added to its internal product roadmap and is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2028, potentially making its public debut at CES 2028.
The Hot Take: AMD getting ready for Intel refocus on HPDT?
With Threadripper, it has always been a bit like heavy-haul transport on the motorway: massively overdimensioned for normal users, but for certain workloads exactly the kind of tool where every additional lane matters. Now AMD’s next workstation generation has become tangible for the first time. An entry for “TR6 Mustang Peak” has appeared in AMD’s […]
The Hot Take: Making the CPU important again on the x86 platform.
ACE, the upcoming set of x86 Extensions defined by both AMD & Intel, has seen the latest spec release, focusing on AI acceleration. AMD & Intel Focus on AI Acceleration Through Next-Gen x86 Architectures That Are ACE Compliant Last year, Intel and AMD partnered to strengthen the x86 ecosystem through their "x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group" initiative. The plan was to offer a standardized set of features across architectures to make x86 accessible, scalable, and compatible with future requirements. Four key features were announced: FRED,…
By ckasprzak | TkOut | June 17, 2026 | CPU, Hardware
The Hot Take: Well now....
AMD appears to have yanked a memory encryption protection from consumer Ryzen chips, leaving users to play firmware detective.
For those who came in late: a decade ago, AMD added Transparent Secure Memory Encryption (TSME) to higher-end CPUs to protect systems from cold-boot attacks and other physical exploits that can siphon data from memory. The feature encrypts everything stored in RAM, making stolen memory contents useless to attackers with physical access.
Over time, TSME turned up on cheaper Ryzen consumer chips, and privacy-minded…