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July 24, 2021July 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Loongson’s first LoongArch processors – 3A5000 for computers, 3C5000L for servers

Loongson has officially launched the first processors based on LoongArch CPU instruction set architecture designed for made-in-China SoCs without the need to license technology made outside of China. Loongsoon LS3C5000L (3C5000L) 16-core server processor clocked at up to 2.5 GHz is now official and is apparently comprised of four LS3A5000 (3A5000) LoongArch processors designed for desktop computers and laptops. Loongson 3A5000 CnTechPost reports Loongson 3A5000 quad-core 64-bit GS464V processor runs at 2.3GHz-2.5GHz. GS464V microarchitecture comes with four fixed-point units, two 256-bit vector operations units, and two access memory units. The processor also includes two 64-bit DDR4-3200 controllers with ECC checksum support, as well as four HyperTransport 3.0 controllers with multi-processor data consistency support. Performance-wise, Loongson 3A5000 is said to achieve 26+ points in the single-core and floating-point SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks, and over 80 in the multi-core version of the benchmarks. That’s about 50 percent higher performance than the previous pin-compatible […]

July 10, 2021July 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Intel Alder Lake hybrid mobile processor family to range from 5W to 55W TDP (leak)

Intel Alder Lake Mobile Hybrid Processors

Intel’s first foray into hybrid processors using Foveros 3D stacking technology did not end well with the company just announcing the end of the life for Lakefield hybrid processors. But the company is not giving up on hybrid technology, and a recent leak shows the Intel Alder Lake family comprised of more powerful mobile hybrid processors will be offered for a wide range of applications from tablets with 5-7W M5 processors and up to “muscle laptops” or mobile workstations (MWS) with H55 processor at 45-55W TDP. Alder Lake hybrid processors will be comprised of high-performance CPU “Golden Cove” cores and energy-efficient Atom-based “Gracemont” CPU cores, in a way that’s similar to Arm’s Cortex-A7x big cores and Cortex-A5x LITTLE cores with big.LITTLE or DynamIQ processing with the goal of optimizing power consumption. The Intel Alder Lake Mobile SKU stack includes processors for 6 market segments including three “new” segments/TDP ranges according […]

June 28, 2021July 2, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 5.13 Release – Notable changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.13: So we had quite the calm week since rc7, and I see no reason to delay 5.13. The shortlog for the week is tiny, with just 88 non-merge commits (and a few of those are just reverts). It’s a fairly random mix of fixes, and being so small I’d just suggest people scan the appended shortlog for what happened. Of course, if the last week was small and calm, 5.13 overall is actually fairly large. In fact, it’s one of the bigger 5.x releases, with over 16k commits (over 17k if you count merges), from over 2k developers. But it’s a “big all over” kind of thing, not something particular that stands out as particularly unusual. Some of the extra size might just be because 5.12 had that extra rc week. And with 5.13 out the door, that obviously means […]

June 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Topton L4 mini laptop comes with a 7-inch 1024 x 600 display

I remember many years ago, I had an Acer Aspire One D255E netbook with a 10.1-inch display with 1024 x 600 resolution. I liked its portability, but the performance was rather poor and I got headaches with the 600-pixel vertical resolution, and some badly designed programs, such as USB firmware flashing tools, would not show fully on the display and be unusable. Well almost ten years later, I’m happy to report you too can experience the same pain, with Topton L4 mini laptop equipped with a 7-inch touchscreen display offering a 1024 x 600 resolution. On the plus side, it comes with an Intel Celeron J3455 processor, 8GB RAM, and up to 1TB SSD storage, as well as a webcam and Lenovo TrackPoint-like pointing stick both of which are pretty rare on 7-inch laptops. Topton L4 mini laptop specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.50 […]

May 31, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Intel Core i7-1195G7 Tiger Lake mobile processor reaches up to 5 GHz

Intel QuickSync & Intel Gaussian-and Neural Accelerator 2.0

Intel introduced the Tiger Lake family of processors last September with the 7-15W UP4-Series SoCs, and the more powerful 12-28W UP3-Series processors. The company has announced two new Tiger Lake processors at Computex 2021 with the Core i5-1155G7 and Core i7-1195G7 U-Series with the latter reaching up to 5.0 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost on a single core to compete and in some cases outperform AMD Ryzen 5000-series mobile processors. While reaching 5GHz on a 28W processor is a nice milestone, nothing much has changed as we can see from the table above, except for tweaks in the CPU and GPU frequency. The base frequency has actually been slightly lowered in the new part, but the Turbo frequencies for single-core and all cores have been increased. Intel did share some performance slides comparing a Core i7-1195G7 system to one with AMD Ryzen 7 5800U. The first slide shows casual gaming […]

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC for laptops and Chromebooks

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC for entry-level laptops and Chromebooks follows the steps of the Snapdragon 7c processor with a slightly higher frequency for the Kryo 468 cores, leading to a 6% performance improvements. As we’ll see below, most of the specifications are exactly the same, except the built-in Snapdragon X15 LTE modem is now listed as supporting LTE Cat 14 up to 600 Mbps, instead of LTE Cat 15 up to 800 Mbps, and UFS downgraded to UFS 2.1 from UFS 3.0. Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 specifications: CPU – Octa-core Kryo 468 (Cortex-A76) processor up to 2.55 GHz GPU – Unnamed Qualcomm Adreno GPU (Note: Snapdragon 7c had Qualcomm Adreno 618 GPU) DSP – Qualcomm Hexagon 692 DSP Memory – 2x 16-bit LPDDR4x-4266 Storage – eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.1 Display On-device display up to QXGA (2048 x 1536) @ 60 Hz External display up to QHD (2560×1440) @ […]

May 14, 2021May 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Framework Laptop upgradable, repairable & modular laptop pre-orders opened for $799 and up

Most laptops are not made to be serviced by the end-users or expanded. In the part of the world where I live, I still have a “warranty void” sticker if I open my laptop to add an M.2 SSD. There are very few laptops with full documentation and whose companies encourage users to update and modify the hardware. Olimex TERES-I and MNT Reform 2 open-source hardware laptops do offer modularity, customization, and repairability, but they are based on low-power Arm processors and cater to a rather niche market. However, a new company called Framework is preparing to launch a modular laptop that is easily upgradeable and repairable with a more powerful set of features. The Framework laptop is offered with a choice of 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake Core processor, up to 64GB RAM, up to 4TB SSD storage, a 13.5-inch display, a Full HD webcam, a 55Wh battery, and […]

May 13, 2021May 13, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

$300 NANOTE P8 is a 7-inch mini laptop with an Apollo Lake processor

NANOTE P8 is an affordable mini laptop powered by an Intel Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake processor coupled with 8GB RAM, 64GB storage, and equipped with a 7-inch Full HD display. While there are now plenty of mini laptops from companies like GPD or One Netbook they tend to be relatively pricey as they offer hardware with specifications suitable for gaming. Nanote mini laptop launched last year offered a low-cost option for $185, but with an Atom x5 Cherry Trail processor performance was really on the low-side, and the new Nanote P8 offers a mid-range option so-to-speak. NANOTE P8 (UMPC-02-SR) specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.1 / 2.5 GHz (Turbo) with 2MB cache, Intel HD 505 graphics; 6W TDP System Memory – 8GB RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 7-inch touchscreen display with 1920×1200 resolution, 360-degree hinge Video Output – […]