From chip wars to dual-screen laptops, Computex 2019 previews what’s to come in the consumer electronics world, writes Nur Zarina Othman
THE recent Computex 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan is testament to the continued growth in the computer industry.
This year, the mega consumer technology exhibition saw two of the world’s chip giants, Intel and AMD, announce their new processors that are set to change the capabilities of computers in the coming months.
Intel showed off its 10-nanometer 10th generation laptop chips, while AMD introduced its third generation Ryzen CPUs and Navi GPUs.
What these two chip makers unveiled gave the tech community a glimpse of what’s to come next in the computing industry.
At the event, Intel made a sweeping set of product and technology announcements, spanning the hottest segments of the PC industry.
From 10th Gen Intel Core processors and new details on Intel’s innovation programme, codenamed “Project Athena”, they will take mobile computing to an entirely new level. With an all-core turbo of 5GHz, the chip maker again raised the bar for PC experiences.
“No one wants to compromise. People want it all: battery life, performance, responsiveness, connectivity and slick form factors. Our job is to come together as an industry and deliver incredible and differentiated PCs, purpose-built to what people want. The 10th Gen Intel Core processors — our most integrated CPU — and Project Athena are great examples of how our deep investments at a platform level will help fuel innovation across the industry,” said Gregory Bryant, senior vice-president and general manager of the Client Computing Group, during his keynote at the event.
The announcement brought high performance artificial intelligence to the PC at scale with Intel Deep Learning Boost.
The processors are built on the company’s 10 nanometer process technology, “Sunny Cove” core architecture and Gen11 graphics engine.
The 10th Gen Intel Core processors will range from Intel Core i3 to Intel Core i7, with up to four cores and eight threads, up to 4.1 max turbo frequency, and up to 1.1GHz graphics frequency.
The chip is designed to enable high performance AI on the laptop, delivering. 2.5 times AI performance with Intel DL Boost for low latency workloads.
The new graphics architecture, meanwhile, delivers up to one teraflop of vector compute for heavy duty inference workloads to enhance creativity, productivity and entertainment on highly mobile, thin-and-light laptops.
For low-power AI usages on the PC, Intel Gaussian Network Accelerator is built into the SoC.
A LEAP IN GRAPHICS CAPABILITIES
The New Intel Iris Plus graphics, based on the Gen11 graphics architecture, nearly doubles performance for stunning visual experiences.
It allows users to reach pro-level content creation capabilities on the go with twice the HEVC encode; watch 4K HDR in a billion colours; game with up to twice faster FPS and play thousands of popular titles in 1,080p.
The chip also brings best-in-class connectivity, delivering both integrated Thunderbolt 3 and integrated Intel WiFi 6 (Gig+) for the first time to enable nearly three times faster wireless speeds alongside the fastest and most versatile port available.
Intel’s Gig+ implementation of WiFi 6 connectivity delivers greater than 1Gbps wireless speeds with enhanced reliability and performance.
Besides that, Intel’s highly integrated 10th Gen Intel Core processors give Original Equipment Manufacturer partners the freedom to innovate on design and aesthetic by reducing the silicon footprint while still delivering the latest and greatest standards and world-class performance.
The processors are now shipping.
PROJECT ATHENA
Besides the Ice Lake chip, Intel also shared details on its innovation programme codenamed “Project Athena,” including the 1.0 target specification that will usher in the first wave of laptops in the second half of this year.
It previewed some of the first designs to come from partners, spanning consumer and commercial including Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo.
Based on years of research to understand people’s needs, challenges and expectations of the laptop, the programme prioritises enabling experiences reflective of real-world conditions as measured by “key experience indicators” (KEI).
Intel developed the new KEI engineering metrics, used during the programme’s verification process, as a way to test and drive consistent experiences on the laptop. Metrics are based on day-in-the life research of laptop users at home or at work under real-world conditions.
Intel’s goal for the new metrics is to work with the ecosystem to drive innovation that noticeably impacts people’s experiences on the laptop and evolve those capabilities year over year.
The first wave of KEI targets include consistent responsiveness on battery, 16 or more hours of battery life in local video playback mode and nine or more hours of battery life under real-world performance conditions.
Besides that, the system wakes up from sleep in less than one second.
The new chips will finally help Intel catch up with AMD, which has gone all out with a more sophisticated 7nm production process for its new GPUs and CPUs.
For now, Intel’s new processors are targeted at ultra portable notebooks like Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1.
Dell also announced a couple of its newly released computers and laptops in the Precision and XPS line powered by the new Intel 10nm chip, promising not only better graphic processing with built in and faster WiFi connection.
Intel plans to start shipping 10nm chips this month, and it also expects to have a 7nm discrete GPU ready for 2021. It’s in a better position to implement its Foveros technology, a 3D chip design that’s able to stack things like CPU and graphics chiplets together.
After being forced to stick with its 14nm process for the past five years, Intel finally has a game plan for the road ahead.
The company still needs to prove it’s taking security more seriously, though, as vulnerabilities for its Core lineup are still popping up.
AMD’S STRATEGY
AMD made technology history with the announcement of high-performance 7nm-based computing and graphics products that are expected to deliver new levels of performance, features and experiences for PC gamers, enthusiasts and content creators.
During the first Computex opening keynote, AMDs president and CEO Dr Lisa Su announced that the new Zen 2 core widely outperforms the historical generational performance improvement industry trend, up to 15 per cent estimated instructions per clock (IPC)2 uplift over the predecessor Zen architecture.
The Zen 2 CPU core powering the next-generation AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors add significant design improvements including larger cache sizes and a redesigned floating point engine.
The third Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor family, including the new 12-core Ryzen 9 processor, offers leadership performance.
The AMD X570 chipset for socket AM4, the world’s first PCIe 4.0 supported chipset with more than 50 new motherboards at launch.
Su was joined by fellow technology leaders Microsoft Corporate vice president of OS Platforms Roanne Sones, Asus chief operating officer Joe Hsieh, Acer co-chief operating officer Jerry Kao and a host of other significant industry players to showcase the breadth and depth of the AMD high-performance computing and graphics ecosystem.
“This year is off to an incredible start for AMD as we celebrate 50 years of innovation by delivering leadership products to push the limits of what is possible with computing and graphics technology,” said Su.
“We made significant strategic investments in next-generation cores, a breakthrough chiplet design approach, and advanced process technologies to deliver leadership 7nm products to our high-performance computing ecosystem.
“We are extremely excited to kickoff Computex 2019 together with our industry partners as we prepare to bring our next generation of Ryzen desktop and EPYC server processors and Radeon RX gaming graphics cards to market.”
NVIDIA
Graphic card maker NVIDIA, meanwhile, announced the Quadro RTX graphics cards for mobile workstation and that three new FreeSync monitors are now G-Sync certified.
NVIDIA’s Computex 2019 presence is focused on creatives.
The company revealed its Nvidia Studio platform, bringing pro-level Quadro graphics to thin and light mobile workstations.
NVIDFIA claims that an RTX 2080-equipped laptop for creatives will be up to seven times faster than a MacBook Pro in the same workload.
It also featured a new G-Sync monitors, including some mini LED-equipped displays that offer up to 1,000 nits of brightness and refresh rates up to 144Hz for 4K panels.
DUAL SCREEN LAPTOP
Asus, a Taiwanese computer brand, celebrated its 30th anniversary, where it unveiled a series of limited edition devices created to commemorate the milestone and introduced the groundbreaking Prime Utopia concept motherboard, ZenBook Pro Duo and ZenBook Duo laptops, and ZenScreen Touch portable monitor.
The ASUS 30th anniversary special edition lineup features new versions of the ZenFone 6 Edition 30 smartphone, ZenBook Edition 30 laptop and Prime X299 Edition 30 motherboard, all with a special stylised “A” monogramme signifying ASUS values and history created by ASUS Design Center to celebrate the anniversary as well as unique designs that embody the ASUS focus on refined aesthetics, outstanding performance and delivering exceptional user experiences.
Asus is also improving the experience for mobile creatives and professionals with the new ZenBook Pro Duo and ZenBook Duo ultraportable laptops featuring ScreenPad Plus, the next generation of the world’s first intelligent touchpad.
ScreenPad Plus offers a larger and full-width display, a more intuitive design, seamless viewing experience and improved multi-screen workflow to empower the ultimate creativity.
ZenBook Pro Duo features a 15.6-inch 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) OLED HDR display with a 14-inch 4K(3840 x 1100) ScreenPad Plus and is powered by a high-performance, eight core 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ray-tracing graphics.
It also features the fastest port available on a PC with up to 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3, plus NumberPad 2.0, Amazon Alexa voice control and a dedicated turbo-cooling button.
The ZenBook Duo, meanwhile, features a 14-inch FHD display with a 12.6-inch FHD ScreenPad Plus, the performance of a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, and NVIDIA GeForce MX250 discrete graphics.
Both models feature Intel WiFi 6 (802.11ax) with Gig+ to deliver networking speeds of up to 2.4 Gbps for rapid internet connectivity.
Besides Asus, HP also announced a dual-screen gaming laptop on Computex ground. The HP Omen X 2S comes with an additional screen above the keyboard.
The secondary six-inch 1080p display is designed to be used with a real-time screen mirroring feature allowing zooming while gaming or to simply multi-task like web-call while getting work done at the same time.
The main display on HP’s new Omen X 2S laptop is a 15-inch 1080p panel, with a 144Hz refresh rate or the option to upgrade to a 240Hz model or even a 4K HDR version.
HP is including Intel’s 9th Gen Intel Core i9 8-core processor, alongside up to 32GB of RAM and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU with a specially developed cooling system — involving a liquid metal compound that’s applied to the CPU and should help with heat dissipation and performance.
HP claims up to 28 per cent performance increase because of this new thermal solution.
WOW FACTOR
Intel showcased not one but two portable computer concepts during Computex, a two-screen gaming laptop called the Honeycomb Glacier.
The laptop features a 15.6-inch 1080p primary panel and a 12.3-inch 1920 x 720 secondary screen and its target market is the gamers and Twin River, a dual-display laptop with fabric case.
The computer technology announcements made at this year’s Computex show the future of laptops is getting more exciting again.