Nvidia Volta release date, news, and features

When it comes to PC graphics cards, Nvidia's varied selection of powerful GPUs is unmatched. From the wickedly powerful, 4K graphics-pumping GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to the entry-level GTX 1050 – and everything in between – Nvidia remains the gold standard.

However, gamers are constantly demanding new levels of graphical fidelity and tech companies and researchers both require greater GPU computation and AI abilities, so that standard continues to grow and grow. And that’s why Nvidia is slaving away developing its new generation of GPU architecture: Nvidia Volta.

Nvidia did release two Volta cards in 2017, but they were aimed at scientists and professional artists. However, these cards are insanely expensive, as they’re not really meant for gaming - don’t expect to see them in even the best gaming PCs. Still, we’re chomping at the bit to see what the next GeForce GTX cards will look like, considering the massive performance leap we’re expecting to get.

We thought we’d get some information at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, but that proved to focus almost entirely on AI and autonomous car tech. We’ll have to wait a little while longer for a GeForce announcement.

Either way, you shouldn’t expect to see Volta-powered GTX cards any time soon, as Nvidia might be biding its time due to pricing and VRAM shortages. That is, if Turing isn’t the architecture behind the GeForce GTX 11 series.

Eager for an upgrade? Here's everything that we've heard so far.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Nvidia's next-gen, 12nm GPU line
• When is it out? The Tesla V100 and Titan V are out now, but GeForce cards are TBD
• What will it cost? TBD

Nvidia Volta release date

As mentioned, Nvidia's Volta architecture is already on the market, albeit not in any form that you're likely to slide into your gaming PC. The Tesla V100 was first out the gate in May 2017, as a  professional-level GPU built to empower artificial intelligence applications and help run data centers. It's not a consumer-level device by any stretch of the imagination.

On the other hand, the Nvidia Titan V – released in December 2017 – is considered a consumer device, but you might scoff at the $2,999 (about £2149, AU$3800) price point. The Titan V is targeted towards researchers and other high-performance computing needs rather than making PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds look pretty.

But if you are looking for a new graphics card, will you be able to buy a fresh, top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 1180 soon? Honestly, we're not sure. The GTX 10-series line was announced back in May 2016 and began rolling out that month, so we're nearing the two-year mark since Nvidia's Pascal-powered cards first released. But they're still selling like crazy, especially with the current cryptocurrency craze leading to gouged prices and scarce availability.

Furthermore, Nvidia head Jensen Huang suggested last August that it's still too costly to produce consumer-level gaming graphics cards at reasonable prices. Given that we didn't see any GeForce announcements at CES 2018 in January, and since the Titan V just recently rolled out at that eye-popping price, it seems entirely possible that Nvidia isn't going to rush out Volta-powered gaming GPUs anytime soon.

We expect to see them in 2018, but our original expectation of a spring debut doesn't seem terribly firm, and there aren't enough solid rumors or leaks to point to at this time.  

Nvidia Volta price

Without a roadmap for releases, we can't say for sure what to expect from pricing for Volta-powered GeForce GTX graphics cards. The Titan V's pumped-up pricing shouldn't scare you, as the card was never intended for gamers. On the other hand, if Volta-powered GPUs were still too pricey to produce for graphics cards a few months ago, how long will it take until they hit a point where Nvidia deems them worth selling?

Until then, we can look back at the base price points for the current 10-series line, although you might find much higher prices due to the cryptocurrency boom.

•  Nvidia Titan Xp - $1,200 (£1,099, AU$1,950)
•  Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - $699 (£679, AU$1099)
•  Nvidia TX 1070 Ti - $449 (£419, AU$759)
•  Nvdia GTX 1080 - $599 (£600, AU$925)
•  Nvidia GTX 1070 - $379 (£379, AU$699)
•  Nvidia GTX 1060 - $199 (£279, AU$429) 

We'll have to wait and see whether Nvidia releases a similar range of Volta-based cards, as well as whether they'll see any significant price increase from the 10-series starting points. 

Given that the prices of Nvidia Pascal graphics cards came at a slightly higher premium – coinciding with the increased performance – over the Maxwell cards they replaced, we can imagine that these 11-series parts could be more expensive.

Nvidia Volta specs

Volta introduces a new 12-nanometer manufacturing process, which marks a significant step up from the 16nm process seen with the Pascal GPUs. 

What exactly does that mean? 

Well, it means that Nvidia's manufacturing partner TSMC can jam a whole lot more transistors into a comparable amount of space, thus yielding a massive surge in computing ability. You'll get better performance, not to mention significant power savings.

The Titan V packs in 21.1 billion transistors, which collectively provide a stunning 110 teraflops of computing power. New tensor cores are designed to speed up deep learning ability, with nine times more peak computing teraflops over the previous Titan Xp card. And it's twice as energy-efficient too.

Additionally, the Titan V has six graphics processing clusters with 5,120 CUDA cores (up from 3,840 in the Titan Xp) and 320 texture units, and a base clock of 1200MHz that can boost up to 1455MHz. With 12GB HBM2 memory onboard, the Titan V boasts a memory bandwidth of 652.8GB/sec. 

The last bit on the specs side is surprising from Nvidia, whom just the last year championed the enhanced speed of GDDR5X memory on its high-end GPUs. 

The Nvidia Titan V is the first mainline card to feature high-bandwidth memory outside of the company’s Quadro and Tesla parts. Whether this means HBM2 will be a mainstay of Volta remains to be seen.

All told, it's a potentially enormous upgrade over the last generation of Nvidia cards.

But let's step back for a moment, because all we can do right now is compare a $2,999 graphics card to the $1,200 card that came before it—and neither of those figures gives us a whole lot of insight into what we'll actually see from the cheaper GeForce cards that ultimately come our way. We'll likely get scaled-down versions of the Nvidia Titan V at lower prices, so they may not hit the same kinds of peaks as their progenitor is capable of.

Even so, however, the promise of dramatically increased performance on the top end suggests that we'll see similar kinds of improvements at the more approachable price points. And if so, then the GTX 11-series really should provide dramatic boosts in graphical output. On the high end, we should get 4K gaming nearer to the sweet spot of 60 frames per second, while cheaper versions should be more capable of smooth VR performance and strongly support resolutions in excess of 1080p.

Until Nvidia releases a roadmap for its GeForce GTX offerings and hints at what form those cards will take, we're still spit-balling for now. 

But based on these initial pro-level renditions, Volta seems capable of so much more than the previous Pascal-powered GPUs – and even if those are plenty powerful today, Volta appears poised to elevate PC gaming to previously unseen levels. We'll keep you updated as further details or leaks emerge.

from TechRadar - All the latest technology news http://www.techradar.com/news/nvidia-volta

Kaby Lake Intel Core processor: 7th- and 8th-gen CPU news, features and release date

Leading up to the release of Coffee Lake back in October 2017, Kaby Lake was the wildly successful follow-up to Intel’s Skylake CPUs. Kaby Lake was especially noteworthy because it was behind many of the best laptops and desktop PCs of 2017, like the 2017 Dell XPS 13 and the MacBook Pro. Kaby Lake, for all intents and purposes, took the world by storm.

Unfortunately, Kaby Lake has been an extremely confusing generation, even to people like us that spend all day reading and writing about the best processors. This is mainly because Intel abandoned its longstanding ‘tick-tock generational model where it would alternate between optimizing the architecture and shrinking their manufacturing process each year. Conversely, Intel has released the 7th and 8th generation Kaby Lake CPUs as the third and fourth generations using Intel’s 14nm process, respectively.

Intel followed its 7th-generation Kaby Lake processors by releasing its 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh processors for use in laptops. Intel has also recently brought hyperthreading power to its Core i3 processors for laptops.

We’ve seen leaks for an upcoming 8th generation H-series CPU as well, but it isn’t clear whether it’s another Kaby Lake R processor, or the first Coffee Lake CPU for laptops.

Kaby Lake was also subject to the devastating Spectre and Meltdown exploits, but Intel says a fix is on the way.

If all of this sounds confusing, don’t worry, we’ve taken the time to write up everything you need to know about Intel Kaby Lake – from price to availability to the range of processors available. 

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Intel's 7th- and 8th-generation Core processors
• When is it out? Now for both desktops and laptops
• What will it cost? Ranges from $42 (£39, AU$66) to $350 (£415, AU$469)

Intel Kaby Lake release date

After Kaby Lake released back in 2016, we saw PC makers as reputable as HP, Dell and Lenovo launch their own Kaby Lake-packed laptops and PCs. Even though it used to be considered the standard for Intel processors in early 2017, Kaby Lake has since been succeeded by Kaby Lake Refresh and Coffee Lake.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, isn’t Coffee Lake the name of Intel’s 8th-generation architecture?”, you would be right, although the Santa Clara chipmaker has come out and said that it plans on releasing three different CPU architectures under the 8th-gen umbrella, namely Kaby Lake Refresh, Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake. 

If you’re confused, you’re not alone. Intel apparently had to “reimagine what ‘generation’ means”, according to Tom’s Hardware. Regardless, what you need to know here is that Kaby Lake Refresh is coming to laptops and Ultrabooks near you, while Coffee Lake is focused on desktops.

Cannon Lake, on the other hand, will be here later, most likely in the latter half of 2018.

Kaby Lake revealed CPUs

Outside of mobile, there are well over 20 Kaby Lake chips now on the market. From the Celeron G3930 to the Core i7-7700K, practically all the choices you had last generation are still present, albeit with better power efficiency and even a slight spec boost.

The Core i7-7700K is the flagship processor this time around, unlocked for overclocking as indicated by the discrete "K" moniker. Like the generations before it, the Kaby Lake architecture opts for a numerical naming convention: it consists of the “7” series CPUs to Skylake’s generation 6, Broadwell’s gen 5 and so on.

However, Intel is trying something with Kaby Lake that’s practically unprecedented. By refreshing its 7th-generation processors with more cores, better clock speeds and improved graphics, the company has been able to create an entirely new generation out of its Kaby Lake processors as well, hence the Core i7-8550U being used in the new HP ProBooks.

As far as Intel’s 7th-gen mobile processors are concerned, the most powerful lie in the “H” series, consisting mainly of the Intel Core i7-7700HQ and the Intel Core i7-7820HK. The former can be found in the 15-inch MacBook Pro while the latter is featured predominately in high-end gaming notebooks like the Alienware 17 R4. 

At Intel’s low- to medium-power range, there’s the Core i7-7500U, which initially leaked alongside the i7-7700K, but has since been found in the HP Spectre x360 as well as the Razer Blade Stealth. Intended for Ultrabooks on the top-end, this is a relatively high performance chipset, but still belongs to the "U" ultra-low voltage family.

Meanwhile, Intel’s 8th-generation Kaby Lake processors marked the debut of quad-core processors for Ultrabooks. These include the top-end Intel Core i7-8550U, which operates at a base clock speed of 1.8GHz and a boost speed of 3.7GHz. As for the graphics, you can expect integrated UHD Graphics 620 from Intel.

Further on the mobile front, the higher-end Core m5 and m7 mobile chips of the past are now being interspersed into the Y-series Intel Core family. These include the Core m3-7Y30, the Core i5-7Y54 and the Core i7-7Y75, which are being used in top-end laptops with fanless and convertible designs to complement the more power-hungry U-series processors.

Many of Intel’s 7th- and 8th-generation selections also support Optane, a memory technology that brings hard drive speeds up to par with that of SSDs.

Intel Kaby Lake first laptops

Where have these chipsets ended up? Well, they’re currently featured in a long list of notebooks, several of which we’ve already reviewed. The aforementioned Razer Blade Stealth and HP Spectre x360 are joined by the likes of the Lenovo Yoga 720 among many other Ultrabooks, 2-in-1s and full-on laptops.

The MacBook Pro, too, has been given the Kaby Lake treatment, though our review of that model is pending. Because the “H” series Kaby Lake processors typically used in the 15-inch MacBook Pros weren’t available at the time of its release, Apple’s late 2016 laptops were still clinging to Skylake up until being hastily refreshed at WWDC 2017. 

Other laptops equipped with Kaby Lake processors include the new 2-in-1 Dell Latitude 7285 featuring WiTricity magnetic wireless charging and the acclaimed Samsung Notebook 9 Pro convertible laptop. Plus, there are even more Kaby Lake-based laptops expected just around the corner, like the Surface Book 2.

Intel Kaby Lake architecture

Cannonlake is likely to prove a much more exciting update than Kaby Lake and even Coffee Lake thereafter. You see, Kaby Lake is very similar to the Skylake family we're already using. This is not what we originally expected of the Skylake successor, but Intel has changed how its processor development works.

Since 2007, Intel has worked in a 'tick, tock' rhythm of upgrades, where one generation shrinks the die, followed by a generation that alters the architecture. That changed this year. As of 2016, Intel now uses a "Process, Architecture, Optimization" approach, and Kaby Lake represents that last, frankly least interesting stage.

It's still a 14nm processor that’s fairly similar to Skylake throughout, and the desktop variants will use the same LGA 1151 socket. Unless something goes terribly wrong, Cannonlake will shrink Intel CPUs down to the long-promised 10nm die in 2018.

While there are some performance improvements in store, it seems unnecessary for those with a Skylake CPU to upgrade to a Kaby Lake processor of the same level. That said, there are more options this time around, with higher end Kaby Lake-X CPUs making an impression.

Intel Kaby Lake upgrades

Despite not being the most thrilling generation of processors, there are some distinct improvements that inhabit Intel’s Kaby Lake CPUs. The first is fully integrated support for USB-C Gen 2. Skylake machines can offer this already, but need an extra third-party piece of hardware. Now, its “native”. Again, not exciting, but it is necessary.

Gen 2 USB 3.1 enables bandwidth of 10Gbps, rather than 5Gbps. Thunderbolt 3 support is in, too. In a similar vein, HDCP 2.2 support is native in Kaby Lake. This digital copy protection is a newer version designed for certain 4K video standards. Ultra HD Blu-ray is the key one, though 4K Netflix on Windows 10 also requires a Kaby Lake processor.

That’s right, Kaby Lake also offers integrated GPUs better-suited to 4K video. Thanks to a new media engine built on a Gen9 graphics architecture, users can edit real-time 4K video using nothing more than integrated graphics. For video consumption, the new VP9 and HVEC 10-bit decode will enable all-day 4K video streaming on a single charge.

And then to build on top of that dedication to better integrated GPUs, Intel has announced Kaby Lake G series CPUs that will feature integrated AMD Vega graphics to further push into a high-definition future.

Better yet, Intel’s 8th-gen processors bring integrated UHD Graphics, designed to enhance the playback of 4K video. As a result, an Ultrabook using 8th-gen chips can display across three 4K monitors at once or even power a Windows Mixed Reality headset. It should also be noted that 8th-generation Kaby Lake processors are said to be 40% faster than their 7th-gen counterparts.

Kaby Lake only officially supports Windows 10 among Microsoft’s operating systems. This is yet another attempt by Microsoft to push those lingering on Windows 7, or anything a little older, into the present.

Apollo Lake: Kaby Lake's poor cousin

It's also worth considering the low-end Atom chipsets you'll see used in very cheap laptops, Windows 10 tablets and low-power mini PCs Intel calls NUCs (Next Unit of Computing). Although they’re not part of Kaby Lake, the latest “Apollo Lake” chips started to appear in late November, with Asus and HP being among the first to implement them.

These, too, are capable of 4K video playback acceleration by way of the HEVC and VP9 codecs. This is due in part to the move from Gen 8 to the Gen 9 graphics found in Skylake processors. 

Kaby Lake-X: a higher-end future

If you're only interested in mainstream Kaby Lake models, the future isn't looking too complicated. They're trickling out, before being replaced by Cannonlake CPUs in late 2018. However, the outlook for seriously high-end hardware is more convoluted.

As of a couple of months ago, the newest high-end CPUs were part of the Broadwell-E series, even though among mainstream processors Broadwell is already old news. But in June, Intel released its more powerful Skylake and Kaby Lake “X” series processors, the latter of which comes in two flavors:

• 4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i5-7640X (up to 4.2GHz with Turbo Boost)
• 4.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-7740X (up to 4.5GHz with Turbo Boost)

Both of these bear TDP ratings of 112 Watts in addition to supporting quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory. They’re still built on the same 14nm manufacturing node as less “X-treme” Kaby Lake chips, but they’re very obviously geared towards gamers seeking a “great VR experience,” as all of Intel’s marketing materials would suggest.

What mere mortal laptop and desktop buyers need to take from Kaby Lake, though, is that a.) we'll see even more machines using the new chipsets very soon and b.) unless you don’t want to upgrade to a new motherboard, you might want to see if 2017’s Intel Coffee Lake will serve your needs better. 

Joe Osborne and Gabe Carey have also contributed to this article

from TechRadar - All the latest technology news http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/processors/kaby-lake-intel-core-processor-7th-gen-cpu-news-rumors-and-release-date-1325782

AMD Vega release date, news and features: everything you need to know

AMD gave us a sneak peek at its new Vega graphics card architecture way back at CES 2017. However, what we didn’t initially know is that it wouldn’t end up in consumers’ hands until August 2017.

And then, Vega had unparalleled success as a mining GPU, which we didn’t anticipate, and the effect the cryptocurrency market would have on the pricing and availability of AMD Vega cards was nothing short of dramatic. It’s still difficult to find a Vega GPU even 8 months after its launch.

AMD then surprised us yet again when it teamed up with Intel, its longstanding rival, to manufacture Kaby Lake R processors with integrated Vega graphics for laptops.

HP has also leaked some details about some upcoming laptops packed with Vega graphics.

Then, in February AMD released the Ryzen 3 2200G and the Ryzen 5 2400G that pack discrete-class Vega graphics that will be a huge benefit to anyone looking for a budget or home theater PC. 

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The follow-up to AMD’s Polaris GPU architecture
• When's it out? August 14, 2017
• What will it cost? $499 or £549 (about AU$630)

AMD Radeon RX Vega release date

AMD's affordable, consumer-oriented Radeon RX Vega 64 launched back in August 2017, with three versions including a standard edition model, an aluminum-clad limited edition version and a liquid-cooled design with higher clock speeds.

AMD’s lower-specced Radeon RX Vega 56, which is a direct competitor with the Nvidia GTX 1070, launched a little bit later in August. 

And, if you can’t justify ponying up the cash for a Vega card, AMD put out the Ryzen 3 2200G and the Ryzen 5 2400G APUs, with Vega graphics, on February 12, 2018.

AMD Radeon RX Vega price

Back in August 2017, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 launched as a standalone card for $499 or £549 (about AU$630).

That's a big step up from the Radeon RX 500 lineup, which starts at as low as $169 (about £136, AU$219), but this is meant to be AMD's enthusiast-class grade graphics card. It's been a long-awaited sequel to the company's mostly defunct Radeon R9 Fury X, which was still going for a cool $389 (about £315, AU$505) up until the very end 

What's more, at this price point it's competitive against the $549 (£539, AU$1,299) Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition.

After the launch of the Vega 64 in the US, AMD offered two other editions of the card that could be bought exclusively as part of ‘Radeon Packs’, which bundled two free games, and discounts on a Samsung CF791 curved ultra-wide FreeSync monitor and a nice $100 discount on a Ryzen 7 processor and motherboard. The packs are unfortunately unavailable to purchase at time of writing, however.

Unfortunately, those hardware discounts only kicked in if users are buying the said monitor and CPU/motherboard combo at the same time as their Vega GPU. Of course, users could choose to not buy the extra components and peripherals while still getting the two free games, confirmed – in the US at least – to be Wolfenstein II and Prey.

The limited-edition AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 came as part of a Radeon Black Pack for $599 (£460, AU$750). Meanwhile, the liquid-cooled Vega 64 ran for $699 (£530, AU$875), and can only be purchased as part of AMD's Radeon Aqua Pack.

Lastly, you'll be able to purchase the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 by itself for $400 (about £284, AU$500) MSRP.

At the end of the day, Vega was – at least at launch – as competitive to Nvidia as Ryzen is to Intel. However, due to the rising popularity of cryptocurrency, the price for both the Vega 56 and the Vega 64 spiraled out of control and both cards are experiencing shortages and extremely high prices. As the cryptocurrency market cools down, we could see the prices for these cards fall again. Only time will tell.

AMD Radeon RX Vega specs

Following its 2017 Capsaicin 2 livestream event, AMD revealed the exact specifications for its two new Vega GPUs, as well as its underlying Vega 10 architecture.

From the chart above, it's clear the most powerful of the bunch will be the liquid-cooled version of the Radeon RX Vega 64. The more expensive water-cooled version will operate at higher base/boost clocks, despite sharing identical specs to its air-cooled twin.

The RX Vega 56, on the other hand, is positioned against Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070 at $400 (about £305, AU$505). However, early benchmarks have cited performance that greatly outweighed that of its closest competition while running triple-A games at 2560 x 1440. 

Like the Polaris 10 architecture that preceded it, AMD's Polaris 10 architecture is built on an 14nm FinFET process that should ultimately make it more power-efficient and robust in performance.

Vega 10 is also noticeably skewed towards delivering on more compute power than raw graphical strength like Nvidia's Pascal GPUs. This will likely mean Vega will be able to better handle the complex calculations of procedural surfaces, volumetric lighting and the overall quality of the in-game graphics.

This era of Vega GPUs also ditches GDDR5 memory altogether for a new format known as HBM2, or high-bandwidth memory. AMD believes its efficient memory offers a 75% smaller footprint than GDDR5 while also being 3.5 times more power-efficient.

AMD also claims that Vega’s high-bandwidth cache controller will improve maximum frame rates by 50% and minimum frame rates by 100% over GDDR5 memory. 

Interestingly, Vega 10 is also designed to support up to 16GB of HBM2 memory  – which we've already seen from Radeon Vega Frontier Edition – so Nvidia's Titan X may finally get some competition from AMD.

Stay tuned for more details regarding everything AMD Vega, as we'll be updating this page with the latest as it happens. In the meantime, be sure to update to the latest version of AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive for a generous helping of GPU control features.

Gabe Carey also contributed to this article

• Will Vega be featured in the next best gaming laptops?

from TechRadar - All the latest technology news http://www.techradar.com/news/amd-vega-release-date-news-and-features-everything-you-need-to-know

AMD Ryzen release date, news and features: everything you need to know

Intel Coffee Lake release date, news and features

Fifth time’s the charm. At least that seems to be the case with Intel’s upcoming fifth round of processors based on the 14nm manufacturing node.

Following the release of the laptop-focused 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh line of CPUs in August 2017, Intel finally revealed its 8th-generation Coffee Lake desktop processors to the world in October 2017. We’ve even seen reports of the first 8th-generation H series CPUs after leaks of a new MSI laptop have surfaced.

Back in September Intel announced its Coffee Lake S processors, with a release following a month later on October 5, along with an entire lineup of CPUs motherboards.

Despite its earlier, more modest claims, Intel says that the flagship 8th generation Coffee Lake CPU is up to 45% faster than its Kaby Lake counterpart – which goes a long way to Intel’s requirement for users to upgrade to a new motherboard by moving all Coffee Lake processors to the Z370 Chipset – even though some clever modders found a way to make them work on older boards.

Unfortunately Coffee Lake CPUs were subject to the Spectre and Meltdown exploits, but Intel says that their CPUs will soon be immune, and fixes are currently being rolled out.

Unsurprisingly, this range includes two processors in each of the the Core i3, i5 and i7 categories.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Intel's 8th-generation desktop CPU architecture
• When is it out? October 5th
• What will it cost? From $117 (about £85, AU$145) – $359 (about £265, AU$450)

Intel Coffee Lake release date

The Intel Coffee Lake processors finally touched down on October 5, 2017. Intel has also announced a new line of 8th generation Coffee Lake CPUs featuring Radeon RX Vega graphics that should be out sometime in the coming months.

Originally, in February 2017, Intel stated that Coffee Lake would surface in the latter half of the year. Intel reassured us of this claim at Computex 2017 held in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Later into 2017, the Santa Clara chipmaker came out and teased an August 21 livestream reveal of its 8th-generation processors, which turned out to be a refresh of its 7th-generation processors for Ultrabooks and laptops, called Kaby Lake Refresh. 

Intel Coffee Lake price

Arguably the most elusive aspect of Coffee Lake leading up to its canonical announcement was pricing. Aside from looking at the processor market AMD Ryzen rewrote, we didn’t have much to base our speculation. And now that Intel is about to release its first CPUs with discrete graphics, we don’t have much to base the pricing for the laptops that will feature them.

Luckily, Intel has revealed a total rundown of the latest 8th-generation Coffee Lake chips since their announcement. And with that reveal, we finally knew that the Santa Clara tech behemoth was going to unleash an entire assortment of processors with a wide range of different prices.

Starting with the cheapest, the Intel Core i3-8100 costs $130 (£99, AU$145) while it’s overclockable counterpart, the Intel Core i3-8350K prices at $180 (£160, AU$240). 

At the mid-range, the Core i5-8400 will set you back $190 (£183, AU$250) while the unlocked, overclock-ready i5-8600K retails for $257 (£190, AU$325).

Lastly, deemed by Intel as its best gaming CPU ever, the Core i7-8700K runs at $350 (£290, AU$520). On the other hand, if you’re looking to avoid spending significantly more than a Xbox One X or PS4 Pro on a single processor, the vanilla Intel Core i7-8700 goes for $313 (£290, AU$430).

Comparatively, an Intel Kaby Lake processor on its own will, as of this writing, set you back anywhere from $42 (£39, AU$66) to $350 (£415, AU$469) while Ryzen processors range from $168 (£158, AU$245) to $499 or £499 (AU$650). 

Intel Coffee Lake specs

Although all of the 8th-generation Coffee Lake chips are still manufactured on the 14nm node, Intel has proven that there’s still plenty of life in the process yet.

Again, starting from the ground up, the Intel Core i3 chips this time boast four cores each for the first time in the mainstream CPU space. What’s more, whereas the Intel Core i3-8100 takes advantage of four cores and four threads running at 3.6GHz, the unlocked Core i3-8350K totes the same number of cores and threads, but instead opts for a base frequency of 4GHz.

As for the Core i5 range, the plain Intel Core i5-8400 is a now a hexa-core monster, bearing six cores and six threads. Moreover, its base clock is 2.8GHz, and it operates at 4GHz with Turbo Boost. 

Meanwhile the Core i5-8600K also squeezes six cores and six threads into the 14nm chip while brandishing base/boost speeds of 3.6GHz and 4.3GHz, respectively.

Then you’ve got the Intel Core i7-8700 and i7-8700K. The former is yet another six-core demon, albeit with double the number of threads as the i5-8600K. Its overclockable analogue, the Intel Core i7-8700K, poses a threat to the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, sporting six cores, 12 threads and base/boost clock speeds of 3.7GHz/4.7GHz.

And, now that we’ve seen some leaked benchmarks for the anticipated H series Coffee Lake processors, including the Core i9-8950HK that may be powering the best gaming laptops  in the near future. We’ve also learned that Intel will be releasing 8-core Coffee Lake S CPUs later this year, thanks to a 3DMark leak.

That’s all we know for now. We’ve gotten the first batch of 8th generation Coffee Lake CPUs, but we are sure to get more. We’re anticipating Coffee Lake processors for laptops, though we don’t know in what form they’ll appear – ditto for the inevitable Coffee Lake X chips.

There still a ton of news to come. Per our usual advice, we encourage you return to this page periodically for in-depth coverage of the latest Intel Coffee Lake reveals

• Be sure to check out "AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation"

Joe Osborne has also contributed to this report

from TechRadar - All the latest technology news http://www.techradar.com/news/intel-coffee-lake-release-date-news-and-rumors

MacBook 2018: what we want to see

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