CES 2020 just ended last week with a slew of products hitting the market or about to be released. For computer hardware manufacturers such as Intel and AMD, the competition is just heating up. Microsoft showed its new SOC for the Xbox Series X, dwarfing previous generation sizes. Many other PC hardware manufacturers also brought in new or improved tech to show also.
The biggest reveal has been AMD’s announcement of the Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors. AMD has moved this generation of mobile processors to 7nm to compete with Intel’s 10th gen “Ice Lake” and “Comet Late” mobile processors. The core count doubles to 8 cores and 16 threads.
The Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors will come in two flavors, U and H, for low and high power models. The Ryzen 7 4800U offers 8 cores based on the Zen 2 architecture and 16 threads. The base clock at 1.8GHz targeting the Ultrathin and Ultra-portable notebook markets with a boost of up to 4.2GHz. The 4800U will also include 8 Radeon cores for integrated graphics performance. In gaming, the 4800U is 39% faster in 3DMark FireStrike Physics test compared to the i7-9750H.
When the Ryzen 7 4800U wasn’t enough, AMD also announced the Ryzen 7 4800H, a 45W TDP version of the 4800U. The 4800H is aimed at high performance users, gamers, and creators with a base clock of 2.9GHz and up to 4.2GHz boost. AMD also showed a slide with 3DMark FireStrike Physics and the 4800H has higher performance than the i7-9700K desktop processors. The test may not be as accurate showing actual performance because of the extra threads on the 4800H but a 10% to 15% performance increase on a mobile CPU over a current gen desktop CPU is significant.
The next gen consoles are gearing up for war again, Sony and Microsoft have set a launch for Holiday 2020. We were expecting to see Sony reveal the console and specs at CES 2020 but they have kept it under wraps. The only reveal we got were three characters: “PS5” There have been photo leaks of dev kits floating around the web showing the dev kit version of the PS5 but nothing else has been revealed.
Microsoft teased the new Xbox, called the “Xbox Series X” back on December 12, 2019, a month ahead of CES 2020. It was only a teaser trailer showing the capabilities that we should expect from the console and the design. Aside from hardware, the biggest change on the console was the design which is now a tall cube. The traditional design of the Xbox sitting underneath the TV may be gone and has taken the design similar to a desktop PC. That’s not the only the Xbox is borrowing from the traditional desktop PC, it will be powered by an AMD processor with Zen 2 and Navi architectures.
Head of Xbox division at Microsoft, Phil Spencer posted a picture of the custom AMD SOC that will be powering the Xbox Series X. The next generation of console is marketing 4k 60Hz and 8k gaming compatibility. It will also have SSD storage, ray tracing, and up to 120Hz frame rates. Whether these are legitimate claims that the Xbox will be able to run at true 8k resolution or upscaled will probably be answered at E3 2020.
Another release in the PC gaming hardware category was AMD’s announcement of the Radeon RX 5600 XT. The RX 5600 XT is AMD’s answer to Nvidia in the sub $300 market where the GTX 1660 series are dominating. It has 6GB of GDDR6 on a 192 bit wide memory interface at 12Gbps. The core clock is 1500MHz and has 2304 stream processors. The card will be available for $279 USD and will be released on January 21, 2020. The pricing is the same as a GTX 1660 Ti creating some great competition for the sub $300 price point.
PC gamers can now rejoice with the announcement of new G-Sync displays with 360Hz refresh rate. Paired with an NVIDIA graphics card and the ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz display are aimed at competitive gamers for E-Sports titles. The jump from 60Hz to 144Hz is significant so going to 360Hz will make each movement on screen appear silky smooth. Higher refresh rate allows the GPU to push more frames on screen making movement smoother. The ASUS ROG 360 will be available later this year along with other manufacturers.
CES 2020 just wrapped up in Las Vegas but the year has just started. There are many new products that are in various stages of development and release. We are excited to see what the rest of the year brings with other tech conferences. GDC 2020, Computex 2020 and E3 2020 are expected to have some exciting news, so stay tuned for more.