By Neal Leavitt Jon Peddie Research (JPR) recently reported that the overall workstation market volume in Q1’21 grew about 27.7% YoY, a milestone for workstation sales. The strong rebound in workstation shipments was no surprise, as positive signs regarding the pandemic by mid-quarter (in the US and EMEA particularly), along with successful deployment of vaccines (though … [Read more...] about The case for desktop workstations
CPU
Intel Q1 2021 results
Q1 revenue $19.7 billion, down 1% YoY, $1.1 billion above expectations. First-quarter revenue exceeded Intel’s January guidance by $1.1 billion, said the company, led by continued strong PC demand. PC unit volumes were up 38% YoY, and notebook volumes set a new Intel record. The company also saw an initial recovery of Enterprise and Government sales in the Data Center … [Read more...] about Intel Q1 2021 results
SPECwpc releases SPECworkstation 3.1 benchmark
The SPEC Workstation Performance Characterization (SPECwpc) group has released an updated version of its SPECworkstation benchmark, SPECworkstation 3.1, which measures all key aspects of workstation performance based on diverse professional applications. The first version of the SPEC workstation benchmark provided a comprehensive measure of total workstation performance … [Read more...] about SPECwpc releases SPECworkstation 3.1 benchmark
Intel brings Pat Gelsinger back, and this time as CEO
CES surprise sees CEO Bob Swan out and former CTO Gelsinger back in. Under some pressure from activist investment firm Third Point, Intel has announced plans to bring in Pat Gelsinger to be the company’s CEO. Gelsinger, who had successfully run EMC and then VMware, was previously at Intel as the SVP and GM of the Digital Enterprise Group. The irony that absolutely nobody … [Read more...] about Intel brings Pat Gelsinger back, and this time as CEO
AMD Q3 2020 results
Revenue for the quarter was up 55.6% from last year to $2.8 billion, GAAP profit was $390 million, 225% from last year. AMD’s third-quarter was up from Q2 and year-to-year in sales. Revenue was $2.8 billion, up 57% year-over-year primarily driven by higher Computing and Graphics segment revenue. Net profit was 148% quarter-over-quarter and up 225% year-to-year. “Our … [Read more...] about AMD Q3 2020 results
SPECapc for Solidworks 2020 benchmark adds new GUI; CPU and 2D drafting tests
By Bob Cramblitt SPEC’s Application Performance Characterization (SPECapc) project group has released new performance evaluation software for workstations running Solidworks 2020. Major new features in the new SPECapc for Solidworks 2020 benchmark include: Testing under the new Solidworks 2020 enhanced graphics interface. Two new CPU tests for file conversion … [Read more...] about SPECapc for Solidworks 2020 benchmark adds new GUI; CPU and 2D drafting tests
Review: EVGA’s CLC CPU cooler
For a brief and fleeting moment, I was cool in high school, my 15 minutes of fame. As it turned out while poking around a garage’s trash can one night, I found an old Rochester 2-barrel Chevy carburetor. I took it home, cleaned it up, and took it apart. And then I cleaned all the parts and put it back together. In the process, I figured out how it worked, and I could see why … [Read more...] about Review: EVGA’s CLC CPU cooler
A 5-year vision for workstation graphics performance
by Bob Cramblitt Views of SPEC/GWPG members. Every day in their engineering jobs with leading OEMs and graphics card manufacturers, the representatives of the SPEC Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (SPEC/GWPG) assess the latest technologies designed to make their products run professional applications faster and more efficiently. In their role with … [Read more...] about A 5-year vision for workstation graphics performance
Nebula benchmarks the ray tracing competitors
Knowing how you stand up to the competition is critical. Last December, we told you about ray tracing startup, Nebula, in Montreal and the founder, Yann Clotioloman Yéo. The company has developed a physically based, unbiased stand-alone renderer with realtime DirectX 12 preview written in C++. It runs on Windows 10 (64-bit) and requires SSE4 to run. The program uses AMD … [Read more...] about Nebula benchmarks the ray tracing competitors
Benchmarking ray tracing
Ray tracing, as everyone knows, is a simple algorithm that can totally consume a processor. But how much a given processor is consumed is an unanswerable question because it depends upon the scene and of course the processor itself. So, approximations have to be made, and parameters fixed to get a consistent comparison. Then it's left to the buyer to extrapolate the results to … [Read more...] about Benchmarking ray tracing