Month: November 2020

Even though ARM unveiled its Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 cores earlier this year, we are yet to see them in action. If recent benchmark results are anything to go by, they can pack quite a punch. We’ve only seen them in Exynos and Qualcomm chipsets so far. MediaTek is all set to join that list soon, according to a new leak.

Weibo stalwart Digital Chat Station says MediaTek’s upcoming MT6893 and MT6891 chips will use Cortex-A78 cores, likely on a 5nm or 6nm process node. Judging by the model number, the former is likely MediaTek’s top-of-the-line offering, presumably a sequel to the Dimensity 1000. The tipster rounds things off by saying that the company is expected to release both chips earlier than usual. Considering that the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 was released in November 2019, we can expect the company to unveil the silicon soon.

If the yet-to-be-named MediaTek chip uses the same 4+4 configuration as the Dimensity 1000, we can expect it to perform on par with the Exynos 1080 (four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 3.0GHz). While its performance will be significantly better than its predecessors, it is unlikely to surpass the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 or the Exynos 2100. However, the gap will probably be a lot less narrow should MediaTek opt for a 1+3+4 design with a Cortex-X1 at the helm.

Intel has traditionally held the single-core performance crown for many generations. AMD did get close to Intel 9th gen Coffee Lake, but Comet Lake once again showed good leads in single-core and gaming. With Ryzen 5000 Zen 3, Intel may not be in a comfortable position any longer.

User /u/losh11 (@loshan1212) first posted CPU-Z results of the Ryzen 5 5600X on Reddit. The OP had since deleted the post, but the results were shared quickly to other subreddits. CPU-Z screenshots and product packaging of the Ryzen 5 5600X were subsequently reposted by @GawroskiT on Twitter.

In the CPU-Z single-thread benchmark, the Ryzen 5 5600X scored 643 points leading the Core i9-10900K by 10% and the Core i7-10700K by 15%. The Zen 3 processor also seems to be 23.4% faster than a Ryzen 9 3900X in single-core, which shows that AMD is leaving no stone unturned in the quest to extract the maximum possible peak performance from the new architecture.

The Ryzen 5 5600X seems to be no slouch in the multi-core either with the processor amassing 4,814 points — 12% faster than the Core i5-10600KF and 14% faster than the Ryzen 5 3600XT.

This is not the first demonstration of AMD’s new found single-core leads, though. Previously, we saw the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and the Ryzen 5 5600X posting impressive single-core results beating Intel’s flagship Core i9-10900K by a significant margin.

While it is always advisable to wait for final reviews before coming to conclusions, these initial scores do indicate that AMD may have a definite winner on their hands with Zen 3 that does not compromise either in single-core or multi-core workloads.

Several benchmark results of the upcoming RX 6800 may have leaked in the last few days, but AMD has published some gaming benchmark results for its trio of Radeon RX 6000 series cards. The company showcased the performance of the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT at its launch event last week, but these new benchmark results offer more granular comparisons between the RX 6000 series and recent NVIDIA cards.

Naturally, AMD benchmarked its new cards in a powerful test bench. According to the company, it used the following system configuration to achieve the benchmark results shown below:

CPU – AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

RAM – 16 GB DDR4-3200 (presumably dual-channel)

Motherboard – X570 reference platform

BIOS – RQ21082B – Smart Access Memory enabled

Radeon drivers – 20.45-201013n

GeForce drivers – 456.71

OS – Windows 10 Pro x64 19041.508

AMD has not mentioned anything about Rage mode, so we presume that the company did not enable it for these benchmarks. Currently, AMD has published results for ten games at 1440p and 4K – all at the highest possible graphics presets. In short, these early results suggest that AMD has closed the gap between RDNA 1 and Turing cards, although we should stress that AMD has probably chosen games that perform particularly well on its new architecture.

Nonetheless, the data provided by AMD points to the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT outperforming the RTX 3090 at 1440p, which the RX 6900 XT maintains at 4K. The RX 6800 XT drops back behind the RTX 3090 at 4K though but remains a few percent ahead of the RTX 3080 at this resolution, on average. Meanwhile, the RX 6800 strikes a middle ground between the performance of the RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti at both resolutions. The RX 6800 also performs better, relatively, at 1440p than it does at 4K, like the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT.

All this should come as good news to PC gamers. Not only does the RX 6000 look powerful, but AMD is much closer to NVIDIA than it has been for many years.