Intel briefly fell behind AMD in the desktop CPU market share, according to new data from the benchmarking firm, PassMark. AMD at one point had a near 1.6% lead over its rival Intel in total analyzed systems before the AMD lead fell to a near 0.4% gain for Intel a day later.
According to the data, at one point, on January 4, AMD’s share in PassMark’s benchmarking tests was at 50.08%, whereas, Intel’s was standing at 49.2%. The numbers have since switched back to favor Intel, with the chipmaker standing above at a 50.2% lead over AMD’s 49.8% at the time of publishing on January 5.
These numbers don’t truly represent the full scope of the market, as it only analyzes “thousands” of PerformanceTest benchmarks on Windows PCs, but it does show that AMD is making gains over Intel in the desktop space with its latest lineup of Ryzen processors. According to the numbers, it’s been 14 years since AMD last achieved the feat of beating Intel, even for a brief moment.
At this same point in 2019, the lead was much bigger for Intel in PassMark’s data, as Intel held a 57.4% share over AMD’s 42%, but that now has shrunk significantly with today’s data. Even in Steam’s annual hardware survey, November 2020 numbers showed that AMD was chipping away at Intel’s share in the CPU space on the game service. The last time AMD had a large lead over Intel in the desktop space came in the first quarter of 2006, according to TechSpot.
As we noted, in the desktop space, AMD’s current best CPU, the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X, beat anything Intel has to offer, clocking in with 12 and 16 cores. Intel, though, could make even more gains over AMD with its 11th-gen desktop processors, which could be coming in early 2021. The new Intel processors promise frequency changes and faster clock speeds.
In the laptop space, though, Intel still holds strong. According to the PassMark Data, AMD holds only a 17% share of analyzed laptops, whereas Intel has a commanding 83% lead. AMD is still ahead in chipset technology, as its latest Ryzen laptop chips are built on the 7nm transistors, whereas Intel’s Tiger Lake and Ice Lake chips are still stuck on the 10nm transistors. In the desktop space, meanwhile, AMD is working on 5nm Zen 4 chips, whereas Intel is still on 14nm.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.