Electronic Enthusiast Network Report (Text/Zhou Kaiyang) Every year CES is a stage for Intel, AMD and other processor manufacturers to show their muscles and reveal this year's product roadmap, and this year is no exception. And the protagonists who took the stage this year have invariably put the theme on AI. AI has undoubtedly become the biggest selling point of the PC market in 2024, and as for whether these innovations can inspire you to switch phones, let's take a look at what new AI PCs will bring to CES.
AMD: The self-developed AI engine is introduced to desktop PCs for the first time
With the acquisition of Xilinx, AMD embarked on a full line of AI engines. At last year's CES, AMD unveiled the Ryzen 7040 series of mobile processors, bringing a discrete AI Engine (NPU) to mobile x86 processors for the first time. And at this CES, they brought NPU to desktop PC processors for the first time and introduced the new desktop Ryzen 8000 series product line.
First up is the 8000G series in the Ryzen 8000, including the Ryzen 7 8700G, Ryzen 5 8600G/8500G, and Ryzen 3 8300G. The Ryzen8000G series is built for all-in-one products, so the TDP of all four products is limited to 65W. The highest-performing Ryzen 7 8700G is designed with 8 cores and 16 threads, clocked at up to 5.1GHz, and powered by a Radeon 780M graphics processor.
Ryzen 8000G Series Processor / AMD
However, since the Ryzen 8000G series desktop processors are mainly in the low-end desktop processor market, the lower-performance Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G are not equipped with an NPU, and the graphics processor is only equipped with a Radeon 740M. So if you want to experience features like vision correction and advanced background effects on an all-in-one PC equipped with Ryzen 8000G, you still need to use the Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G processors.
AMD announced that the 8000G series of desktop processors will be available to DIY customers and SI partners at the end of the month, with the 8700G, 8600G, and 8500G currently available at $329, $229, and $179, respectively, with OEM-built systems expected to be available starting in the second quarter of this year.
It can be seen that after the launch of the Ryzen 8040 series of mobile processors at the end of last year, AMD can't wait to bring the AI unit to the desktop PC market. When the Ryzen 8040 was released, AMD said that the next generation of NPU based on the XDNA2 architecture will also be unveiled this year, and the NPU performance will be tripled, which will be released together with the next-generation 8050 Strix Point APU.
Intel: Completes the 14th Gen Core series and opens up the Core Series 1 product line
Two months after the release of the unlocked version of the 14th Gen Core desktop processor, Intel finally completed the desktop processor locked version of the 14th Gen Core processors at CES, as well as the mobile version of the 14th Gen Core processors, the 14000HX series. Leading the series is the i9-14900HX, which Intel has configured with 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. In terms of connectivity, in addition to support for the Thunderbolt 5 interface, the 14000HX series also integrates support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3/5.4, and supports independent Wi-Fi 7 connections.
In addition to the 14th Gen Core for desktop and mobile, Intel has also opened up a Series 1 product line within the Core processor family. The Core Series 1 product line currently only has three products: the Core 7 150U, the Core 5 120U, and the Core 3 100U. The 150U and 120U both use a 10-core and 12-thread configuration with 2 performance cores + 8 efficiency cores, but the turbo frequency of the latter is reduced, while the low-end 100U uses a configuration of 2 performance cores + 8 efficiency cores.
Core Series 1 Processor / Intel
Intel's positioning for the Core Series 1 product line is: "For casual gaming, multitasking, and reliable connectivity, this processor family delivers reliable, real-world performance that laptop users can trust." This positioning can also be seen in the power consumption level, the base power consumption (TDP) of the three processors is 15W, and the maximum turbo power consumption is 55W. It can be seen that the series is designed for thin and light laptops or office laptops.
It's worth noting that while the Series 1 product line itself also integrates support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3/5.4, Intel mentions in the product description that it also supports standalone Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. As a result, only some laptops that use Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and a standalone Wi-Fi 7 controller will be the first to experience this feature in the future.
However, the above is only Intel's investment in general-purpose PCs, as for Intel's investment in AI PCs, it has been fully reflected in the Core Ultra processor product line released last year. With advanced Intel 4 and built-in AI accelerators, the Core Ultra delivers both low power consumption and high performance for high-end laptops. Intel also showcased some AI software applications from partners, such as Microsoft's Copilot and Omnibridge sign language translation software.
Like AMD, Intel's AI PC hole card is also placed at the end of this year, and Intel announced at the end of the conference that there are two more product lines to be released this year, namely Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake. Arrow Lake will be its first gaming processor with an AI accelerator, while Lunar Lake will further develop NPU, with NPU performance gains of around 3x and significant IPC improvements, which should be supported by the significant energy efficiency gains brought by the new Intel 20A process.
NVIDIA: 40 Super series graphics card update, more powerful AI application development kit
Compared with the other two manufacturers that solve the application needs of light AI loads, NVIDIA, whose main PC accessories are GPUs/graphics cards, naturally challenge AI workloads with higher computing power, such as generative AI, high-definition material remastering, and AI painting. In addition to the release of new hardware products, the software solutions released by NVIDIA are also remarkable.
Just like previous generations of NVIDIA GPUs, the RTX4000 family has also ushered in the Super branch, and at CES, NVIDIA announced the RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 4070 SUPER. Among them RTX4080 SUPER can provide 836 TOPS of AI computing power, which is twice the performance of RTX3080 Ti. The other two SUPER products have enhanced configurations on the basis of the original model, such as the number of CUDA cores and the number of video memory.
HOWEVER, THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE THREE SUPER GPUS IS JUST A REGULAR UPDATE TO NVIDIA'S LINEUP, AND THE MOST INTRIGUING DISPLAY OF NVIDIA AT CES IS THE UPDATE TO ITS DEVELOPMENT KIT. For example, TensorRT is supported for SDXL Turbo and LCM, two of the most popular Stable Diffusion acceleration methods. TensorRT can now deliver up to 60% faster performance for both than ever before.
AI-enhanced material comparison / NVIDIA
For game developers, they often need to go to great lengths to redo HD modeling when remaking classic games and creating HD mod assets. That's why NVIDIA has introduced RTX Remix, which allows developers to remake classic titles in HD, even with support for features like ray tracing, DLSS, and Reflex, as well as high-definition details for materials with the help of generative AI tools. Nvidia says the tool's public beta will open on Jan. 22.
In addition, Nvidia has also released an all-in-one generative AI digital human technology, Nvidia ACE. The technology combines NVIDIA's animation AI, dialogue and translation AI, and generative AI technologies, and works with OpenUSD to help game developers create realistic and intelligent NPC characters.
Would you switch phones because of an AI PC?
Interestingly, at the end of the event, Intel brought together executives from major OEMs (Dell, HP, Lenovo) and Microsoft for a discussion. These OEMs, which represent nearly 60% of the PC market, predict that 2024 will be a major inflection point for the PC space, with AI PCs bringing a very different level of innovation, triggering an acceleration of replacement cycles and a moderate expansion of the addressable market.
Judging from the recent release plans of several OEMs and Microsoft's plans for Windows AI (Copilot) functions, AI PCs will be the biggest force this year.
Judging from mainstream applications and the vast majority of PC processors equipped with AI units, these AI functions are still mainly reflected in the field of video calling, so laptops, all-in-one computers and other devices with cameras are the first market. However, we're already seeing more and more software taking full advantage of AI units, such as productivity software such as video editing tools and image processing tools. As for whether this AI PC concept can set off a new round of replacement trend, it still needs to be verified and feedback from the consumer market.