Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1335241
FEBRUARY 2021 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 83 So, what does this mean to the average reader here? For myself, I have built and maxed out my own computers for the last 25 years. Until this year, I have always used an Intel CPU; this year, I decided to use a Ryzen 9 CPU and Zen motherboard and I can testify that the perfor- mance and reliability is amazing. Intel While I'm on the topic of processors, what did Intel announce this week? Intel seems to have fallen behind in the last few years. Yes, Intel CPUs are still excellent and as the com- petition from AMD has increased, especially over the last few years, the Intel prices have come down, making the competition more intense. But Intel has been kind of stuck with 14nm architecture while AMD has had archi- tecture down to 7nm, thus reducing size, TDP, and temp, while increasing the number of threads, etc. Intel did make some interesting announce- ments, however. e company announced that next-gen business processors are powered by the 11th-Gen platform with Evo™ vPro®. e new vPro systems provide the best productiv- ity experience, up to 23% faster with Office 365 and up to 50% faster productivity with video conferencing, according to Intel executives. It also delivers 1.8 times faster video editing. Intel also demonstrated its Control Enforce- ment Technology, or CET, as a strength of its system that can help block a control flow attack, something that a competing notebook from rival AMD has been unable to do. Intel showed off laptops from Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Intel highlighted the Dell Latitude 9420 as a result of its Dell partnership for Evo vPro. For the less powerful CPU market, Intel announced new Intel Pentium Silver and Cel- eron processors that are designed for the first time on 10nm nodes. ey state that these pro- cessors deliver up to 35% faster performance than the previous generation, thus faster ren- dering and productivity for the education mar- ket. I believe that these CPUs will be headed to Windows laptops and lower end units such as Chromebooks and Linux laptops. Recently, Intel introduced Intel® RealSense™ ID, an on-device solution that combines an active depth sensor with a specialized neu- ral network designed to deliver secure, accu- rate and user-aware facial authentication. Intel RealSense ID works with smart locks, access control, point-of-sale, ATMs, kiosks and more. e device, which comes with a dedicated sys- tem-on-chip, can adapt to changing appear- ances over time, and it is built to withstand spoofing, with a one-in-1-million false accep- tance rate. Intel is still the market share leader in CPUs, and we all know that competition works well to enhance product development progress and control prices, so we can all hope that the competition between Intel and AMD—and with the expanded use of ARM processors by Apple—the competitive atmosphere of the last few years will increase.