Intel introduced the 11th generation of Intel Core processors known as Rocket Lake S during this edition of CES 2021, in order to maintain its hegemony in computer gaming environments with the new Core i9-11900K.
There are also new features in Tiger Lake and its new H series, designed to deliver better performance in ultralight laptops and the Evo ecosystem. We discussed all of this news with Jesús Sánchez Paniagua, Intel’s consumer director for South West Europe.
PCW: What will the Tiger Lake chips help to compete with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Series?
The new Tiger Lake H series is designed to ensure better performance in ultralight notebooks where mobility prevails and where there is a need to be efficient with power consumption.
As soon as the technology was announced at CES 2021, many manufacturers are already updating their setups, so throughout the first quarter of the year we will be able to see up to 40 new models for sale.
PCW: What is the current status of the Athena project?
The Athena project arises as a solution to meet the needs of consumers, offering the 11th generation of Intel Core processors (code name Tiger Lake) as well as a series of innovations that must be integrated into the teams.
In this way, we guarantee the quality and performance of laptops under the new Intel Evo brand, as a natural evolution of the previous computers which were included as Ultrabook laptops.
PCW: How do you influence the evolution of Evo laptops?
The most significant aspects are yet to come, with 40% better performance, leaving a mode Be ready in less than a second, or the battery life exceeds 9 hours of use when playing videos in FullHD, or 7 hours in 4K quality.
Current Evo specifications ensure computers use 11th generation Intel Core processors, Thunderbolt 4 connection ports, Wi-Fi 6, as well as a small form factor for laptops with 12 to 15 inch screens. .
It also requires other considerations, such as that the laptop’s webcam offers minimal quality, that biometric accessibility features are maintained, and that it ensures fast battery charging (5 minutes for 4 hours of use).
PCW: Intel announced authentication using RealSense ID Facial. When will this become a reality in the new teams?
RealSense ID and the capabilities of the new cameras are not yet part of Athena’s set of requirements, but it is possible that in future revisions it will become part of the ecosystem that teams must adhere to.
Essentially, it’s about securing access to devices as an additional avenue of security, something most manufacturers of such devices already adhere to, including HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Dynabook, Samsung, MSI, and Huawei. , among others.
PCW: Now that Rocket Lake chips have become a reality, how are they going to revolutionize the market? the game for PC?
Rocket Lake is a firm commitment to office architecture that comes after several years of development. Expectations are high and from what we have been able to verify, it increases the performance of previous generations (instructions per clock cycle) to two digits.
It aims to deliver basic performance and have cores balanced, with a hybrid architecture made up of Ice Lake and Tiger Lake graphics. In this way, we get better graphics performance and increase the number of PCI Express 4.0 lanes to a maximum of 20 lanes.
PCW: What about PC gaming enthusiasts?
Rocket Lake will guarantee an enhanced experience with the overclocking, with the possibility of adjusting all the parameters, the power, the voltage, the memory parameters for the applications and, finally, to push the machine to the extreme of its possibilities.
Already in the second half of the year, the 12th generation of chips known as Alder Lake, will provide another generational leap with 10nm lithography to combine high performance and energy efficient cores.
PCW: How does Apple’s decision to use its own chips affect you?
Without going into evaluations and as a personal opinion, from Intel we are fully convinced that we have the roadmap most robust and consistent chip versions of the past decade.
The eleventh generation of the various platforms has arrived to meet whatever consumers demand. The launches now announced at CES 2021 are another very important element in consolidating our entire portfolio.
The investment made to modify manufacturing processes and adapt three factories to the production of 10nm chips is the launch pad to be able to meet new market demand.
PCW: Finally, how were equipment sales in Europe in 2020?
With the situation caused by COVID-19 of telecommuting and classroom surveillance online On the student side, the sale of equipment as a whole has grown by around 27% annually.
Decomposing, we see how the sale of laptops increased by 31%, while that of PC computers is 16% compared to the previous year. The market was driven more by supply than demand, with 9 consecutive months of growth and a total of 450,000 PCs sold more than in 2019.
PCW: And how did the online sales go?
Sales growth online This is surprising, since more than 45% of computer sales in 2020 were managed via the web. The industry has been able to adapt to this new situation.
The consumer has become more demanding in everything he asks. A significant portion of sales is due to the need to renew and replace equipment with more powerful configurations.
We have also seen how the number of people playing on PC has increased. We estimate that there are already 4.1 million PC gamers in Europe with around 250,000 newcomers added in 2020 and the average age and women increasing.
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