[The Exiled]

Z490 motherboards up to 60% more expensive than predecessors

While Intel hasn't made any official announcements, the constant leaks suggest we’re moving ever closer to the launch of its 10th-generation Comet Lake-S desktop CPUs. Those interested in buying one of the upcoming processors will need a new motherboard with a LGA 1200 socket, and we might now have an idea of how much they’ll cost—quite a lot, in some cases.
Tom’s Hardware spotted listings for several Z490 motherboards on Ukrainian retailer ITbox’s website. The publication has converted the prices from Ukrainian hryvnia to dollars, and while PC hardware usually sells for more outside the US, it still gives us an idea of what we could expect.

ITbox lists fifteen Gigabyte Z490 motherboards that range from $171 for the Z490M to $1,072 for the Z490 Aorus Xtreme WaterForce. Compared to the Z390 versions of these mobos, the price difference ranges from 27.6% to a massive 61.4% — the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra costs $318 while the Z390 version is just $197. It’s a similar story for MSI’s listed Z490 motherboards, which range from $192 up to $858 for the MEG Z490 Godlike (above). The smallest price jump between generations is 16.5%: the Z490 Gaming Carbon WiFi is $303, while its predecessor is $260. The most significant difference is for the MEG Z490 Ace, which at $504 is 59% more expensive than the equivalent Z390 board.

It’s not unusual for a new generation of hardware to be more expensive than its predecessor, but some of these Z490 prices do seem pricier than expected.
Earlier this month, marketing slides for the Core i9-10900K, Core i7-10700K, and Core i5-10600K surfaced online, revealing some specs of the upcoming chips.
We also heard that the high-end Comet Lake desktops CPUs are quite power-hungry.

Apple aims to sell Macs with its own chips starting in 2021

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is working on three of its own Mac processors, known as systems-on-a-chip, based on the A14 processor in the next iPhone. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Apple’s partner for iPhone and iPad processors, will build the new Mac chips. The components will be based on a 5-nanometer production technique, the same size Apple will use in the next iPhones and iPad Pros. Getting Macs, iPhones and iPads running the same underlying technology should make it easier for Apple to unify its apps ecosystem and update its computers more often. The move would also reduce reliance on Intel, which has struggled to maintain the annual increases in performance it once offered.

The first Mac processors will have eight high-performance cores, codenamed Firestorm, and at least four energy-efficient cores, known internally as Icestorm. Apple is exploring Mac processors with more than 12 cores for further in the future. In some Macs, Apple’s designs will double or quadruple the number of cores that Intel provides. Despite a unified chip design, Macs will still run the macOS operating system, rather than the iOS software of the iPhone and iPad. Apple is exploring tools that will ensure apps developed for older Intel-based Macs still work on the new machines. The company also has technology called Catalyst that lets software developers build an iPad app and run it on Mac computers.

Moving macOS from Intel’s chip architecture to an Arm-based design will be a technical challenge. The changes will be a blow to Intel’s prestige.

Izvor: TechSpot i Bloomberg