# Intel "Comet Lake" Not Before 2020, "Ice Lake-S" Not Before Q3-2020, Roadmap Suggests



## btarunr (Jul 11, 2019)

Earlier this week, news of Intel's 10th generation Core "Comet Lake" processors did rounds as the company's short-term response to AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen processors. According to slides leaked to the web by Hong Kong-based tech publication XFastest, "Comet Lake" isn't Intel's short-term reaction to "Zen 2," but rather all it has left to launch. These processors won't launch before 2020, the slide suggests, meaning that AMD will enjoy a free rein over the processor market until the turn of the year, including the all-important Holday shopping season. 

More importantly, the slide suggests that "Comet Lake" will have a market presence spanning Q1 and Q2 2020, meaning that the 10 nm "Ice Lake" won't arrive on the desktop platform until at least Q3 2020. It's likely that the LGA1200 platform which debuts with "Comet Lake" will extend to "Ice Lake," so consumers aren't forced to buy a new motherboard within a span of six months. The platform diagram put out in another slide junks the idea of an on-package MCM of the processor and PCH dies (which was likely ripped off from the "Ice Lake-Y" MCM platform diagram).



 

 




The new platform combines a "Comet Lake" processor with an Intel 400-series PCH, which talk to each other over DMI 3.0, which offers comparable bandwidth PCI-Express 3.0 x4. The AMD "Valhalla" platform implements PCI-Express 4.0 x4 between the SoC and X570 chipset. The platform's main PCI-Express x16 slot will remain gen 3.0.

Intel appears to have put much of its efforts into improving its 14 nanometer node one last time, and increasing core-counts with the introduction of a new 10-core silicon that does away with iGPU. With its "Skylake" core IPC within 5% of that of "Zen 2," and gaming performance leadership still held onto by a hair's breadth, Intel will focus on bolstering multi-thread performance by enabling HyperThreading on even its Core i5 and Core i3 desktop processor models, while providing more cores to the Dollar compared to its 9th generation "Coffee Lake Refresh." 

The Core i3 series will be 4-core/8-thread, the Core i5 series 6-core/12-thread, the Core i7 series 8-core/16-thread, and the flagship Core i9 series 10-core/20-thread. Intel will leverage its refined 14 nm node to increase clock-speeds across the board, with its 10-core silicon having a TDP rating of 125 W, and not the 105 W we saw the other day. The Gen 9.5 iGPU on the 4/6/8-core models will be bolstered with more features via software, and be branded under the UHD 700-series.

With its mainstream desktop platform embattled, Intel will try to appease the PC enthusiast crowd by launching a new HEDT (high-end desktop) platform based on "Cascade Lake," codenamed "Glacial Falls," by Q4-2019. The new 14 nm "Cascade Lake-X" processor will be compatible with existing X299 chipset motherboards via a BIOS update, offer CPU core-counts of up to 18, TDP of up to 165 W, and increased performance via higher clock-speeds. It will compete with AMD's existing 2nd generation Ryzen Threadripper family. AMD's plans for a 3rd generation Threadripper based on the "Rome" MCM is on the back-burner even if not dead, with the company focusing on making sure it sells the high-margin 2nd generation EPYC processor in adequate volumes.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## ShurikN (Jul 11, 2019)

By the time these launch AMD will be on 7nm EUV with Zen3


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## btarunr (Jul 11, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> By the time these launch AMD will be on 7nm EUV with Zen3


Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.


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## ShurikN (Jul 11, 2019)

btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.


IO on 7DUV is probably the next logical step, it'll likely be cheap by then.


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## TheLostSwede (Jul 11, 2019)

At 125W Intel TDP, does that mean a liquid cooler will be mandatory?



btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.


That's no good, no-one likes a DoA CPU...



ShurikN said:


> IO on 7DUV is probably the next logical step, it'll likely be cheap by then.


I would think 10nm would be their next I/O die, as it's already known that some parts are not gaining any benefit from being shrunk.


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## xkm1948 (Jul 11, 2019)

X299 re-refresh? Disappointed. Probably comes with all the nerf due to security flaws.

Come on AMD, get your Threadripper 3 out already!



btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.




Is this real? Oh my. Zen2 level IPC and higher core clock, that would be insane.


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## Wavetrex (Jul 11, 2019)

So Intel will (may) launch 10-core next year, with availability who knows when, while AMD will have 16 cores this year, and already has 12-core on the mainstream market.
Also, they might be able to refresh these with higher clocks after the 7nm process matures a bit more.

Oh oh oh... and PCI-e 3.0. On YET ANOTHER socket.

Comet Lake mega *D*OA.
What a joke.


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## TheLostSwede (Jul 11, 2019)

Wavetrex said:


> So Intel will (may) launch 10-core next year, with availability who knows when, while AMD will have 16 cores this year, and already has 12-core on the mainstream market.
> Also, they might be able to refresh these with higher clocks after the 7nm process matures a bit more.
> 
> Oh oh oh... and PCI-e 3.0. On YET ANOTHER socket.
> ...



A bit harsh no? This was kind of expected from Intel.


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## londiste (Jul 11, 2019)

> Intel appears to have put much of its efforts into improving its 14 nanometer node one last time, and increasing core-counts with the *introduction of a new 10-core silicon that does away with iGPU.*


Source?


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## chodaboy19 (Jul 11, 2019)

At least they increased the number of PCIe lanes.


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## somethinggeneric (Jul 11, 2019)

> It's likely that the LGA1200 platform which debuts with "Comet Lake" will extend to "Ice Lake," *so consumers aren't forced to* *buy a new motherboard within a span of six months.*



This is Intel we are talking about here folks....


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## Tomgang (Jul 11, 2019)

intel has gone from being the choise of choise to be a bit of a joke. Still 14 nm and only 10 core, what a joke. Yes intel will win in gaming, but not by much and still the hedt will stick to 18 core to what like 2000 usd as the current cpu cost and also still pcie gen 3.

This round i will say amd has won. That 16 core ryzen 9 3950X looks like a better choise and the half price of i9 9960X. I can live with gaming performance will be a bit lower than intels cpu.


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## jabbadap (Jul 11, 2019)

TheLostSwede said:


> At 125W Intel TDP, does that mean a liquid cooler will be mandatory?
> 
> That's no good, no-one likes a DoA CPU...
> 
> I would think 10nm would be their next I/O die, as it's already known that some parts are not gaining any benefit from being shrunk.



Dun know, if they continues to use tdp as they are using it now, that is just the tdp for the base clock.


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## HD64G (Jul 11, 2019)

AMD is already on the lead of CPUs in both raw power, efficiency and vfm and could remain there for at least 2 years. Who knows what happens by then...


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## Manu_PT (Jul 11, 2019)

How arrogant is Intel? Instead of massively drop the prices on their current offering and stay competitive, they prefer to work yet on a ne socket that won't come in at least 1 year? Meanwhile ryzen 3000 selling like hot cakes through summer, holiday season etc?

Cmon Intel, just drop 9900k to 400€, 9700k to 300€, 9600k to 200€, include good bundles with decent (30€) Air Coolers. Such arrogance.


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## ZoneDymo (Jul 11, 2019)

LGA1200, a new socket boiiis !


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## efikkan (Jul 11, 2019)

londiste said:


> Source?


I don't know why people keep claiming this. We know that Comet Lake supports integrated graphics, it can be found in Coreboot and there is also support for it in the Linux graphics drivers.

```
{ PCI_DEVICE_ID_INTEL_CML_S, "CometLake-S (6+2)" },
{ PCI_DEVICE_ID_INTEL_CML_S_10_2, "CometLake-S (10+2)" },
```


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## oxidized (Jul 11, 2019)

ZoneDymo said:


> LGA1200, a new socket boiiis !



Right the last one was 1151v2 almost 3 years ago...And before that 1151 which is identical, almost 5 years ago...So few years idd


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## z1n0x (Jul 11, 2019)

Grab the biscuits boys, we're heading to the milk lake.


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## phanbuey (Jul 11, 2019)

w00f.

That is a LOOONG time.

But they do have keller in the lab with a working 3d stacked transistor design so Im thinking they;'re going to come out with something huge then.


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## Assimilator (Jul 11, 2019)

londiste said:


> Source?











						Intel 10th Generation Core "Comet Lake" Lineup Detailed
					

Intel's short-term reaction to AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen processor family is the 10th generation Core "Comet Lake." These processors are based on existing "Skylake" cores, but have core-counts increased at the top-end, and HyperThreading enabled across the entire lineup. The Core i3 series are...




					www.techpowerup.com
				






> Leading the pack is the Core i9-10900KF, a 10-core/20-thread chip clocked at 4.60 GHz with 5.20 GHz Turbo Boost, 20 MB of shared L3 cache, native support for DDR4-3200, and a TDP of 105 W. Intel's new 10-core die appears to physically lack an iGPU, since none of the other Core i9 10-core models offer integrated graphics. For this reason, all three processor models have the "F" brand extension denoting lack of integrated graphics.


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## Bwaze (Jul 11, 2019)

Are there any leaks even confirming "Ice Lake S" desktop processors? Didn't leaks from a few months ago show another 14nm series after Comet Lake - Rocket Lake S? Possibly with Willow Cove architecture, so security patches and even bigger IPC uplift than Ice Lake with Sunny Cove architecture, but still 14nm?


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## Deleted member 158293 (Jul 11, 2019)

Expecting a lot more Intel marketing spin the more they fall behind for next good while...


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## Th3pwn3r (Jul 11, 2019)

In my 20+ years of cpu building and such I have never seen Intel seem this bad, I don't think I've ever really seen them behind like this....ugh, I'm buying a 3600x more than likely BUT this is not good for anyone really in my opinion.


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## Captain_Tom (Jul 11, 2019)

btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.


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## btarunr (Jul 11, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> IO on 7DUV is probably the next logical step, it'll likely be cheap by then.



Well maybe not the ICOD (I/O controller die), but the chipset. Fan-heatsinks make for bad PR. If they can rebuild that chipset on 7 nm DUV with a TDP target of, say, 8W, they can make do with passive cooling.


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## Vayra86 (Jul 11, 2019)

Assimilator said:


> Intel 10th Generation Core "Comet Lake" Lineup Detailed
> 
> 
> Intel's short-term reaction to AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen processor family is the 10th generation Core "Comet Lake." These processors are based on existing "Skylake" cores, but have core-counts increased at the top-end, and HyperThreading enabled across the entire lineup. The Core i3 series are...
> ...



Source: WCCFTech










Salt required in both cases. Lots, and lots of salt. So much salt even, you could also go for a swim in the Dead Sea.

All credible sources point to Intel being utterly confused about their line up and roadmaps, and there have been no real announcements lately, so, that is what we have. Nothing.


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## B-Real (Jul 11, 2019)

Intelol.


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## xkm1948 (Jul 11, 2019)

Th3pwn3r said:


> In my 20+ years of cpu building and such I have never seen Intel seem this bad, I don't think I've ever really seen them behind like this....ugh, I'm buying a 3600x more than likely BUT this is not good for anyone really in my opinion.



Pentium D era was really bad for them as well


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## TheGuruStud (Jul 11, 2019)

Ice lake before end of 2021 on desktop? Not happening unless it's quad cores or on 14nm lol


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## Vya Domus (Jul 11, 2019)

I swear they must have a flowchart which they take out every time they need to work out a new strategy which always leads to "we need a new socket/chipset".

I can only wish them good luck with that.


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## dirtyferret (Jul 11, 2019)

New tech announcements to make the just released tech obsolete? Well this is a first in PC hardware....


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## BadFrog (Jul 11, 2019)

ZoneDymo said:


> LGA1200, a new socket boiiis !



I think they mentioned a socket 1159


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## ZoneDymo (Jul 11, 2019)

Th3pwn3r said:


> In my 20+ years of cpu building and such I have never seen Intel seem this bad, I don't think I've ever really seen them behind like this....ugh, I'm buying a 3600x more than likely BUT this is not good for anyone really in my opinion.



its been the other way around for a while now, from Core 2 Duo until now really.
So it will be fine.


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## Manu_PT (Jul 11, 2019)

Th3pwn3r said:


> In my 20+ years of cpu building and such I have never seen Intel seem this bad, I don't think I've ever really seen them behind like this....ugh, I'm buying a 3600x more than likely BUT this is not good for anyone really in my opinion.



Not really, because Intel still superior in some scenarios. If AMD could have waited 3 months more and squeeze 4,5ghz clocks ALL cores on these chips, then yeah, Intel would be in a place that you didn´t see for a long time.. I wish AMD waited a bit longer and had a more refined 7nm. The chips come out of the box on their limit already. With their superior IPC and threads, they would win in games aswell (high refresh scenarios).


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## skates (Jul 11, 2019)

I wonder how Kyle Bennet will spin this.


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## Mephis (Jul 11, 2019)

btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.



Kind of like how Zen 2 begs to be overclocked?


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## dicktracy (Jul 11, 2019)

Intel has the better arch since 2017 (Ice Lake) but is held back by their own fabs. Desktop 10nm is just a dream and they'll most likely jump straight to 7nm when it's ready. Zen 3 will probably remain unchallenged in 2020-2021.


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## phanbuey (Jul 11, 2019)

Mephis said:


> Kind of like how Zen 2 begs to be overclocked?



They said it would BEG to be overclocked... not that it actually would do it.  It really wants to though.  Really does.


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## dicktracy (Jul 11, 2019)

Manu_PT said:


> Not really, because Intel still superior in some scenarios. If AMD could have waited 3 months more and squeeze 4,5ghz clocks ALL cores on these chips, then yeah, Intel would be in a place that you didn´t see for a long time.. I wish AMD waited a bit longer and had a more refined 7nm. The chips come out of the box on their limit already. With their superior IPC and threads, they would win in games aswell (high refresh scenarios).


3900x has brutal temps at merely stock clock. 3950x? Forget it about it... 7nm doesn't look like the magic pill that allows high core counts with high clock speeds. I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.


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## havox (Jul 11, 2019)

dicktracy said:


> I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.


There have been mulltiple official confirmations from AMD that Threadripper 3000 is still happening this year.


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## jabbadap (Jul 11, 2019)

skates said:


> I wonder how Kyle Bennet will spin this.



Probably could care a less... He does not work for Intel anymore, he has more important family matters to take care of.


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## dicktracy (Jul 11, 2019)

havox said:


> There have been mulltiple official confirmations from AMD that Threadripper 3000 is still happening this year.


They only said Threadripper is still alive but nothing about it coming this year.


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## trog100 (Jul 11, 2019)

dicktracy said:


> 3900x has brutal temps at merely stock clock. 3950x? Forget it about it... 7nm doesn't look like the magic pill that allows high core counts with high clock speeds. I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.



the ability to add more cores has exceeded the ability to cool them.. 

trog


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## GoldenX (Jul 11, 2019)

Now, if this starts becoming an AMD monopoly, it will not be funny.
God damn it Intel, why so useless now?


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## Assimilator (Jul 11, 2019)

dicktracy said:


> 3900x has brutal temps at merely stock clock. 3950x? Forget it about it... 7nm doesn't look like the magic pill that allows high core counts with high clock speeds. I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.



It's almost like cramming more than 8 physical cores into a desktop-sized package is a challenge... yet AMD has a 12-core desktop CPU available today while Intel has 8 cores, and AMD will have a 16-core model available before Intel's "competing" 10-core CPU launches.


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## skates (Jul 11, 2019)

jabbadap said:


> Probably could care a less... He does not work for Intel anymore, he has more important family matters to take care of.


I thought he went to work for Intel just last March.  You mean he only spent 4 months there after hardocp?


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## Turmania (Jul 11, 2019)

Intel at least should offer a refresh something like i9-9950K couple hundred more base clock, and  more boost clock and perhaps they can tweak performance. They can do this on i9, i7 and i5 models.


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## bug (Jul 11, 2019)

All I got is "we still can't make Ice Lake CPU for yet another year".
One more push for me to upgrade this fall.


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## trog100 (Jul 11, 2019)

Turmania said:


> Intel at least should offer a refresh something like i9-9950K couple hundred more base clock, and  more boost clock and perhaps they can tweak performance. They can do this on i9, i7 and i5 models.



you mean work some miracles.. just add a couple more heat generating cores.. clock them a bit higher and still control the heat.. yeh right.. he he

trog


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## Assimilator (Jul 11, 2019)

skates said:


> I thought he went to work for Intel just last March.  You mean he only spent 4 months there after hardocp?




__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1134490508565393409


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## Turmania (Jul 11, 2019)

they dont need to add cores bump the speed from existing offerings. I suppose they had a year to probably tweak a little more juice from current offerings to do that, assuming they did not sit around idle for a year...If they can you should be happy, competition is good for everybody.


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## Joss (Jul 11, 2019)

> *Intel "Comet Lake" Not Before 2020, "Ice Lake-S" Not Before Q3-2020, Roadmap Suggests*


I don't see how this is bad, their current lineup is fine.
This rush to always be ahead in every metric possible is stupid.


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## efikkan (Jul 11, 2019)

Assimilator said:


> It's almost like cramming more than 8 physical cores into a desktop-sized package is a challenge... yet AMD has a 12-core desktop CPU available today while Intel has 8 cores, and AMD will have a 16-core model available before Intel's "competing" 10-core CPU launches.


Intel doesn't have to have a counterpart for every AMD model. The 12-core and especially the 16-core AM4 CPUs will be very low volume products. This will be more a PR win for AMD than a huge loss for Intel.

As long as they remain competitive with 4-, 6- and 8-cores, they will have a solid market share in the consumer market. In terms of revenue in the desktop, laptop and server markets, Intel will remain strong for the next couple of years. The only markets where Intel will "struggle" is in the upper mainstream market (custom builders) and HEDT. These are products with very good margins, but the total revenue is not huge, but these are the markets that matters the most for "everyone" in this forum.

Even if the mainstream lineup of Intel is stuck on 14nm until 2021, the situation isn't as dire as you may think. At least until Zen 3 arrives, Intel have excellent per core performance, and as long as they keep that edge they will be fine. While AMD have an edge in efficiency and higher core counts, most buyers in this segment don't need more than 8 cores.

I surely hope that Intel make better backup plans for the next few years, not to keep market shares, I welcome a more split market, but to push the technology forward. Because that's the biggest tragedy of Intel's 10nm problems; they have a newer and much faster architecture, but just can't make it in greater volumes, so the market stagnates. Even with Intel being stuck at 14nm for now, they could have been in a much better position if they had made a backup plan. If Sunny Cove was also developed for 14nm, they didn't have to chase the 5 GHz boost, and could have had a much higher performing 8-core than right now, with a slightly larger die but better thermals.

As for the "stop-gap" Comet Lake, we don't know much of the finer details. But we do know Intel have excellent per core performance, but falls a little off with heavy multithreaded workloads. Comet Lake is rumored to feature better core-to-core bandwidth, it may get higher base clocks (Cascade Lake-X does ~4 GHz base on 10 cores, so why not?), and hopefully more individual boosting of cores (which is one of AMD's advantages right now), which should be enough to stay relevant up to 8-cores until Zen 3 arrives.
A side note is that Intel did some improvements in Cannon Lake, I wonder why they haven't backported that to other Skylake designs yet.


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## Aerpoweron (Jul 11, 2019)

4 cores seem to be the most relevant for gamers at the moment.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/

But the 6 and 8 cores are rising in share.

It is still hard to justify an eight core cpu today if you only play on it. I tried to find people to reproduce a problem with my 9900K CPU. Not many have one.

Intel will be fine for now with the lower core count CPU. And i find it interesting that they are are allowing Hyperthreading on the i5 CPUs in the upcoming releases.

I wonder if they will have an answer for the AMD APUs at some point. For most people it seems a CPU with a reasonable integrated GPU is enough to game on.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 11, 2019)

somethinggeneric said:


> This is Intel we are talking about here folks....



Anybody that upgrades cpu yearly deserves what they get.


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## erixx (Jul 11, 2019)

Before the latest security patches for intel platform (Gruyere-platform) I was fine. Now I want to throw my slow Intel parts in the dustbin!


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## mouacyk (Jul 11, 2019)

Turmania said:


> Intel at least should offer a refresh something like i9-9950K couple hundred more base clock, and  more boost clock and perhaps they can tweak performance. They can do this on i9, i7 and i5 models.


As of right now, they don't have to do anything except reduce price to around $350 to closely match 3700X pricing.  If Intel wants a refresh to widen the performance gap, they can simply double the L3 cache as well, because the die is not that big for 8 cores -- we know how well even L4 worked for the i7-5775C and how much the extra L3 on 3700X masks its memory latency.  There is just no way 14nm++(+) can deliver any more significant clock bumps.


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## Dave65 (Jul 11, 2019)

This wont sit well with the fan babies.


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## EatingDirt (Jul 12, 2019)

Aerpoweron said:


> 4 cores seem to be the most relevant for gamers at the moment.
> 
> https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/
> 
> ...



How low is 'low core count' now? AMD is selling 6/12 CPU's for $200 that are better in almost every metric than the i5's intel are selling(3600 vs 9600k, the 9600 non-k doesn't seem to exist). Are we going lower than 6 core CPU's for $200? We go lower than that and we have $115 & $150 AMD AGP's like the 3200G & 3400G that perform just as well as intel's i3's all while having a better IGP than intel's offering. 

Gaming is basically the _one_ and only reason to buy an mid to High-end Intel CPU right now, and that's for less than 10% more FPS on average at 720p with a $1,300 GPU, while costing well over 10% more(3600 = $200 cooler included vs 9600k = $250+$20-$40(cooler) = $270-290).


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

So it's a Skylake 5.0 like I've guessed.



Aerpoweron said:


> 4 cores seem to be the most relevant for gamers at the moment.
> 
> https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/


I'm pretty sure that there's so much results from not-so-rich countries where people use older hardware.

I still used a quad-core last year (7600K and even upgraded to 7700K) and now with Ryzen 5, there's no going back anymore.


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## gmn 17 (Jul 12, 2019)

Intel dropped the ball or two this round
Get your act together, Intel!
Threadripper 3 FTW


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## zo0lykas (Jul 12, 2019)

When amd release 1800x have the same problem, was hot as fck from the box so need setup in bios voltage, but later on they update chipseta drivers, few bios update, and look every one is happy, just give a time. 


dicktracy said:


> 3900x has brutal temps at merely stock clock. 3950x? Forget it about it... 7nm doesn't look like the magic pill that allows high core counts with high clock speeds. I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

It's true that the BIOSes have been not that ready with AMD in some cases. But like we all know, an update or two has fixed those issues.


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> By the time these launch AMD will be on 7nm EUV with Zen3



If the differences are what we've seen from ryzen 1000 to 2000 or from ryzen 2000 to 3000, i honestly would be a bit worried because intel this time is going to make a big jump with 10nm.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> If the differences are what we've seen from ryzen 1000 to 2000 or from ryzen 2000 to 3000, i honestly would be a bit worried because intel this time is going to make a big jump with 10nm.


And AMD has also time to do hella lot of improvements when that happens. We all know how damn long that's going to take, since 10nm has been nothing else than a joke yet.


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## londiste (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> If the differences are what we've seen from ryzen 1000 to 2000 or from ryzen 2000 to 3000, i honestly would be a bit worried because intel this time is going to make a big jump with 10nm.


Looking at AMD roadmap, Zen2 > Zen3 should be more akin to Ryzen 1000 > 2000. Optimization, better efficiency, perhaps slight shrink thanks to changed manufacturing process but no big jump in performance (small one, definitely).


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> And AMD has also time to do hella lot of improvements when that happens. We all know how damn long that's going to take, since 10nm has been nothing else than a joke yet.



Time won't do much...Improvements with Zen have been pretty modest, and i honestly don't think that would get better with time, in fact i think it will get worse, making less and less improvements from a gen to the next.



londiste said:


> Looking at AMD roadmap, Zen2 > Zen3 should be more akin to Ryzen 1000 > 2000. Optimization, better efficiency, perhaps slight shrink thanks to changed manufacturing process *but no big jump in performance* (small one, definitely).



And that's exactly what they'll need to counter intel at that point.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> Time won't do much...Improvements with Zen have been pretty modest, and i honestly don't think that would get better with time, in fact i think it will get worse, making less and less improvements from a gen to the next.


Modest?! Damn, that's where I'm disagreeing!


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> Modest?! Damn, that's where I'm disagreeing!



There's mostly fixing (especially 1000>2000), performance improvements were never that big, cmon.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> There's mostly fixing (especially 1000>2000), performance improvements were never that big, cmon.


Still, there was improvements. When I was getting my 2600, I got an offer for a cheap 1700 but everyone said that "get that 2600". And I don't regret. Even a small IPC improvement is something. What's Intel done since Skylake..? Exactly, IPC is identical between 9900K and 6700K.


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## ppn (Jul 12, 2019)

I think 7nm EUV by TSMCis now called 6 nm and it offers 114 Mtr/mm2 density. intel 7nm is 237 and 10nm is 101,
75 mm2 chiplet contains 4800 Mtr which is barely 64 Mtr/mm2 how can you even claim this is 7nm.. and NAVI is even worse than 10nm by tsmc with 10300/251=41 Mtr/mm2
so the Comedy lake can stay on 14nm - 44 Mtr/mm2 density for many years, there will be 65 watt 8 core mainstream boosting to 4.2Ghz on low voltage 175 mm2 sized die that is all I need for homePC for the next decade, compared to amd chiplet of 75mm2 7nm plus 100mm2 12nm I/O chip that looks a bit messy to be fair and offers the same thing more or less. But I will wait for the 7nm by intel how ever long it takes must resist.


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## londiste (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> There's mostly fixing (especially 1000>2000), performance improvements were never that big, cmon.


1000>2000 was fixing but 2000>3000 is a big difference in performance. Big things that changed were not fixes as such but catching up to competition. AVX2 is a big thing which helps *a lot* with many productivity benchmarks. Cache is dual-purpose - helping with performance is one, hiding memory latency the best they can is the other. Both of these together give a very big boost in many situations as we can see from reviews now.



ppn said:


> I think 7nm EUV by TSMCis now called 6 nm and it offers 114 Mtr/mm2 density. intel 7nm is 237 and 10nm is 101,
> 75 mm2 chiplet contains 4800 Mtr which is barely 64 Mtr/mm2 how can you even claim this is 7nm.. and NAVI is even worse than 10nm by tsmc with 10300/251=41 Mtr/mm2
> so the Comedy lake can stay on 14nm - 44 Mtr/mm2 density for many years, there will be 65 watt 8 core mainstream boosting to 4.2Ghz on low voltage 175 mm2 sized die that is all I need for homePC for the next decade, compared to amd chiplet of 75mm2 7nm plus 100mm2 12nm I/O chip that looks a bit messy to be fair and offers the same thing more or less. But I will wait for the 7nm by intel how ever long it takes must resist.


TSMC has announced 3 nodes after current 7N - 7N+ (more EUV), 6N (density improvement, IIRC they estimate 15%) and next-gen 5N.
Density claims from foundries has a lot of marketing in it. Density depends a lot on what exactly is on the chip. SRAM is dense, logic - less so, IO doesn't scale down well to 7nm etc. High-performance versions of nodes are also much less dense than normal/mobile versions where top performance is less of a priority besides size (=cost) and efficiency (=power consumption/heat).


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> Still, there was improvements. When I was getting my 2600, I got an offer for a cheap 1700 but everyone said that "get that 2600". And I don't regret. Even a small IPC improvement is something. What's Intel done since Skylake..? Exactly, IPC is identical between 9900K and 6700K.



O well absolutely, that's especially if you wouldn't have put to use those extra cores, intel has done even smallest improvements, IPC got better with time, but still small improvements, simply because the architecture was already old, and 14nm optimizations can't do miracles.



londiste said:


> 1000>2000 was fixing but 2000>3000 is a big difference in performance. Big things that changed were not fixes as such but catching up to competition. AVX2 is a big thing which helps *a lot* with many productivity benchmarks. Cache is dual-purpose - helping with performance is one, hiding memory latency the best they can is the other. Both of these together give a very big boost in many situations as we can see from reviews now.



Big is far exaggerated honestly, there were modest improvements, frequency is the same, IPC is slightly better, memory latency got even worse looking at the benchmarks, i agree adding instructions sets helps performance, but not on any workload, what helps performance in ANY workload is frequency, and that hasn't got that much better.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> O well absolutely, that's especially if you wouldn't have put to use those extra cores, intel has done even smallest improvements, IPC got better with time, but still small improvements, simply because the architecture was already old, and 14nm optimizations can't do miracles.


Exactly, this is why many user is switching to AMD. Better prices, better multithreaded performance. Intel has better singlecore IPC but hey, it's 2019, not 2009..


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## londiste (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> Big is far exaggerated honestly, there were modest improvements, frequency is the same, IPC is slightly better, memory latency got even worse looking at the benchmarks, i agree adding instructions sets helps performance, but not on any workload, what helps performance in ANY workload is frequency, and that hasn't got that much better.


Frequency does seem to be more a manufacturing process issue rather than architecture at this point. Efficiency curve gets really-really bad somewhere around 4.4-4.5GHz using both GF/TSMC 14/12nm as well as TSMC 7nm. Intel's 14nm is kind of an extra step ahead when it comes to frequency but it is not that much and they have had a long time to fine-tune it.

As far as architecture goes, Intel will follow the same ideas AMD has - more cache, wider CPU. We'll see what happens after that.



oxidized said:


> Big is far exaggerated honestly, there were modest improvements, frequency is the same, IPC is slightly better, memory latency got even worse looking at the benchmarks, i agree adding instructions sets helps performance, but not on any workload, what helps performance in ANY workload is frequency, and that hasn't got that much better.


13% IPC improvement AMD claims seems to be about right for the most painful areas (games and AVX productivity mainly). This is simply excellent. 
Memory latency getting worse was very much a concious decision. They did not have to build - for example desktop - CPUs this way. This is simply a tradeoff for consolidating the chip manufacturing across the entire range of CPUs.


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> Exactly, this is why many user is switching to AMD. Better prices, better multithreaded performance. Intel has better singlecore IPC but hey, it's 2019, not 2009..



People is switching to AMD because they have a better value overall, no doubt, and they're driven by this GINORMOUS hype behind the underdog, as always people sympathize for the underdog and they're ultra happy if they manage to come out on top or close to to the opponent, especially if this opponent is intel.



londiste said:


> Frequency does seem to be more a manufacturing process issue rather than architecture at this point. Efficiency curve gets really-really bad somewhere around 4.4-4.5GHz using both GF/TSMC 14/12nm as well as TSMC 7nm. Intel's 14nm is kind of an extra step ahead when it comes to frequency but it is not that much and they have had a long time to fine-tune it.
> 
> As far as architecture goes, Intel will follow the same ideas AMD has - more cache, wider CPU. We'll see what happens after that.



Yeah but don't forget they switched to TSMC, and they're nothing like trash GloFo, and as of now the differences are yet to be seen, intel has always or pretty much, in the latest 15 years had the best silicon possible, and that's also part of why intel was so much above AMD back then, and for the same reason they still have a clear advantage in frequency which puts them ahead in gaming and most of single threaded applications. Hopefully they won't because i never thought the answer was more core, or splitting the dies in different parts, don't forget intel has a much older architecture and they still keep up, or more than just keep up, they have nothing to learn when it comes to architectures.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> People is switching to AMD because they have a better value overall, no doubt, and they're driven by this GINORMOUS hype behind the underdog, as always people sympathize for the underdog and they're ultra happy if they manage to come out on top or close to to the opponent, especially if this opponent is intel.


I bought my 2600 in january, not with hype... I had a 5820K before and I like this more.

I'm happy that AMD can trade blows with Intel, last time was when they released Athlon 64, tho back then Pentium 4 got knocked out..


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## londiste (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> I bought my 2600 in january, not with hype... I had a 5820K before and I like this more.


Arent 2600 and 5820K pretty much equal in terms of performance? 2600 should be maybe 5% faster?


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> I bought my 2600 in january, not with hype... I had a 5820K before and I like this more.
> 
> I'm happy that AMD can trade blows with Intel, last time was when they released Athlon 64, tho back then Pentium 4 got knocked out..



2014 vs 2018 CPU...Surprised it only beats that 5% or something.



londiste said:


> 13% IPC improvement AMD claims seems to be about right for the most painful areas (games and AVX productivity mainly). This is simply excellent.
> Memory latency getting worse was very much a concious decision. They did not have to build - for example desktop - CPUs this way. This is simply a tradeoff for consolidating the chip manufacturing across the entire range of CPUs.



13% IPC improvement 2000 to 3000? Are you sure? I mean i read a few benchmarks, but it didn't really look even half of that...


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## londiste (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> 13% IPC improvement 2000 to 3000? Are you sure? I mean i read a few benchmarks, but it didn't really look even half of that...


Note that I said for the most painful areas. Benchmarks do show considerable IPC increase, for example:








						AMD Ryzen 9 3900X och 7 3700X "Matisse" - Test - Test: Vid samma klockfrekvens
					

Med Zen 2 och 7 nanometer lovar AMD en produkt som kan slå Intel. Ryzen 3000-serien är här och efter över ett decenniums frånvaro hälsar vi AMD välkommen til...




					www.sweclockers.com


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## Kaotik (Jul 12, 2019)

There is no "Ice Lake-S". Desktop isn't getting Ice Lake, after Comet Lake there will be Rocket Lake which will still be 14nm. Earliest chance for 10nm on desktop is 2022, but who knows, they might just skip 10nm altogether on desktop and go for 7nm instead.


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## phanbuey (Jul 12, 2019)

dicktracy said:


> 3900x has brutal temps at merely stock clock. 3950x? Forget it about it... 7nm doesn't look like the magic pill that allows high core counts with high clock speeds. I can now see why Threadripper got axed for this year's roadmap... wait for 7nm+.


the 3600x and the 3700x have similar temps, so I don't think the additional cores are going to make that much of a difference.


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

londiste said:


> Note that I said for the most painful areas. Benchmarks do show considerable IPC increase, for example:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fair.


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## Kissamies (Jul 12, 2019)

oxidized said:


> 2014 vs 2018 CPU...Surprised it only beats that 5% or something.


I'm not continuing this shit when I'm answering a troll. I hope nobody else will also do that.

e: And you have a 2600K, that's hella ancient!


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## oxidized (Jul 12, 2019)

Chloe Price said:


> I'm not continuing this shit when I'm answering a troll. I hope nobody else will also do that.
> 
> e: And you have a 2600K, that's hella ancient!



You people are obsessed with trolls...Why should i be trolling, and what's my 2600K got to do with it?


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## efikkan (Jul 12, 2019)

londiste said:


> Looking at AMD roadmap, Zen2 > Zen3 should be more akin to Ryzen 1000 > 2000. Optimization, better efficiency, perhaps slight shrink thanks to changed manufacturing process but no big jump in performance (small one, definitely).


AMD have stated that we shouldn't expect large improvements in single thread performance in Zen 3.
I hope this doesn't mean that the successors will be smaller and smaller "tweaks".



londiste said:


> Note that I said for the most painful areas. Benchmarks do show considerable IPC increase, for example:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


While Zen 2 is certainly a good step up in IPC over Zen(1), I think people are stretching the "IPC" term too far these days. IPC, if it still means anything, is an approximation of the CPU's throughput of instructions across a wide range of workloads, using the same instructions of course, and the IPC doesn't "change" based on the workload, and it should of course be single thread. I do wish for a standardized measure of performance to succeed IPC, because IPC is strictly about instructions, not performance. Take for example SIMD like AVX, which is fewer larger instructions which does huge chunks of work.


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## bug (Jul 12, 2019)

efikkan said:


> AMD have stated that we shouldn't expect large improvements in single thread performance in Zen 3.
> I hope this doesn't mean that the successors will be smaller and smaller "tweaks".


If you have followed the industry, you'd know every major architecture is followed by ~5 years of tweaks and refinements. Athlon was refined into AthlonXP (under their various names), Athlon64 moved the memory controller onto the CPU die and it was refined into Athlon X2/4. Core was introduced on mobile, it moved to the desktop as Core 2, received its significant tweaks till Sandy Bridge and little else after that (the focus has shifted back to mobile).
Imho, if you go Zen2, you're getting 75-80% of what Zen will ever offer.


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## efikkan (Jul 13, 2019)

bug said:


> If you have followed the industry, you'd know every major architecture is followed by ~5 years of tweaks and refinements. Athlon was refined into AthlonXP (under their various names), Athlon64 moved the memory controller onto the CPU die and it was refined into Athlon X2/4. Core was introduced on mobile, it moved to the desktop as Core 2, received its significant tweaks till Sandy Bridge and little else after that (the focus has shifted back to mobile).
> Imho, if you go Zen2, you're getting 75-80% of what Zen will ever offer.


Well, I have followed the industry enough to know that you're wrong.
Intel and Nvidia have been steadily pushing out new architectures every ~2-3 years, and having 2-3 different designs in different stages of development at any time, up until Intel hit a snag with 10nm.

*Intel:*
2006: Conroe
2009: Nehalem
2011: Sandy Bridge
2013: Haswell
2015: Skylake
2019: Ice Lake (only partial)

*Nvidia:*
2006: Tesla
(2008: Tesla 2.0 (refinement))
2010: Fermi
2012: Kepler
2014: Maxwell
(2016: Pascal)
2017: Volta
(2018: Turing)

*AMD:*
2003: K8
2007: K10
2011: Bulldozer
2017: Zen
(2019: Zen 2)
(2020?: Zen 3)

I could also have mentioned AMD GPUs, but you all know how that will look.


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## londiste (Jul 13, 2019)

efikkan said:


> While Zen 2 is certainly a good step up in IPC over Zen(1), I think people are stretching the "IPC" term too far these days. IPC, if it still means anything, is an approximation of the CPU's throughput of instructions across a wide range of workloads, using the same instructions of course, and the IPC doesn't "change" based on the workload, and it should of course be single thread. I do wish for a standardized measure of performance to succeed IPC, because IPC is strictly about instructions, not performance. Take for example SIMD like AVX, which is fewer larger instructions which does huge chunks of work.


While you are technically correct and I too still cringe when reading or typing IPC in this context, it has become the de-facto term for relative  single-core performance at the same clock speed.


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## Aerpoweron (Jul 13, 2019)

Don't forget Intel already has 10nm CPUs. They are the best they can do for now, and i don't want to know the yields.

It will take some time until the 10nm CPUs can surpass the very good optimized 14nm CPUs. And each process shrink comes with it's own adavantages and disadvantages.
Intel might have a heat issue for higher frequency CPUs with 14nm already. And going for 10nm this might get worse.

We need CPUs made out of carbon (Diamond in that case) which has superior heat transfer capabilities over silicon. But that is way into the future, and how do you cut these things efficiently?


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## londiste (Jul 13, 2019)

Might have? Intel's 14nm is not magic and efficiency curve is clearly going upwards at the same 4.2-4.3 GHz mark that AMD gets from TMSC. The only difference seems to be that it does not curve upwards that aggressively, making it possible to realistically have 5 GHz or a little above.


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## efikkan (Jul 13, 2019)

londiste said:


> While you are technically correct and I too still cringe when reading or typing IPC in this context, it has become the de-facto term for relative  single-core performance at the same clock speed.


Even if we accept that the term is applied loosely as "performance per clock", it should still be workload independent. You should never take a single benchmark and extrapolate IPC by dividing by clock, and it should always be single thread. And especially not use trash like Geekbench and Cinebench, which may not even run the same code on different CPUs. And then all kinds of boosting must be completely disabled, of course.



Aerpoweron said:


> Don't forget Intel already has 10nm CPUs. They are the best they can do for now, and i don't want to know the yields.
> 
> It will take some time until the 10nm CPUs can surpass the very good optimized 14nm CPUs. And each process shrink comes with it's own adavantages and disadvantages.
> Intel might have a heat issue for higher frequency CPUs with 14nm already. And going for 10nm this might get worse.


Ice Lake-U and Ice Lake-Y is still on the "first gen" 10nm, the same as the disastrous launch of Cannon Lake last year. So in a year they've managed to go from nearly no working chips to "acceptable" volumes to ship a limited lineup, this is still without changing the gates or materials of the node. Just two months ago Intel "promised" to ship Ice Lake-SP on 10nm+ in Q2 2020, we'll see if they change their mind again, but at least this will be a "second generation" 10 nm node.

Even with Intel's older estimates, they didn't expect 10nm to outperform 14nm++ until 10nm+ or even 10nm++, but they were surely banking on launching Sunny Cove on 10nm with its good IPC gains to compensate for slightly lower boost clocks.

But as you are saying, node shrinks comes with disadvantages too. Different parts of the design can be shrunk at different rates, and different parts needs to be closer together for latency issues etc. There is also the issue of thermal density, which is already a problem for Intel at 14nm. Even AMD have stated that they expect future nodes to offer lower clocks, so we are probably at or close to the peak of what this type of technology can provide.

The only way forward is more IPC, and to keep the clocks within the "sweetspot".



Aerpoweron said:


> We need CPUs made out of carbon (Diamond in that case) which has superior heat transfer capabilities over silicon. But that is way into the future, and how do you cut these things efficiently?


We'll see, but not in the next five years.


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## bug (Jul 13, 2019)

efikkan said:


> Well, I have followed the industry enough to know that you're wrong.
> Intel and Nvidia have been steadily pushing out new architectures every ~2-3 years, and having 2-3 different designs in different stages of development at any time, up until Intel hit a snag with 10nm.
> 
> *Intel:*
> ...


Ok, we say "architecture", but we mean different things.


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## B-Real (Jul 13, 2019)

oxidized said:


> People is switching to AMD because they have a better value overall, no doubt, and they're driven by this GINORMOUS hype behind the underdog, as always people sympathize for the underdog and they're ultra happy if they manage to come out on top or close to to the opponent, especially if this opponent is intel.



It's funny, as because of this, people would switch to AMD from NV, as they are the underdog there too, but that's not happening. More important is they made big steps forward in the CPU segment, have better price/performance and power draw/performance numbers, and they just do better in workloads then much pricier Intels.


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## medi01 (Jul 13, 2019)

efikkan said:


> *Intel:*
> 2006: Conroe
> 2009: Nehalem
> 2011: Sandy Bridge
> ...


*107,100 employees*



efikkan said:


> *Nvidia:*
> 2006: Tesla
> (2008: Tesla 2.0 (refinement))
> 2010: Fermi
> ...


*11',528 employees*

together vs



efikkan said:


> *AMD:*
> 2003: K8
> 2007: K10
> 2011: Bulldozer
> ...


*10,500 employees*

What could possibly go wrong, hm? How come AMD doesn't beat them on number of architectures per decade?
Mystery...


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## Deleted member 157276 (Jul 14, 2019)

btarunr said:


> Zen3 on-track for Computex 2020. They'll use 7 nm EUV to clock those processors to Kingdom Come.



I would like you to explain to us how AMD is supposed to do that? *According to Anandtech**, early reports of 7nm EUV will offer "~8% lower power consumption at the same complexity and frequency (between 6% and 12% to be more precise)". *Which makes sense, since the transistor density increases by only 20%. AMD themselves have defined Zen 3 as iterative through their own roadmap, which makes complete sense within the context of a small node shrink.



oxidized said:


> 13% IPC improvement 2000 to 3000? Are you sure? I mean i read a few benchmarks, but it didn't really look even half of that...



Yes, IPC increased by 13%. Frequency improved around ~5% as well.


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## oxidized (Jul 14, 2019)

B-Real said:


> It's funny, as because of this, people would switch to AMD from NV, as they are the underdog there too, but that's not happening. More important is they made big steps forward in the CPU segment, have better price/performance and power draw/performance numbers, and they just do better in workloads then much pricier Intels.



And they did in fact, some even switched from nvidia to AMD even if they already knew they were getting an overall worse product, ofc 1080Ti and 2080Ti users would never be able to do that. I totally agree, they made HUGE steps in the CPU segment, and they win in some of the workloads, but it automatically becomes "in all the workloads" because everyone is so hyped and roots for the underdog, just because it's the underdog, but don't forget they have everything and everyone on their side atm, and i really hope this isn't the best they can do.


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## efikkan (Jul 15, 2019)

bug said:


> Ok, we say "architecture", but we mean different things.


Respectfully, I can't speak for you, but when I say architecture, I mean _architecture_.

No one who knows what they're talking about would dispute that Haswell and Skylake are different architectures from Sandy Bridge, despite offering a total gain of ~15% IPC. It's the underlying design which is the qualifier, not a specific performance metric. If that were the case, then Bulldozer wouldn't qualify as a new architecture since it's worse in some metrics than K10. I've criticized Haswell and Skylake plenty, not because they are bad, but because I think they don't go far enough in "useful" improvements. They do offer massive improvements in AVX, and better multicore scaling, both of which is good, but they offer little in IPC gains and "waste" silicon on special acceleration.

-----

Intel's current heat and thermal density problems are because they push the clocks to the extreme. Even the 8-core Coffee Lake with the (pointless) integrated GPU is ~174mm², meaning even at 14nm Intel could have made the cores ~10-20% larger, if the increased core side supplied enough IPC gains to run at a more sensible clock speed. I've said it many times before, this is Intel's lack of planning. They could have easily developed Sunny Cove for 14nm if the planning started early enough, or they could at least brought some improvements like in Cannon Lake and expanded upon that.


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