Thursday, December 10th 2015
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Intel Core i7 "Broadwell-E" Lineup to Feature Four SKUs
Intel is breaking away from its tradition of three Core i7 HEDT (high-end desktop) processors per generation, capturing price points of $400, $600, and $1000; with its upcoming Core i7 "Broadwell-E" HEDT lineup. According to leaked documents accessed by BenchLife.info, the company is readying four SKUs based on the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon, these include the Core i7-6800K, the Core i7-6850K, the Core i7-6900K, and the Core i7-6950X.
The Core i7-6800K and i7-6850K are six-core chips, with HyperThreading enabling 12 logical CPUs, and 15 MB shared L3 cache. The i7-6800K is clocked at 3.40 GHz, with a 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. The i7-6850K is a notch above, with 3.60 GHz core, and 3.80 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. The slide doesn't mention if either of the two parts feature a limited PCIe root complex, like the one on the i7-5820K.As we move up the lineup, there's the Core i7-6900K. This is an eight-core chip, with HyperThreading enabling 16 logical CPUs, and with 20 MB L3 cache at its disposal. Its core is clocked at 3.20 GHz, with a rather healthy 3.70 GHz Turbo Boost. At the very top of the lineup, is the Core i7-6950X. Intel's first consumer 10-core chip, with HyperThreading giving your OS a whopping 20 logical CPUs to deal with, this chip features 25 MB L3 cache, and is clocked at 3.00 GHz, with 3.50 GHz Turbo Boost.
All four chips in the lineup feature 140W TDP, unlocked base-clock multipliers, and will be compatible with existing socket LGA2011v3 motherboards with firmware updates. The low clock speeds on some of these chips right off the bat, could be Intel's way of not letting the rated TDP be higher than 140W. With the right cooling, the target consumers of these chips could overclock these chips.
Intel is planning to launch these Core i7 "Broadwell-E" chips in the second quarter of 2016.
Source:
BenchLife.info
The Core i7-6800K and i7-6850K are six-core chips, with HyperThreading enabling 12 logical CPUs, and 15 MB shared L3 cache. The i7-6800K is clocked at 3.40 GHz, with a 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. The i7-6850K is a notch above, with 3.60 GHz core, and 3.80 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. The slide doesn't mention if either of the two parts feature a limited PCIe root complex, like the one on the i7-5820K.As we move up the lineup, there's the Core i7-6900K. This is an eight-core chip, with HyperThreading enabling 16 logical CPUs, and with 20 MB L3 cache at its disposal. Its core is clocked at 3.20 GHz, with a rather healthy 3.70 GHz Turbo Boost. At the very top of the lineup, is the Core i7-6950X. Intel's first consumer 10-core chip, with HyperThreading giving your OS a whopping 20 logical CPUs to deal with, this chip features 25 MB L3 cache, and is clocked at 3.00 GHz, with 3.50 GHz Turbo Boost.
All four chips in the lineup feature 140W TDP, unlocked base-clock multipliers, and will be compatible with existing socket LGA2011v3 motherboards with firmware updates. The low clock speeds on some of these chips right off the bat, could be Intel's way of not letting the rated TDP be higher than 140W. With the right cooling, the target consumers of these chips could overclock these chips.
Intel is planning to launch these Core i7 "Broadwell-E" chips in the second quarter of 2016.
59 Comments on Intel Core i7 "Broadwell-E" Lineup to Feature Four SKUs
The PCIe lanes from 5820K are used for USB 3.0/3.1 and M.2 slots too just like how Z170 is wired to various onboard chips. 5930K and 5960X do provide more usable lanes but at a higher cost.
In terms of pure functionalities and performance, 9 series chipsets can't even hold a candle to 100 series. So X99 by itself is no exception here.
BTW your link points to a Z97 board, not Z170.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132574&cm_re=asus_z170-_-13-132-574-_-Product I never disregarded whether or not it supplied 20 split Gen 3 lanes, I said what's usable to the user after the manufacturer allocated said lanes from the PCH.
Can't hold a candle? X99 can supply more lanes without the additional help of a switching interconnect (PCH), sure with the associated cost, but still without a doubt has more available bandwidth to the user. Don't gloss over the point to hold your own argument. Skylake is just as limited as Haswell and previous mainstream platforms in terms of PCI-E lanes and bandwidth available. Skylake (1151) is taking 4 lanes from the CPU and splitting said lanes for the associated features on the board whereas if I was to buy a 5930k right now (or even a 5820k) I'd still have more raw/available lanes/bandwidth to use at my disposal. 40 vs 20 isn't an argument, it's fact. On X99 (or even X79 like my current board) if we start adding switching chips we have even more available switched bandwidth and not trying to split 4 lanes but instead 28-40.
This is where we go back to my original comment saying 16+4 which is exactly what it is. As the corrected board I linked, it can't do SLI (which a license requires 8x to two slots), all 16 lanes go to the first PCI-E slot and the M.2 is left with Gen 2 4x which I'd be willing to bet if the M.2 is used it kills the second full size slot.
In one paragraph you acknowleged Z170 PCH is PCIe 3.0 capable yet you said the M.2 slot wired to it was only 2.0 x4 later. Have you realised you contradicted yourself? M.2 ports on all Z170 board are rated for 3.0 x4 32Gb/s. Can 2.0 x4 provide 32Gb/s bandwidth?
You used that bottom of the pack Z170 board as the sole example to prove that SLI is only possible with X99? Take a look at this: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132567R&cm_re=asus_z170_pro_gaming-_-13-132-567R-_-Product . BTW this is only a mid-end board.
Core i7 3930K = 130W TDP
Core i7 4820K = 130W TDP
Core i7 4930K = 130W TDP
Core i7 4960K = 130W TDP
Real world system power usage once all of the threads are loaded:
www.xbitlabs.com/images/cpu/core-i7-4960x-4930k-4820k/Charts/power-2.png
"The new Ivy Bridge-E CPUs aren’t very economical at full loads, yet they are better than their Sandy Bridge-E counterparts. The Core i7-4960X needs 85 watts less than the Core i7-3970 whereas the Core i7-4930K needs 68 watts less than the Core i7-3930K. Thus, the new 22nm six-core CPUs from Intel offer higher performance per watt than their predecessors, largely due to the fact that the Ivy Bridge-E CPUs work at lower voltage."
www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-4960x-4930k-4820k_8.html#sect0
It was also pointed out to you that there is an exponential relationship that exists between voltage and power usage. Higher ASIC clock speeds tend to require higher voltages:
photocdn.sohu.com/20150714/Img416724389.png
Therefore, based on the actual understanding of TDP and the relationship between higher voltages needed to achieve higher frequencies on all cores and their corresponding impact on power usage, your comparison to a low-clocked 55W Xeon is not a relevant method to discredit BW-E's efficiency.
Your first graph is the system power consumption, not that of the cpu alone. And it does show ivy bridge E being more efficient than sandy bridge E... in power draw. But Intel isn't going to throw out a cpu tdp without reason so we can assume if they say the thermal load is the same, it is. So even despite operating at a lower typical power draw ivy bridge E exudes heat at a higher rate making it just as efficient heat wise as sandy bridge E even despite the power savings. But I guess that's where the comparison fails a datacenter is concerned with both power draw and heat, whereas a home user is only really concerned with power draw and noise, not necessarily heat.
The 2011 v3 socket is the same for both xeon's and I7's alike. They are both based on the same architecture (haswell E) and they run at similar voltages. The base clocks tend to be reduced on the Xeons but the turbo clocks are similar. The 55w 8 core is the L version and voltage certainly does scale with both power and heat, but remember that's per core. So it scales with the number of cores as well. And the 145W 18 core is not of the low voltage type.
no matter how you slice it these are not efficient at all and certainly not in line with what we've been seeing in the graphics realm.
though possibly the best answer comes in the form of the paragraph you left out of the Xbit X79 comparison
Talking about the overall platform, yes Haswell-E + X99 will give you more lanes if you opt for 5930K/5960X (it's a lot more expensive, so you'd expect that anyway). However in terms of how these lanes are utilised, it is actuallly controlled (or dictated in your words) by motherboard manufacturers. This applies to both X99 and Z170. You probably think those 20 lanes on Z170 are fixed to certain functionalities and cannot be easily changed. Well this is not true. Intel introduced this thing called Flex I/O starting from 9 series chipsets. It allows the PCIe lanes in the PCH to be grouped and assigned to various functionalities (SATA, M2, SATAe, U2, USB, LAN, etc.) based on motherboard manufacturers' own designs (best example Asus Maximus VIII Hero vs Maximus VIII Hero Alpha announced in the news today). So motherboard manufacturers could give you more than 3.0 4x from PCH if they wish.
Those 40 lanes from Haswell-E are usually wired to 3 or 4 PCIe x16 slots plus a M2 slot. You may think you can utilise all of them. Well this is only true if you have multiple GPUs. For a graphic card + a few PCIe SSDs, some of those lanes become wasted (e.g. puting a x4 SSD in a x8 slot). On top of that you can only insert PCIe SSD in the M.2 slot from the CPU whereas Z170 slot supports both PCIe/SATA (not that many people want to actually use SATA M.2 SSDs). Intel RST is another missing feature if you use CPU PCIe lanes for storage devices. So for overall flexibility these two platforms are about the same with X99 having an edge on multi-GPU and Z170 winning on storage options (with 5820K having only 28 lanes, the scale tips towards Z170 slightly).
Oh well... My old x79 is still plenty enough... it just might kick the bucket some day...
@xorbe
I sometimes put together and patch some cyanogen roms for my personal phones if I have some free time... You know... The compiling takes everything you throw at it... It still lasts around 30mins till 1.5h, depending on platform and toolchains...
as for board manufacturers making more, i really can't see it happening,
why ?
well my new motherboard (Gigabyte GA-X99-SOC-CHAMPION) has stopped being sold (ye ye i know it's only 1 out of loads) but still even the successor is no longer available ,
i've no idea how popular or unpopular the x99 platform has been, but it seems as though it was for fairly rich people
why intel thought bringing out another lot of 2011-3 processors is a good idea i'll never know :confused:
I might try these if they somehow go down to 95w-ish (No xeon for me, I need the onboard GPU).
It's just going to be expensive, that's all. Also, if you need HD Graphics, you're looking in the wrong place. Never has any HEDT CPU had integrated graphics. TDP is also not coming down. HEDT has always been 120-140W.
There is also an option to use CUDA rendering with my 760 but CUDA rendering has its own issues. I do find that 760 is faster than my i7-4770s but GPU can't render all shaders in Blender and the whole rig becomes very unresponsive when using GPU.
The reason I need the igpu is that I install rendering rigs in 2U rackmount. Server boards will come with some sort of 3rd party gpu which is just powerful enough to power a monitor but I want something more than that and HD graphics is perfect for it.
Though I am not asking 20 cores at 65w. I am asking 8 cores at maximum of 95w and with igpu. I don't have a need for anything more than 8 cores.