Monday, June 25th 2018
Intel Shelves Z390 Express As We Knew It, Could Re-brand Z370 as Z390
Intel is rumored to have shelved the iteration of its upcoming Z390 Express chipset as earlier publicized, the one which had certain new hardware features. It could now re-brand the existing Z370 Express as Z390 Express and probably bolster its reference design with heftier CPU VRM specifications, to cope better with its upcoming 8-core LGA1151 processors. The Z370 Express is similar in feature-set to the brink of being identical to its predecessor, the Z270 Express. This move could impact certain new hardware features that were on the anvil, such as significantly more USB 3.1 gen 2/gen1 ports directly from the PCH, integrated WiFi MAC, and Intel SmartSound technology, which borrowed certain concepts from edge-computing to implement native speech-to-text conversion directly on the chipset, for improved voice control latency and reduced CPU overhead.
The reasons behind this move could be a combination of last-minute cost-benefit analyses by Intel's bean-counters, and having to mass-produce Z390 Express on the busier-than-expected 14 nm silicon fabrication node, as opposed to current 300-series chipsets being built on the 22 nm node that's nearing the end of its life-cycle. Intel probably needed the switch to 14 nm for the significant increases in transistor-counts arising from the additional USB controllers, the WiFi MAC, and the SmartSound logic. Intel probably doesn't have the vacant 14 nm node capacity needed to mass-produce the Z390 yet, as its transition to future processes such as 10 nm and 7 nm are still saddled with setbacks and delays; and redesigning the Z390 (as we knew it) on 22 nm may have emerged unfeasible (i.e. the chip may have ended up too big and/or too hot). The Z390 Express chipset block-diagram, which we published in our older article has been quietly removed from Intel's website. It's also rumored that this move could force AMD to rethink its plans to launch its Z490 socket AM4 chipset.
Source:
Benchlife.info
The reasons behind this move could be a combination of last-minute cost-benefit analyses by Intel's bean-counters, and having to mass-produce Z390 Express on the busier-than-expected 14 nm silicon fabrication node, as opposed to current 300-series chipsets being built on the 22 nm node that's nearing the end of its life-cycle. Intel probably needed the switch to 14 nm for the significant increases in transistor-counts arising from the additional USB controllers, the WiFi MAC, and the SmartSound logic. Intel probably doesn't have the vacant 14 nm node capacity needed to mass-produce the Z390 yet, as its transition to future processes such as 10 nm and 7 nm are still saddled with setbacks and delays; and redesigning the Z390 (as we knew it) on 22 nm may have emerged unfeasible (i.e. the chip may have ended up too big and/or too hot). The Z390 Express chipset block-diagram, which we published in our older article has been quietly removed from Intel's website. It's also rumored that this move could force AMD to rethink its plans to launch its Z490 socket AM4 chipset.
46 Comments on Intel Shelves Z390 Express As We Knew It, Could Re-brand Z370 as Z390
If you don't give customers what they want, and can't be bothered to include much needed new features in to your own self-enforced CPU socket "upgrades", then maybe your customers won't be bothered to buy it...
Intel should be very happy that current Ryzen is not able to OC much and general performance (especially in games) sometimes drop post OC, because turbo boosts higher than what all core OC is capable of (eg. 2700X hits 4.35 boost stock, but all-core OC is more like 4.1ish).
Hopefully Zen 2 hits 4.5 GHz+
"You'd better slow down, or we'll release the megachip?" :laugh:
As long as Intel will pay him enough he'll stay and do his thing BUT I'm also sure in the end he will have a say - His credentials alone give him leverage to have it.
However it's also been said before the guy is more of a mercenary than anything, he goes where the money is.
That said, Keller is apparently senior vice president at Intel which is a cushy executive job, not engineering.
Somewhat off topic: how well did I do ordering an X299 yesterday to bring some excitement to my basement matrix :)
Intel 14nm is also more advanced than GloFo 12nm.
Marketing "nm" I guess...
Does anyone remember today how Vega was supposed to draw less power because it was built on 14nm (as opposed to Pascal's 16nm)? We can never infer anything meaningful from these numbers, yet somehow we keep trying...
Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.. 32nm to 22nm.. Didn't change much either..