Thursday, May 9th 2019
Intel Drivers Reveal 400, 495 Series Chipsets for Comet Lake, Ice Lake - New Year, New Socket, Same 14 nm Process
Data extracted from Intel's latest Server Chipset Driver (10.1.18010.8141) mentions support for new chipsets, which will bring about compatibility for the company's upcoming Comet Lake chips. Comet Lake, if you remember, is Intel's latest gasp in the 14 nm process for CPUs, and should bring up to 10 cores to the consumer segment. The increase in maximum number of cores will naturally be Intel's justification for the need for new chipsets and sockets, due to "electrical incompatibilities" and increased requirements in the power delivery subsystem.
If you're looking for the latest and greatest changes to Intel's architecture and manufacturing process, you'll have to wait for Ice Lake, for which the 495 series chipset brings compatibility. But for that one, you'll have to wait until 2020. Let's see what AMD's Ryzen 2 brings to the table against Intel's current (and up to 10 nm Comet Lake) offerings. Even excluding platform longevity, AMD's architecture and core density really has been giving Intel a run for its money.
Sources:
Momomo via Twitter, via Tom's Hardware
If you're looking for the latest and greatest changes to Intel's architecture and manufacturing process, you'll have to wait for Ice Lake, for which the 495 series chipset brings compatibility. But for that one, you'll have to wait until 2020. Let's see what AMD's Ryzen 2 brings to the table against Intel's current (and up to 10 nm Comet Lake) offerings. Even excluding platform longevity, AMD's architecture and core density really has been giving Intel a run for its money.
15 Comments on Intel Drivers Reveal 400, 495 Series Chipsets for Comet Lake, Ice Lake - New Year, New Socket, Same 14 nm Process
New chipset does not necessarily mean a new socket.
1151 for 6700k/7700k
another 1151 for 8700k and 9900k
this'll be the fourth socket for 14nm
However, that assumption isn't quite what I would use for a headline, clickmagnet or not.
if 8th gen required new socket and MB cause of power requirements, we are looking at 2 more cores that Intel will push to 5.0Ghz+, thinks about 9900K real power requirement and add another 25% min.
9990XE is only 14C and it's crazy on Power consumption.
From Anand on 9990XE power requirements:They wont go for low clock 10C to compete against 12~16C Ryzens, they will try push the clocks to make it look better on Gaming and ST performance.
There's a typo, should be 10 cores Comet Lake since it will be 14 nm.
Could use a new socket if Comet Lake introduces the mesh architecture for 10/8 cores chips instead of the ring bus. If that is not the case I don't see the point, cause 1151v2 is used just in 300 series, the logical move is being used in 400 series too.
As far as I remember, Ice Lake won't see the light on desktops, so I don't get what the 495 series means, perhaps is a workstation chipset.
I doubt that 495 series(Ice Lake) is a HEDT or Xeon-W chipset, but the name seems to indicate it being a higher tier platform, and it existing (partially) side-by-side with the 400 series(Comet Lake 14nm). It still begs the question if this will be used for "Rocket Lake", mentioned in Dell's leaked roadmaps, stating 10 cores, 14nm and Ice Lake chipset. There is also the possibility of an Ice Lake-S being a limited (non-OEM) 10nm product, kind of like the first Coffee Lake Refresh CPUs and the Haswell Refresh, but this is pure speculation.
I doubt Ice Lake to be launched for desktop at all, so far the max core count for Ice Lake is 4 cores, so would be used just for i3, Pentium Gold and Celeron, too cheap products for the cost of 10 nm.
So I think the W chipset is more likely than Rocket Lake or desktop Ice Lake. For W platform Intel can use low frequency chips with high core counts since Ice Lake can't achieve Coffee Lake frequency.
Intel said a few days ago that they will be launching Server chips (Xeon) on 10nm the first half of 2020. It's probably not a question of whether they can make high core count chips on 10nm, but the quantities. If Intel were to launch a full lineup of Ice Lake-S on 10nm, it would require a huge quantity of high clock chips, but the majority of the volume would go to OEMs with mostly low-end and mid-range CPUs, which would be a waste of the precious 10nm capacity, which is probably why the full lineup will never(?) launch on 10nm. That does not preclude a smaller selection of non-OEM models on 10nm though.
Intel knows that for mainstream adding more than 10 cores is bullshit, the average user don't see benefits. AMD is certain that most users believe that having more cores does their browsing faster, so it plays with the marketing of it.
Some Kaby Lake laptops used Skylake PCH, some Coffee Lake used a Kaby Lake R PCH.