Monday, January 13th 2020
Core i9-10990XE 22-core Processor Last Gasp of the X299 Platform?
Way back in June 2018, when the first Threadrippers made landfall, it was reported that Intel was working on a new 22-core "Skylake-X" silicon that sat in between the 18-core HCC (high core-count) die, and the 28-core XCC (extreme core-count) die. The roughly 700 mm² XCC die, with its 6 memory channels, couldn't be integrated with the LGA2066 package, and was reserved for the enterprise LGA3647 package that made a workstation/quasi-client debut with the 28-core Xeon W-3175X. It was hence rumored that an in-between 22-core silicon was under development that could be integrated with LGA2066. Fast forward to 2020, and Intel's client HEDT processor lineup doesn't look much different from its 2017 one. The 18-core i9-10980XE leads the pack, and despite its $1,000 price, has received largely lukewarm reviews. If screenshots surfacing on Chinese tech forums are to be believed, Intel is toying with the idea of the 22-core die meant for LGA2066 once again.
Referenced as Core i9-10990XE in straight-up CPU-Z screenshots, the processor is based on the "Cascade Lake-X" microarchitecture, and has the same I/O as the i9-10980XE, looking at the instruction sets featured. It has 22 cores and HyperThreading enables 44 threads. Cache hierarchy and balance are characteristic of "Cascade Lake," with 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core, and 30.25 MB of shared L3 cache. The I/O is likely identical to the i9-10980XE as that's a function of the platform and the socket. What's more interesting are the clock-speeds. The name-string of the engineering sample references a nominal clock-speed of 4.00 GHz, and in the screenshot, the chip is shown running at 5.00 GHz (at least on one core). There's also a performance benchmark to go with the leak, possibly CineBench R20 nT. Here, the i9-10990XE is shown scoring 14,005 points, which is in the same ballpark as the 24-core Ryzen Threadripper 3960X.
Sources:
ChipHell, ChipHell (2)
Referenced as Core i9-10990XE in straight-up CPU-Z screenshots, the processor is based on the "Cascade Lake-X" microarchitecture, and has the same I/O as the i9-10980XE, looking at the instruction sets featured. It has 22 cores and HyperThreading enables 44 threads. Cache hierarchy and balance are characteristic of "Cascade Lake," with 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core, and 30.25 MB of shared L3 cache. The I/O is likely identical to the i9-10980XE as that's a function of the platform and the socket. What's more interesting are the clock-speeds. The name-string of the engineering sample references a nominal clock-speed of 4.00 GHz, and in the screenshot, the chip is shown running at 5.00 GHz (at least on one core). There's also a performance benchmark to go with the leak, possibly CineBench R20 nT. Here, the i9-10990XE is shown scoring 14,005 points, which is in the same ballpark as the 24-core Ryzen Threadripper 3960X.
42 Comments on Core i9-10990XE 22-core Processor Last Gasp of the X299 Platform?
It's somewhat interesting to see the 10980xe, which is a product improved 2017 CPU (7980xe), built on a 2015 architecture, on a 2014 process still be competitive.
Threadripper 3000 is great for it's use cases. But strangely enough there are lots of professional and workstation applications that still see diminishing returns past 10/20 cores. Intel seems to have an advantage here with it's monolithic design with high clock speeds.
Nevertheless, if they can sell this in the range of 1000 bucks (say, 1100$) and lower 10980xe to 900$ I think these would be quite interesting.
I hope TR4 in 2021 would bring AVX-512 support
EDIT: I want to hear a lot of people argue about how TDP relates to temperature. Therefore, this CPU SHOULD OVERHEAT WITH ALMOST ANY COOLER RIGHT?
EDIT 2: Just wanted to make sure my point was clear on the TDP thing, that um, oh now you need a cooler capable of cooling 380W huh, OK TO WHAT TEMPERATURE? Oh right, cus it really doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but thanks.
EDIT 3: I made all those edits so that I could answer a lot of TDP knowitall's questions in advance. Thanks for reading!
Intel is releasing press announcements "hey look we managed to beat a couple more cores out of the Skylake/14nm+++++++++++ dead horse", meanwhile AMD is all "YOU get more cores! And YOU get more cores! EVEREYBODY GETS MOAR COREZ!!!!!111"
Seriously Intel, you gotta learn when to stop. You already look ridiculous, every extra pitiful increment of your current dead uArch just makes you look more and more desperate. And desperation isn't a good look for a company your size. Just eat that humble pie, admit that you can't compete with AMD in its current form, stop wasting resources on poor dead Skylake, and focus on getting desktop 10nm parts to consumers.
10980X does not consume a lot of power. It is less than 3960X
So intel still has a lot of headroom for more cores.
And still doesn't Change the fact that x299 is a living dinosaur now with only pcie gen 3 and so on. A living fossil from the past.
Frankly now I think of it, 380 watt tdp, 4 ghz baseclock and 5 ghz boost single, dual or maybe all core boost? Who knows. My point is that this smell of I9 9990XE all over again just now with 22 cores and just as high power consumption and heat output :roll:
Maybe it's another 9990XE for Stock market High binned, Auction only SKU?
...my bad, Dave(edited my douchey comment out)! Isnt as outlandish as I thought. :)
Even with a 360mm custom loop, the 4.8 ghz 10980xe was running at 100*C at Hardware Unboxed.
Here is total system power consumption of various overclocked Cacade Lake parts.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/review/1950-intel-core-cascade-lake-x-hedt/
The 14000 CB20 score was done at 5.0 ghz.
Skylake has about a 125 point multiplier in CB20 which means (# cores w/ht) x (frequency) x 125 = CB20 score.
The point is, the 3960x will use about half the power to get a similiar MT performance.
This won't be 5GHz all-core, 4GHz base clock is indicated in the CPU-Z screenshot and was mentioned in the article.
5GHz is a single-core Turbo clock. This is in line with other recent Intel HEDT SKUs.Such a simple-minded view.
Not every workload scales with core count, let alone to the degree necessary to invalidate the existence of this (still) hypothetical CPU.
AMD is not your favorite sports team. They're not going to reward you with free computer parts for cheering them on. If you like their products, they expect you to buy them. It is a mutually-beneficial exchange.