Sunday, March 22nd 2020
Intel Rocket Lake-S Platform Detailed, Features PCIe 4.0 and Xe Graphics
Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake-S desktop platform is expected to arrive sometime later this year, however, we didn't have any concrete details on what will it bring. Thanks to the exclusive information obtained by VideoCardz'es sources at Intel, there are some more details regarding the RKL-S platform. To start, the RKL-S platform is based on a 500-series chipset. This is an iteration of the upcoming 400-series chipset, and it features many platform improvements. The 500-series chipset based motherboards will supposedly have an LGA 1200 socket, which is an improvement in pin count compared to LGA 1151 socket found on 300 series chipset.
The main improvement is the CPU core itself, which is supposedly a 14 nm adaptation of Tiger Lake-U based on Willow Cove core. This design is representing a backport of IP to an older manufacturing node, which results in bigger die space due to larger node used. When it comes to the platform improvements, it will support the long-awaited PCIe 4.0 connection already present on competing platforms from AMD. It will enable much faster SSD speeds as there are already PCIe 4.0 NVMe devices that run at 7 GB/s speeds. With RKL-S, there will be 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes present, where four would go to the NVMe SSD and 16 would go to the PCIe slots from GPUs. Another interesting feature of the RKL-S is the addition of Xe graphics found on the CPU die, meant as iGPU. Supposedly based on Gen12 graphics, it will bring support for HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a connectors.
Some things like Direct Media Interface (DMI) will double the bandwidth and now there will be eight links present, compared to four of the previous platforms. Announced at CES 2020, ThunderBolt 4 will also be present along with USB 3.2 20G. Additionally, Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) have been removed to improve the security of the platform, as the SGX has proved to be quite vulnerable to many kinds of attacks and exploits. There are some updated media encoding standards as well, like 12-bit AV1/HEVC and E2E compression.
Source:
VideoCardz
The main improvement is the CPU core itself, which is supposedly a 14 nm adaptation of Tiger Lake-U based on Willow Cove core. This design is representing a backport of IP to an older manufacturing node, which results in bigger die space due to larger node used. When it comes to the platform improvements, it will support the long-awaited PCIe 4.0 connection already present on competing platforms from AMD. It will enable much faster SSD speeds as there are already PCIe 4.0 NVMe devices that run at 7 GB/s speeds. With RKL-S, there will be 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes present, where four would go to the NVMe SSD and 16 would go to the PCIe slots from GPUs. Another interesting feature of the RKL-S is the addition of Xe graphics found on the CPU die, meant as iGPU. Supposedly based on Gen12 graphics, it will bring support for HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a connectors.
113 Comments on Intel Rocket Lake-S Platform Detailed, Features PCIe 4.0 and Xe Graphics
Intel may have figured out the process at long last, but they definitely still have an acute capacity problem on their hands.
All this we will have are tweaks, giving really diminishing returns, yet costing a lot of transistor budget. Simple as that. The arch has gained such point.
I suggest to watch the guy speak...
If what Intel is telling us is true, while 10nm has been a train wreck, 7nm which was worked on in parallel was not. And that would mean 7nm will hit sooner rather than later, making ramping up 10nm at this point rather unattractive. Big if, grain of salt and everything...
You sure that's what you'd call profitable or "mainstream" o_O
Also if Intel's saying 7nm hits in 2021(?) I'll put mainstream availability around 2022 at the very least, their track record since 22nm (late by 3 months or so) has been delays after delays & I'd rather see the products on shelves than believe whatever PR schtick they come up with next!
Good!
If you watch the interview you would get the idea... 5 years, new arch from the scratch. Fastest is 2023...
I know desktops are important to you, but Intel is not a charity. They can make a limited number of 10nm CPUs and they put them where it makes a difference.Likely more than AMD (or that'll happen in next few months). I'll leave it to you to decide if that's a lot or not. :)So you've been writing from 2019 and now it's what: 2018? 2017?
I'm talking about today. 10nm works, delivers and appears in mainstream products: Lenovo Yoga, Dell XPS/Inspiron, Macbook Air and so on.
If you really want to criticize this tech because it didn't meet Intel's roadmap, do what makes you happy.
I guess it actually becomes a praise if this is the first (only) drawback that comes to your mind...I have no idea when these dates come from. How is 7nm not mainstream already?
By 2022 Intel will likely move all their segments to 7nm or better. Is that what you mean?What's wrong with Intel's architecture? They're new big cores are excellent. I guess you haven't been paying attention to Ice Lake benchmarks.
And they're launching a lot of new stuff all the time: all the AI stuff, 3D stacking, "big.LITTLE", networking.
You can't judge just based on gaming desktops - even if that's the only segment you're interested in.
If you want the best CPU for DIY desktop, just buy AMD.
Intel is losing in this niche right now and probably also loses interest in competing. Frankly, there's a chance this will never change. Seriously, never.
There is a lack of CPU's in 19Q4 and Price/Performance point of Rome ended up in 15% market shift in Server Market.... your so called DIY choice AMD is constructively gunning Intel in each crucial market point. And thanks to that we enjoy lower prices and better offerings for the same money.
Your mentioned 10nm parts are AWOL. PC OEM's did enjoy the squeeze first especially Dell. Due to lack of CPU's manufacturers are switching to AMD just because of that. Server market came afterwards...
You call that a niche? You are blaming dude about living 2018, yet missed the train about last quarter yourself.
Regarding the LVI vulnerability, they probably found about it too late in the development process so they just disabled SGX entirely, nothing surprising.