Friday, March 27th 2020
Intel Core i9-10980HK Detailed: 8-core Mobile Monstrosity that Boosts up to 5.30 GHz
In no mood to cede mobile performance leadership to AMD and its Ryzen 9 4900HS processor, Intel is readying its new flagship mobile part, the Core i9-10980HK. Based on the 14 nm "Comet Lake-H" silicon, this chip packs an 8-core/16-thread CPU with a maximum boost speed (aka "Thermal Velocity Boost") of 5.30 GHz, while maintaining an aggressive power target of 45 W TDP. This should put the chip's performance somewhere between the desktop Core i7-9700K and the Core i9-9900K, both of which have TDP rated at 95 W, although the chip could perform very close to the latter at gaming, thanks to its 300 MHz higher boost frequency. Intel is expected to launch the 10th generation Core i9 H-series processors on April 2nd, around the same time when NVIDIA launches its mobile GeForce RTX 20 Super series.
Source:
VideoCardz
99 Comments on Intel Core i9-10980HK Detailed: 8-core Mobile Monstrosity that Boosts up to 5.30 GHz
So, that's the gist of this CPU. 5.3 Ghz is a marketing slide number, and I really do love how Intel hints at heat itself calling it 'Thermal Velocity Boost'... what the fuck is that?! It quickly runs to 5.3 Ghz to heat up? Thanks, I guess?
Nah... I'm staying far away from this abysmal base clock. Precisely because laptops come with configured TDPs. Its going to be luck of the draw but no matter what setup you get, it will be a hot headed monster.
en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/thermal_velocity_boost
But lets be careful, people, about the boost for intel. Glass houses and stones and all. :)
Edit: as I post this... the post above landed...lol Wait, what? Did you forget that Ryzen 3000, most chips didn't reach the listed boost..ever? Do you remember each and every board getting a bios/microcode update, from amd, to correct that issue?
That said, I wouldnt call it more refined, either. In fact, I'd say the opposite considering the above and general variability of its boost. What do you mean by more refined?
Edit: Please note I'm not trying to start a pissing match here, but there seems to be a lot of confusion about amd tyzen overclocking prowess (or lack thereof) and intel turbo vs amd turbo. Zoinks.... FYI, you can have a PC read 100% load but have wildly varying temperatures. Temperature depend on the type of load hitting it as well. Look how the stress tests differ, for example. Same with games. You could have varying temps at the same load %... it must depends on the game and what instruction sets, etc it is using.
Keep in mind that Youtubbers like myself streaming or doing 4K editing are always anxious to get more mobile power.
For example: when I take my laptop on vacation internationally to South East Asia or Africa, I rely on it for everything. I record videos, edit them and upload them from the laptop.
It also helps pass the time when I game on it.
Intel needs to keep cranking out powerful CPU just like this.
On the other hand, advertising like this - "up to 5.3GHz (with TVB)" with no mention of base clocks whatsoever is ... problematic. Especially for a thermal and power limited laptop chip that in most implementations will likely hit these speeds once in a blue moon.
As for overclocking prowess (and yes, this is getting quite off topic here) there are two main differences in play: Intel's 14nm process has gone through multiple revisions now with higher clocks being the main focus, which makes it extremely good at running at high clocks (especially as it didn't start out as an efficiency-first node). Part of this has been to make it safer to run at higher voltages, which of course hurts efficiency, but allows for higher sustained clocks as long as you're able to cool it. On the other hand TSMC's 7nm node doesn't do well past 1.3-1.35V (not being designed for it in the first place likely plays a large role in this), and Ryzen chips running all-core OC above those voltages tend to degrade quickly. The other factor is the relative simplicity of Intel's boost system compared to AMD's - as said above, AMD's system pushes single cores past what all cores on the chip can do, while Intel can't bin chips for their best cores due to their simple boost system. This - higher voltage tolerances and a less fine-grained boost system - of course means there's more performance left on the table with Intel chips than AMD chips, and that manual OC can gain you a lot on an Intel system while it's nearly impossible to significantly exceed the results achieved by AMD's automatic system with manual tuning (as to do that you would then need to test each core for clocks and voltages and have the ability to set values for each core individually, which AFAIK isn't possible). For that kind of use you're likely to get noticeably better performance out of AMD's soon-to-appear 4000-series 8-core APUs. They don't boost nearly as high for single core loads, but they have higher base clocks and should thus perform better in sustained workloads - particularly due to ~7% better IPC of Zen 2 over Skylake and its derivatives. If this 10980HK indeed has a 3.1GHz base clock like someone mentioned above, the Ryzen 7 4800H will match it stride for stride at 2.9GHz, and due to better efficiency it's likely that the AMD chip in a similar chassis and with similar cooling to an Intel counterpart will boost higher and for longer. The 4900H at 3.3GHz base will be faster still. They won't perform as well in lightly threaded, bursty workloads, but they'll still be fast enough for those to not be an issue, while being faster and cooler running in anything more demanding.
It'll be very interesting to see some in-depth reviews of this next generation of chips from both companies, especially with regards to power consumption.
When I think of refined, I think of something that works well for its purpose. AMD's boost, for several months, didn't work as advertised for a lot of users. Intel's has always just worked (I dont recall any snafus with it) and is a bit more simple. In they end, they both work fine. There is enough performance in today's cpus that for the most part, the number of threads and how they boost, be it static or AMD's method, aren't a big factor in performance. PBO is the best for most to overclock these things... for those who dont grind all c/t loads.
So...I see what you mean, and what the other guy likely meant. I just took refined as more of a well polished end product than simply being more complicated means to the end.
I'd imagine when the chip has an Intel Ark page, a base clock will be listed.
For overclocking , intel's first 14nm chip overclocked well too...always better than amd from zen to zen2. AMD squeezes more out of their chips out of the box (that 'refined' boost you're talking about) so there is less headroom. But Intel CPUs clock higher all around, for now, and have more overclocking headroom over all core boost.
No long explanations required. :)
It cuts the 1ms to 0.995 very noticeable by naked eye.
Also, I performance is not always about higher clockspeed. This is apparent when you compare Intel's current chips with AMD's 3xxx series.
Intel's earlier chips overclock well, but unfortunately you will need to pay a substantial premium for an overclocking chip and a compatible overclocking motherboard. I feel Intel left a lot of performance on their earlier chips, lock it on purpose, just so that you must pay additional premium per 200 to 300 Mhz. Without taking sides, I feel you are just defending a company that is happy to take your money whenever there is any opportunity.
The only issue is, Intel's mobile CPU's can't sustain higher clocks duo to thermal constraints, starting with i7/i9 8000th gen. a lot of reports that the i9's can performs lower than the i7 because when it was launched, most laptops were designed mainly for 35W TDP, those newer i9's came with 45W TDP and will soon throttle duo to heat. 9000th gen. i9 was better and some laptop manufacturers actually had sometime tweaking the cooling to better cope with it. But not all laptops, some peoples with some laptops -like the XPS 15- will undervolt the CPU to maintain the performance without throttling. MBP 16" was also better handling the 45W TDP.
Performance isnt always about higher clockspeed, correct again. IPC plays a role and amd is slightly ahead there. Where clock speed matters is making up that small difference.
There is a price premium on unlocked Intel chips. Yep. This is how Intel has done it for years (still waiting for you to tell me something new here...). You're clearly bitter over this..and I get it.
"Without taking sides"... lol, it's clear, your preference (and that's ok!). For the record, my money goes to the performance king for my uses. Since I cant utilize AMDs width right now (more c/t), Intel has my money. I'd rather pay a premium for a (even slightly) faster chip that suits my needs better than paying the same for something I cant utilize... or paying less for the same core/thread count and less performance (where it counts for me).
I get your plight...but AMD doesnt need a white knight and I'm not misguided. I feel plenty educated to make the best decision for my needs. If this costs more money to do so, so be it. I've worked hard and can afford to pay a $150+ premium on a PC that better suits my needs.
Anyway, a bit OT from the laptop intel chip (I digress), but the argument holds true there too... :)
The issue here then is that they are now speccing an 8-core chip with absolutely insane turbo speeds at the same 45W - which it will of course stay at even under all-core loads when power or thermally limited - but which has the ability to consume 3-4 times that power if given free rein. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but coupled with the quest for ever-thinner laptop designs, you end up with terrible thermals and massive throttling issues. The problem with the MBP series, though, was that it throttled even below base clock, which is entirely unacceptable as it is then operating out of spec. As long as it is able to maintain base clocks under a full all-core load I see no problem, but massive boost speeds come with a significant risk of overloading the cooling system and sending it into a boost-throttle-boost loop which hurts performance significantly. I don't think we disagree so much on the definition of "refined" as we disagree on the specific purpose of boost in a CPU (which again affects what is a refined boost system). I see boost as a system to extract the maximum amount of performance out of a part under any given circumstances, while it seems you are a bit more lenient, along the lines of just wanting it to be faster than base when possible. As such, in my view Intel's simple system functions rather poorly due to a) leaving significant performance on the table, b) treating all cores equally (as in not taking into account that some cores will inevitably be able to clock higher at a given voltage), and c) throttling too hard when it throttles, leading to spiky performance rather than gracefully scaling down to a sustainable clock speed under the cooling and power available. I absolutely agree that a simple system can be more refined than a complex one, but in this case I think the simplicity of the system is detrimental to its ability to achieve its target.
'Ultracook'
It's about time we get a portable version of this.
Sure, with sufficient cooling this might boost to 5.3Ghz for short periods of time which in certain cases will make a big difference.
But in most other cases this CPU won't be able to boost that high.
It would actually be more logical from Intel to launch a 10 core model with lower frequencies. It would get the same/better performance as this one, but with better efficiency.
poor Dev... I admire his devotion.
It is so hard to understand for some, that their laptop cooling solution ultimatelly sucks... accept your fate.
This product smells like same problem...
At some point you rally do just graduate into building desktops. 45 watt+ CPUs and 100+ watt dGPUs are a monumental pain in the arse to cool in a thin chassis.