Friday, July 24th 2020
Intel 7nm CPUs Delayed by a Year, Alder Lake in 2H-2021, Other Commentary from Intel Management
Intel's silicon fabrication woes refuse to torment the company's product roadmaps, with the company disclosing in its Q2-2020 financial results release that the company's first CPUs built on the 7 nanometer silicon fabrication node are delayed by a year due to a further 6-month delay from prior expectations. The company will focus on getting its 10 nm node up to scale in the meantime.
The company mentioned that the 10 nm "Tiger Lake" mobile processor and "Ice Lake-SP" enterprise processor remains on-track for 2020. The company's 12th Generation Core "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors won't arrive before the second half of 2021. In the meantime, Intel will launch its 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processor on the 14 nm node, but with increased IPC from the new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores. Also in 2H-2021, the company will launch its "Sapphire Rapids" enterprise processors that come with next-gen connectivity and updated CPU cores.
It's interesting to note that Intel was specific about "CPU" when talking about 7 nm, meaning that Intel's foundry woes only affect its CPU product stack, and not a word was mentioned in the release about the company's discrete GPU and scalar compute processors that are being prototyped and validated. This is probably the biggest hint we'll ever get from Intel that the company's dGPUs are being designed for third-party foundries (such as Samsung or TSMC), and that the Xe dGPU product roadmap is disconnected from that of Intel's fabs.
Given the delays in Intel's 7 nm foundry node, the first Intel client-segment processors based on the node won't arrive before late-2022 or 2023, which means refinements of the current 10 nm silicon fabrication node should support Intel's client-segment product stack for the foreseeable future. The first enterprise 7 nm processors will arrive by the first half of 2023. Intel also mentioned that they expect to see "one full node improvement" from a refined 10 nanometer process, which isn't surprising, given how much experience they have improving their 14 nanometer process.
The company mentioned that the 10 nm "Tiger Lake" mobile processor and "Ice Lake-SP" enterprise processor remains on-track for 2020. The company's 12th Generation Core "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors won't arrive before the second half of 2021. In the meantime, Intel will launch its 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processor on the 14 nm node, but with increased IPC from the new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores. Also in 2H-2021, the company will launch its "Sapphire Rapids" enterprise processors that come with next-gen connectivity and updated CPU cores.
Intel is accelerating its transition to 10 nm products this year with increasing volumes and strong demand for an expanding line up. This includes a growing portfolio of 10 nm-based Intel Core processors with "Tiger Lake" launching soon, and the first 10 nm-based server CPU "Ice Lake," which remains planned for the end of this year. In the second half of 2021, Intel expects to deliver a new line of client CPU's (code-named "Alder Lake"), which will include its first 10 nm-based desktop CPU, and a new 10 nm-based server CPU (code-named "Sapphire Rapids"). The company's 7 nm-based CPU product timing is shifting approximately six months relative to prior expectations. The primary driver is the yield of Intel's 7 nm process, which based on recent data, is now trending approximately twelve months behind the company's internal target.Intel's post results call also revealed a handful interesting tentative dates. For starters, "Tiger Lake" is shipping in "a matter of weeks," indicating an imminent launch ahead of the "Back to School" shopping season. Next up, the company's high-performance scalar compute processor, codenamed "Ponte Vecchio" remains slated for 2021-22, and given that it's reportedly being designed for 7 nm, we have our next big hint confirmation that these dGPUs will be built on third-party 7 nm fabs. Intel did mention that the Foveros packaging technology could be further developed over the years, and its upcoming discrete GPUs could combine dies (tiles) from multiple sources, which could include its own fabs.
Given the delays in Intel's 7 nm foundry node, the first Intel client-segment processors based on the node won't arrive before late-2022 or 2023, which means refinements of the current 10 nm silicon fabrication node should support Intel's client-segment product stack for the foreseeable future. The first enterprise 7 nm processors will arrive by the first half of 2023. Intel also mentioned that they expect to see "one full node improvement" from a refined 10 nanometer process, which isn't surprising, given how much experience they have improving their 14 nanometer process.
175 Comments on Intel 7nm CPUs Delayed by a Year, Alder Lake in 2H-2021, Other Commentary from Intel Management
Office PCs need neither top extreme performance as seen in 125-watt HEDT CPUs, nor they need so high power draw, especially when they don't even measure performance/watt.
Because HP is garbage lol
Take an R5 3600 vs the 10400 at the exact same price (ignore the fact that the 3600 is usually $5-10 cheaper and comes with a usable, rather than an unusable cooler). The 3600 is better at everything, including many games where the 3600 with DDR4-2666 will only be beaten by the 10400 using DDR4-3200. Yes, the 10600 is significantly faster at games than the R5 3600 but then you have problems even getting hold of the damn thing because it's out of stock everywhere, and price-gouging is rampant (I've only seen it in stock at $300+). If you were adamant that your gaming CPU had to be a 10600 then you've just thrown away $130 of budget forcing you to downgrade the planned 2060KO to a rubbish little 1650S. Ouch. What's the point of a faster gaming CPU when your GPU sucks?
Office PCs are not heavily loaded anyway, so their real consumption is pretty low.
Electricity consumption as a cost factor for office PCs is not a real problem for companies. Most of the energy efficiency drive for office PCs is regulatory if even that.
Jokes aside, in any kind of enterprise or office environment updates are rolled out after hours 99% of the time.... not while users are sitting in front of their PC.
That said, it really depends on use. CAD designers, content creators etc, likely run a higher load than most general office workers (accounting, HR, CSRs, etc). But typical office functionality isn't much on a PC. There will always be exceptions.
I'd be in deep shit as I have, right this second, 38 Chrome tabs open and 'only' 16c/16t (its 32t CPU but I have HT disabled)............my CPU is, for all intents and purposes at idle. Browsers do use a lot of RAM... but CPU use seems negligible (for my tabs currently). With Outlook and Excel open, Paint.Net (with a dozen images), two chrome instances with a total of 30+ tabs and while watching twitch shows ~10% give or take. If I remove twitch, I'm down to 2-4% with everything else up.
Windows10 will happily spawn ~2000 threads on a dual-core atom netbook with 2GB RAM.
When working any of these tabs, I've already mentioned my peak CPU use....which is with twitch.tv streaming as the active tab. Unless I don't understand what you are saying by "load the tab"? Please be more clear if I misunderstood?
EDIT: I just tried to bring up a new tab (blank) and then one of my book marks. There was a spike to a bit over 20%... then back down to ~10% when watching twitch. My NV GPU is working harder than the CPU (by %) watching twitch. ;)
EDIT2: Currently I only have 6 tabs and none of them spike the CPU at all when making it the active tab. Again, my CPU use peaks at ~10% with twitch doing its thing as the active tab.