Sunday, January 24th 2021
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Intel "Alder Lake-S" Due for September 2021
2021 is shaping up to be a big year for Intel in the DIY desktop space, with the company preparing to launch not one, but two generations of desktop processors. Having announced them in January, the 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processors in the LGA1200 package, will release to market in March, with the company claiming a restoration in gaming performance leadership away from AMD's Ryzen 5000 series. Sources tell Uniko's Hardware that the company will announce its 12th Gen successor, the Core "Alder Lake-S" in September 2021.
"Alder Lake-S" will be Intel's first mainstream desktop processor built on its new 10 nm SuperFin silicon fabrication process. The chip is expected to be a "hybrid" processor, combining an equal number of larger "Golden Cove" cores, and smaller "Gracemont" cores, to offer significantly improved energy efficiency. Built in the new Socket LGA1700 package, "Alder Lake-S" is expected to feature more general-purpose SoC connectivity than LGA1200 chips. It will also herald new platform standards, such as DDR5 memory and possibly even mainstreaming of ATX12VO. The processor will launch alongside new Intel 600-series chipset. AMD's response is expected to be the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, a new silicon built on the 5 nm process, and the new AM5 socket that introduces DDR5 memory support.
Sources:
Uniko's Hardware, Videocardz
"Alder Lake-S" will be Intel's first mainstream desktop processor built on its new 10 nm SuperFin silicon fabrication process. The chip is expected to be a "hybrid" processor, combining an equal number of larger "Golden Cove" cores, and smaller "Gracemont" cores, to offer significantly improved energy efficiency. Built in the new Socket LGA1700 package, "Alder Lake-S" is expected to feature more general-purpose SoC connectivity than LGA1200 chips. It will also herald new platform standards, such as DDR5 memory and possibly even mainstreaming of ATX12VO. The processor will launch alongside new Intel 600-series chipset. AMD's response is expected to be the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, a new silicon built on the 5 nm process, and the new AM5 socket that introduces DDR5 memory support.
75 Comments on Intel "Alder Lake-S" Due for September 2021
I do wonder if AMD will launch a transitional CPU, as with chiplets they could "theoretically" release a Zen 4 with DDR4 support(by using the existing zen2-3 cIOD) -unless zen4 chiplets use a totally different infinity fabric-(maybe wider, surely it will be much faster to take advatage of DDR5 BW) without much hassle. Or they'll simply go all in on zen4/am5 with a new clean design free of AM4 legacy(i think it will be this option)
You started speculating about buying, no one else.
Though I'm strictly talking about Ryzen, not Epyc, etc. Edit: Or, launching Zen 4 on desktop this year is the very reason for why Ryzen 5000 has so few models. (not only low supply)
Let's say AMD launched those four 5000 models just to stay competitive, but they never intended to replace the whole 3000 lineup, that will happen with Zen 4.
This would also work as a plan B. If they'd expect delays with Zen 4, they'd still have the quite recent Ryzen 5000, and could in turn launch more budget models for instance.
But unfortunately, core count sells. There is always the next big thing.
DDR5 will be offering more bandwidth, not lower latency. So I don't expect it to be a big deal for the desktop. Servers on the other hand… I think you should do a search for what EOL means. ;)
DDR4 will be made for years to come.
I think the biggest obstacle to getting these out there will be availability and cost of DDR5. It's kind of a chicken and egg scenario. There is no reason to make DDR5 DIMMs until there's something that can use it. Shifting to something like DDR5 involves a lot more than just getting the CPU out there.
For that reason I imagine we will see this combination of Alder Lake + DDR5 from OEMs first, Dell HP Lenovo etc. Those OEMs will seed the market for DDR5. Then the OEM users who want to upgrade RAM would create demand for DDR5 from retailers like Newegg etc.
I wouldn't expect a lot of supply in DIY channel for several months after the OEMs get theirs. It's always like that with Intel to some degree anyway, but will be even more pronounced with Alder Lake needing DDR5 seeding the market so that retailers will buy and be confident that they won't have product sitting on the shelf for many months.
This also has to happen for AMD to launch DDR5 platforms. They don't (yet) have enough of the market to effectively create the demand needed for DDR5.
But it's the other use case scenarios that are very thread heavy where I see Intel losing very badly. I don't buy into the need for low power / low heat cores when talking about desktop CPUs, I'm sure the big.LITTLE design will work well for laptops and other highly power sensitive devices but not mains powered, high performance desktop machines. Modern CPUs can already down-clock and under-volt significantly when not in use or not being pushed hard so I just don't see how these little cores are going to be all that useful for anything really.
My reasoning for why I believe big.LITTLE designs won't compete performance wise much past the number of big cores is seen in Apple's M1 benchmarks. This amazing chip has fantastic single thread performance, up there with the very best chips on the market today and easily beating one of AMD's current top mobile chips the 4900HS (I know 5000's are almost here) but when it comes to multi threading the 4900HS totally destroys the M1 chip because the M1 is only a 4+4 chip and the 4900HS is a real 8 core chip. So Intel can bring 8+8 but I am pretty sure 5900X will be faster in work loads that use 12 threads or more, then we have the 6000 refresh which will only increase this gap and then Zen 4 will like make a 8 core CPU look very much entry level.
I think we all know the real reason Intel can't produce much more than 8 big cores in the mainstream and that is because of the aging ringbus design they are still using. Clearly AMD caught them by surprise with how quickly they caught up and then how far they have pulled away. Intel simply hasn't had the time nor FAB performance to react yet. I dare say if everything was running smoothly for Intel we would already be well into 7nm Meteor Lake chips right now and would be wondering if Zen 4 might close the gap to Intel in 2022. But that is not the situation and in my opinion Intel still needs to realise this, they need to price their products better to reflect they are only mid-range now and they desperately need to move to or licence TSMC's nodes if at all possible. I know the rumours are that Intel is meant to be using TSMC for 5nm CPUs this year then 3nm CPU next year but I will believe it when I see it! I just don't see how TSMC has the capacity to help Intel when it can't produce enough wafers for it's current long term (more important) customers.
Anyway, at the end of the day this 8 core CPU (with an extra few little cores) is meant to see Intel through 2022 and I believe into 2023, at the same time AMD will be giving us 24 high performance cores in the top end Zen 4 chips. I just don't see how Intel can put up any kind of fight again anything more than an 8 core Zen 4 chip, meanwhile AMD will be offering 12 core, 16 core, 20 core and 24 core options, plus Threadripper which will be up to 96 cores!
I just really hope Alder Lake has a massive single thread performance improvement over Zen 3 to give it the edge in many sparsely threaded allocations like Photoshop, Lightroom, etc and probably more importantly in gaming too. This should, if priced right, mean we have attractive options depending on what your usage needs are and crucially some competition so prices don't get out of hand in a monopoly again.
in a period of 12 months we've had 3 CPU generations, 3 different chipsets and 2 cpu sockets!!! All for the same market!! Why are we putting up with this???
Besides, buying a several hundred $ part to save pennies on your monthly electricity bill is kind of pointless imo. I wouldn't use the word "stupid", but it's weird to say the least. With games starting to benefit from 6+ cores, I can't see this being Intel's new gaming flagship.
Not to mention the generational differences. 10-core 10th gen, then 8-core 11th gen, then 4+4-core 12th gen. What's next? The return of the dual core Core i3? :wtf:
I think imageCFG.exe will be quite useful for big.LITTLE's early chip design potentially especially dependent upon how well Windows Scheduler works and interacts in tandem with it. That tool allows you to change .exe's process affinity mask (hexadecimal value) to the specified executable, so that it always runs using the specified CPU cores. So you could assign a program to permanently run off the Atom core like a music player or browser or whatever anything you want to be more of a background process than foreground process you could essentially permanently assign with it to the ATOM chiplet cores so it doesn't bog down the CORE chiplet cores. I think big.LITTLE will mature in good ways quite firmly. I think eventually Intel could have a perimeter of smaller scale sized ATOM chiplets around a larger CORE chiplet.
So essentially in the end its all about the money. Surely the great many of the so-called enthusiasts here do not have the deep pockets for the above 'premium basics.' Trolls like me from under the rock most certainly do not have the money either. For that matter who today still has real spendable income anymore?
With Alder Lake on the near horizon the hardware costs will go up even further and exponentially. Then who is buying all that hardware? Less than 1% of all worldwide computer users or enthusiasts? Remember the times of well paying US corporate jobs right out of college with 401K, pensions, paid vacations and annual bonuses are long over. Now "Work From Home" is the new norm. Show me the money!
lol $850 on a board that will not see any cpu's past rocket Lake S
GPU prices are what will kill the DIY market soon if they don't get under control. No way would I fork up $700 to $1900 for current GPUs.
It's almost like they intentionally want to kill the desktop, and more specifically the DIY market, with component prices so high. Gaming laptops are a way, way, waaayy better deal and new laptops with 3060 / 3070 are already available, with more releasing every week or so for the next month.
The market seems to becoming even more interested in selling completed or 'all-In-one' systems rather than piecemeal components. It's more profitable. As we all know the major disadvantage of buying a pre-made PC is the cost. Laptop Thoughts: I now see 'more and more' so called "White Boxes" or base laptop systems hit the open consumer market. These have the base components such as chassis, screen, and motherboard installed. Users can then select items such as memory, drives, processors, and graphics to finalize the laptop computer. These basic laptop chassis historically were only sold to PC companies to then badge as their own systems after finishing off the component installations. This type of laptop marketing is nothing really new, but the sheer numbers are increasing expodentially.
Sounds to me like another grab or invasion into the desktop DIY market? I had a hard day...so I be better off to play 'Metro Exodus' for a while to flush my mind. Perhaps Mom has a leftover piece of Cherry Pie upstairs in the kitchen for yours truly?
I want to upgrade my ancient 2700K (see specs) and so far, it looks like it would be worth waiting for Alder Lake in order to get something current that's built on the latest process, not a backport, like Rocket Lake. I don't need that sabotaged by a shift to complete systems only.