Friday, October 29th 2021
Intel "Alder Lake-S" Comes in a 6+0 Core Die Variant
Intel's 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" silicon apparently comes in two variants based on core count. The first one is a larger variant with 8 P cores and 8 E cores, while the second variant is a visibly smaller die with only 6 P cores, no E cores. This was revealed by an MSI Insider video presentation where pictures of LGA1700 packages with the two die types were shown off.
MSI also confirmed die-sizes and dimensions of the two. The larger C0 die measures 10.5 mm x 20.5 mm, working out to 215.25 mm² area. The smaller H0 die measures 10.5 mm x 15.5 mm, and a die area of 162.75 mm². The H0 silicon completely lacks "Gracemont" E-core clusters, and physically features six "Golden Cove" P cores. It's possible that given the 3 MB L3 slice size on the larger C0 silicon, the smaller H0 silicon physically features 18 MB of shared L3 cache.
Apparently the 12th Gen Core i5 series will have two classes of SKUs. One based on the C0 silicon, with 6+4 (P+E) configuration, and the other based on the H0 silicon, with 6+0 core configuration. The already launched Core i5-12600K/KF are 6+4 core, and it's expected that the i5-12600 (non-K) will have the same core-count, too. The lower Core i5 SKUs, such as the i5-12400 and i5-12400F, could be 6+0 core. Intel probably adopted this segmentation within the Core i5 lineup to ensure that the $170-$190 SKUs, such as the i5-12400/F don't cannibalize sales of the i5-12600/K/KF/F. The company had been carrying out similar segmentation within the Core i3 series in the past few generations, where the i3-xx100 and i3-xx300 series SKUs are differentiated with L3 cache sizes.
We recently spotted an i5-12400 engineering sample that confirms this core-configuration. The decision to create a smaller die for desktop could be purely economics-driven. The lower end of the Core i5 series, the Core i3 series, Pentium, and Celeron, sell in high volumes, and it makes sense for Intel to use physically smaller dies to maximize wafer utilization on its latest Intel 7 node (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin). It's also possible that the 12th Gen Core i3 series will be carved out from this silicon, by disabling two of the six P cores.
Source:
MSI Insider (YouTube)
MSI also confirmed die-sizes and dimensions of the two. The larger C0 die measures 10.5 mm x 20.5 mm, working out to 215.25 mm² area. The smaller H0 die measures 10.5 mm x 15.5 mm, and a die area of 162.75 mm². The H0 silicon completely lacks "Gracemont" E-core clusters, and physically features six "Golden Cove" P cores. It's possible that given the 3 MB L3 slice size on the larger C0 silicon, the smaller H0 silicon physically features 18 MB of shared L3 cache.
64 Comments on Intel "Alder Lake-S" Comes in a 6+0 Core Die Variant
So the 6p+0e cores will not have that problem!
I'm sorry , it's just some Intel adds popping up on YouTube hinting at believing and that's it.
Less than 24 hours left to put those silly rumors to rest.
Thank goodness
CPUs leap frogging each other was peak of PC hardware acceleration ages
Intel is being erratic and misleading lately, such a shame (on them)
There isn't much overclocking headroom on the P cores we all basically knew that much already prior to launch. What I'm not sure about is if you can manually drop the multiplier by 1 across all P cores and 1 additional lower multiplier for additional P core in order for a stairway effect on the multiplier to scale back on the power draw and temperatures of the P cores and use that extra leeway to get more out of the E core's max frequency. I'd really like to know if the overall temperature and/or efficiency is better as a whole by underclocking the P cores slightly and overclocking the E cores a bit in turn with some of that extra temperature difference and power draw differences.
In fact it might work out a bit better overall on the Windows 11 scheduler in regard to some programs that inadvertently get assigned to the E cores. You might get better sustained boost on the first few P cores as well. I'd like to know more about just how well you can adjust some of the different clock frequencies and multipliers in different manners. I feel like there is potential for underclocking P cores and overclocking the E cores to lead to a better balance between power draw and temperatures with Alder Lake and I'd say that's especially true of the 129000K because there is two clusters of 1-4 E cores each with it's own multiplier that can be dynamically adjusted so half of the E cores on the 129000K can drop the multiplier by 1. I wish that the E core multipliers on each individual E core could be raised or lowered like with the P cores to be as dynamic, but it's still nice to know it can for clusters of four E cores. I hope that Intel doubles down on multiplier adjust ability on the E cores in it's next go with big LITTLE along with packing in even more of these energy and temperature efficient cores at the same time.
Having looked at how the Intel overclocking software looks like in some screenshots I feel like a unlocked 2C + 8C desktop might not be as interesting as I originally hoped it could at present though a 2C + 16C would be and a 1C + 16C might as well. That would allow more adjustment to the E core clusters at least. I feel that's area of overclocking that needs a strong look at and going as far as dropping the P core multipliers intentionally to see what you can eek out of the E cores. I feel like the P core's might be limiting the E core frequency scaling perhaps due to temperatures since they run vastly hotter. I haven't stumbled upon anyone deliberately trying to overclock the E cores though.
There is the crowd who will feel they dont need 20 threads, but still want that single core performance, they wont want people been able to achieve that on the cheaper SKU's.
Bear in mind though the chips used are also lower quality though, so its not like you can get an i5 and clock it to i9 speeds without some very good luck and tolerance to high voltages, I used to think one could do that many years ago, when I used to buy i5's but after bad experience with trying to clock up my i5's without insane voltage levels and especially after I seen a published graph which showed consistency across 100+ samples where i7's needed less vcore to hit same clock's as an i5, there is a clear binning process going on. So with the higher priced chips you also paying for better binned chips as well. So ultimately an i9 that only needs 3.6ghz for a specific workload will do it with less power/vcore than a i5 at 3.6ghz.
My 9900k is doing 4.8ghz at 1.25v I dont think its even a good sample, and I could never get any of my i5's anywhere near this voltage.
HW said if you install system from scratch when changing a CPU the system works as intended, despite Adrenalin driver installation (that is how I understand it).
Just because Adrenalin correlates with the problem it does not mean the driver is the problem since fresh install of windows does not exhibit the same issue. It may be the windows 11 problem not Adrenalin.