InVasManiIf you're going to make a comparison about E cores using a chart with the 1st generation Alder Lake E cores rather than Raptor Lake E cores really isn't the best place to start. That's even more true when talking about 3rd generation E cores making even further refinements to E cores designing. It's a bad comparison choosing to look at the older design especially when there were big changes to the design with Raptor Lake for the better like individual E core multipliers and voltage controls instead of clusters of four. Effectively it's higher resolution control over the multiplier setting and voltages which leads to better sloping of parameter settings for efficiency and performance.

Intel made the right changes to E cores with Raptor Lake as a whole it was good step forward. If anything they just pushed P core frequency too damn far at peak. It's been pointed out that it's fairly easy to correct most of the efficiency problem w/o sacrificing overly heavily. To be fair the AM5 7800 vs AM5 7800X is quite a difference as well and shows AMD pushed the 7800X a lot further and could've had a lot better efficiency as well from the get go. Neither company were perfect on that end.

Vayra86Yeah I misspoke, meant #cores in the case of AMD.
Still though - 12T vs 12T; so whichever way it goes, on a straight bench that can use every core thrown at it, E cores don't extract a real advantage. 'Tuned to meet' - rather, I'd say, E cores are tuned to meet a TDP target to ensure the chips don't straight up burn in hell. Of course, this happens on the AMD side too, except they're a lot smarter about it now.

But the fact still remains, that on an AMD CPU, you can use every core for every task without scheduling or other shenanigans. The fact is also that in any full-blown, unlimited load the Intels go straight into crazy land wrt power usage, while AMD's recent 7950X3D peaks at half TDP of a top- and even subtop- Intel part.

So that's where we see the real thing. In any limited scenario, Intel can keep up. Remove limitations and the AMD parts deliver peak performance at fantastic efficiency, and the Intel parts start showing their true, excessive TDPs. And the difference it so seems, is mind blowing.

So the matchup is pretty much equal die space for similar performance, but twice the power usage at peak due to 'Efficient Cores'. Well played, Intel, well played indeed, gullible consumers buying the marketing. And why? So Intel can 'keep up'. Yeah, that Big little sure is a winner on the eternally rehashed Core CPUs, go go.



Efficiency chart is hilarious, even. Tell us again Intel didn't get stuck on quad, maybe hexacore since forever; the only parts that have any semblance of effiency in the current day are low core count parts. Apparently mix&match your old crap to make ends meet doesn't quite suffice against actual technological progress :)




You either have sufficient core count or you don't, its that simple, and it always has been. But then again, there's a lot of blundering going on @ Tweakers, be wary taking those reviews too seriously. They're Hardware.info level now - bottom barrel, up to and including straight up wrong results. I've had my share of experiences. Even prior to HWInfo invading to take over the abysmal review quality, they 'oopsied' on for example The Witcher 3 testing with Hairworks on. Yes you read it right. It took some heavy complaining from this person to correct that nonsense. Reviewers are liable to speak for the very thing they spoke against less than a month ago, etc. Its a mess.

Also, interesting that you do full blown downloads in background while gaming, that'll be some enjoyable ping!

SSGBryanIt means I could have many poorly threaded Adobe apps open at once rather than 1 or 2.

Vayra86Yeah I misspoke, meant #cores in the case of AMD.
Still though - 12T vs 12T; so whichever way it goes, on a straight bench that can use every core thrown at it, E cores don't extract a real advantage. 'Tuned to meet' - rather, I'd say, E cores are tuned to meet a TDP target to ensure the chips don't straight up burn in hell. Of course, this happens on the AMD side too, except they're a lot smarter about it now.

But the fact still remains, that on an AMD CPU, you can use every core for every task without scheduling or other shenanigans. The fact is also that in any full-blown, unlimited load the Intels go straight into crazy land wrt power usage, while AMD's recent 7950X3D peaks at half TDP of a top- and even subtop- Intel part.

So that's where we see the real thing. In any limited scenario, Intel can keep up. Remove limitations and the AMD parts deliver peak performance at fantastic efficiency, and the Intel parts start showing their true, excessive TDPs. And the difference it so seems, is mind blowing.

So the matchup is pretty much equal die space for similar performance, but twice the power usage at peak due to 'Efficient Cores'. Well played, Intel, well played indeed, gullible consumers buying the marketing. And why? So Intel can 'keep up'. Yeah, that Big little sure is a winner on the eternally rehashed Core CPUs, go go.



Efficiency chart is hilarious, even. Tell us again Intel didn't get stuck on quad, maybe hexacore since forever; the only parts that have any semblance of effiency in the current day are low core count parts. Apparently mix&match your old crap to make ends meet doesn't quite suffice against actual technological progress :)




You either have sufficient core count or you don't, its that simple, and it always has been. But then again, there's a lot of blundering going on @ Tweakers, be wary taking those reviews too seriously. They're Hardware.info level now - bottom barrel, up to and including straight up wrong results. I've had my share of experiences. Even prior to HWInfo invading to take over the abysmal review quality, they 'oopsied' on for example The Witcher 3 testing with Hairworks on. Yes you read it right. It took some heavy complaining from this person to correct that nonsense. Reviewers are liable to speak for the very thing they spoke against less than a month ago, etc. Its a mess.

Also, interesting that you do full blown downloads in background while gaming, that'll be some enjoyable ping!

oxrufiioxoI'm a little surprised there is so much push back about E cores sure if intel released a 10/12 Pcore cpu I'd be on Alderlake/raptorlake but the majority of people I personally know that have 12/13th gen intel are very happy with their systems same with people I've personally done AM5 systems for... Don't get me wrong I'm not thrilled about meteor lake being 6P cores but I'd rather see benchmarks before deciding if it's not for me. My biggest worry if it does suck we will just get amd pricing 6 cores at 300+ and 8 cores at 400+ again which is worse than intel using E cores imo.

MrMilliI don't know if you're Dutch or not but Tweakers is not "bottom barrel". Please ... They're average and any website has the occasional mistake. That graph I posted is still valid.
It's not only about core count. The e-cores have their own cache pool which also helps with multitasking.

Newest review:


PS: ping is great but I don't have to worry with my 500Mbit internet.

Vayra86We'll agree to disagree about Tweakers, I've seen far too many mistakes and straight up marketing parroting over the years. They are definitely bottom barrel, and heavily sponsored from time to time, too. Neutral... dream on.

MrMilliAdvanced architectures such the Fujitsu A64FX show how a well thought-out memory hierarchy overcomes the need of MOAR CORES.

AnotherReaderThe A64FX doesn't show anything of the sort; it shows what a well designed vector implementation and ISA can do with a memory hierarchy capable of feeding the beast. Given its low clock speed, you wouldn't be singing hosannas about it if you were to use it as a desktop CPU. It also has a lot of cores for its time: 52 cores.

MrMilliI don't understand why you're changing the subject into discrediting Tweakers. That's very politician like. Don't like the fact, discredit the source. I don't want to go into your rabbit hole.
What would be better from you, is to present me with the opposite (the grown up way as it's called). Show me another review that does a multi-tasking gaming test (really not many out there) where AMD doesn't fall behind.

The fact is that those stupid e-cores bring along their own private cache which helps a lot when you use your computer as it's actually intended (ie. multi-tasking). This lowers cache thrashing of which AMD is clearly suffering in that test. The addition of X3D clearly shows that.
As you so eloquently put "You either have sufficient core count or you don't, its that simple, and it always has been" is a very primitive and brute force way of solving a more complex problem. Advanced architectures such the Fujitsu A64FX show how a well thought-out memory hierarchy overcomes the need of MOAR CORES.

MrMilliIt was just an example obviously and well said, feeding the beast, which is basically what every CPU suffers from.

Vayra86I'm not changing the subject - neither am I saying that those specific results are 'wrong' or somehow twisted. What I am questioning, is 'what's the actual point' of the results you showed. As I pointed out earlier, the overwhelmingly vast majority of people don't download and game online at the same time. I've done so on a pretty good connection and its not pretty. Regardless of bandwidth, your ping/latency will suffer. Maybe life's different today, but still- why. #firstworldnonissues comes to mind.

Similarly; we're looking at 500 FPS while streaming and gaming on a CPU that uses twice as much power as its nearest competitor. So now you have a CPU burning through north of 200W continuously to display 500 FPS and stream a game... at 60 FPS... :rolleyes: and heavily compressed. I'm sure there is a world where this is considered absolutely fantastic, but it isn't mine.

As far as your other points about E-cores, absolutely. I'm not going to deny there IS a niche for this architecture, I even acknowledge it, just not in the same way as you: Intel needs and uses these E-cores not to be better or faster, but to keep up by using and still refining what is by now ancient tech. What's happening now is that they're pushing higher E core count because even that wasn't enough, after multiple changes to how we should look at specs, turbo, etc etc ad infinitum, and with power usage soaring to unseen heights. The 7950X3D absolutely destroys everything these E cores produce, private cache or not - and that's just by adding cache to a chiplet CPU. No wild nonsense babble about 'efficient' cores, but just cores and more cache; and they produce the most stellar perf/w number we've seen historically, to date, apparently now not only in gaming but everywhere.

My main issue with E-cores is that they allow Intel to essentially stagnate yet again, and the only purpose they truly serve is marketing - core counts matter - while a competitor shows none of that BS is actually required or even offers a real advantage - Intel chips are just as big, more power hungry, and not faster.

dyonoctisYou say stagnate, I'll say "preventing a problem from becoming even bigger than it would if they listened to internet engineers". From puget tests, The latest XEON are really not that impressive even compared to zen 3 TR, they are losing in perf/watts even at a similar core count...against a 2 years old architecture. Even with their gigantic R&D, it seems that intel hasn't figured out how to make cores that are efficient and fast.

And while e-core reach their limits at the high-end, they are definetly a problem for AMD on the mid-range. The core i5 are way too good for what they cost compared to the competition. Unless they manage to pull a miracle, going back to a 6 core i5 will actually be a downgrade in many scenario compared to what they are now.

phanbueyIt's amazing how every "ecores bad" comment is here from AMD users who will buy an 6+8 zen 5 and love it :rolleyes:

VarioI can't apologize for the 12900KS's terrible power consumption out of the box, certainly they could have done better if they had a more competitive process (smaller node).

A lot of the issue with Intel is that Alder lake is clocked higher than it should be, simply for the sake of generating a lead or a tie on benchmarks. I found limiting my 12900KS to 5.0 and undervolting it dropped the wattage consumed by 100+ W depending on application, and the temperatures don't much exceed 60C in games. If I ran it out of the box, it would be 110C and 300 watts.

chrcolukManufacturers certianly seem to have lost interest in power efficiency now, shipping way too far up the power curve, knowing reviewers concentrate mostly on benchmark performance. Even my older 9900k, I saved a chunk of heat/power by reducing its massive over voltage in its shipped state.

phanbueyIt's amazing how every "ecores bad" comment is here from AMD users who will buy an 6+8 zen 5 and love it :rolleyes:

THU31I've used Intel CPUs exclusively for over a decade (and many times before that) and I find E-cores to be completely 100% pointless on desktops.

There is NO benefit. No significant power saving (which is only relevant for battery life anyway), because you'd have to use C-states and core parking, and all those features add latency and cause stutters (even in something as simple as video playback).
Background tasks can run on extra P-cores with no performance penalty in the foreground application. And you could have 16 P-cores with lower power consumption than the 8+16 config.

But I don't have a problem with E-cores existing. I have a problem with Intel shoving them down our throats. Just like they did iGPUs a decade ago. It took so many years for F SKUs to become a thing. Maybe we'll get SKUs without E-cores one day (on the higher end).
Gaming performance is all I care about (productivity in a home environment is completely irrelevant). And for that my preffered config at the moment is 8 P-cores with no E-cores and no HT (for compatibility). 6C/12T is enough, but HT does cause issues occasionaly. Add to that a fixed clockspeed with no power-saving features (I manually switch power plans when needed). Any kind of dynamic switching is disastrous, and that goes for both CPUs and GPUs.

CrackongE-cores are pretty much useless in my use cases.
I would treat this as a 6 core CPU
Now we are back to 2017 where 8700k just came out ?

regsThose Crestmont cores are quite more powerful than Skylake cores in 8700K. They won't have hyper threading, but 2 real cores are more powerful than a virtual thread. So just E-core block alone would be better than 8700K.