Intel Unveils a Clean-slate CPU Core Architecture Codenamed "Sunny Cove"

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Calling this a clean-slate CPU core might be quite a stretch, everything presented about the dies looks like logical incremental changes similar to previous generations from Intel.

One important quote from Anandtech which should have been mentioned:


It's worth emphasizing that this CPU architecture have been in development longer than any recent x86 architecture from Intel. The Ice Lake core was in fact finished in design 1.5 years ago, but has been held back by a faulty node.

And that's exactly another site's take on it , clean slate my ass.

It's a further evolved skylake ,bigger caches , more avx extensions and another load unit? , thats it besides a few extra unit's thrown in the av decoder??(thats not even in the cpu) , not the clean sheet design they claim.

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

Zen1/+ is technically 10-wide execution (6 INT pipes and 4 FP pipes), it's interesting to note that Zen1 has wider execution engine than Skylake but from what I heard is almost entirely front-end limited (Zen2 apparently fixes this). Will be interesting to see IPC gains from Sunny Cove, though.

 

[Metroid]

JFC, you are the fluffmeister of AMD... LOL

On a more serious note, Intel is catching up on AMD's 'going wide' thought instead of IPC performance. People really need to step back and see the forest through the trees though. More cores/threads aren't needed by the masses. Hell most enthusiasts will happily run a 4c/8t CPU and not lose any performance. The fact is, to me, both companies CPUs have their merits. AMD is a great offering for those who need more threads at cores at the same pricepoint and is OK in a very slight IPC deficit. Intel just plain old has the fastest around in IPC, is lacking in core count for the same price, and overclocks better than AMD. It does indeed cost more.

So, thanks, AMD, for multiple generations of being dozens of % slower IPC, finally getting into the ballpark and adding more cores and threads people don't need? Again, so few people need the cores/threads, I'd rather them both work on 4-6c/8-12t count CPUs and improving those than simply adding what amounts to useless (for a vast majority) c/t.

I didn't say it was all AMD's 'fault'.. but simply responding to Metroid's assertion that it was AMD which caused this change. Surely competition is a part of it... nice for AMD to be back in the game. But let's not forget how business works while lambasting the other side.

Competition is good!

I'm all for 2 or 4 powerful cores than having 8/16 cores or more virtual useless threads like hyper-threading for that matter. I myself prefer single thread performance than anything else but we need to face the facts that who pushed more cores the better was Intel, not amd, amd is just playing the same game Intel created and is losing it on multi thread performance per dollar. I applaud Intel for coming up and say " hey, we will focus on smt from now on, because the reality is, our customers are buying our products because of that".

 

[EarthDog]

who pushed more cores the better was Intel, not amd

They did? Prior to Zen, on the mainstream platform, it was max 4c/8t from both camps. Zen came out pushing that envelope forcing an Intel response of more cores (since the oblivious general audience generically thinks more cores are better). This isn't a chicken or the egg conundrum.

Hell, prior to this, Intel even introduced 4c/8t and 4c/4t CPU to HEDT!!! lol

" hey, we will focus on smt from now on, because the reality is, our customers are buying our products because of that".

Please pass the dutchey to me.

 

[Metroid]

They did? Prior to Zen, on the mainstream platform, it was max 4c/8t from both camps. Zen came out pushing that envelope forcing an Intel response of more cores (since the oblivious general audience generically thinks more cores are better). This isn't a chicken or the egg conundrum.

When Intel pushed to 4 cores 8 threads, amd did not have a real desktop quad core. i7 920 was launched on 2008-11-17. AMD at that time had the Phenon line which was 2 cores 4 threads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Phenom

 

[EarthDog]

When Intel pushed to 4 cores 8 threads, amd did not have a real desktop quad core. i7 920 was launched on 2008-11-17. AMD at that time had the Phenon line which was 2 cores 4 threads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Phenom

10 years ago is a lifetime... and you more or less supported my argument. 'Preesh!

4c/8t on mainstream has been around for around 8 years (2600K), and just NOW can be used by the majority. Cue Bulldozer and Zen dropping 6c+ CPUs into the mainstream BEFORE Intel who sat with 4/8 until very recently, a response to AMD's move as I said. This isn't a chicken or the egg thing unless I am missing something...

Also, the i7 920 was a HEDT CPU (on X58), NOT a mainstream CPU. We are not talking about HEDT in the first place... I purposely said MAINSTREAM to differentiate that fact.

 

[Metroid]

My argument is who started with the more cores the better was intel and I stand by it and then after that intel just left at is it cause amd was not challenging intel on that, the first real quad core amd launched was in 2011. AMD tried to challenge Intel on that with the 6 cores but it was never real 6 cores, was 6 threads, real tricore. AMD is only challenging Intel with something now because they are able to.

Also, the i7 920 was a HEDT CPU (on X58), NOT a mainstream CPU. We are not talking about HEDT in the first place... I purposely said MAINSTREAM to differentiate that fact.

If you dont want to use bloomfield launched on november 2008 then use Lynnfield which was launched in July 2009 and was a mainstream cpu 4 cores 8 threads.

 

[EarthDog]

You can stand by it, but, that doesn't make the opinion correct within the context. Sorry. HEDT was never a part of this discussion and really has minimal influence on the mainstream platform in regards to core count.

The HEDT platform is where the HCC chips are supposed to go and HCC on that platform is the norm. AMD competed there as well with Opterons and all. AMD was the first, with BULLDOZER to bring more cores where it wasn't needed... the mainstream space. There really isn't any getting around that.

 

[moproblems99]

I'd rather them both work on 4-6c/8-12t count CPUs and improving those than simply adding what amounts to useless (for a vast majority) c/t.

This.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

When Intel pushed to 4 cores 8 threads, amd did not have a real desktop quad core. i7 920 was launched on 2008-11-17. AMD at that time had the Phenon line which was 2 cores 4 threads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Phenom

you and wikapedia needs some learns.

Phenom 2 had no Smt at all 4c 4t and upto 6c6t.

@EarthDog i heard that kind of bullshit in the dual core era, ie we don't need duals quads blah blah same shit different day.

So we don't need raytracing either then?, Progress in software doesn't come without platforms being out there in customer's hands already to make coding for them viable ,financially.

Or do we all Just want to play csgo for the next 40 years.

I frvkin hate RTX but I cannot knock the ideology and effort to make it happen.



Ps evey time i read "we don't needs more cores " i was ALLWAYS needing MOAR cores.

 

[EarthDog]

It was the Q6600 that brought true quads out right? That was released in........have to look it up............2007. Fast forward to 2018 (11 years!) and JUST NOW, like literally in the year or so, is a quad now considered a bit dated (for a PC that does more than email/web etc). So, you are SPOT ON in your assertion...

So we don't need raytracing either then?, Progress in software doesn't come without platforms being out there in customer's hands already to make coding for them viable ,financially.

... products need to be out for software to catch up. Why code if there isn't hardware? I get it. That said, we can slow the roll down a bit from both and focus on other things that improve quality of life on a PC... IPC and clockspeed (for most - clearly some users can use all those threads, but, its prosumers mostly who can then look into the HEDT platforms).

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It was the Q6600 that brought true quads out right? That was released in........have to look it up............2007. Fast forward to 2018 (11 years!) and JUST NOW, like literally in the year or so, is a quad now considered a bit dated (for a PC that does more than email/web etc). So, you are SPOT ON in your assertion...... products need to be out for software to catch up. Why code if there isn't hardware? I get it. That said, we can slow the roll down a bit from both and focus on other things that improve quality of life on a PC... IPC and clockspeed (for most - clearly some users can use all those threads, but, its prosumers mostly who can then look into the HEDT platforms).

That's ignoring the simple facts that frequency hit a wall and IPC is incredibly vague , the 70% touted by intel today is just in avx512 not really much.


More cores adds more Alus and execution unit's.
To add ipc you need to add more Alus or execution units.

Both simple but true facts which adequately indicate Ipc has also hit a wall of sorts imho so cores wins for me.

I understand where you're coming from though and actually agree not everyone will need more, yet .

 

[EarthDog]

Perhaps this is where TRUE innovation comes in instead of strapping on MOAR COARS.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Perhaps this is where TRUE innovation comes in instead of strapping on MOAR COARS.

Intel have been bang into your vision of innovation for the last 10 years as you pointed out, all they have done for years is just add in more ASIC like special circuitry to do specific tasks better, mostly in the gpu too lolz irony , hopefully though were bickering about old intel , who don't glue dies together cos its shit.

This is new intel they're innovative again bringing new shit like 2.5+3d chips and active interposers and mcm glued together chips it's all at the edge of what's possible and a first

 

[R0H1T]

I'd say x86 has pretty much reached the end of the line, so far as limitless IPC increases are concerned. Without things like improved caches, memory, storage (Optane?) there's very little gains for general applications or games. Except of course AVX or the latest trend "neural net"

 

[seronx]

Pretty sure, they messed up the marketing slides.

Skylake-SP => Two LD/STA + One STA + One STD
Sunnycove => Two LD + Two STA + Two STD

Skylake reservation station is singular. There is one across all ports. Hence => 97 RS entries.

Sunnycove is suppose to have a clustered MEU. So, one scheduler for the Int/FP and two memory schedulers for Load/Store. One MEU for each thread.

Softmachines was bought and brought in to speed up Sunnycove's launch. So, it isn't really any surprise it re-uses the Int/FP side of Skylake-SP/Cannonlake. However, Willowcove is the actual big core planned and is supposely to receive the new Int/FP. Which by the way is suppose to be as clustered as the MEU.

Pre-2013 plans:
Haswell(Xeon) + Kittson(Itanium)
Skylake(Xeon) + Sunnycove(Itanium)
Cannonlake(Xeon) + Willowcove(Itanium)
//2014 and beyond Itanium was dropped for a faster/bigger x86 core. Sunnycove started development with Skylake, Willowcove started development with Cannonlake.

 

[efikkan]

On a more serious note, Intel is catching up on AMD's 'going wide' thought instead of IPC performance.

No, the "Sunny Cove Microarchitecture" is per core improvements, not core count.
As Anandtech said;
"Frequency is often a function of the implementation and process, whereas IPC increases can come from cores being wider (more executing instructions per clock), deeper (more parallelism per clock), and smarter (better data delivery through the front end)."

I also want to remind you that this architecture was designed prior to the launch of Zen.
Also, Intel's dump to 6-core mainstream CPUs was known prior to Zen.

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks for the timeline corrections.

That does still leave some iteration of Phenom or Bulldozer as the mainstream precursor for 6c, correct?

 

[R0H1T]

No, the "Sunny Cove Microarchitecture" is per core improvements, not core count.
As Anandtech said;
"Frequency is often a function of the implementation and process, whereas IPC increases can come from cores being wider (more executing instructions per clock), deeper (more parallelism per clock), and smarter (better data delivery through the front end)."

I also want to remind you that this architecture was designed prior to the launch of Zen.
Also, Intel's dump to 6-core mainstream CPUs was known prior to Zen.

This isn't the same architecture, they've tweaked it a few times in the last couple of years ~

 

[efikkan]

That does still leave some iteration of Phenom or Bulldozer as the mainstream precursor for 6c, correct?

Sure, Phenom II X6
And Bulldozer for 8 "cores".

This isn't the same architecture, they've tweaked it a few times in the last couple of years ~

As I mentioned in my first post, the design of Ice Lake (which uses Sunny Cove) was completed by 2017-06-08.
What they've done since then is implement security mitigations and do tweaks.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Thanks for the timeline corrections.

That does still leave some iteration of Phenom or Bulldozer as the mainstream precursor for 6c, correct?

Phenom 2 960T or thereabouts thurban i think.

 

[R0H1T]

We don't know when Sunny Cove was finalized, by the time of ICL tapeout "10nm" was still on track. We also don't know when Sunny Cove will be out, in HVM.

 

[Lorec]

Is it just me or Intel is sitting on tech, but not willing to actually release it unless they milk every single iteration of old stuff?
Like that sunny cove is still only an ace up their greedy sleeves, they are actually far beyond that. So is Amd.
Why would You show all Your aces, if You just need to one up competition, right?
F it. I'm moving to some banana republic to play with rocks and sticks.

 

[Vya Domus]

adding more cores and threads people don't need?

The hardware industry doesn't agree with you, the software industry also doesn't agree with you but hey nice way of perpetuating the myth that we don't need more than a dual core. By the way 2004 called, they want your opinion back.

Look around you, everyone made the shift towards many cores designs , in desktop chips, mobile SoCs, embedded. You would also be shocked to find out that many modern CPU core designs execute many instructions concurrently anyway. If there wasn't a need for it they wouldn't have done it. You need to be extremely out of touch to believe everyone is adding more cores because the idiots didn't realize better IPC and single core performance is better.

Absolutely everything is nowadays optimized for added parallelism because that's the only way forward. You know better than multi billion dollar companies ?

 

[EarthDog]

... but hey nice way of perpetuating the myth that we don't need more than a dual core.

????? I said quad cores are now the minimum.

NOW, like literally in the year or so, is a quad now considered a bit dated (for a PC that does more than email/web etc). So, you are SPOT ON in your assertion...

More cores/threads aren't needed by the masses. Hell most enthusiasts will happily run a 4c/8t CPU and not lose any performance.

Think outside the TPU box. Your mom or grandma doesnt need more than a quad. Neither do the majority of users. Enthusiasts, like some here, dont need more than 4c/8t... 99% of users, even here are covered with 6c/6t or 12t...

By the way 2004 called, they want your opinion back

LOL...were there even quad cores out then? LOL

Absolutely everything is nowadays optimized for added parallelism

No. How many games in my stable peg 1 core and tickle the rest...2 cores? 3? 4? Its getting there, but prematurely. Clients simply dont need the horsepower. BF V is the first game I can recall which actually UTILIZES more than 4-6c.

Edit: side note... according to steam stats, a full 86% of users have 2c or 4c cpus. Another ~9% have 6c. One would think if the need is as high as you seem to infer (just because companies are making them isn't a reason and doesn't make it a need) more users would be on higher core count CPUs already, don't you think? I mean, hw/sw industry don't agree... which is fine, they are trying to make money first and foremost, no? If there isn't a need, create one which is what they have done over generations. We are still balls deep in an era where 4c/8t are being used by 86% of steam users, a full 95% have 6c CPUs or less. The biggest growth of CPUs in the chart.... 4c CPUs. It takes time for change. Again, 4c CPUs are now considered a minimum for most when building a PC with 4c/8t being a more optimal choice. There isn't a need for all the parallelism that you feel is prevalent now (it is the way forward, but its moving at the same turtle pace it did 10 years ago it feels).

EDIT2: Yes, I know there is more to PCs than games. Prosumers do not make up huge portion of users either.