Intel "Ice Lake" IPC Best-Case a Massive 40% Uplift Over "Skylake," 18% on Average

[trparky]

TSMC 7nm is expected to become about twice as expensive per chip size vs. 14nm, but that's when 7nm approaches optimal yields. Currently an 8-core Zen 2 would cost more to make than an i9-9900K, and that's even with factoring in the benefits of the small chiplets.

Then how is AMD's chips so much cheaper than Intel's chips? I can't imagine AMD eating the cost, they're not a charity here folks.

 

[efikkan]

Then how is AMD's chips so much cheaper than Intel's chips? I can't imagine AMD eating the cost, they're not a charity here folks.

What's you logic here?
i9-9900K is a relatively small chip produced on a very mature node, Intel have a massive profit on this one. As I've said, Intel could have cut the price, but they don't until they have to.

 

[trparky]

What's your logic here?

If you look at many of AMD's prices they tend to be significantly lower than Intel for more performance. How can AMD do this if it's going to cut into their bottom line?

As I've said, Intel could have cut the price, but they don't until they have to.

I argue the reason why the PC industry has been in freefall the last five years is because of Intel's high prices. Why did it take AMD to suddenly come up from in back of Intel and whack them upside the head to suddenly make them want to lower their prices? My argument is that if Intel had lowered their prices on their own, despite lower profit margins they would have made it up in volume and thus the PC market wouldn't have nosedived as it did. Intel hurt themselves with high prices; if they had lowered their prices they wouldn't be in the world of hurt that they are in now.

 

[efikkan]

If you look at many of AMD's prices they tend to be significantly lower than Intel for more performance.

AMD have some offerings with more performance per dollar, but claiming more performance for lower price, that's a stretch, unless you're talking Cinebench etc. Cores don't equal performance either.

How can AMD do this if it's going to cut into their bottom line?

I never said it was.
Coffe Lake 8-core is ~174 mm² (incl. graphics), considering the much larger Skylake-X/SP dies (which also have more layers) starts at $589, it's a fairly safe assumption that these dies are cheap to manufacture. They are also small compared to the desktop GPU on the market.

I argue the reason why the PC industry has been in freefall the last five years is because of Intel's high prices.

Until 2015, Intel had substantial progress. Since then they have just pushed clocks, due to their problem with node shrinks.

Why did it take AMD to suddenly come up from in back of Intel and whack them upside the head to suddenly make them want to lower their prices?

It's called competition, and it's something we've lacked since the glory days of Athlon 64.
Without competition, there is less motivation to cut costs. But there is still the motivation to sell new products, which is the reason why Intel have slowly lowered costs without competition, like i7-5820K with a good 6-core for $389.

My argument is that if Intel had lowered their prices on their own, despite lower profit margins they would have made it up in volume and thus the PC market wouldn't have nosedived as it did. Intel hurt themselves with high prices; if they had lowered their prices they wouldn't be in the world of hurt that they are in now.

Perhaps, but the demand for Intel CPUs have actually been high. Any decline in the PC market have been consumed by the enterprise market. Intel would have required more production capacity to do this, so far they've been maxed out on 14nm. So why would they, from their standpoint, lower the prices until they have to when their desktop CPUs are selling well?

 

[trparky]

I'm talking more from the idea that many people didn't see a need to upgrade due to cost/benefit analysis. In other words, for the price of upgrading, there wasn't enough of a need to upgrade. If perhaps Intel had lower prices maybe, just maybe, the PC industry would not have seen the huge decline in sales over the last five years.

 

[efikkan]

I'm talking more from the idea that many people didn't see a need to upgrade due to cost/benefit analysis. In other words, for the price of upgrading, there wasn't enough of a need to upgrade. If perhaps Intel had lower prices maybe, just maybe, the PC industry would not have seen the huge decline in sales over the last five years.

Sure, in terms of wanting to upgrade, most desktop buyers have seen little to gain since Sandy Bridge, except for content creators and developers of course.

I think Intel have been too focused on the enterprise market, but hopefully the competition from AMD can make them take it more seriously again.

The laptop market is sort of selling by itself, and is usually not performance driven, as the average laptop wears out physically long before its usefulness.

 

[trparky]

Sure, in terms of wanting to upgrade, most desktop buyers have seen little to gain since Sandy Bridge, except for content creators and developers of course.

Myself included. For the last five years, that is up until the release of the 8700K, all Intel was offering was the same old tired quad-cores year after year with absolutely pathetic increases in performance. Combine that with consistently high prices despite the fact that they were just releasing the same warmed-over crap year after year led to the decrease in sales across the PC industry in the last five years. Nobody saw a need to upgrade, there wasn't any excitement, there was nothing to really make people sit up and take notice.

Now if Intel hadn't been sitting back with cruise control on perhaps the PC industry wouldn't have seen such a huge decline. If you ask me the likes of Dell, HP, and other OEMs should have put more pressure on Intel to actually get their asses in gear to make something great to move more PCs.

 

[londiste]

How can you say that there are no yield issues when a 9900K costs $500? The only reason why I can think of why it costs so much is that Intel is having issues making those chips and pricing it so high in hopes that people won't be tempted to buy them when they're in short supply.

Well, you might want to read half the people in any news comments who keep saying Intel is simply greedy. It is a business that wants to make money - if customers are buying it at that price, why sell it for less? Either way, while it definitely plays a role, price at the store is not directly determined by manufacturing cost.

You also mention that there are manufacturing issues with AMD's products while overlooking the fact the Intel is having to turn to Samsung to make some of their chips.

I never mentioned manufacturing issues with AMD's products. I simply argued that Zen2 processors are not necessarily cheaper to make than Intel's current CPU line. I stand by that argument. Turning to Samsung is a capacity question, not capability or any technical measure.

If we go by your thinking Intel would have never had to turn to Samsung. Why else would they turn to Samsung, a direct competitor, if they didn't have yield issues? I can't imagine Intel ever giving up and turning to a competitor if they didn't have manufacturing issues, it would be like GM turning to Ford to make their engines while they (GM) still make the body of the car.

Not yield - capacity. They simply do not have enough fabs. Intel produces a lot more than CPUs. Chipsets, FPGAs, modems (including Apple deal), NAND Flash, Optane (last two have their own dedicated fabs) and some other things. In addition to making a lot of stuff, there is reason to suspect they are moving some of their fabs to 10nm or even 7nm. Retooling a fab takes year-year and a half at least, maybe two. If Intel really intends to mass manufacture 10nm chips, bad yields or not, they need fabs for that. Unfortunately the exact details for what exactly each fab is doing are hard to come by.

TSMC 7nm is expected to become about twice as expensive per chip size vs. 14nm, but that's when 7nm approaches optimal yields. Currently an 8-core Zen 2 would cost more to make than an i9-9900K, and that's even with factoring in the benefits of the small chiplets.

Wasn't the AMD slide about price for the situation at that time or close enough? That presentation was in December 2017 and had a graph showing 7nm being close to twice the price of 12nm. All current indications are that the difference has been reduced a little since then.

Then how is AMD's chips so much cheaper than Intel's chips? I can't imagine AMD eating the cost, they're not a charity here folks.

They need the market share and AMD has more than a healthy profit margin. Are AMD's chips really much cheaper than Intel's chips?

 

[trparky]

if customers are buying it at that price, why sell it for less?

Because more sales, even at a lower cost, is good. Who wouldn't want to sell more?

Not yield - capacity.

Bad yields could cause capacity constraints if the yields are bad enough.

Are AMD's chips really much cheaper than Intel's chips?

Per core? Hell yeah!

 

[londiste]

Because more sales, even at a lower cost, is good. Who wouldn't want to sell more?

They are capacity-bound. Less sales at higher margins would be better in these circumstances

Bad yields could cause capacity constraints if the yields are bad enough.

Why do you think they have bad yields?

I argue the reason why the PC industry has been in freefall the last five years is because of Intel's high prices. Why did it take AMD to suddenly come up from in back of Intel and whack them upside the head to suddenly make them want to lower their prices?

Competition is the main answer here.

However, there is a simple answer to Intel's apparent lack of progress - Intel failing to develop a working 10nm process. That was planned to 2016, I think. We know Intel's 6-core and 8-core CPUs are clearly too much for 14nm given the intended TDP constraints. They were waiting for 10nm to materialize and it did not... and so far still hasn't.

Industry as a whole has had a lot more to worry about. Lack of progress is a factor but not the only one. Mobile is/was a big thing. Remember a few years ago when doom was predicted for PC and tablets, mobiles etc replacing them? That really was a thing in several fronts - hardware, RAM/Flash prices, software and a lot of supporting services and things made bets on mobile.

 

[trparky]

Why do you think they have bad yields?

Well, we know that Intel makes their chips as a monolithic die meaning all of the stuff that makes that processor is on that one die. Considering that the 7700K launched at a price of $305 USD, then the 8700K with two more cores and the launch price is $359 USD. OK, $50 more for two more cores ain't bad. But here we have the 9900K with an insane MSRP of $488 with many selling for more than that. Holy crap!

Why did adding just two more cores on top of the already six cores of the 8700K shoot the price up so badly? The only thought that comes to mind is that too many 9900K chips are coming off the line with defects in them. So if you want one, be prepared to pay dearly for it.

 

[londiste]

Are AMD's chips really much cheaper than Intel's chips?

Per core? Hell yeah!

This got me curious. I would expect this to be true but how much does the cheapest CPU with certain amount of cores from either manufacturer actually cost?

AMD lineup:
8-core $299 (Ryzen 7 2700)
6-core $199 (Ryzen 5 2600)
4-core $100 (Ryzen 5 2200G)
2-core $55 (Athlon 200GE)
Note that Ryzen 7 3700X will be 329, raising the 8-core bar slightly.

Intel lineup:
8-core $323 (Core i7 9700)
6-core $182 (Core i5 9400)
4-core $122 (Core i3 9100)
2-core $42 (Celeron G4900)

Less of a difference than I expected.

Well, we know that Intel makes their chips as a monolithic die meaning all of the stuff that makes that processor is on that one die. Considering that the 7700K launched at a price of $305 USD, then the 8700K with two more cores and the launch price is $359 USD. OK, $50 more for two more cores ain't bad. But here we have the 9900K with an insane MSRP of $488 with many selling for more than that. Holy crap!

Why did adding just two more cores on top of the already six cores of the 8700K shoot the price up so badly? The only thought that comes to mind is that too many 9900K chips are coming off the line with defects in them. So if you want one, be prepared to pay dearly for it.

You are basing this squarely on price. That is a bad indicator. Pricing is much more marketing than technical thing.
i7 7700K never really sold for $305. Its retail price was pretty much $350-360, even more so with i7 6700K still being sold and occupying the slot at $300-ish. i7 8700K effectively formalized that price.
i9 9900K is the top processor of the class you can get which inevitably comes with a price premium. Ryzen 9 3950X is bound to take that spot now with $250 (50%) higher price over Ryzen 9 3900X for 4 extra cores.

 

[trparky]

Whoa. I didn't expect that. I expected to see dramatic price differences.

 

[londiste]

Whoa. I didn't expect that. I expected to see dramatic price differences.

There are caveats to that list. Disabled HT and no OC are the ones you (or someone else) will soon bring up. Both are true but not strictly technical questions. Limited OC is about marketing (and Intel's stupid amount of models), lack of HT is due to vulnerabilities (as I said before, I am willing to bet it is due to MDS). The point was that Intel is capable of manufacturing and selling CPUs with same amount of cores with prices that are not that much different.

 

[trparky]

Yeah, Intel provides unlocked chips only on their more expensive K-class chips whereas AMD freely gives it away on all of their chips regardless of what model you buy.

 

[ratirt]

lack of HT is due to vulnerabilities (as I said before, I am willing to bet it is due to MDS).

I don't think you are right here or fair. Lack of HT was done by Intel before vulnerabilities were introduced. Intel wanted to charge extra for the HT option in processors. Intel has so many processors cause Intel wanted to get more cash from customers and played with the features like HT and OC possibility.
AMD is changing that. I wonder what the new Intel's processor lineup will look like. I'd bet it will have less products.

 

[Midland Dog]

If Zen 2.0 already got ~12% IPC advantage over current Intel parts, how do you think the Zen 3.0 gonna perform? another 5% IPC + 10% performance at same TDP[Higher All core boost]? this make very big gap for 2020, so maybe Intel is reconsidering it's timeline?

zen 3 is a pipe dream at this point, think of it as a redesign of a redesign, 7nm + is EUV and 7nm is duv (TSMC) so it wont be as easy as make the same chip on the + node and get better clocks, design adaptations will certainly happen, i expect perf per watt and amds margins will get the biggest gains from EUV

Yeah, Intel provides unlocked chips only on their more expensive K-class chips whereas AMD freely gives it away on all of their chips regardless of what model you buy.

*athon 200ge flops around like a spastic*

 

[londiste]

Lack of HT was done by Intel before vulnerabilities were introduced.

9000-series was released on October 2018. MDS vulnerabilities were discovered and reported to Intel from March to September 2018.

 

[EarthDog]

9000-series was released on October 2018. MDS vulnerabilities were discovered and reported to Intel from March to September 2018.

...and Intel CPUs without HT have been around for several generations prior. This has nothing to do with vulnerabilities.

 

[londiste]

...and Intel CPUs without HT have been around for several generations prior. This has nothing to do with vulnerabilities.

Are you sure about that?
2c/4t, 4c/4c, 4c/8t is a fairly logical lineup. With the addition of a 6-core in 8000-series, they were kind of stuck in terms of lineup (4c/8t is faster than 6c/6t in several situations, relegating what is effectively i7-7700K to i5 in less than a year would look bad etc). 4c/4t, 6c/6t, 6c/12t is the best they could come up with.
Now, with the addition to 8-core in 9000 series Intel did have a perfect opportunity to match AMD-s offerings in terms of threads. They did not. We do know that all 4, 6 and 8-core do have HyperThreading in hardware but it is disabled in everything except 9900/9900K. With MDS and mitigation effectively being "disable HT", I really do suspect it is not a coincidence.

I am not saying that it is definitively so but it looks like a valid theory, no?

 

[ratirt]

Are you sure about that?
2c/4t, 4c/4c, 4c/8t is a fairly logical lineup. With the addition of a 6-core in 8000-series, they were kind of stuck in terms of lineup (4c/8t is faster than 6c/6t in several situations, relegating what is effectively i7-7700K to i5 in less than a year would look bad etc). 4c/4t, 6c/6t, 6c/12t is the best they could come up with.
Now, with the addition to 8-core in 9000 series Intel did have a perfect opportunity to match AMD-s offerings in terms of threads. They did not. We do know that all 4, 6 and 8-core do have HyperThreading in hardware but it is disabled in everything except 9900/9900K. With MDS and mitigation effectively being "disable HT", I really do suspect it is not a coincidence.

I am not saying that it is definitively so but it looks like a valid theory, no?

Yes it is fairly logical theory but my logic dictates that this is due to get more cash from customers charging extra for features like OC possibility and HT enabled. I think you are not seeing the bigger picture. You need to ask yourself, instead of putting a "nice lineup" here as an answer, why this lineup looks like that. Vulnerabilities are already out so what is left?
Give you a hint. More products more money. More features more money

 

[EarthDog]

Are you sure about that?

FWIW...yes.

6c/6t is plenty for years for the average user. 8c/8t...better and fine for enthusiast...8c/16t mainstream flagship. Why complicate things?

 

[londiste]

6c/6t is plenty for years for the average user. 8c/8t...better and fine for enthusiast...8c/16t mainstream flagship. Why complicate things?

Why not do 4c/8t, 6c/12t, 8c/16t like competition does. All this quite literally exists in the same pieces of silicon they are selling (= no additional cost).

Yes it is fairly logical theory but my logic dictates that this is due to get more cash from customers charging extra for features like OC possibility and HT enabled. I think you are not seeing the bigger picture. You need to ask yourself, instead of putting a "nice lineup" here as an answer, why this lineup looks like that. Vulnerabilities are already out so what is left?
Give you a hint. More products more money. More features more money

Intel is currently not selling any 4c/8t or 6c/12t CPUs for consumer.

 

[ratirt]

Intel is currently not selling any 4c/8t or 6c/12t CPUs for consumer.

Maybe they are more worried about AMD release now than about their lineup. Releasing something with HT now wouldn't make a difference when they need to fight AMD. Enabling HT on 4c and 6c CPU changes nothing. They need new CPU and new lineup to counter to AMD's 3000 series processors.

 

[londiste]

Maybe they are more worried about AMD release now than about their lineup. Releasing something with HT now wouldn't make a difference when they need to fight AMD. Enabling HT on 4c and 6c CPU changes nothing. They need new CPU and new lineup to counter to AMD's 3000 series processors.

Having HT turned on would make a world of difference in fighting AMD. That is exactly what causes big losses for Intel CPUs in production benchmarks vs Zen.