Intel Raptor Lake with 24 Cores and 32 Threads Demoed

[ratirt]

You don't and can't know that. Intel can and will do whatever they think will give them an edge and make money. Such models might become their HEDT range.

You don't and can't know that either. They may as well not become HEDT. There might never be an HEDT CPU with Ecores and HEDT will only have Pcores. New segment which will charge more for Performance cores and higher count. Sounds like Intel's approach all over for further segmentation.

 

[lexluthermiester]

You don't and can't know that either.

But history predicts it to be likely.

Stop being a pessimist.

 

[ratirt]

But history predicts it to be likely.

Stop being a pessimist.

Pessimist? I'm rationalist I'd say. If you look at the history and combine it with profit making companies you will now it is possible and very likely that the Pcores will be limited within the desktop segment and maybe replaced with ecores making the Pcores expensive and for performance only purposes like in HEDT and server. History showed us the segmentations of products are there and are increasing. It is not pessimism driving me, it is obvious from a company's perspective to replace things and move them around for other purposes and change pricing.
We will see what happens.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Pessimist? I'm rationalist I'd say

Sorry, mate, you're leaning on the pessimist side of things ATM.

If you look at the history and combine it with profit making companies you will now it is possible and very likely that the Pcores will be limited within the desktop segment and maybe replaced with ecores making the Pcores expensive and for performance only purposes like in HEDT and server.

That would be true IF they had no competent competition. However, Intel is getting a proper boot stomping by AMD and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Intel NEEDS to compete and that means releasing products that not only match AMD's offering but handily out-perform them, dollar for dollar. While the 12900k is the current consumer sector King of the Hill, it's not King by much. AMD is currently the undisputed King of workstation and server sectors. Intel needs to do better and while Ecores are useful, they are not the performance answer. More refined and additional Pcores are. Intel knows this.

So for anyone to claim Intel is asleep at the wheel and we will be in Pcore "stagnation" condition is either worrying needlessly or is so out of touch with market conditions as to be completely blind to reality. I would hope you are not the latter.

 

[ratirt]

Sorry, mate, you're leaning on the pessimist side of things ATM.

I think you are excessively optimistic about a profit company to be the righteous savior thinking about others only.

That would be true IF they had no competent competition. However, Intel is getting a proper boot stomping by AMD and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Intel NEEDS to compete and that means releasing products that not only match AMD's offering but handily out-perform them, dollar for dollar. While the 12900k is the current consumer sector King of the Hill, it's not King by much. AMD is currently the undisputed King of workstation and server sectors. Intel needs to do better and while Ecores are useful, they are not the performance answer. More refined and additional Pcores are. Intel knows this.

So for anyone to claim Intel is asleep at the wheel and we will be in Pcore "stagnation" condition is either worrying needlessly or is so out of touch with market conditions as to be completely blind to reality. I would hope you are not the latter.

Yes, Intel is getting tremendous kicks from AMD but offering 8 Pcores only now and near future is stagnation in that regard. The 5000 series is an older thech and it was to tackle 11gen CPUs not 12gen CPUs. Intel had to catch up and did. Good for them. It is a race and the competition is fierce. Just because there is a competition doesn't mean companies can't try things and see how it is received and see what else they can do about it.
So far we they have already dropped from 10c to 8c so yeah there is a gist to what I said. Now we have still 8c with Ecores so i'm not so sure if Im actually worried needlessly but that is your opinion. Why stagnation with Pcores? Why would they invest in those? when they can put more Ecores? Why developed better Pcores if you can replace them with more Ecores? These are some of the questions that worry me. Time will tell but for now they are increasing Ecores not Pcores. Actually, they dropped to 8c from 10. You have the 8+4 option right? That is the same thing or even better right?
I'm just realistic and I don't buy the marketing. We will see how things go.
No wonder Intel releases 2 different CPUs each year cutting down something and swapping it with something else.

 

[thestryker6]

At the end of the day Intel will release whatever is competitive in the market. The only way they'll shift away from P cores on desktop is if AMD falls flat on their face. There's no evidence of this happening so it's a fairly safe assumption that Intel will continue to use the P/E combo, but likely only increase E core count. I can't think of a MT workload which would scale well up to the 9-12c range, but not beyond that as this is what it would take for Intel's plan to increase E core count while leaving P core at 8 to be bad (I'm working off the knowledge of their current process nodes and the limits these put on P core possibility on a single chip). Perhaps such a workload will exist some day, but until then Intel improving both cores should keep scaling performance well.

Suggesting that Intel wouldn't improve P cores is an extremely poor take which would require AMD to fail, Intel to use different core designs across the board, Intel to keep many different fab nodes running at full capacity or the server market to stop needing performance chips allowing Intel to truly stagnate.

 

[john_]

Right. And how is this new? Intel ran its quads for ages too. And, things dont scale infinitely.

If you look at higher segments its no different. CPU core configs dont keep going up steadily, new technology enables that in waves.

In th end if there is no advantage taken from a newer product you wont upgrade. Which goes back to the earlier discussion. Especially if you think this is one massive cartel instead of two competitors closely watching one another...

Yes, we have a repeat of the 4 cores period, that's what I am saying from the beginning. And because, as you say, things don't scale infinitely, those growing numbers of E cores will be more or less a illusion of performance advance. People asking for more P cores will have to turn to the HEDT platform. Especially if the mainstream market starts going in the wrong direction with E cores replacing P cores in the lid-low end market. I doubt AMD will keep offering 16 P cores in the mainstream market. After Intel starts selling 8+16 configurations, AMD will be unable to keep selling a 16 P cores mainstream chip at profit margins that will be making sense to them.
And people DO buy, even of a small performance gain, or better temps, or better overclockability. Intel's income and profit margins those years that it was selling Quad i7s proves that.

 

[Vayra86]

Yes, we have a repeat of the 4 cores period, that's what I am saying from the beginning. And because, as you say, things don't scale infinitely, those growing numbers of E cores will be more or less a illusion of performance advance. People asking for more P cores will have to turn to the HEDT platform. Especially if the mainstream market starts going in the wrong direction with E cores replacing P cores in the lid-low end market. I doubt AMD will keep offering 16 P cores in the mainstream market. After Intel starts selling 8+16 configurations, AMD will be unable to keep selling a 16 P cores mainstream chip at profit margins that will be making sense to them.
And people DO buy, even of a small performance gain, or better temps, or better overclockability. Intel's income and profit margins those years that it was selling Quad i7s proves that.

If people DO buy, then they buy. What are we going to do about it? Companies compete, and right now Intel and AMD 'compete'. This might nudge certain releases in certain directions as they fight for attention.

This is ALL business as usual.. You apply this to 'core counts and configurations' but this is the world we live in man. It happens with everything and we dubbed it progress.

There are alternatives, most of which are state controlled companies, collectivism over individualism, etc. Some call it socialism. Others call it regulation. We are living in liberal democracies though - and those are clearly past expiry date or close to it. Yes. All systems, all power corrupts. It just takes time, sometimes it takes longer. Then you get a big bang/conflict and we start thinking straight again. You might have read the news about Ukraine lately. Case in point. Its the old sovjet vs capitalism battle all over again and its clear the best our liberal democracies have against that is 'we'll try to avoid this bullet'. Weakness.

But I'm not seeing a big conspiracy regarding 'le core' because we're now getting different core types. That's just going way too deep into that rabbit hole of nonsensical details. In the end, we buy things because we need them, or because we want them. There are hundreds of aspects connected to the amount of progress we see per generation, and companies like Intel certainly do not control all of them.

But one thing stands though... over decades of development and despite stagnant periods the performance was always going up and MSDT has clawed more and more share away from higher segments of the market. If there is any constant in semiconductors, it is exactly that. Why would that change now, because we've reached a supposed 'top'? The only likely way forward is that segments will become irrelevant or differentiate on different things, like you correctly said, like temps, power usage, etc.

Markets that show the opposite of progress die. Its just that simple. Nobody wants to take a step back, and definitely not while spending money.

 

[john_]

If people DO buy, then they buy. What are we going to do about it? Companies compete, and right now Intel and AMD 'compete'. This might nudge certain releases in certain directions as they fight for attention.

This is ALL business as usual.. You apply this to 'core counts and configurations' but this is the world we live in man. It happens with everything and we dubbed it progress.

There are alternatives, most of which are state controlled companies, collectivism over individualism, etc. Some call it socialism. We are living in liberal democracies though - and those are clearly past expiry date or close to it. Yes. All systems, all power corrupts. It just takes time, sometimes it takes longer. Then you get a big bang/conflict and we start thinking straight again. You might have read the news about Ukraine lately. Case in point. Its the old sovjet vs capitalism battle all over again.

But I'm not seeing a big conspiracy regarding 'le core' because we're now getting different core types. That's just going way too deep into that rabbit hole of nonsensical details. In the end, we buy things because we need them, or because we want them. There are hundreds of aspects connected to the amount of progress we see per generation, and companies like Intel certainly do not control all of them.

I don't get your first line. People buy because they need for example a new PC and they do not have the time or the knowledge to judge accurately if what they are buying is the best or the worst in it's price category. But we here are not people talking about aesthetics, neither we are talking to decide what we are going to do about it. We talk about what the future could bring and my whole point from the beginning is to NOT feel excitement when we start seeing the creation of a new trend that sets an upper limit on P cores for the mainstream platform.

I don't get your second line either. Yes this is business and from a shareholders' perspective I already said that this is the best thing it could happen to shareholders. But I prefer in here to look things from the customers/PC user's perspective. From that angle I don't think "excitement" is the proper word. You and others have probably different opinions. OK.

I totally lost you in the next paragraph. Never had politics in mind when posting here, not going to start now.

And again in the last paragraph. it's not about conspiracies. It's about future X86 CPU direction. And the question is, when you need/want to buy a new PC, what would be the available options? 16 P cores for $600, or 2 Performance cores, 6 Midrange cores and 16 Efficiency cores for the price of $1000, because this will be a "24 cores CPU"?

 

[Vayra86]

I don't get your first line. People buy because they need for example a new PC and they do not have the time or the knowledge to judge accurately if what they are buying is the best or the worst in it's price category. But we here are not people talking about aesthetics, neither we are talking to decide what we are going to do about it. We talk about what the future could bring and my whole point from the beginning is to NOT feel excitement when we start seeing the creation of a new trend that sets an upper limit on P cores for the mainstream platform.

I don't get your second line either. Yes this is business and from a shareholders' perspective I already said that this is the best thing it could happen to shareholders. But I prefer in here to look things from the customers/PC user's perspective. From that angle I don't think "excitement" is the proper word. You and others have probably different opinions. OK.

I totally lost you in the next paragraph. Never had politics in mind when posting here, not going to start now.

And again in the last paragraph. it's not about conspiracies. It's about future X86 CPU direction. And the question is, when you need/want to buy a new PC, what would be the available options? 16 P cores for $600, or 2 Performance cores, 6 Midrange cores and 16 Efficiency cores for the price of $1000, because this will be a "24 cores CPU"?

I'm saying the future of x86 is not determined by how cores are marketed, and neither is the road of progress. Perhaps I thought too much of what you were saying about companies misleading customers with 'fake progress'... but really that's what most of our markets are built on right now. The vast majority of the shit we produce, is absolutely unnecessary or can be done with 'less stuff'. Most of it serves the purpose of inflating YoY numbers for shareholders.

If you want to change that, you either regulate freedoms for companies into the ground, or you adopt a system of tight control over what everyone produces. Otherwise, the future of x86 is up to the market and its players, yes, and consumers can mostly just stand by and pick the things they like and avoid what they dislike. That might influence future releases again, and so forth.

So I share your stance on 'excitement' completely. Unfortunately, we're not a majority and even if we were, the internet has come to deploy numerous algorithms and methods that massively inflate what companies earn money on. Such as good press for product releases.

 

[john_]

I'm saying the future of x86 is not determined by how cores are marketed, and neither is the road of progress. Perhaps I thought too much of what you were saying about companies misleading customers with 'fake progress'... but really that's what most of our markets are built on right now. The vast majority of the shit we produce, is absolutely unnecessary or can be done with 'less stuff'. Most of it serves the purpose of inflating YoY numbers for shareholders.

If you want to change that, you either regulate freedoms for companies into the ground, or you adopt a system of tight control over what everyone produces. Otherwise, the future of x86 is up to the market and its players, yes, and consumers can mostly just stand by and pick the things they like and avoid what they dislike. That might influence future releases again, and so forth.

So I share your stance on 'excitement' completely. Unfortunately, we're not a majority and even if we were, the internet has come to deploy numerous algorithms and methods that massively inflate what companies earn money on. Such as good press for product releases.

We just talk here. Swap opinions. Marketing was almost always in the center for companies and as for consumers buying stuff they think they want, instead of stuff they need to have, that's not something new. In my opinion the real question is. When I will be browsing in 5-10 years the CPU catalog, because I think or because I know I have to get a new CPU, what will be the available options? Today I think we are at the peak for the mainstream market with 16 P cores. Tomorrow? More cores as a pure number, yes, but what type of cores?

I believe it will be something like this (with a greater number of cores obviously)

 

[Vayra86]

We just talk here. Swap opinions. Marketing was almost always in the center for companies and as for consumers buying stuff they think they want, instead of stuff they need to have, that's not something new. In my opinion the real question is. When I will be browsing in 5-10 years the CPU catalog, because I think or because I know I have to get a new CPU, what will be the available options? Today I think we are at the peak for the mainstream market with 16 P cores. Tomorrow? More cores as a pure number, yes, but what type of cores?

I believe it will be something like this (with a greater number of cores obviously)

View attachment 237665

Oh sure, I can get onto that train of thought completely. More differentiation versus all purpose to reach better efficiency is logical when all-purpose solutions have hit their peak. Solutions are going to be more 'tailor-made'. Its a trend that follows on standardization.

I dont categorize that as a bad thing to be honest. Even if it does open the door to profit maximization; I mean if its not the actual product they will find other ways to create incentive to buy in higher on the stack. In our markets actual improvements to the product itself are the best we can wish for.

And then yes it really is survival of the fittest, fit being consumers that dive deep into whatever they buy. If, that is, you are keen on making the best choice.

That last bit brings me to another thought; the baseline of CPU performance is in a spot right now where average joe can easily do everything on almost anything.

For GPUs much the same applies in terms of gaming if you are satisfied with a pretty 'royal' 1080p, let alone 720p which really games just fine if we are brutally honest. Thats why we are talking about stuff like RT now, after all. You could say that the shift you speak about in product capability and offerings has already gone full circle a few times with GPUs - the addition and removal of GPGPU capability for example.

 

[arni-gx]

10 years ago the question was "Who needs more than a 4 core / 8 threads i7? It can do about everything a normal consumer wants.".

especially at that time, some people will say i5 3570k its much better price/performance than i7 3770k, so i buy that i5 3570k....... after sometime, playing ass creed unity for the 1st time, i regret so much for buying i5 3570k.........because, i7 3770k its much much better performance for playing that pc game.....

 

[THU31]

This hybrid approach is much better for productivity than just adding more P-cores.

For gaming you do not need more than 6 P-cores anyway, all the benefits come from IPC, clock speeds and cache size. So a CPU with just 10 or 12 P-cores is completely pointless.

But they need to offer more SKUs with E-cores physically disabled, to lower the prices for gamers. Some people might want maximum cache and overclocking potential for gaming without having to pay for E-cores they will not use.

And for those multi-tasking, the hybrid architecture is still better. It is just that for now it should be used with manual thread allocation, because the schedulers are not working perfectly at the moment.

 

[lexluthermiester]

For gaming you do not need more than 6 P-cores anyway

Sorry, but that really depends on the game and the resolution you play at.

all the benefits come from IPC, clock speeds and cache size.

True.

So a CPU with just 10 or 12 P-cores is completely pointless.

So you have not played The latest microsoft Flight Simulator then? Yeah, give it a try with a 12600 and come back to share your experience..

 

[john_]

But they need to offer more SKUs with E-cores physically disabled, to lower the prices for gamers. Some people might want maximum cache and overclocking potential for gaming without having to pay for E-cores they will not use.

Intel's HEDT platform is coming back to town. So, CPUs with no E cores, or E cores disabled and plenty of P cores will be offered in that platform. Models with a limited number of P cores and no E cores are already offered in the Intel mainstream platform. But companies and tech sites will be describing E cores as "extremely capable" in future CPU series, capable enough to probably start replacing P cores in hybrid designs. We can't expect the resurrection of Intel's HEDT platform and at the same time a huge number of cores on the mainstream platform with only differences on features, like memory channels and number of PCIe lanes offered. The type of cores used in each platform will start becoming the main difference.

 

[THU31]

So you have not played The latest microsoft Flight Simulator then? Yeah, give it a try with a 12600 and come back to share your experience..

You have any benchmarks for this ONE game that you claim benefits from more than 6 cores?

I only managed to google 2020 launch CPU comparisons, where there was basically no difference above 6 cores. The 2021 update might have changed something, but it changed it for all CPUs. I have not found any actual numbers for that.

In Alder Lake CPU reviews, I have not seen one game where the 12700K/12900K were faster than the 12600K because of the extra cores. It was all about clock speeds and cache.
Most games are capable of spreading the load across 8 cores because that is what consoles have, but they will not utilize the full power. You might get a few extra frames because of the more efficient distribution, but 8 cores is the limit. Going past 8 cores will basically make no difference, assuming identical clock speeds and cache size.


HEDT CPUs with just P-cores? That makes even less sense, since the main usage of those platforms is productivity. Finding the right balance between P-cores and E-cores is a much better option.

 

[thestryker6]

You have any benchmarks for this ONE game that you claim benefits from more than 6 cores?

I only managed to google 2020 launch CPU comparisons, where there was basically no difference above 6 cores. The 2021 update might have changed something, but it changed it for all CPUs. I have not found any actual numbers for that.

I wasn't able to find anything either, but Eurogamer did use DX11 flight Sim with 12600k and it was performing about the same as the 5950x.

HEDT CPUs with just P-cores? That makes even less sense, since the main usage of those platforms is productivity. Finding the right balance between P-cores and E-cores is a much better option.

Intel is not doing hybrid scalable Xeon processors period (only ones will be E/W series which are just desktop CPUs with Xeon features) and since HEDT historically has been based on those it likely won't either. SPR is tile based with EMIB linking and I believe uses a mesh instead of ring topology which means the CPU construction is significantly different than ADL. Intel would thus need to make a new architecture that used mesh with E cores and this would only sell to a narrow enthusiast/workstation market. I'm not saying it's impossible that they could put out such a thing, but it's extremely unlikely.

I'm hopeful that Intel will start whatever the new HEDT processor is at a relatively low core count to keep entry costs reasonable. Unlike the past though they would definitely need to scale up the core count a lot higher due to Threadripper core counts.

 

[john_]

HEDT CPUs with just P-cores? That makes even less sense, since the main usage of those platforms is productivity. Finding the right balance between P-cores and E-cores is a much better option.

HEDT platform is not targeting only professionals, but also enthusiasts and gamers. Those last two categories will focus on P cores, not E cores. For them a 16P + 0E cores model will be a better option than a 8P + 32E cores model, especially if it is cheaper or at the same price level.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
People went with hedt because it had the most threads

Z chips have always been great gamers but never had a lot of threads so hedt was the only choice

Now not so much z chips have more threads than hedt and are cheaper so productivity minded will switch quickly price is also lower so it's a win/ win
Only bad thing is mother boards have gone up a lot plus ddr5 is hard to find.

Xeon's were just the cheap route from the overpriced hedt chips.

 

[lexluthermiester]

You have any benchmarks for this ONE game that you claim benefits from more than 6 cores?

I'm not your lackey. And it's NOT the only one.

 

[THU31]

I'm not your lackey.

You are the one trying to convince me that games need more than 6 cores, without showing any numbers. I will not spend all day on google trying to prove myself wrong. I am fine with the data I have (Alder Lake reviews).

 

[lexluthermiester]

You are the one trying to convince me that games need more than 6 cores, without showing any numbers.

No, I'm sharing with you information that everyone else who's paying attention knows. I don't have to prove up or hold your hand. The benchmarks in reviews are out there, go read them or continue in ignorance.

I will not spend all day on google trying to prove myself wrong. I am fine with the data I have (Alder Lake reviews).

Irony. If you think that is what the reviews show, you have a problem with context and understanding. Either way, the problem rests with you. Good luck with that.

 

[chaoshusky]

Everyone raging.. Yet E-Cores certainly aren't useless! I'd like to see more P-Cores too but that will be for the extreme/enthusiast platform i would think - this is the mainstream one remember! Typical, just as i got a 12900K there's a 12900KS (Keep Spending) and the successor already planned! Bugger!

You are the one trying to convince me that games need more than 6 cores, without showing any numbers. I will not spend all day on google trying to prove myself wrong. I am fine with the data I have (Alder Lake reviews).

Might as well join in the drama.. Games do tend to need more than 6 cores now, including background/OS overhead.. Which is why i upgraded from a heavily overclocked i7 8086K to a not so overclocked (but still quite overclocked) i9 9900K - those extra two cores and four threads helped quite a bit! A 3090 is hungry, but it also gave benefit to my old 1080 Ti at the time! Certainly not saying all games, as some struggle to use more than a few if they're rather smol, indie or just simply don't need much grunt/will run on integrated/low end happily but yeah.

 

[Cutechri]

People will be arguing about moar cores until the end of time.