Intel "Gemini Lake" Low-power Architecture Features Wider Instruction Decode

[btarunr]

Intel "Gemini Lake," the upcoming low-power x86 CPU micro-architecture which succeeds "Apollo Lake," will feature a wider 4-way decode unit, according to WikiChip, citing an Intel kernel patch, which mentions "Goldmont Plus has 4-wide pipeline for Topdown." The unit is now 33% wider than that of the "Apollo Lake" architecture, and double that of its predecessor, "Braswell." The new "Gemini Lake" CPU cores will be part of a new lines of Celeron and Pentium "Goldmont Plus" SoCs for low-power desktops, convertible notebooks, and tablets.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[silentbogo]

Time to sell all of my BayTrail boards. The future is looking brighter and brighter!

 

[Frick]

I've no idea what this means, but I hope it means more Intel tablets. You can run Wine on them.

 

[seronx]

I've no idea what this means, but I hope it means more Intel tablets. You can run Wine on them.

Goldmont has 3-wide decode. Goldmont Plus has 4-wide decode.

It means 4 x86 instructions vs 3 x86 instructions.

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...w-goldmont-cpu-architecture-heart-apollo-lake
https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Goldmont-Diagram.png

Take it as Goldmont Plus is almost touching Core-level IPC.

 

[silentbogo]

I've no idea what this means, but I hope it means more Intel tablets. You can run Wine on them.

It gets even better. It will also have 4MB cache (prev. gen. only had 2MB). With that and the pipeline increase we may get a Celeron/Pentium Jxxxx chip with performance of last gen. Skylake-Y/U.
...and there's also HDMI 2.0 and other trinkets.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Best Atom EVER!!!!111

Oh right, these are now Celeron and Pentiums, Intel killed the Atom...

 

[silentbogo]

Oh right, these are now Celeron and Pentiums,

... and Atoms (C and X series at least). No one killed anyone. Just slightly rearranged.

 

[TheLostSwede]

... and Atoms (C and X series at least). No one killed anyone. Just slightly rearranged.

But those are not for "consumers"...

 

[silentbogo]

But those are not for "consumers"...

Why not?
X-series are common in nettops, tablets, netbooks, phones etc. I bet you've probably heard, seen or even held in your hands at least one consumer device with Z8300 or Z8350 inside.
At least you should've heard about Intel Computestick or Asus EEE PC, or periodic press-releases on TPU about yet another Gigabyte IoT gateway...

C-series is for enterprise (mostly mini-servers and networking equipment), but that also qualifies as "consumer".

 

[TheLostSwede]

Not from the end of last year, they're not - http://ark.intel.com/products/series/87465/Intel-Atom-Processor-X-Series
The new x5/x7-E39x0 series (i.e. Apollo Lake) is not targeting consumer applications. How do I know? No pricing on the ARK is the first giveaway, second one is that they're available as embedded options, which most of the consumer products aren't. Also the E in Intel model names tend to stand for embedded. I'd be happy for you to show me a single consumer device using any of these processors though, as I haven't seen any yet, only various embedded boards.

Atom C is again for embedded applications, like NAS appliances and entry level server boards. That said, I'm looking forward to see what the chips beyond the C3338 will offer in terms of features.

The only remaining models that are consumer focused are the crappy x3-C3xxx models for phones that RockChip is making, but they don't really count imho.

 

[Frick]

The Z8xxx is pretty common in tablets these days actually. Notebooks not so much, and I know no phone with it.

 

[Readlight]

They better need to make drivers for Z3000 because on w10 tauch srean, batery, sound, gpu, orientation sensor dont work. Shit Intel.!

 

[ignafiltro]

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compar...J5005-vs-Intel-Pentium-J4205/m487063vsm221469

Gemini Lake is already looking quite a lot quicker than Apollo, (look at overclocked results, they show how the cpu runs on a clean system).
Even the quad core Celeron beats last gen Pentium by a lot. Most low end 6 to 15W Dual Core Kaby lake (Core M3, 15W Pentium Kabylake) chips lose or are in par on the multicore side and barely beat the Pentium on single core.
Apollo Lake is the future of ultraportables. They are getting really close to Core architecture IPC.
Im exited for chinese companies to release refreshed ultra cheap laptops. A Pentium N5000 with a MX-150 should about as powerful as a i5 2400 with a GTX 560 Ti used to be, but using just 10% of the power.