Intel's Core i7-8700K Generational Successor Could be 8-core

[btarunr]

BTO notebooks and portable workstation maker Eurocom is rather liberal at sharing confidential information on support forums. It was one of the first sources that foretold Intel developing the Z390 Express chipset, and that Intel is preparing to increase CPU core-counts on its MSDT (mainstream desktop) platform once again, in 2019.

Apparently, the 300-series chipset, led by the Z390 Express, will support Intel's 9th generation, 10 nanometer "Ice Lake" silicon with 8 physical cores. The generational successor to the i7-8700K will hence be an 8-core/16-thread chip. This also presents Intel with an opportunity to make its next Core i5 parts either 8-core/8-thread or 6-core/12-thread, and Core i3 either 6-core/6-thread or 4-core/8-thread.



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[ZoneDymo]

thank you AMD

 

[kroks]

Cool, more reason to wait for 9th gen. (+Spectre fixed)
My Sandy bridge will finally retire
Well, only it Intel price stay under 400$...

 

[Fleurious]

Moar cores! is great and all but I hope we don’t see a regression in single/low threaded performance through reduced clocks/etc...

 

[Vya Domus]

I have a feeling i5s wont be 8c/8t.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Was waiting for this. Just in time for DDR5 also.

 

[TheLostSwede]

So are we looking at:
Core i9 8/16
Core i7 6/12
Core i5 6/6
Core i3 4/4

Or will Intel come up with some new arbitrary ideas/model numbering?

 

[dj-electric]

Heck would we know. My ES 7900X is recognized as "i7 7900X" showing how spontaneous this move was.

 

[drade]

I'd sell my 8700k for this. Thank you AMD.

 

[ATER]

dose any one knows 9th gen cpus work on z370 mob?

 

[efikkan]

thank you AMD

For what? It will still be 1.5-2 years before we see hardware changes made after the launch of Zen.

 

[happita]

For what? It will still be 1.5-2 years before we see hardware changes made after the launch of Zen.

In case you didn't get it, AMD was the main reason that forced Intel to get up off their asses and start making some significant improvements in their CPU lineup.

 

[efikkan]

In case you didn't get it, AMD was the main reason that forced Intel to get up off their asses and start making some significant improvements in their CPU lineup.

In case you don't know, it takes 2-3 years to do major changes to such complex microprocessors and even more to redesign architectures. All of the changes in Coffee Lake, Skylake-X, Cascade Lake-X and Ice Lake were designed before the release of Zen.

Whatever architecture Intel produces after Ice Lake might be affected by Zen, but anything before that.
Edit: Ice Lake was designed years ago, and has already been postponed due to the 10nm production node.
And for those who missed the other news yesterday; AMD is working on "Zen 5". It's normal that vendors have three different generations in development at the same time.

 

[dj-electric]

Also not a huge fan of "thank you AMD" responses.
This (ICL) took many years to develop. They didn't start when Zen came out.

 

[phanbuey]

Also not a huge fan of "thank you AMD" responses.
This (ICL) took many years to develop. They didn't start when Zen came out.

I think the rollout would have been much slower and pricing higher if not for Ryzen, though.

They definitely poked the bear.

 

[R0H1T]

So are we looking at:
Core i9 8/16
Core i7 6/12
Core i5 6/6
Core i3 4/4

Or will Intel come up with some new arbitrary ideas/model numbering?

IMO i9 should be reserved for HEDT, 10 cores or above.

Also not a huge fan of "thank you AMD" responses.
This (ICL) took many years to develop. They didn't start when Zen came out.

Icelake is late by at least 2 years, also 8 cores should've been mainstream 2 years back, with 14nm.
So while thank you AMD might be a bit OTT, Intel thoroughly deserves all the negative press that's coming their way.

 

[HTC]

In case you don't know, it takes 2-3 years to do major changes to such complex microprocessors and even more to redesign architectures. All of the changes in Coffee Lake, Skylake-X, Cascade Lake-X and Ice Lake were designed before the release of Zen.

Whatever architecture Intel produces after Ice Lake might be affected by Zen, but anything before that.

Also not a huge fan of "thank you AMD" responses.
This (ICL) took many years to develop. They didn't start when Zen came out.

Have you dudes considered that this processor was to be an 8 core all along BUT was supposed to be very high end (as pricey as a 6900K @ $1700+)? Thanks to AMD, they'll be targeting a much more affordable price!

That said, wasn't Intel having lots of problems with their 10nm process? Supposedly, they won't be able to maintain skylake's / coffeelake's speeds when they move to 10nm.

 

[Imsochobo]

Also not a huge fan of "thank you AMD" responses.
This (ICL) took many years to develop. They didn't start when Zen came out.

cofee lake is granted.
It launching in october is AMD, it was scheduled for march 2018 that is AMD! and we see it by all of the other parts like lower end chips and chipset launch at this time.

Furthermore X299 was meant to be up to 10\12 core and not up to 18 cores and that is because of AMD.

What Intel does in 2019 is because of AMD that will be for sure.

 

[Vya Domus]

This (ICL) took many years to develop.

I don't know how many years it took to develop but it sure as hell doesn't look like a monumental step forward in CPU design. Nothing to write home about as opposed to Zen or Zen 2 in the future.

Currently it's AMD who is innovating and disrupting market trends not Intel.

 

[dj-electric]

I don't know how many years it took to develop but it sure as hell doesn't look like a monumental step forward in CPU design. Nothing to write home about as opposed to Zen or Zen 2 in the future.

Currently it's AMD who is innovating and disrupting market trends not Intel.

What is your wish for a next step in cpu development? And what in your opinion makes zen to zen 2 such a huge one comperes to lets say 4th to 7th intel gens

 

[Vya Domus]

What is your wish for a next step in cpu development?

I have no immediate wish of some sort. The only expectation I had for CPUs is for them to finally grow past quad cores for mainstreams products , which AMD accomplished.

And what in your opinion makes zen to zen 2 such a huge one comperes to lets say 4th to 7th intel gens

We all know very well that going from 4th gen to 7th gen all Intel did primarily is increase clocks by using better nodes. There was no major architectural step to even speak of , not even with regards to core count.

 

[efikkan]

Have you dudes considered that this processor was to be an 8 core all along BUT was supposed to be very high end (as pricey as a 6900K @ $1700+)? Thanks to AMD, they'll be targeting a much more affordable price!

No, that is 100% untrue. The HEDT cores have a different design with core interconnect, memory controllers, QPI etc. If Intel put a HEDT CPU on the mainstream platform you could tell immediately by the much larger die. The mainstream dies does also have integrated graphics.

Even the extra cores in Coffee Lake was planned years ahead. Intel's architecture is very tightly integrated, and not (yet) modular to allow multi-chip modules. They can't slap on new cores late in the design process, Intel always designs the different chip variations from the beginning. Late in the cycle they are only able to decide to disable features, tune clock speed and voltage, and of course price.

The only thing AMD can affect in the short term is pricing, and we've yet not seen any significant changes there. No everything revolves around Zen, which some like to believe.

It's not like Intel is sitting on better CPUs waiting for competition. Competition is good, but it takes many years to affect changes. Ice Lake was supposed to be here already, but is running late and might be further postponed until 2019. The earliest design to be possibly affected by AMD would be the successor of Ice Lake; "Sapphire Rapids"(?) coming in 2020/2021.

That said, wasn't Intel having lots of problems with their 10nm process? Supposedly, they won't be able to maintain skylake's / coffeelake's speeds when they move to 10nm.

Quite possible.

On a positive note though; the jump from Intel 14nm to Intel 10nm will be massive in terms of transistor density, a better jump than 22->14nm relatively speaking.

 

[HimymCZe]

exactly, THANK YOU AMD...
after 11 long LONG LONG years standing stationary in swamps of 4C my Q9550 will retire.

 

[dj-electric]

Lemme quote this one, because i'm really trying to get into your mind

I don't know how many years it took to develop but it sure as hell doesn't look like a monumental step forward in CPU design. Nothing to write home about as opposed to Zen or Zen 2 in the future.

You're saying that a jump from 6-core 14nm cpu to an 8-core 10nm cpu is not sagnificant, and continue to say how amazing the jump from zen 1 to zen 2 is.

How, in your opinion different and significant the experience would be, moving from an 8-core 1700X CPU to an 8-Core "3700X" CPU?
How, in you opinion one from said 1700X to a "4700X" would be?

 

[HD64G]

You who deny the effect of Zen to the market disruption that put pressure to Intel and forced them to bring 6 and 8 core-cpus to the market sooner, you should know that as we already knew things about Zen arch and the infinity fabric from leaks at least 1-2 years before it got to the market, Intel has their spies and knew about that long ago and waited for AMD tomake the move. And they were ready just because they made the 6-core cpus (i7-6950) to work on a normal socket with higher base clocks and turbo. It wasn't something they couldn't have done earlier iow. They just cared about milking customers with every year change in socket and mobo and cpu. AMD ruined that and they followed after a few months. That's why they introduced the i9 series after all, as the number 7 was on Ryzen series now. All of their actions were answering AMDs moves. i wonder how anyone cannot see those simple market moves as such imho.