Intel to Go Ahead with "Meteor Lake" 6P+16E Processor on the Desktop Platform?

[btarunr]

Late last year, it was reported that Intel is skipping its upcoming "Meteor Lake" microarchitecture for the desktop platform, giving it a mobile-platform debut in late-2023, with "Arrow Lake" following on in 2024, which would address both platforms. In the interim, Intel was expected to release a "Raptor Lake Refresh" architecture for desktop in 2023. It turns out now, that both the "Raptor Lake Refresh" and "Meteor Lake" architectures are coming to desktop—we just don't know when.

Apparently, Intel will brazen it out against AMD with a maximum CPU core-count of just 6 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores possible for "Meteor Lake." It's just that both the P-cores and a E-cores get an IPC uplift with "Meteor Lake." The processor features up to six "Redwood Cove" P-cores with an IPC uplift over the current "Raptor Cove" cores; and introduce the new "Crestmont" E-cores. A lot will depend on the IPC uplift of the latter. Leaf_hobby, a reliable source with Intel leaks on social media, has some interesting details on the I/O capabilities of "Meteor Lake" on the desktop platform.



Apparently, "Meteor Lake-S" (the desktop variant), comes with a PCI-Express host interface of 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, and 12 PCIe Gen 4 lanes from the processor. This works out to a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 PEG interface, one PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface for the first CPU-attached NVMe SSD, one PCI-Express 4.0 x4 for a second CPU-attached NVMe SSD; and 8 PCI-Express 4.0 lanes toward the DMI chipset bus.

The companion Z890 chipset, the top desktop motherboard chipset option for "Meteor Lake-S," comes with an all-Gen 4 PCIe interface. It puts out 24 PCIe Gen 4 downstream lanes. With this platform, Intel could standardize Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11be), a new wireless networking standard with a theoretical maximum bandwidth of over 40 Gbps.

Lastly, there's the question of platform. "Meteor Lake-S" is unlikely to be supported on the current LGA1700 platform, and Intel is expected to debut the new Socket LGA1851 for "Meteor Lake-S" and its succeeding "Arrow Lake." The new socket could maintain cooler-compatibility with LGA1700, though.

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[Space Lynx]

I mean, I am just going to turn off the ecores, so do w.e the fuck you want Intel. Just give me IPC improvements on the P-Core, otherwise I won't be buying you regardless.

 

[Crackong]

E-cores are pretty much useless in my use cases.
I would treat this as a 6 core CPU
Now we are back to 2017 where 8700k just came out ?

 

[tabascosauz]

Seems a little sus. Whole new socket for an in-between generation with only 6 P-cores is a new low for Intel. At least Rocket Lake still used LGA1200, and Broadwell had eDRAM and used existing chipsets......maybe a big step up in efficiency? Raptor Lake was already halfway there, if only it wasn't pushed so hard out of the box

Also, that's a big-ass SOC tile (yes, different process but still). Better be something valuable in there, hopefully a new IMC

I mean, I am just going to turn off the ecores, so do w.e the fuck you want Intel. Just give me IPC improvements on the P-Core, otherwise I won't be buying you regardless.

Raptor Cove already is an IPC brute, but clearly there's something else keeping it from performing better in games, whether it's IMC not running in Gear 1 or not enough L3 or whatever.

 

[Space Lynx]

I want to see a Meteor Lake variant 8 core with no e-core, and use the extra die space for spacing/cooling

I mean they already do a 6 core variant with no e-cores, I just wish they would do the same with 8 p-cores and bring the cost down, or keep cost the same if they do what I say above there.

that would be the best gaming chip on the planet, and should stay cold too, since no extra heat from the ecores.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Smart people would never buy the "Meteor Lake" anyways, since is just a proof of concept to be released and beta-tested by ignorant users.

 

[trsttte]

Wow, I wonder what they're basing the design decision on, is this just a game of having more useless cores!?

The e-cores can be great, but not fucking 16 of them

 

[GerKNG]

Intel really seems to love these stupid and useless cinebench accelerators...
i don't want ANY E-Cores in my DESKTOP CPU. they make sense for devices running off a battery but they are completely useless in a normal PC.

give me 16 P Cores, downclock them to keep heat and power consumption tame enough for the average user and let me overclock it back to it's limit with a high end cooler.

 

[evernessince]

I have to agree with others here, for desktop Intel should focus on more P-cores over E-cores. It's nice to have a few E-Core for multi-threading and background tasks but 16 e cores and only 6 p cores is way too many e cores and too little p cores.

 

[PenguinBelly]

Raptor Cove already is an IPC brute, but clearly there's something else keeping it from performing better in games, whether it's IMC not running in Gear 1 or not enough L3 or whatever.

What do you base that on?

 

[EnFission]

Intel really seems to love these stupid and useless cinebench accelerators...
i don't want ANY E-Cores in my DESKTOP CPU. they make sense for devices running off a battery but they are completely useless in a normal PC.

give me 16 P Cores, downclock them to keep heat and power consumption tame enough for the average user and let me overclock it back to it's limit with a high end cooler.

A single P Core takes up about as much die space as 4 E Cores, so based on the 13900K you could expect 12 P Cores. The problem with this, is AMD can then brag about higher core/thread counts and Intel can't allow that. That being said I'd prefer the higher P Core count as well and not have to deal with the thread director silliness.

 

[phanbuey]

It's amazing how every "ecores bad" comment is here from AMD users who will buy an 6+8 zen 5 and love it

 

[Punkenjoy]

If the IPC gain is great, even 6 core Meteor lake could beat the 8 cores Raptor Lake in gaming. If they release it on desktop, it's probably because they think it's worth it. Else why bother?

 

[trsttte]

AMD users who will buy an 6+8 zen 5 and love it

Yeah so what, 6+8 is very different than 6+16/16+6. I don't mind some e-cores, i'd prefer to have everything full power but if they're able to leverage better efficiency and price (by using smaller die) sure, give me a couple e-cores that can run things in the background. I'm into virtualization so I can have for example the e-cores running less demanding stuff and/or the hypervisor while the p-cores do the demanding stuff like run a game or whatever.

But 16 e-cores!? What am I (or anyone) supposed to do with that? Servers will probably eat up this increased reliance on e-cores, it seems like it's the only response Intel has to massive epyc/threadripper core counts, but for client? It just doesn't compute for me

 

[Hyderz]

keen to see what this processor can do, but it seems like most people will pass on this..

 

[Hxx]

another year another socket change. Thanks Intel for being kind enough to allow cooler compatibility. At least they wont give it to us raw they will rub some vaseline on it

 

[Zubasa]

It's amazing how every "ecores bad" comment is here from AMD users who will buy an 6+8 zen 5 and love it

First Intel needs to solve the whole issue with E-cores pulling down the Ring/L3 cache frequency, then people can actually ignore the E-cores.

 

[InVasMani]

Time will tell how it stacks up, but they seemed to have taken steps backwards on core count relative to the already released 13900K. At least it's got higher ipc for both core types. The gains from the ipc uplift on the E cores in particular could be fairly pronounced given the amount of them.

 

[watzupken]

The E-cores are not without its merits. Essentially, you have more physical cores when running applications that are optimized for multithreaded performance. I don't believe it only excels in benchmarks, but should also deliver in real life usage, again if you are running software that can utilised all the cores. In games, the E-cores don't contribute much since it likely only keeps the background processes from tapping on the P-cores. 6 cores for PC games is sufficient even with current game titles.
What I don't like are,
1. Intel pitched these E-cores as being efficient. They are for sure, but what is the point of 16 E-cores? Efficient or just an excuse to bump performance on the cheap?

2. Intel is effectively selling cheap E-cores at higher prices. Think Raptor Lake, and you can see Intel basically justifying a higher price tag for a bunch of E-cores. Whereas you are getting 16 cutting edge cores from AMD. Again not to say E-cores are worthless, but one is paying a lot for what should have been some Celeron/ Pentium Silver class processors.

I am using an i7 Alder Lake now and a Comet Lake before, and I am not impressed with Raptor Lake. And it seems like Intel is doubling down this path of spamming E-cores while keeping cutting edge and expensive P-cores low in number. Considering that AMD previously patented some P and E core CPU design, I guess it may be a matter of time AMD may eventually go down this path.

 

[nguyen]

Hopefully Intel won't pull another 11th gen this time

 

[kopatator]

What I as a media consumer/gamer want is i7 13790f/k/kf simply 8 god damn real useful physical performance oriented cores , 6 is ok but it's filling up fast , 10-12 is years ahead and expensive, 8 strong Ipc cores as all we asked , if you wanna do work and edit and stuff like that Xeon's , many many of them flooding around

 

[Hyderz]

next up intel HEDT with 8 p cores and 16 e cores

 

[phanbuey]

Hopefully Intel won't pull another 11th gen this time

I think they are... Pat is trying to get them to focus and apparently (not sure how true this is) the Desktop team was dropping all sorts of balls.

It wouldn't be as bad if they didn't keep switching sockets every 2nd gen...

 

[uftfa]

I'm so confused by people's obsession for p-cores and their disdain for e-cores. The e-cores roughly equivalent to skylake cores while taking up way less energy and die space.

1 P-core takes roughly as much space as 4 E-cores, and the E-cores would perform better in pure multi-threaded scenarios.

Given a choice between 10P + 0E cores or 6P +16E cores, there's a very good case to be made for 6+16 config. Games will see negligible impact with 2 fewer P-cores, and multi-threaded apps that can actually use 6+ cores, will see a massive boost because of the extra performance that comes with additional E-cores.

The caveat to all this is that the 6P+16E part can't be a 14900, it must be a 14600-class part, and be priced as such.

 

[SL2]

Seems a little sus. Whole new socket for an in-between generation with only 6 P-cores is a new low for Intel.

Well, I can't imagine this was Intel's plan from the beginning, but what options do they have at this point..

Change the socket to LGA1700 just because it's 6P max, and cancel the 800 boards? I don't think it's that easy for a lot of reasons.
Suddently, LGA1851 only works with only one CPU generation (Arrow) instead of two.
Telling board makers to shelve development? Nope.

Think about it, if Meteor had at least 8P it would surprise absolutely no one that it required a new board. (Despite millions of shocked/bitter/dramatic comments about having to change board.)