Intel’s Core i7-9700K: What We Know (And How It Could Beat AMD)

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Giroro

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It seems the competition from AMD has caused Intel to scramble to rush as many CPUs and chipsets to market as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think that has inspired many real changes or improvements beyond "now we can fit more of the exact same cores in the same amount of space"... which they were already doing on high-end CPUs, they've just brought it down to the consumer level. The problem is that they haven't really improved their performance-per-watt, so more cores just ends up lowering the clock rate, which they try to mask by aggressively overclocking their turbo boost. Turbo boost doesn't do much good to an someone buying a k-series chip to overclock it regardless, though.
At least performance-per-dollar is coming down overall, even though their biggest hail mary (core i-9) is really the biggest example of the problems I'm talking about: to try and sell more cores at a premium, they end up rushing out inefficient, overpriced, overheating chips with disappointing (albeit high) performance and a new more-expensive chipset and socket that doesn't really add anything interesting, yet will still somehow go obsolete in less than a year.

I hope Intel gets it together and finally releases their 10nm chips and improve their efficiency... But with how Intel has been acting lately I expect yet-another 14nm iteration of the current design with a minor clock bump (increasing power draw), and an additional ~%5 improvement in overall performance over chips patched for spectre (putting them back at pre-spectre levels). And for some reason they will say that required them to put out a new LGA 1151 socket and another price increase to the chipset.

I think a socketed Kaby Lake-G would be interesting, but Intel's current NUC pricing gives me the impression Kaby Lake-G was more of a niche publicity-stunt and they have no actual intention of to bring that product to a wider audience.
 

Ilya__

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Sounds like Intel has overslept riding on the money wave. They should get their act together and pump out those 10nm chips or AMD will have the last laugh.
 

WINTERLORD

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there so called rush releases where likly a contingency as they may of known this would one day happen them getting stiff compatition in the end just have to see what the future holds
 
Intel, just start by using proper paste or other compound for the die and the cpu will go past 5 ghz easy. Is there an embargo on this? The cpu prices are pretty high right now, the compound won't make much different on pricing.
 
Competition breeds innovation and can only be advantageous to consumers. As a long time AMD user, I'm happy to see that the success they had with the Zen architecture has driven Intel into a state of frenzy to catch up to what's been done to their market share. While I'm hopeful this new release by AMD continues to push the envelope, there's no telling at this point just how far that push will go.

I'm still perfectly happy with my FX8350 though it's getting a wee long in the tooth. I had thought about upgrading but seeing the new series is about to release and offer a decent bump in performance over the last gen, I may as well wait just a bit longer before pulling the trigger on a new build. This is a good time for CPUs... but a terrible time for RAM and GPUs as has been mentioned. Good thing I got my 1080 back before prices got stupid.
 

TEAMSWITCHER

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"AMD is going 7nm at the end of the year... Intel is in a bad position actually."

I don't think that silicon feature sizes like "10nm" and "7nm" are directly comparable. Yes a nano-meter is a unit of measure, but AMD and Intel have different transistor constructions which probably has an impact on the transistor density.
 

Eximo

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I don't even want to get into the arguments about process node naming conventions and how they aren't really a direct measurement. Time and time again GloFo and TSMC have been compared to Intel process nodes and shown that what they call 14nm and 12nm isn't really when you do a direct comparison 14nm.

One man's turbo boost is another mans XFR, no real difference there. Just that Intel has more wiggle room at the top end because of the more mature process node. AMD will eventually get there, but by then Intel will be on their next node.

As for the paste, K class chips, yes, probably a little more attention to be paid there. But that isn't the bulk of Intel's sales, so they aren't going to cater to the smallest market.

i9 is just a rebranding(amongst many). I would more point fingers at the terrible idea of making Kabylake-X at all.

Just means more options for everyone. So hopefully Intel and AMD keep up the rapid pace.

I want Intel's Vega NUC, just not at that price. I can get a fully featured laptop for that. Just not competitive. I kind of want STX to become common place as I really like the idea of a build without front panel I/O wiring.
 
Intel needs to make Turbo Boost a manual option. Then we can bring back the turbo button on the front of the case.

I loved that in the old 80x86 days. I had no idea at the time what the purpose was. Just clicked it from 8 to 33 on my 486. The 286 my dad had was even more official. It had a tumbler lock and key with three positions. I think they were 8, 12 and 16 Mhz.
 


I'd only accept it if when it's engaged it plays an audible turbo spool and blow off sound. :)
 

topas

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You're kidding me, right? 5th generation on the same 14 nm process? I won't replace my old CPU when the new one is built around the same process, Intel.
 

mischon123

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Let's face it. Intel is secondrate at the moment, objectively. The top end and very expensive Intel chips do not compare well with Ryzen 1800. They are underpowerded and undercored. Threadripper is the one this Intel chip compares to in Price/performance. A 10% performance gap means nothing in real world applications. Thats why people wait 5-10 years before upgrading. Thats why I waited 8 years before I updated from an i7 2-core, 4-thread Intel. Something is amiss in the industry.
 
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The main problem Intel has always had is each CPU upgrade requires a new MB and usually RAM as well. Contrast this to AMD where you can usually keep your MB amd RAM and just add in a stronger CPU. This is why back in the day, AMD was successful even though it was always a little behind Intel in performance. eventually AMD fell way behind but are starting to catch up and maybe this time pass Intel.
 
Apr 5, 2018
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The main problem Intel has always had is each CPU upgrade requires a new MB and usually RAM as well. Contrast this to AMD where you can usually keep your MB amd RAM and just add in a stronger CPU. This is why back in the day, AMD was successful even though it was always a little behind Intel in performance. eventually AMD fell way behind but are starting to catch up and maybe this time pass Intel.
 

sephirotic

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I'm not entirely satisfied with my Ryzen 1700 limitations. Clock is too low, no-manual turbo adjustement, overclocking is a pain, etc, etc... However, I won't be going back to intel if they do a half assed Refresh of the refresh (IPC has been the same since the release of Skylake back in 2014) with YET another short lived motherboard that won't be able to be reused when the proper 8 core 10nm that can reach 5.0ghz is released.

I will only go back to Intel if they can provide a 5.0ghz turbo with 4 cores and 4+ ghz base octa-core under 400usd with a motherboard that won't last for only a single generation of cpu.
 


Remember, this is only true when you are pairing a Ryzen with a 1080 GTX or above at 1080p.

If you are matching it with a 1070 GTX or below at 1080p, it is a non issue.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck-cpu-gpu,5503.html

And we are talking about framerate above 100 HZ...

At 1440p or 2160p, this is a non-existent issue, however Intel multi-threading performance is still real... and I am not even talking about Meltdown patches.

 



We are talking about 7nm vs 10 nm... a 30% difference in size and consumption. Also, Intel is not even close to master their 10nm tech while IBM is pushing the 7nm beyond extent.
 

bit_user

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It won't face current-gen Ryzen. It will launch against Ryzen+, before having to face off with Ryzen 2.
 

bit_user

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Well, we know Ryzen 2 will be socket-compatible...


Intel wished Skylake launched in 2014. Actually, it launched at the end of 2015.

And if the next gen has specter/meltdown fixes, then you actually would effectively get IPC increases.
 

alextheblue

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"But we highly doubt that AMD is desperate enough to cut into its own core desktop-CPU and graphics businesses by helping Intel compete against itself and its own socketed graphics-equipped products, like the "Raven Ridge" AMD Ryzen 5 2400G."

A shared bandwidth 2400G with Vega 11 does not compete with a HBM-equipped Vega 20/24. It might steal sales from their low-end discrete GPUs, and that would be harmful.
 

bit_user

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Yeah, it was such a bizzarre possibility to throw out there... if you look at that EMIB, there's no way it'll end up in any sort of desktop socket. I think the author was just trying to pad out the article. Otherwise, doesn't make any kind of sense.

I do think Intel might be tempted to drop the iGPU from their high-end mainstream i7, to make room for the extra cores. Especially if most buyers of such chips are just pairing them with discrete GPUs.
 
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