News Intel Dishes on Alder Lake-S: First x86 Hybrid CPU for Desktops

[Admin]

Coming in 2021, Alder Lake CPUs will have two different kinds of processor cores.

Intel Dishes on Alder Lake-S: First x86 Hybrid CPU for Desktops : Read more

 

[jimmysmitty]

If Intels Forveros technology is as good as they want it to be this could be a great method to design parts based on needs. Laptops don't need 16 cores in the majority of consumer and business markets right now but workstations can benefit from them.

I am interested to see how far they actually go with this. Of course having a smaller process node would help a lot so they really need to put a lot of work into their 7nm process and beyond.

 

[Shjacks55]

No. Laptops are consumer items where cost/space dictate software augmentation of hardware like "Win NICs" ie bare radio with software implemented wifi protocols. MSOffice depends on virtualization tech. All plus multithreaded operating systems operate faster on multicore. HSA also benefits from core sharing.

 

[Giroro]

But, why should a desktop user without mobile power/heat constraints want the complexity and lower performance of mixing in smaller mobile cores?

The only cases I can think if is if these are extremely cheap (probably unlikely due to the complexity), or if they are mixing 8 big cores with, like, 56 small cores in mainstream desktop.

Thin clients? Those tend to just use the mobile chips because the form factor is TDP limited, Right?

Intel wants to top out at 8 big / 8 Bigger? Ok ... Meanwhile Ryzen is over a year deep into 16 Biggest. So, I really don't understand what they are trying to target.

 

[Chung Leong]

But, why should a desktop user without mobile power/heat constraints want the complexity and lower performance of mixing in smaller mobile cores?

Desktop users don't like fan noise either.

 

[st379]

But, why should a desktop user without mobile power/heat constraints want the complexity and lower performance of mixing in smaller mobile cores?

The only cases I can think if is if these are extremely cheap (probably unlikely due to the complexity), or if they are mixing 8 big cores with, like, 56 small cores in mainstream desktop.

Thin clients? Those tend to just use the mobile chips because the form factor is TDP limited, Right?

Intel wants to top out at 8 big / 8 Bigger? Ok ... Meanwhile Ryzen is over a year deep into 16 Biggest. So, I really don't understand what they are trying to target.

In my opinion they can't deliver 16 cores because of yields problem, so they are putting 8 smartphone cores in the level of cortex a76 and calling it a "16 cores" cpu.
This is Intel answer for the Ryzen 4950x and 3950x with real 16 cores in order not to look like they don't have an answer for 3 years.
Intel marketing misleading people to think they have 16 cores cpu with their smartphone level of cores.

 

[spongiemaster]

In my opinion they can't deliver 16 cores because of yields problem, so they are putting 8 smartphone cores in the level of cortex a76 and calling it a "16 cores" cpu.
This is Intel answer for the Ryzen 4950x and 3950x with real 16 cores in order not to look like they don't have an answer for 3 years.
Intel marketing misleading people to think they have 16 cores cpu with their smartphone level of cores.

These CPU's aren't supposed to hit the market for another year and have been in the design phase for a while. So unless Intel was certain there would be yield issues years in advance when they decided to choose this design, it's unlikely the reason. Alder Lake is supposed to use Golden Cove cores which according to Jim Keller are "significantly bigger" than Sunny Cove cores. This in conjunction with Golden Cove originally being designed for 7nm, and getting back ported to 10nm for Alder Lake likely has more to do with why Intel is going with big-little.

Same thing appears to be happening with Rocket Lake. It's reportedly using Tiger Lake cores, the successor to Sunny Cove which are 38% larger than Coffee Lake cores. They were designed for 10nm but are getting back ported to 14nm so we are only getting 8 cores while current Comet Lake has 10 cores.

 

[TerryLaze]

They were designed for 10nm but are getting back ported to 14nm so we are only getting 8 cores while current Comet Lake has 10 cores.

Yeah I doubt that the size is the reason,I think it's more like how they removed and then added back HTT just to make the next gen more worth it as an upgrade.

 

[st379]

These CPU's aren't supposed to hit the market for another year and have been in the design phase for a while. So unless Intel was certain there would be yield issues years in advance when they decided to choose this design, it's unlikely the reason. Alder Lake is supposed to use Golden Cove cores which according to Jim Keller are "significantly bigger" than Sunny Cove cores. This in conjunction with Golden Cove originally being designed for 7nm, and getting back ported to 10nm for Alder Lake likely has more to do with why Intel is going with big-little.

Same thing appears to be happening with Rocket Lake. It's reportedly using Tiger Lake cores, the successor to Sunny Cove which are 38% larger than Coffee Lake cores. They were designed for 10nm but are getting back ported to 14nm so we are only getting 8 cores while current Comet Lake has 10 cores.

Lol I think Intel knows on their 10nm problems for years now... it is pushed 6+++++ months for 4 years and they pushed it in another 6 months because Alder Lake was supposed to come in 1h 2021 not 2nd half.
I don't think that size is the issue here and with lower boost on all cores they can fit 8 real cores.
Ryzen 4800u is an excellent example of 8 real cores that can give almost half a day of battery life.
There is no reason for this hybrid design in notebooks, desktops and servers.
Lakefield is 6 watt tdp if i remember correctly and barely any OEM released such low power notebooks when you can put something in the level of ryzen 4800u or the Intel equivalent.
I think that this is a misleading marketing tactics because of yields issues.

 

[spongiemaster]

Yeah I doubt that the size is the reason,I think it's more like how they removed and then added back HTT just to make the next gen more worth it as an upgrade.

It's not just size, it's power and heat as well. Intel is already pushing the mainstream boundaries of both with the 10900K. Add 38% more transistors to each core and you're not doing the engineering team any favors.

 

[TerryLaze]

It's not just size, it's power and heat as well. Intel is already pushing the mainstream boundaries of both with the 10900K. Add 38% more transistors to each core and you're not doing the engineering team any favors.

Eh it's AVX that is pushing both not the actual cores/instructions and having a larger surface on the chip can only help with cooling.
Intel already has an AVX offset that nobody follows they could just as easily implement an offset for whatever else might push the power too much, which nobody will follow.

 

[jimmysmitty]

In my opinion they can't deliver 16 cores because of yields problem, so they are putting 8 smartphone cores in the level of cortex a76 and calling it a "16 cores" cpu.
This is Intel answer for the Ryzen 4950x and 3950x with real 16 cores in order not to look like they don't have an answer for 3 years.
Intel marketing misleading people to think they have 16 cores cpu with their smartphone level of cores.

Not even smart phone equivalent. They are Atom based which are still larger than most smartphone CPU cores.

 

[JayNor]

I see info leaked about AMD adding avx512 in zen4. Why would they do that if it isn't needed?

Intel's Tiger Lake benchmarks show what they can do with dlboost in avx512, in the Sept 2 presentation link below. They'll keep pushing the AI benchmarks that show their advantage.

https://www.intc.com/news-events/presentations

The Gracemont Atom chips will have some support for simd, according to early roadmap slides from Intel. The AVX level hasn't been specified yet ... maybe they just want to match AMD chips.