Intel's Future Chips: News, Rumours & Reviews

[juanrga]

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well it makes sense to me for the i3 to have 4 cores and get rid of the dual cores, but 8 hyperthreading cores?. The new i5 will be 6 cores but that means in some applications the i3 with 8 hyperthreading cores may be faster than the i5? because the i5 lack of hyperthreading.

4C + HT ~ 4C * 1.25 = 5C < 6C

Also I guess they can play with clocks and give the i5 an extra bump.

It's still an odd look. Maybe HTT is being removed from the i3 lineup? Or the i5 is gaining it? Because honestly? i5's would NEVER be cost-justified under this scheme.

As stated above some sources say me that the i3 has not hyper-treading and it is just a 4C/4T chip.

The specs of the i5 are already confirmed. It is a six-core without hyperthreading.

 

[YoAndy]

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well it makes sense to me for the i3 to have 4 cores and get rid of the dual cores, but 8 hyperthreading cores?. The new i5 will be 6 cores but that means in some applications the i3 with 8 hyperthreading cores may be faster than the i5? because the i5 lack of hyperthreading.

4C + HT ~ 4C * 1.25 = 5C < 6C

Also I guess they can play with clocks and give the i5 an extra bump.

It's still an odd look. Maybe HTT is being removed from the i3 lineup? Or the i5 is gaining it? Because honestly? i5's would NEVER be cost-justified under this scheme.

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

 

[Embra]

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well it makes sense to me for the i3 to have 4 cores and get rid of the dual cores, but 8 hyperthreading cores?. The new i5 will be 6 cores but that means in some applications the i3 with 8 hyperthreading cores may be faster than the i5? because the i5 lack of hyperthreading.

4C + HT ~ 4C * 1.25 = 5C < 6C

Also I guess they can play with clocks and give the i5 an extra bump.

It's still an odd look. Maybe HTT is being removed from the i3 lineup? Or the i5 is gaining it? Because honestly? i5's would NEVER be cost-justified under this scheme.

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

They are many happy to buy 4c without HTnow, surly they will be happy with 6c without HT later.

 

[Isaiah4110]

Spoiler

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well it makes sense to me for the i3 to have 4 cores and get rid of the dual cores, but 8 hyperthreading cores?. The new i5 will be 6 cores but that means in some applications the i3 with 8 hyperthreading cores may be faster than the i5? because the i5 lack of hyperthreading.

4C + HT ~ 4C * 1.25 = 5C < 6C

Also I guess they can play with clocks and give the i5 an extra bump.

It's still an odd look. Maybe HTT is being removed from the i3 lineup? Or the i5 is gaining it? Because honestly? i5's would NEVER be cost-justified under this scheme.

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

They are many happy to buy 4c without HTnow, surly they will be happy with 6c without HT later.

Give me the choice between a 6C/6T unlocked Core i5 for $220-240 (assuming the same pricing structure) or a 4C/8T Core i3 (equivalent to the current Core i7) that may or may not be unlocked for ~$160 and I will probably choose (and recommend) the Core i3 eight or nine times out of ten. It would hands down get the best all-around bang for buck.

 

[Yarvolino]

Let's talk/speculate also about when Coffeee Lake will be released, my guess is just before Xmas or Q1 2018, your ?

 

[jimmyEatWord]

they said it would be in august ?

 

[Yarvolino]

they said it would be in august ?

They who ? Intel never released a single info on Coffee Lake, only web rumors to catch the attention released from a few cheap web sites.

It was scheduled for Q1 2018 in the Intel road map and after that no official news afaik, therefore I assume between January and March 2018, even if a release on December 2017 would maximize the profit imo.

 

[Averletum]

they said it would be in august ?

They who ? Intel never released a single info on Coffee Lake, only web rumors to catch the attention released from a few cheap web sites.

It was scheduled for Q1 2018 in the Intel road map and after that no official news afaik, therefore I assume between January and March 2018, even if a release on December 2017 would maximize the profit imo.

Intel official

https://hardforum.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F1NL0cD9.jpg&hash=4e54f1f347ba8a956acf18daa17f401a

 

[juanrga]

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

I will say it once again: there is no hyper-treading on the i5.

i5-8400: 6C / 6T

i5-8600K: 6C / 6T

i7-8700: 6C / 12T

i7-8700K: 6C / 12T

The IPC and clock gap will be enough to see i5 beating 6-core RyZen 5.

 

[YoAndy]

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

I will say it once again: there is no hyper-treading on the i5.

i5-8400: 6C / 6T

i5-8600K: 6C / 6T

i7-8700: 6C / 12T

i7-8700K: 6C / 12T

The IPC and clock gap will be enough to see i5 beating 6-core RyZen 5.

Hmm that's interesting, cant wait for those to be released.

 

[juanrga]

The only doubt is on the i3 chips. Some sources claim that the new i3 are 4C/4T and other sources claim that are 4C/8T.

 

[goldstone77]

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well now we know what happened to the i5 and i7 lines! They were demoted to the i3 line!

 

[Phaaze88]

Are the six core coffees using the ring or mesh bus? I'd read that Intel optimized ring for 4 and 2 core - more is doable, but makes the manufacturing process increasingly difficult - more likely to produce defects, I assume. And that's where the mesh comes in.

 

[gamerk316]

4C/8T CoffeeLake i3?

Take this with a grain of salt because some sources say me that the new CoffeeLake i3 is 4C/4T.

Well it makes sense to me for the i3 to have 4 cores and get rid of the dual cores, but 8 hyperthreading cores?. The new i5 will be 6 cores but that means in some applications the i3 with 8 hyperthreading cores may be faster than the i5? because the i5 lack of hyperthreading.

4C + HT ~ 4C * 1.25 = 5C < 6C

Also I guess they can play with clocks and give the i5 an extra bump.

It's still an odd look. Maybe HTT is being removed from the i3 lineup? Or the i5 is gaining it? Because honestly? i5's would NEVER be cost-justified under this scheme.

I'm with you on this one. The i5 must have 6 Hyperthreading cores to compete with the 6 core Ryzen 5, (Since we already have 8 core i7's to compete with Ryzen 7)

They are many happy to buy 4c without HTnow, surly they will be happy with 6c without HT later.

Current lineup:

i3: 2C/4T
i5: 4C/4T

Obviously, the two extra physical cores gives the i5 a lot more staying power.

New lineup:

i3: 4C/4T
i5: 6C/6T

I'm sorry, but if both lineups stay at about the same price point, then the i5 is simply not cost justified.

 

[okcnaline]

Intel's caught up with AMD's punches. It'll probably take a long time for them recovery from that hold.

 

[juanrga]

Are the six core coffees using the ring or mesh bus? I'd read that Intel optimized ring for 4 and 2 core - more is doable, but makes the manufacturing process increasingly difficult - more likely to produce defects, I assume. And that's where the mesh comes in.

Coffee uses ring interconect, which scales up without any problem to 6-core.

SKL-X/SP uses meshes because it goes up to 28-core. The problem with rings and buses is not on the manufacturing process, but the technology doesn't scale up. Power and latency are severely penalized with higher core counts.

 

[juanrga]

Current lineup:

i3: 2C/4T
i5: 4C/4T

Obviously, the two extra physical cores gives the i5 a lot more staying power.

New lineup:

i3: 4C/4T
i5: 6C/6T

I'm sorry, but if both lineups stay at about the same price point, then the i5 is simply not cost justified.

Current lineup:

i3: 2C + HT ~ 2.5
i5: 4C

4/2.5 = 1.6

New lineup:

i3: 4C ???
i5: 6C

6/4 = 1.5

The difference between 1.5 and 1.6 can be closed with a ~5% higher clock gap on the new lineup.

 

[Phaaze88]

Are the six core coffees using the ring or mesh bus? I'd read that Intel optimized ring for 4 and 2 core - more is doable, but makes the manufacturing process increasingly difficult - more likely to produce defects, I assume. And that's where the mesh comes in.

Coffee uses ring interconect, which scales up without any problem to 6-core.

SKL-X/SP uses meshes because it goes up to 28-core. The problem with rings and buses is not on the manufacturing process, but the technology doesn't scale up. Power and latency are severely penalized with higher core counts.

So what I got from this - and correct me if I misunderstood - ring is limited, not necessarily outdated, and outperforms mesh on LCC apps... the mesh should pull ahead on HCC apps. So I can say that the 8700k won't really leave the 7800x in the dust, and besides, the mesh is 'fresh' and could close the gap or surpass the ring later on once optimized - as far as 6, 8, and maybe 10 cores are concerned... but I doubt we'll EVER see that many cores running on ring...

 

[gamerk316]

Are the six core coffees using the ring or mesh bus? I'd read that Intel optimized ring for 4 and 2 core - more is doable, but makes the manufacturing process increasingly difficult - more likely to produce defects, I assume. And that's where the mesh comes in.

Coffee uses ring interconect, which scales up without any problem to 6-core.

SKL-X/SP uses meshes because it goes up to 28-core. The problem with rings and buses is not on the manufacturing process, but the technology doesn't scale up. Power and latency are severely penalized with higher core counts.

So what I got from this - and correct me if I misunderstood - ring is limited, not necessarily outdated, and outperforms mesh on LCC apps... the mesh should pull ahead on HCC apps. So I can say that the 8700k won't really leave the 7800x in the dust, and besides, the mesh is 'fresh' and could close the gap or surpass the ring later on once optimized - as far as 6, 8, and maybe 10 cores are concerned... but I doubt we'll EVER see that many cores running on ring...

Basically, a Ring bus is fast when accessing a core that's only one or two hops away, but gets exponentially slower the more hops that a core has to traverse. When you had only 6 cores at best (max three hops), this wasn't a problem, but as you get to 10+ core CPUs, becomes untenable for worst-case processing.

A mesh by contrast has higher minimum latency, but is relatively consistent regardless how many hops a CPU has to make. As a result, it's more suitable for high core counts.

Basically, it comes down to design tradeoffs.

 

[juanrga]

CoffeeLake i3 specs

 

[-Fran-]

Oh, interesting: "ECC support".

I wonder if Intel will force OEMs and MoBo manufacturers to not include them in some versions.

Cheers!

 

[8350rocks]

Jefferies predicts Intel shares will fall nearly 15% on increasing competition from AMD:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/28/jefferies-predicts-intel-shares-will-fall-nearly-15-percent-on-increasing-competition-from-amd.html

That is not what the link says really. The link says (bold mine):

Jefferies says Intel will face a bigger competitive threat from AMD, Cavium and Qualcomm in the server chip business later this year.

Qualcomm and Cavium are the real threats to Intel, both have very competitive chips and both companies already got three of the top datacenter server wins and some HPC win.

On the other hand AMD is expected to crash 70%

http://www.investopedia.com/news/amd-sell-positioned-crash-70-citigroup/

Intel does not compete in the ARM server space...Cavium and Qualcomm are not even remotely in the same arena. The reason this move occurred was because EPYC is about to take large datacenters by storm. You can live under a rock in denial about it, or you can accept it and move on. Either way, Intel was never competitive in the server space occupied by Qualcomm and Cavium, and they never will be by the look of it.

Intel, Cavium, and Qualcomm have been competing in the datacenter and HPC arena for a while. Intel even prepared a set of slides comparing its Xeon servers to Cavium first gen servers

https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/05/31/intel-lines-thunderx-arms-xeons/

Many big datacenters are replacing Intel servers by second-gen Cavium servers and first-gen Qualcomm servers. On the other hand, the impact of EPYC in the datacenter is virtually zero.

They have not been delivered yet...how could they make an impact when they are not yet delivered to customers?

You overestimate ARM, and underestimate the impact EPYC is going to make. The crater left in Intel's market share will be much larger than you expect from the impact of EPYC.

 

[juanrga]

Jefferies predicts Intel shares will fall nearly 15% on increasing competition from AMD:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/28/jefferies-predicts-intel-shares-will-fall-nearly-15-percent-on-increasing-competition-from-amd.html

That is not what the link says really. The link says (bold mine):

Jefferies says Intel will face a bigger competitive threat from AMD, Cavium and Qualcomm in the server chip business later this year.

Qualcomm and Cavium are the real threats to Intel, both have very competitive chips and both companies already got three of the top datacenter server wins and some HPC win.

On the other hand AMD is expected to crash 70%

http://www.investopedia.com/news/amd-sell-positioned-crash-70-citigroup/

Intel does not compete in the ARM server space...Cavium and Qualcomm are not even remotely in the same arena. The reason this move occurred was because EPYC is about to take large datacenters by storm. You can live under a rock in denial about it, or you can accept it and move on. Either way, Intel was never competitive in the server space occupied by Qualcomm and Cavium, and they never will be by the look of it.

Intel, Cavium, and Qualcomm have been competing in the datacenter and HPC arena for a while. Intel even prepared a set of slides comparing its Xeon servers to Cavium first gen servers

https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/05/31/intel-lines-thunderx-arms-xeons/

Many big datacenters are replacing Intel servers by second-gen Cavium servers and first-gen Qualcomm servers. On the other hand, the impact of EPYC in the datacenter is virtually zero.

They have not been delivered yet...how could they make an impact when they are not yet delivered to customers?

You overestimate ARM, and underestimate the impact EPYC is going to make. The crater left in Intel's market share will be much larger than you expect from the impact of EPYC.

The orders are made and the chips are shipping to customers. That is how I evaluate the impact, apart from my knowledge of microarchitecture and access to some benches of those chips.

Even AMD predicts as minimal single digit impact on market with EPYC.

 

[Zaporro]

How long do you think, after end of this month "official announcement" of Coffee Lake CPU's they will be avaliable for sale along with new motherboards? I never really tracked a new product release like this and dont have any reference point.

 

[Supernova1138]

How long do you think, after end of this month "official announcement" of Coffee Lake CPU's they will be avaliable for sale along with new motherboards? I never really tracked a new product release like this and dont have any reference point.

If it's anything like the Skylake launch, motherboards will be available immediately, but you may be waiting at least a couple of weeks for a CPU. The announcement was basically a paper launch and CPUs didn't start to hit retailers in any real numbers until a couple of weeks after. Skylake also had some yield problems so for the first couple of months only the i5 6600k was easy to get ahold of, with the i7 6700k being perpetually out of stock. If you want the i7 8700k you may want to wait before buying a board just in case that repeats again.