News Intel's Tiger Lake Roars to Life: Willow Cove Cores, Xe Graphics, Support for LPDDR5

[Admin]

Intel's Tiger Lake comes with a wide array of whizbang tech, like Willow Cove cores, Xe Graphics, and 10nm SuperFin transistors.

Intel's Tiger Lake Roars to Life: Willow Cove Cores, Xe Graphics, Support for LPDDR5 : Read more

 

[Arbie]

So we'll have SuperFin transistors and Xe LP graphics in laptops by year end. OK; we'll see. That's a pretty concrete goal. As for all the 2021 and beyond stuff - it's amazing how little I trust Intel now, compared to years ago and compared to how reliable they should be.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

So we'll have SuperFin transistors and Xe LP graphics in laptops by year end. OK; we'll see. That's a pretty concrete goal. As for all the 2021 and beyond stuff - it's amazing how little I trust Intel now, compared to years ago and compared to how reliable they should be.

I fully expect Tiger Lake laptops to launch on September 2. Pretty sure Intel has confirmed that. Yeah, it did:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-tiger-lake-launch-event-on-september-2-xe-graphics

Xe HPG and dedicated GPU plans, I'm far less confident on when they'll arrive.

 

[spongiemaster]

I fully expect Tiger Lake laptops to launch on September 2. Pretty sure Intel has confirmed that. Yeah, it did:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-tiger-lake-launch-event-on-september-2-xe-graphics

Xe HPG and dedicated GPU plans, I'm far less confident on when they'll arrive.

Didn't the definitions of launch and available for sale diverge a long a time ago? Ampere looks like it is launching on the 1st, but everyone already knows you won't be able to buy one on that day. When will you be able to buy a TL laptop?

 

[shawman123]

I think we have already seen roadmap Tiger Lake laptops from all major OEMs. We should see laptops available starting next month. Even Ice lake laptops were available fairly quickly after launch. I am expecting cheaper brands like Inspiron, Pavillion, Ideapad available 1st and later we see premium brands like XPS, Spectre and Thinkpad.

I am hoping to see premium brand like XPS/Surface etc come with LPDDR5.

 

[Giroro]

This all sounds pretty impressive. I wonder how Tiger Lake stacks up against AMD's 5nm Zen4 APUs, which will probably be its primary competitor by the time it actually gets released.

 

[Giroro]

I fully expect Tiger Lake laptops to launch on September 2. Pretty sure Intel has confirmed that. Yeah, it did:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-tiger-lake-launch-event-on-september-2-xe-graphics

Xe HPG and dedicated GPU plans, I'm far less confident on when they'll arrive.

Intel confirmed a lot of different dates for 10nm over many years, and they still haven't fully brought that to market yet.

 

[shawman123]

Tigerlake is already in production and there is a launch party(virtual) on 2nd September. Not just that we have seen laptops with TGL online from all major manufacturers. So you will not only see laptops next month but I am expecting to see them in Costco/Best Buy etc like Ice Lake laptops last year. Generally cheaper laptops launch initially for back to school before we see premium laptops.

I had purchased an icelake laptop last November for $280. The deal said i3-1005G1 but people got i5-1035G4. Terrific deal considering RAM and SSD was up-gradable. I am sure we will see deals with TGL laptops this november as well(though not as crazy as icelake one last year).

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Intel confirmed a lot of different dates for 10nm over many years, and they still haven't fully brought that to market yet.

I'd disagree on that. Ice Lake has been readily shipping for over a year now. No desktop stuff yet, true. No server stuff either. 10nm clearly had some issues that were still being worked on until recently. But I expect to see quite a few new 10nm parts from Intel very shortly, spanning a wide range of applications. And I suspect Intel's current SuperFin 10nm (10nm++) will be pretty comparable on a lot of levels to TSMC / Samsung 7nm -- maybe better in some areas, maybe worse in others. Because really, TSMC and Samsung 10nm was more like Intel's 14nm++ (maybe one or two extra pluses).

From everything that was revealed at architecture day, I also think Intel has reworked its 10nm plans quite a bit of late, basically knowing 7nm was also experiencing some problems and so 10nm will be around longer than originally planned. Well, not originally -- originally updated after 10nm tanked hard with Canon Lake plans.

 

[watzupken]

I'd disagree on that. Ice Lake has been readily shipping for over a year now. No desktop stuff yet, true. No server stuff either. 10nm clearly had some issues that were still being worked on until recently. But I expect to see quite a few new 10nm parts from Intel very shortly, spanning a wide range of applications. And I suspect Intel's current SuperFin 10nm (10nm++) will be pretty comparable on a lot of levels to TSMC / Samsung 7nm -- maybe better in some areas, maybe worse in others. Because really, TSMC and Samsung 10nm was more like Intel's 14nm++ (maybe one or two extra pluses).

From everything that was revealed at architecture day, I also think Intel has reworked its 10nm plans quite a bit of late, basically knowing 7nm was also experiencing some problems and so 10nm will be around longer than originally planned. Well, not originally -- originally updated after 10nm tanked hard with Canon Lake plans.

Ice Lake processors have been in the market for some time, but it wasn't until this year before it became more widely available. Also as you mentioned, 10nm for other market segments are missing so far. So while I feel that Intel's 10nm have improved over the last 2 to 3 years, I suspect the yields are still poor. If not, they would not have cap Tiger Lake U to only 4 cores, and to date, I don't see any 10nm with more than 4 cores in the retail space. Even for desktop processors, they made the decision to backport Rocket Lake to 14nm instead of 10nm.

As to how good Intel's 10nm is as compared to the likes of TSMC, that is hard to tell. Taking 14nm as an example, Intel's 14nm is definitely better than the other foundry. But with 10 and 7nm where Intel failed to delivery on schedule, they had to make compromises to make it work and appease both their investors and clients. This 10nm that they are using now is definitely not the same design that they have planned when they started exploring 10nm.

 

[TerryLaze]

As to how good Intel's 10nm is as compared to the likes of TSMC, that is hard to tell.

It's not like TSMC process is great with them being limited to just above 4.2Ghz or something when all cores are running and needing heavy overclocks to reach 4.3 or 4.4 if you want to reach even the stock speed all core of intel ( 4.9Ghz for 10900k) on Ryzen you need liquid nitrogen.
It's great for low power portable/servers but desktop users need more umph otherwise people would only buy laptops.