News Intel's Unannounced 34-Core Raptor Lake CPUs Displayed on Wafer

[Admin]

We spotted a wafer packed with dies for an unannounced 34-Core Raptor Lake CPU at the company's Innovation event.

Intel's Unannounced 34-Core Raptor Lake CPUs Displayed on Wafer : Read more

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Nice find, Paul!

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

This could be the return to HEDT / Fish Hawk Falls prototype?

34-core on a Mesh sounds about right for a HEDT class CPU on a new socket.

 

[emike09]

Hopefully this is an HEDT chip! Really ready to upgrade from my i9-10920X Cascade Lake-X but need those PCI-e lanes that 12th and 13th gen don't provide. It'd be nice to finally move up from PCI-e 3.0 for both storage and GPU compute. DDR5 would be nice too, but it's still kinda meh compared to high end DDR4 kits. Also hoping they bring up single-core performance for their next HEDT chip. The high end doesn't always just need more cores. Might just have to move to AMD if Intel doesn't announce an overclockable HEDT chip in the next year.

 

[escksu]

34 cores... Its a weird number...

I am thinking numbers along multiples of 4/6/8. So, we should not have any odd numbers of P/E cores. But why 34 instead of 32 or 36?

16P /18E
14P/20E
12P/22E
10P/24E
8P/26E

 

[escksu]

Hopefully this is an HEDT chip! Really ready to upgrade from my i9-10920X Cascade Lake-X but need those PCI-e lanes that 12th and 13th gen don't provide. It'd be nice to finally move up from PCI-e 3.0 for both storage and GPU compute. DDR5 would be nice too, but it's still kinda meh compared to high end DDR4 kits. Also hoping they bring up single-core performance for their next HEDT chip. The high end doesn't always just need more cores. Might just have to move to AMD if Intel doesn't announce an overclockable HEDT chip in the next year.

No, it's not going to be hedt. Hedt is basically dead. What you will get instead will be workstation class CPUs and boards. Neither and nor Intel has any plans for hedt, for good reasons.

Hedt exist back then because the most powerful desktop CPU has just 4 cores. So 6-8 or more cores make sense for hedt. Now 16 cores and Intel has 24. So, if you need more core or more pcie lanes, you have to get their workstation CPUs instead.

Hedt CPUs are just slightly cut down versions of their server CPUs. So, both camps actually earn less when selling you hedt cpus. They rather get you to pay full price instead. That's also why AMD has only TR pro now...

 

[Brian D Smith]

Nice find, Paul!

Something...anything to try to steal a bit of the thunder of the new AMD chips? I mean...how unlikely was this 'accident'?

 

[cyrusfox]

how unlikely was this 'accident'?

With how big Intel is, extremely likely. We are talking about marketing,
"Hey go get some rapture lake wafers for display at the innovation event" Where they then proceed to grab the first wafer that has raptor lake written on it.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance

 

[PEnns]

Leaks and "accidental" and "unannounced"...yes, sounds like Intel's MO and their PR machine hard at work.

And TS is glad to help them, having realized AMD's newest CPUs will wipe the floor with them!

 

[alceryes]

Very nice find! The core arrangement appears weird though.
We have the central cores set. Then another 3 sets of 3 cores around the flange of the central core set, with one of them not even touching the central cores...?

I wonder if this is just a design/fab test for some totally unoptimized, unrealized chip...? Either that or Intel is experimenting with all P-cores where the central core set will be your primary compute work units and the cores around the edge are slower background cores (but still P-cores)...?

 

[alceryes]

With how big Intel is, extremely likely. We are talking about marketing,
"Hey go get some rapture lake wafers for display at the innovation event" Where they then proceed to grab the first wafer that has raptor lake written on it.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance

This is 100% what hapened.
Remember, Raptor Lake (in its current iteration) wasn't even supposed to be a thing. This wafer makes me think 'Raptor' was the name for some internal design testing chips right up until the C-level manager said, "We're making Raptop chips!".

 

[atomicWAR]

34 cores... Its a weird number...

...we should not have any odd numbers of P/E cores...

16P /18E
14P/20E
12P/22E
10P/24E
8P/26E

There were no e-cores only p-cores. But yes it is a weird number for cores but that isn't a new thing for intel. Think of their 56 core cpus.

 

[atomicWAR]

...but (I) need those PCI-e lanes that 12th and 13th gen don't provide....

I couldn't agree more. I would love to see more PCIe lanes in the mainstream. A bare minimum jump to 40 available lanes (CPU not counting chipset lanes) would be great. Give us two full x16 slots and a couple x4 slots or a few x1 lanes and x4 or break them up into something else worth while. Though more would be welcome.

PCIe lanes is typically the number 1 reason I get Hedt. I like/need AIBs for upgrades. My old x79 has 2 nvme drives I added (modded uefi so bootable), usb addin card to bring usb 3x2, xtra sata connections, faster networking etc.

 

[Gillerer]

34 cores... Its a weird number...

I am thinking numbers along multiples of 4/6/8. So, we should not have any odd numbers of P/E cores. But why 34 instead of 32 or 36?

The "funny" number is due to the mesh topology: Intel needs to fill in X×Y squares, but some of those will be used by memory controllers or interconnects for I/O.

That is how Intel ended up with 28 cores from a 6×6 grid on Cascade Lake SP and a 6×7 grid on Ice Lake SP. (AnandTech has a nice article "Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake SP) Review: Generationally Big, Competitively Small " with diagrams of the layouts on those chips.)

Historically lower "funny" numbers like 10 would have been allowed by using a ring bus (where you can arrange the cores in two rows), and then having to keep the core count down for area, latency and power consumption reasons.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

34 cores... Its a weird number...

I am thinking numbers along multiples of 4/6/8. So, we should not have any odd numbers of P/E cores. But why 34 instead of 32 or 36?

16P /18E
14P/20E
12P/22E
10P/24E
8P/26E

Their Mesh Interconnect Design has a X by Y rectangular tile setup.
In the center is a 5x5 section of P-cores for 25 cores.

On the Left/Right/Bottom edges are 3 cores in a 1x3 layout with a tile gap in between.
In total 3x3 = 9
9+25 = 34
So 34 Core will be the maximum core SKU, everything else will be cut-down / binned down.

But we know traditionally on Mesh Tiles, some amount of the tiles will be for the Memory controllers, the other for PCIe.
How many of each and which is which? Who knows! The photos weren't that detailed.

My theory is that their are Memory controllers on all 3x sides in that gap between P-cores.
PCIe connection tiles for any empty sides on the outter edges.

No, it's not going to be hedt. Hedt is basically dead. What you will get instead will be workstation class CPUs and boards. Neither and nor Intel has any plans for hedt, for good reasons.

Hedt exist back then because the most powerful desktop CPU has just 4 cores. So 6-8 or more cores make sense for hedt. Now 16 cores and Intel has 24. So, if you need more core or more pcie lanes, you have to get their workstation CPUs instead.

Hedt CPUs are just slightly cut down versions of their server CPUs. So, both camps actually earn less when selling you hedt cpus. They rather get you to pay full price instead. That's also why AMD has only TR pro now...

So we'll call it HEWS (High-End Work Station) and Intel can charge more $$$ because that's what they do.
But it'll be offered to regular consumers at Enterprise / SMB pricing.

Those who know that they need that level of performance, will pony up the $$$, those who can't, use regular consumer end CPU's for their work.

 

[waltc3]

One day, in the future, I predict Intel will actually have a new CPU it is shipping! OK, I know it sounds like extremely wild and unwarranted speculation, but I stand by my prediction....😉 No more leaked benches, productivity benchmarks, and mysterious "appearances" of phantom CPUs...but actual shipping silicon! The only variable is "when"...only Intel knows for sure...or, does it?...😉 Vee shall see...vhat vee shall see...

 

[escksu]

Their Mesh Interconnect Design has a X by Y rectangular tile setup.
In the center is a 5x5 section of P-cores for 25 cores.

On the Left/Right/Bottom edges are 3 cores in a 1x3 layout with a tile gap in between.
In total 3x3 = 9
9+25 = 34
So 34 Core will be the maximum core SKU, everything else will be cut-down / binned down.

But we know traditionally on Mesh Tiles, some amount of the tiles will be for the Memory controllers, the other for PCIe.
How many of each and which is which? Who knows! The photos weren't that detailed.

My theory is that their are Memory controllers on all 3x sides in that gap between P-cores.
PCIe connection tiles for any empty sides on the outter edges.


So we'll call it HEWS (High-End Work Station) and Intel can charge more $$$ because that's what they do.
But it'll be offered to regular consumers at Enterprise / SMB pricing.

Those who know that they need that level of performance, will pony up the $$$, those who can't, use regular consumer end CPU's for their work.

Oh ok, thanks for the explanation!

Regarding "hews", yes be prepared to pay enterprise prices for them, be it from amd or Intel.

For those who think a $20,000 workstation is madness, they are actually very "cheap". "Cheap" when compared to cost of the software they will be using which could be easily 10x the price. Not to mention an annual maintenance fee that cost as much as the workstation itself.

This is why companies don't bait an eye at the price of the hardware and Intel/AMD could charge such prices.

Casualties are well consumers.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Oh ok, thanks for the explanation!

Regarding "hews", yes be prepared to pay enterprise prices for them, be it from amd or Intel.

For those who think a $20,000 workstation is madness, they are actually very "cheap". "Cheap" when compared to cost of the software they will be using which could be easily 10x the price. Not to mention an annual maintenance fee that cost as much as the workstation itself.

This is why companies don't bait an eye at the price of the hardware and Intel/AMD could charge such prices.

Casualties are well consumers.

If only companies charged fairly by $/core + other BoM cost + R&D cost + Profit margin on top

 

[TJ Hooker]

For those who think a $20,000 workstation is madness, they are actually very "cheap". "Cheap" when compared to cost of the software they will be using which could be easily 10x the price. Not to mention an annual maintenance fee that cost as much as the workstation itself.

I doubt they'll be that expensive, except maybe if they're going to have models with much more than 34 cores. The latest Intel workstation CPUs available (Ice Lake Xeon W) top out at ~$4500 for 38 cores.

Edit: Oops, they were referring to the cost of more than just the CPU.

 

[Gillerer]

I doubt they'll be that expensive, except maybe if they're going to have models with much more than 34 cores. The latest Intel workstation CPUs available (Ice Lake Xeon W) top out at ~$4500 for 38 cores.

To be fair, it seems @escksu was referring to the cost of the workstation - not just the CPU. With a ~$4500 CPU, MOBO, lots of DDR5 ECC and all the necessities, you may be limited to just one Nvidia pro GPU if you want to stay within $20,000.

 

[newtechldtech]

The main Question is not the number of cores , but their frequency .. I doubt that intel could manage 5+Ghz with such core count.

 

[kjfatl]

Something tells me that this is a 32 core design with 2 spare cores. If it goes into production, it may be available in 1 flavor with 32 working cores.
It could also be an engineering development wafer that will never hit production.

 

[escksu]

To be fair, it seems @escksu was referring to the cost of the workstation - not just the CPU. With a ~$4500 CPU, MOBO, lots of DDR5 ECC and all the necessities, you may be limited to just one Nvidia pro GPU if you want to stay within $20,000.

Thanks for replying. Yes, I was referrring to the workstation as a whole rather than just the CPU itself. There is expensive Quardo too!! I think we can understand why Nvidia no longer makes titan and ban manufacturers from releasing any blower 3090 cards.

 

[watzupken]

No, it's not going to be hedt. Hedt is basically dead. What you will get instead will be workstation class CPUs and boards. Neither and nor Intel has any plans for hedt, for good reasons.

Hedt exist back then because the most powerful desktop CPU has just 4 cores. So 6-8 or more cores make sense for hedt. Now 16 cores and Intel has 24. So, if you need more core or more pcie lanes, you have to get their workstation CPUs instead.

Hedt CPUs are just slightly cut down versions of their server CPUs. So, both camps actually earn less when selling you hedt cpus. They rather get you to pay full price instead. That's also why AMD has only TR pro now...

Can't tell what is Intel's plan, but it is possible that they may want to revive their HEDT segment to compete with AMD's Threadripper. Current Raptor Lake chip is called 24 cores, but its just 8 P-cores with a bunch of E-cores as support. As compared to a proper 34 P-cores chip, the performance delta is going to be significant. Given that AMD sells proper 16 cores processor, I feel there's still a gap that Intel can fill between what they offer now. They can as usual cut down on key features, even with high core count.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Imagine how fast 34x Quad E-core Clusters would perform.

136x E-cores that are slightly better than SkyLake level of performance per core.

Even 136x E-cores could give you some serious Multi-Threaded performance =D