Question Alder Lake - Official Thread

[Hulk]

With the release of Alder Lake less than a week away and the "Lakes" thread having turned into a nightmare to navigate I thought it might be a good time to start a discussion thread solely for Alder Lake.

 

[Markfw]

Looks like it's more of an OS + platform issue, due to the way Windows is handling usb mouse/keyboard drivers on those systems.

Methinks thou dost protest too much. It wasn't going to be Thread Director in Mark's case since he leaves the e-cores disabled anyway. And it certainly wasn't going to be the e-cores themselves causing mouse slowdown since Core2 systems could drive USB mice just fine. Most of the commentary about Thread Director being problematic relate to matters having nothing to do with mouse/keyboard functionality.

ahh. I have e-cores back on. As to thread director, thats only in windows. I will be running linux on that box. And the mouse/keyboard problem ? Have not had it in linux, only windows, but not since I got all updates, and all drivers loaded. Took all day, but... So I will have dual-boot to test whatever I want.

That said, I do hate the win 11 interface, and the drivers are harder to load than in 10. And I am still not convinced of the big.little approach.

 

[coercitiv]

Methinks thou dost protest too much. [...] Most of the commentary about Thread Director being problematic relate to matters having nothing to do with mouse/keyboard functionality.

Methinks you have rather selective memory. My reaction had to do with users pushing the idea that ADL may have hardware guided scheduling problems using nothing but conjecture. I never had any objection with actual criticism directed towards ITD and/or ADL Win10/Win11 scheduling in general, as I am one of the skeptics & critics on these two subjects in this forum.

Meanwhile in wild user land, people with 1000Hz mice are reporting strange stuttering on all kinds of hardware and software configurations. I'm also using a 1000Hz poll rate mouse but it's probably the exotic ADL interconnect that prevents stuttering under both Win10 and Win11. /s

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm also using a 1000Hz poll rate mouse but it's probably the exotic ADL interconnect that prevents stuttering under both Win10 and Win11. /s

"probably" and "maybe" do not mean the same thing. Regardless, why in sam hill would Intel + MS be having a platform/OS/driver issue at this juncture? It makes no sense, since to the best of my knowledge that combo hasn't had botched keyboard/mouse operation since forever. More recently, Z490 and Z590 were not problematic, unless there were similar unreported issues in past high-end chipsets.

Somehow it happened, and frankly I'm surprised.

 

[coercitiv]

More recently, Z490 and Z590 were not problematic

I don't think you understand how this works, you can find just about any hardware to associate with mouse lag/stutter.

Here's Z590. Here's Z490. Here's 5700G and 5950X for some extra flavor. As long as we're using anecdotal evidence with no followup from the users and without isolating the possible causes... it's open FUD season for any hardware combo.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I don't think you understand how this works, you can find just about any hardware to associate with mouse lag/stutter.

Not normally. How long has Intel been having this problem? AMD I expect since there have been USB issues on AM4 for a long time, usually associated with AGESA releases starting (fortunately) after I stopped updating my UEFI . . .

 

[coercitiv]

Not normally. How long has Intel been having this problem?

How long do you want it be? Here's 2017 on Z170.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I had this issue with my i7-5775C and Gigabyte Sniper mobo. At the time, I was battling stability issues with my Corsair RAM. I didn't pay much attention to the lag because I was preoccupied by this sinking feeling that I had made a bad purchasing decision. I finally gave up and ordered a Kingston DDR3-1866 32GB RAM kit. Had to take out the CPU to install the RAM due to the large heatsink. Haven't seen any lag since. So it could be any number of following reasons:

CPU wasn't seated properly.
RAM incompatibility with mobo.
Heatsink wasn't making proper contact with CPU heatspreader.
A few pins in the CPU socket were slightly bent. The 2nd time around they made better contact with the CPU contact points?

 

[DrMrLordX]

How long do you want it be?

Seems a bit isolated compared to the reports of wonky behavior on some Alder Lake systems under win11, especially considering the age of some of the platforms in question.

 

[uzzi38]

Asus Zenbook 14X Space Edition review (2022 UX5401ZAS model - i9-12900H, OLED) (ultrabookreview.com)

Performance numbers look pretty darn good, as you'd expect from an Alder Lake device able to do 65W short term with 45W sustained. But those battery life numbers... OOF

 

[Tech Junky]

those battery life numbers

Really?

You're not going to be using the laptop full bore w/o being plugged in and stationary anyway. W/O AC power things downshift anyway to preserve battery life unless you override them manually but, some things still will operate at lower power levels as a precaution.

Battery life on any laptop is not going to be great if you have anything more than the CPU / iGPU installed. When I use my laptop to do stuff in my car for ECU flashing it might get ~1 hour of time on battery w/o bringing my USB battery pack to supplement for another 2 hours of run time. That's with a 9750H @ 45W when not using the GPU which pushes it up to 120W under load. ADL should be about the same or worse considering most of the models are being released with RTX cards which pull even more power when in use.

 

[Hitman928]

Really?

You're not going to be using the laptop full bore w/o being plugged in and stationary anyway. W/O AC power things downshift anyway to preserve battery life unless you override them manually but, some things still will operate at lower power levels as a precaution.

Battery life on any laptop is not going to be great if you have anything more than the CPU / iGPU installed. When I use my laptop to do stuff in my car for ECU flashing it might get ~1 hour of time on battery w/o bringing my USB battery pack to supplement for another 2 hours of run time. That's with a 9750H @ 45W when not using the GPU which pushes it up to 120W under load. ADL should be about the same or worse considering most of the models are being released with RTX cards which pull even more power when in use.

This laptop doesn't have a dGPU, it is only a CPU / iGPU. It also has a larger than average battery for this class of laptops yet it only gets 4 -6 hours of battery life in the lower performance mode while just browsing or streaming. That's pretty bad for 2022.

 

[Tech Junky]

This laptop doesn't have a dGPU, it is only a CPU / iGPU. It also has a larger than average battery for this class of laptops yet it only gets 4 -6 hours of battery life in the lower performance mode while just browsing or streaming. That's pretty bad for 2022.

It comes with the territory. I you want longer battery life look at the lower spec CPU like the U series used in ultra books or tablets.

 

[uzzi38]

Really?

You're not going to be using the laptop full bore w/o being plugged in and stationary anyway. W/O AC power things downshift anyway to preserve battery life unless you override them manually but, some things still will operate at lower power levels as a precaution.

Battery life on any laptop is not going to be great if you have anything more than the CPU / iGPU installed. When I use my laptop to do stuff in my car for ECU flashing it might get ~1 hour of time on battery w/o bringing my USB battery pack to supplement for another 2 hours of run time. That's with a 9750H @ 45W when not using the GPU which pushes it up to 120W under load. ADL should be about the same or worse considering most of the models are being released with RTX cards which pull even more power when in use.

None of those numbers in the screenshot are using the laptop full bore. Text editing, video playback, web browsing - these absolutely are things you would do on battery.

 

[dullard]

Asus Zenbook 14X Space Edition review (2022 UX5401ZAS model - i9-12900H, OLED) (ultrabookreview.com)

Performance numbers look pretty darn good, as you'd expect from an Alder Lake device able to do 65W short term with 45W sustained. But those battery life numbers... OOF

I'm not surprised. What else would you expect putting a high power (45+ W), high performance H chip intended for desktop replacement laptops into a thin and light laptop? Of course it has a shorter battery life than a CPU intended for power efficiency in thin and light laptops (the comparison 12 W to 28 W U chip).

 

[uzzi38]

I'm not surprised. What else would you expect putting a high power (45+ W), high performance H chip intended for desktop replacement laptops into a thin and light laptop? Of course it has a shorter battery life than a CPU intended for power efficiency in thin and light laptops (the comparison 12 W to 28 W U chip).

1. It's the same silicon (6+8 die) that'll be used in 15-28W laptops.

2. Are you implying that it's normal for a laptop to be pulling >28W whilst idle on a consistent basis? Because that is essentially what you're implying by saying that the 45W SKUs are at a natural disadvantage.

 

[Hitman928]

It comes with the territory. I you want longer battery life look at the lower spec CPU like the U series used in ultra books or tablets.

It's a little more complicated than that since we are talking about a full solution rather than just the CPU, but the general issue is that Intel's competition in the same class has better battery life and by a significant amount. Even when using a dGPU, latest AMD laptops show significantly longer battery life, even if you normalize for battery size.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G14-GA402R-Gaming-Laptop-Review-AMD-Times-Two.608125.0.html

 

[dullard]

1. It's the same silicon (6+8 die) that'll be used in 15-28W laptops.

2. Are you implying that it's normal for a laptop to be pulling >28W whilst idle on a consistent basis? Because that is essentially what you're implying by saying that the 45W SKUs are at a natural disadvantage.

1. Totally different point on the voltage/performance curve.

2. These were not idle, they were in use.

If battery life is a key concern, look for the Evo branding. That requires 9+ hours of battery life at typical usage.

 

[uzzi38]

1. Totally different point on the voltage/performance curve.

2. These were not idle, they were in use.

1. Both sets of CPUs are designed to boost as soon as they're under load. The only difference is a 5GHz boost clock vs a 4.8GHz boost clock on the 1280P. Golden Cove is not so inefficient that the difference between occasionally boosting to 5GHz and occasionally boosting to 4.8GHz would nearly halve battery life vs last gen -U processors.

2. Web browsing, video playback and text editing are generally considered "idle" because during these tasks the processor spends most of it's time idle, unlike how most benchmarks operate (Cinebench, Blender, CPU-z, SPEC, etc etc).

 

[dullard]

1. Both sets of CPUs are designed to boost as soon as they're under load. The only difference is a 5GHz boost clock vs a 4.8GHz boost clock. Golden Cove is not so inefficient that the difference between occasionally boosting to 5GHz and occasionally boosting to 4.8GHz would nearly halve battery life.

2. Web browsing, video playback and text editing are generally considered "idle" because during these tasks the processor spends most of it's time idle, unlike how most benchmarks operate (Cinebench, Blender, CPU-z, SPEC, etc etc).

1. H-series turbo power is 115 W. P-series is 64 W. U-series is either 29 W or 55 W. Yes, turbo up to 115 W vs 64 W would halve the battery life. Or when at base clocks but not idle, 45 W vs 25 W would halve the battery life.

2. Here is the quote from the review you linked and are using to bash the battery life: "Finally, I can’t properly judge this notebook’s performance on battery, as the current BIOS is not ideally optimized for it." It wasn't ever idle.

 

[nicalandia]

12900KS Review, impressive. This is what the 5800X3D be competing against

Intel Core i9-12900KS Review - The Best Just Got Better

The Intel Core i9-12900KS is the company's new flagship Alder Lake processor. After our review, we can confirm that it is the "world's fastest gaming CPU," but that comes at a price not only in terms of dollars, but increased power draw and heat output, too.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Markfw]

12900KS Review, impressive. This is what the 5800X3D be competing against

Intel Core i9-12900KS Review - The Best Just Got Better

The Intel Core i9-12900KS is the company's new flagship Alder Lake processor. After our review, we can confirm that it is the "world's fastest gaming CPU," but that comes at a price not only in terms of dollars, but increased power draw and heat output, too.

www.techpowerup.com

I see nothing new or unexpected. Its a power hog, and barely any improvement in performance, per the review. And for multitasking, the 5950x was recommended, and for gaming, probablt thew 12700k or 12900k, unless you want to deal with the price and heat.

When the 5800x3D comes, it will be very interesting. $450 vs $750 ? (gaming only is important in this comparison).

And yes, as we all know the single core performance of the P mores is impressive, and the power usage is not.

 

[nicalandia]

I see nothing new or unexpected. Its a power hog, and barely any improvement in performance, per the review. And for multitasking, the 5950x was recommended, and for gaming, probablt thew 12700k or 12900k, unless you want to deal with the price and heat.

When the 5800x3D comes, it will be very interesting. $450 vs $750 ? (gaming only is important in this comparison).

And yes, as we all know the single core performance of the P mores is impressive, and the power usage is not.

I agree with that, a 1% performance boost at 1080P gaming will not be enough

 

[Hulk]

I took me a while but I finally figured out what "KS" stands for in the 12900KS model designation.

"KiloWatt Sucker"

Good for Intel in getting away from the "EE" Emergency Edition moniker.

But seriously. ADL gets crazy with power usage for the last 5% of the non KS model, did Intel really need to see how out of whack they could get performance improvement vs power increase?

I'd be more interested to see if this part can run more efficiently than the 12900K at stock 12900K frequencies.

Intel must really be fearing the 5800X3D.

 

[coercitiv]

Intel must really be fearing the 5800X3D.

'"never again will they be in the windshield"

Pixel Pat

 

[Heartbreaker]

12900KS Review, impressive. This is what the 5800X3D be competing against

Intel Core i9-12900KS Review - The Best Just Got Better

The Intel Core i9-12900KS is the company's new flagship Alder Lake processor. After our review, we can confirm that it is the "world's fastest gaming CPU," but that comes at a price not only in terms of dollars, but increased power draw and heat output, too.

www.techpowerup.com

I never understood these kind of parts, but someone must buy them...