Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

[PingSpike]

During the last memory standard transition, at least one combination board existed: The Asrock b150m Combo-G. Most boards were either/or however. People are correct in pointing out that technically DDR3L only was supported on skylake (although Asus claimed DDR3 was fine on their boards) and that DDR4 was more mature at the time of skylake's release, both of which would have blunted the demand for DDR3 boards somewhat.

I disagree no one would buy those boards. I seem to remember an ECS transition board being quite popular despite it being ECS. These days the cool oddball stuff mostly shows up in China and not here though.

I've never seen one of these kinds of boards that supported quad sticks of each type though.

 

[jpiniero]

Intel Sapphire Rapids HEDT CPUs for W790 chipset now rumored to launch in Q3 2022, alongside Raptor Lake - VideoCardz.com

Intel 13th Gen Core HEDT to launch next year? Intel pushes Sapphire Rapids-X back. A Chinese leaker who brought us both the first photo of the Intel LGA1700 socket and the photo of the Z690 chipset, now has more information on the upcoming Alder Lake, Sapphire Rapids-X, and Raptor Lake series...

videocardz.com

Sapphire Rapids-X might be released at or near the same time Raptor Lake is.

 

[eek2121]

Intel Sapphire Rapids HEDT CPUs for W790 chipset now rumored to launch in Q3 2022, alongside Raptor Lake - VideoCardz.com

Intel 13th Gen Core HEDT to launch next year? Intel pushes Sapphire Rapids-X back. A Chinese leaker who brought us both the first photo of the Intel LGA1700 socket and the photo of the Z690 chipset, now has more information on the upcoming Alder Lake, Sapphire Rapids-X, and Raptor Lake series...

videocardz.com

Sapphire Rapids-X might be released at or near the same time Raptor Lake is.

…well, I guess they will briefly take the performance crown from Threadripper, assuming they can push out 56+ core parts and the clock speeds don’t stink.

I think 128 gracemont cores might be more compelling, especially if they could get the clocks up…

 

[lobz]

I don't really see the issue here. Use DDR4 (probably the stuff you already have) if you are a casual user or a gamer. Use DDR5 if you need the bandwidth (such as heavy computations, AI, etc).

There would be an issue if you were forced into one or the other. But why the rage over allowing users to pick motherboards and memory that meets their needs?

Man, nobody has really implied that _that_ was an issue, even though you, quite ironically I'd say, ARE actually forced to use either one or the other, if you wanna operate an ADL processor. So I'm not sure what are you trying to say here. Who the fridge has ever raged over being able to pick motherboards? I mean that! Please show me ANYBODY on this forum who suggested as such 🤣🤣🤣

 

[lobz]

During the last memory standard transition, at least one combination board existed: The Asrock b150m Combo-G. Most boards were either/or however. People are correct in pointing out that technically DDR3L only was supported on skylake (although Asus claimed DDR3 was fine on their boards) and that DDR4 was more mature at the time of skylake's release, both of which would have blunted the demand for DDR3 boards somewhat.

I disagree no one would buy those boards. I seem to remember an ECS transition board being quite popular despite it being ECS. These days the cool oddball stuff mostly shows up in China and not here though.

I've never seen one of these kinds of boards that supported quad sticks of each type though.

Many enthusiast would buy them, but none will be around for quite some time.

 

[Hulk]

The amount of people who would do that is not that many.

There's no guarantee that Raptor Lake will even support DDR4 btw.

Probably a stupid question but I'm going to ask it.

Since ADL and Raptor will be pin compatible and the memory controller is on the motherboard ( think) why would ADL be able to work with DDR4 or 5 but not Raptor Lake?

 

[jpiniero]

Probably a stupid question but I'm going to ask it.

Since ADL and Raptor will be pin compatible and the memory controller is on the motherboard ( think) why would ADL be able to work with DDR4 or 5 but not Raptor Lake?

They might take out the DDR4 support on the die, save some space. I wouldn't say 100% but they could do it. Presumably by the time Raptor Lake ships the DDR5 situation will be more managable.

 

[Exist50]

I think for Raptor Lake, minor refresh as it is, they won't do anything as drastic as actually removing DDR4 hardware. Instead, I expect them to either leave it supported, or officially remove support because they don't want to bother validating it on a "new" platform.

 

[mikk]

Probably a stupid question but I'm going to ask it.

Since ADL and Raptor will be pin compatible and the memory controller is on the motherboard ( think) why would ADL be able to work with DDR4 or 5 but not Raptor Lake?

The memory controller called IMC is on the CPU and if Raptor Lake only supports DDR5 it won't support DDR4. Rapor Lake is rumored to have support for DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x which implies it's a new or upgraded IMC, Intel might drop DDR4 because of this.

 

[eek2121]

The memory controller called IMC is on the CPU and if Raptor Lake only supports DDR5 it won't support DDR4. Rapor Lake is rumored to have support for DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x which implies it's a new or upgraded IMC, Intel might drop DDR4 because of this.

I would be shocked if they dropped it. Raptor Lake launches a year from Alder Lake. DDR5 availability/pricing may still be an issue at that point.

 

[jpiniero]

I would be shocked if they dropped it. Raptor Lake launches a year from Alder Lake. DDR5 availability/pricing may still be an issue at that point.

With Alder Lake they can choose but if Raptor only supports DDR5 OEMs would have to adopt DDR5 then.

 

[dullard]

Man, nobody has really implied that _that_ was an issue, even though you, quite ironically I'd say, ARE actually forced to use either one or the other, if you wanna operate an ADL processor. So I'm not sure what are you trying to say here. Who the fridge has ever raged over being able to pick motherboards? I mean that! Please show me ANYBODY on this forum who suggested as such 🤣🤣🤣

I think you misread my post. Intel is giving people a choice between DDR4 or DDR5 and yet we get flooded with people complaining. That is what I am talking about. I said nothing about people complaining about being able to pick motherboards, that is a strawman argument. Alderlake will let users use either low latency DDR4 or high bandwidth (in spec latency) DDR5. Yet we get doom and gloom posts like this:

Memory latency is disaster levels, not "pretty high"...Intel is in deep trouble if casual desktop DDR5 4800C40 system will have 100ns of memory latency.

or this:

Still, it's not looking good for ADL - curious now where this is going.

or this:

those slow 15ns timings will hurt Alder Lake hard. Intel has warped back to 2015 with memory latency and they will pay for it in "stock" tests

 

[DrMrLordX]

Intel is giving people a choice between DDR4 or DDR5 and yet we get flooded with people complaining.

Actually, people seem put off by the apparently poor performance of DDR5 on LGA1700.

 

[Zucker2k]

Actually, people seem put off by the apparently poor performance of DDR5 on LGA1700.

As compared to?

 

[jpiniero]

EXCLUSIVE: 35W desktop Alder Lake

We are partial to 35W desktop CPUs. They offer amazing performance and the latest bells and whistles in a fanless-friendly thermal enveloppe...

www.fanlesstech.com

Fanlesstech apparently has the SKU list for Alder Lake's T parts. Strangely enough the i5 T doesn't get any small cores and the lowest i5 T has UHD 730 so 24 EUs.

 

[eek2121]

EXCLUSIVE: 35W desktop Alder Lake

We are partial to 35W desktop CPUs. They offer amazing performance and the latest bells and whistles in a fanless-friendly thermal enveloppe...

www.fanlesstech.com

Fanlesstech apparently has the SKU list for Alder Lake's T parts. Strangely enough the i5 T doesn't get any small cores and the lowest i5 T has UHD 730 so 24 EUs.

You beat me to it. I thought it was odd that there were no “E” core given these chips are supposed to be “35W”.

 

[dullard]

EXCLUSIVE: 35W desktop Alder Lake

We are partial to 35W desktop CPUs. They offer amazing performance and the latest bells and whistles in a fanless-friendly thermal enveloppe...

www.fanlesstech.com

Fanlesstech apparently has the SKU list for Alder Lake's T parts. Strangely enough the i5 T doesn't get any small cores and the lowest i5 T has UHD 730 so 24 EUs.

Didn't the rumors have the i5 12600 and 12400 without small cores? Meaning that the 12600K is the only i5 with small cores. See here: https://wccftech.com/intel-12th-gen...k-for-394-euros-core-i5-12600k-for-287-euros/

 

[Exist50]

Makes sense. They're primarily reserving the 8+8 die for high performance, and shoving the 6+0 into everything else. Slightly surprised the i5k is 6+4. Must have felt they couldn't get away with just 6 cores. That, or a matter of launch timing.

 

[arandomguy]

I believe the rumour was always that there would be two different dies. Rocket Lake could get away with a single die as there would be less wasted die space from cuts, especially as there was also no 4 core configuration.

Budget wise (transistor/die space) 8+8 would be roughly akin to 10 big cores. This would essentially match Comet Lake which was split between 10 and 6 core dies, as well as the distribution among the various configuration and die used. The K series 6 core was guaranteed the 10 die core die.

Media should clarify with Intel at launch whether or not there are packaging differences with the two dies as was the case with Comet Lake. The big die had advantages in being soldered and other small optimization to improve thermal interface performance between the IHS that the small die lacked.

 

[Mopetar]

The amount of people who would do that is not that many.

I suspect it's higher than you think. I've known plenty of people that sprang a little extra for the unlocked K-model CPU that never bothered overclocking it even though they bought it so that they could in case they wanted some extra oomph down the road.

People also buy the extended warranties or added protection plans from stores like Best Buy, so it's not hard to imagine people getting up-sold on products like this either.

 

[dullard]

I suspect it's higher than you think. I've known plenty of people that sprang a little extra for the unlocked K-model CPU that never bothered overclocking it even though they bought it so that they could in case they wanted some extra oomph down the road.

People also buy the extended warranties or added protection plans from stores like Best Buy, so it's not hard to imagine people getting up-sold on products like this either.

You are correct that people do spring a little bit more for features that they don't currently need. For example, the last motherboard that I bought includes 2.5 Gb ethernet and USB 3.2 even though I have nothing to connect that needs those speeds. But the upcharge was only in the $20 range. And I plan to get things that need those speeds down the line. With K processors the upcharge is not too much and can provide tangible benefits even if you don't overclock. For example, the 10700K is 300 MHz faster than the 10700 for only ~$50 more even at stock speeds.

But with memory, I am not convinced that there is quite the same need. You either need low latency or high bandwidth. There are not many use cases where you would switch a computer from needing one to needing the other. Plus, RAM traces need to be (A) all the same length and (B) all as short as possible. As soon as you double the number of memory modules you are likely to give up either (A) or (B). Finally, there are two charges needed: the upfront charge for the additional capabilities and the later charge for completely new memory.

So, now you are talking about an expensive double upgrade charge for something very few people could benefit from and will make your computer worse until you make the switch. I just don't see that many people ever buying a dual DDR4/DDR5 motherboard even if it did exist.

 

[DrMrLordX]

As compared to?

A Comet Lake-S system running DDR4-3200 or similar. At least the latency of Alder Lake-S seems terrible. Bandwidth is (as expected) better, but . . .

 

[Arkaign]

A Comet Lake-S system running DDR4-3200 or similar. At least the latency of Alder Lake-S seems terrible. Bandwidth is (as expected) better, but . . .

I feel like that gif of DiCaprio from Once upon a time in Hollywood "hey, I've seen this before" lol

When DDR came out, I had some Kingmax PC150 Sdram, and my Athlon 1.4 was faster on a KT133A board than the same CPU with early DDR266 Mobo. Latency was much worse.

When DDR2 came out, low latency DDR 400Mhz kits (2-2-2) were faster than any DDR2 outside of DDR2-800 at 3-3-3, which barely edged it, but was largely unavailable for quite some time after AM2 launch. The common 533 and 667 speeds were a downgrade.

When DDR3 released, enthusiast kits of DDR2-1066 were available, and roundly outperformed DDR3 1066 kits and edged out DDR3-1333, the common DDR3 clocks at launch timeframe.

By the time DDR4 launched, high speed DDR3-2133 and DDR3-2400 were superior to early DDR4 kits yet again. It took some time for superior DDR4-3000 and above to really hit critical mass, and especially early OEM DDR4-2133 and such were pretty abysmal.

It's no stretch to expect early DDR5 to kind of suck for a while. If history is anything to go by, in a year or two we should be seeing enthusiast kits that are finally out of reach of higher end DDR4 options.

 

[arandomguy]

I feel like that gif of DiCaprio from Once upon a time in Hollywood "hey, I've seen this before" lol

The issue isn't just that DDR5 itself is going to be higher latency at the onset.

The concern is the actual Aida64 latency test result itself is really poor even factoring in for the higher latency of the 6400C40 memory that was used. 3200C20 (which would be equivalent latency for the memory) on Comet Lake (and even Rocket Lake) would not score anywhere near that high.

There is some speculation that it could simply be a configuration issue (with respect Gear settings and how it effects Command Rate) and/or other factors such as being an ES samples and/or firmware issues or etc.

Just to give some context this is a laptop with 4700HQ running DDR3 1600C11 (it's hard to find desktop DIY tests with very high latency memory) which would equivalent to DDR5 6400C44 (worse latency than the 6400C40 used in the ADL sample). It still scores 75.1ns vs the 92.5ns for the ADL sample.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/aida64-cache-memory-benchmark-jpg.64866/

This Renoir APU (4900hs) using DDR4 3200C22 (again worse memory latency) scores 81.8ns

 

[Arkaign]

We'll have to wait and see with final kit, but overall I'm super meh on DDR5, at least for a while lol.