Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

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IntelUser2000

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Oct 14, 2003
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that would make the 1.25 MB L2 a major advantage in Geekbench.

Nope, as the results show. Otherwise Tigerlake should be having double-digit advantages per clock not 5-7%.

Usually such benchmarks can fit all in L1 caches.
 

Gideon

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Nov 27, 2007
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To me the most unexpected thing in these slides (if they are accurate) is that they seem to be replacing the the entire Cascade Lake R lineup with Ice Lake already in 2020. I would have expected some overlap.

Does that mean they plan to ramp up the entire lineup from top-to-bottom at once and kill off Cascade Lake? Do they even have enough 10nm fab capability for that to realistically happen, how many have been converted?

I mean they sold $7.0B worth of server CPUs in Q1 vast majority of them Cascade Lake R. In comparison desktop + mobile together was $9.8B of which Ice Lake is a tiny droplet. Now considering they'll be releasing Tiger lake (with more availability) at the same time and Ice Lake S dies will be huge compared to mobile chips, I just can't see them being able to put out such a volume of chips.
 
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piokos

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To me the most unexpected thing in these slides (if they are accurate) is that they seem to be replacing the the entire Cascade Lake R lineup with Ice Lake already in 2020. I would have expected some overlap.
There will be a natural overlap typical for server platforms. Even if Intel updates their whole lineup to Ice Lake, they'll keep making previous generations as well. OEMs have long-term contracts.
I mean they sold $7.0B worth of server CPUs in Q1 vast majority of them Cascade Lake R. In comparison desktop + mobile together was $9.8B of which Ice Lake is a tiny droplet. Now considering they'll be releasing Tiger lake (with more availability) at the same time and Ice Lake S dies will be huge compared to mobile chips, I just can't see them being able to put out such a volume of chips.
Seriously, it would be much easier for you to understand, if you stopped repeating that "Ice Lake is a tiny droplet". It's not. 10nm is here. It's in big chunk of Intel-powered laptops on offer.
If you keep thinking that 10nm is tiny, you'll be more and more confused by these leaks (and reality as well).
 

IntelUser2000

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I mean they sold $7.0B worth of server CPUs in Q1 vast majority of them Cascade Lake R. In comparison desktop + mobile together was $9.8B of which Ice Lake is a tiny droplet.

It's not that small.


For Kabylake U it talked about 80 designs. For Icelake they talked about more than 35. While significantly lower, it still represents greater than 1/3rd of total.

During Black Friday they were selling Icelake systems for under $400.

This year Tigerlake will increase that to 50 designs. Based on some leaks next year we should see vPro based systems which will increase it significantly.

There's also quote by the management that said officially they entered high volume production. Mind you, its still a significant reduction, not being able to get flagship dies out for server, and not having desktop chips.

There will be a natural overlap typical for server platforms. Even if Intel updates their whole lineup to Ice Lake, they'll keep making previous generations as well. OEMs have long-term contracts.

Let's try to keep the tone less aggressive.

I'm not sure if its the case now, but in the Sandy Bridge days they revealed penetration levels for new platforms. Within a year, nearly all server sales move to the new platform. PCs can take 5-6 years easily.

See, unlike in PCs where for vast majority the upgrades are for pleasure, next generation server parts have a compelling reason to upgrade, such as lower TCO due to greatly improved perf/watt and immediately being able to replace large amount of servers with smaller amounts.

It's similar to how hybrid cars are basically a luxury item for consumers, while for Taxis in 1-2 year you get return in investment and actually gives you a good reason to switch.
 
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Gideon

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Seriously, it would be much easier for you to understand, if you stopped repeating that "Ice Lake is a tiny droplet". It's not. 10nm is here. It's in big chunk of Intel-powered laptops on offer.
If you keep thinking that 10nm is tiny, you'll be more and more confused by these leaks (and reality as well).
I'm well aware that Ice Lake is available, my wife has one in her laptop (HP spectre x360) since march and they have been available here for a while. Now it's finally starting to appear in Macs as well. I guess it's slowly getting there. but It certainly isn't all roses though:

1. During the last earnings call Intel representative flat out refused to specify what was the ratio between 10nm and 14nm products when asked. Why if it were so great?
2. Client sales also Which includes Y, U and H series laptop, desktop, NUC, etc. Only U series has significant Ice Lake presence now. Y series is finally getting several laptop designs, there is still nothing for HEDT, Desktop or H series till next year.

Tiger Lake seems to have much more volume. IT has more design wins, NUCs and H series early next year. Then again, this added volume has to compete with Ice Lake S.
 
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DrMrLordX

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No, you're thinking of Ocean Cove. Ocean Cove was axed, but Ocean Cove is proceeding according to plan.

Exactly!

Yes for the first bit, but as for Golden I have no clue.

Golden should show up on 10nm first (Alder Lake-S, 2021). Whether Intel rehashes it later on 7nm is unknown. See Ocean Cove (lulz).

Leak that suggests that there will be no additional H/S/X products released this year. So no Rocket Lake, no Tiger Lake H, and no HEDT.

Unsurprising. There probably won't be enough dice for them to sell an HEDT product based on IceLake-SP, and as for Cooper Lake . . . actually wait that would be a funny product. Anyone want a 11980Xe with 56 cores that uses 400W @ stock?
 
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uzzi38

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1591257868830.png

I don't think this one was posted yet. Was it?

In any case... Intel are definitely cutting cores for yields.

At the same time though... there's quite a few oddities in here. But momomo posted it, so idk
 

uzzi38

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Unsurprising. There probably won't be enough dice for them to sell an HEDT product based on IceLake-SP, and as for Cooper Lake . . . actually wait that would be a funny product. Anyone want a 11980Xe with 56 cores that uses 400W @ stock?
Just custom loop it bro.
 

Gideon

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View attachment 22200

I don't think this one was posted yet. Was it?

In any case... Intel are definitely cutting cores for yields.

At the same time though... there's quite a few oddities in here. But momomo posted it, so idk

Ok, this at least makes some sense. If they have enough 10nm volume to release full-stack Ice Lake S then it would be an epic failure not being able to release a full stack of 10nm Sapphire Rapids IMO.
 

DrMrLordX

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Ok, this at least makes some sense. If they have enough 10nm volume to release full-stack Ice Lake S then it would be an epic failure not being able to release a full stack of 10nm Sapphire Rapids IMO.

Core count on Sapphire Rapids looks really bad though.
 

IntelUser2000

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Core count on Sapphire Rapids looks really bad though.

Well, he also said its not showing the maximum core count.

Icelake-SP has up to 38 cores, not 32. If we apply the same math than we should see a 56 core SPR. This is also consistent with some numbers floating around.

Few things that stand out from the roadmap:
-Why is "Premium" more TDP and less cores? Why is "Mainstream" more cores and less TDP?
-Cascade Lake has 28 cores, not 24.
-Point of Cooper Lake is 56 cores. It shows 24.

Maybe, just maybe its a vendor roadmap not Intel's. It's what they'll offer as a product.

Regarding Apple, they took so long with Icelake products I think its a sign that they're pulling resources from x86 already. The performance of the Icelake chips used in Macbooks do not stand out at all compared to regular parts that were available for nearly a year. A year or two before Conroe launch, Intel pulled resources from Netburst products.

By doing that it makes the next gen products look even better.
 
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Exist50

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For Kabylake U it talked about 80 designs. For Icelake they talked about more than 35. While significantly lower, it still represents greater than 1/3rd of total.

I would be cautious about directly comparing the number of design wins to overall volume. They're not distributed equally.

Well, he also said its not showing the maximum core count.

Icelake-SP has up to 38 cores, not 32. If we apply the same math than we should see a 56 core SPR. This is also consistent with some numbers floating around.

Few things that stand out from the roadmap:
-Why is "Premium" more TDP and less cores? Why is "Mainstream" more cores and less TDP?
-Cascade Lake has 28 cores, not 24.
-Point of Cooper Lake is 56 cores. It shows 24.

Regarding Apple, they took so long with Icelake products I think its a sign that they're pulling resources from x86 already. The performance of the Icelake chips used in Macbooks do not stand out at all compared to regular parts that were available for nearly a year. A year or two before Conroe launch, Intel pulled resources from Netburst products.

By doing that it makes the next gen products look even better.

The roadmap seems wildly inconsistent, but those inconsistencies are the same across both Cascade Lake and Sapphire Rapids. Seems to me like if there's any truth to it, it was pulled from a very specific context, like one vendor's offerings, and possible misconstrued on top of that. As it stands, however, it's too nonsensical to spend much time analyzing, imo.
 
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uzzi38

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Few things that stand out from the roadmap:
-Why is "Premium" more TDP and less cores? Why is "Mainstream" more cores and less TDP?
-Cascade Lake has 28 cores, not 24.
-Point of Cooper Lake is 56 cores. It shows 24.
That's what I meant by oddities. But after thinking about it I think I might have an explanation?

SPR is launching in 2021. If SPR is 48 cores instead of the full die, then I guess it sort of makes sense. Intel will be positioning SPR for it's competitiveness in 1T workloads primarily. They probably know that at 48 cores they won't steal a lead in multi-threaded workloads against Genoa which will launch in a similar time period, and AVX512 support is something AMD will likely have by then as well. But lets just say, hypothetically, that Intel push for SPR to run ahead of Intel's normal server uArch cadence and go with Golden Cove. Then the thing they're most likely to have some kind of a lead on is single-threaded performance.

SKUs that take advantage of that - they run higher clocks with less enabled cores - will be the ones Intel will be pushing at a premium because they're also the ones that will be most competitive. This would be AMD's 3rd generation of server products where they hold a very significant lead in MT workloads - market conditions will be different with more customers planning to make the switch. So it would be best for Intel to try and play to it's strengths for "premium" products, which in this case would be 1T workloads.

Though, this assumes a few things:
1. Intel are actually going with Golden Cove for SPR, which is a very significant move in and of itself.
2. Intel don't expect 10nm yield to be good in 2021. Somewhat at odds with how much they've improved between Ice and Tiger Lake.
3. Intel don't expect AMD to make significant gains in 1T performance for a third time in a row with Genoa.
 

jpiniero

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IIRC, Intel sold a ton of Broadwell-EP when Skylake Server was initially announced, because of the high (real) prices of Skylake Server.

See, unlike in PCs where for vast majority the upgrades are for pleasure, next generation server parts have a compelling reason to upgrade, such as lower TCO due to greatly improved perf/watt and immediately being able to replace large amount of servers with smaller amounts.

Those people will be buying Epyc. Or at least you think they would...
 
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mikk

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View attachment 22200

I don't think this one was posted yet. Was it?

In any case... Intel are definitely cutting cores for yields.

At the same time though... there's quite a few oddities in here. But momomo posted it, so idk


I'm surprised Sapphire Rapids in still scheduled for late 2021. Any thoughts on "new microarchitecture"? Most people thought it's based on Willow Cove but I more and more believe it's similar to Golden Cove. The instruction set is similar to Alder Lake, actually it's supports more instructions than Tigerlake and Alder Lake: https://software.intel.com/content/...tion-set-extensions-programming-reference.pdf
Also DDR5 support, Willow Cove doesn't support DDR5.
 

uzzi38

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Oct 16, 2019
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I'm surprised Sapphire Rapids in still scheduled for late 2021. Any thoughts on "new microarchitecture"? Most people thought it's based on Willow Cove but I more and more believe it's similar to Golden Cove. The instruction set is similar to Alder Lake, actually it's supports more instructions than Tigerlake and Alder Lake: https://software.intel.com/content/...tion-set-extensions-programming-reference.pdf
Also DDR5 support, Willow Cove doesn't support DDR5.
I also thought it was Willow Cove, as that's how Intel's uArch cadence in the server market as played out thus far. Server traditionally has not been the focus for new uArchs at Intel, desktop and mobile have been the first adopters by a year or more normally.

However, with what AMD has in store, I sincerely hope that it is indeed Golden Cove if nothing else. Releasing a Willow Cove based server product in late 2021 with 48 or even 56 cores would be a disaster otherwise.

Several new 3dmark entries from i7-1165G7 appeared. 2.8 Ghz, 4.7 Ghz turbo:
i7-1185G7 should get 4.8 Ghz turbo (or more)
I'm just a liiiitle bit hesitant on this one still because the physics score is so poor - a sign of poor stability. It falls behind your average 1065G7 score by about 1k points in CPU testing.

The iGPU performance is suprisingly lower than expected - slightly below the 4800U. Don't know if that's down to memory configuration or if @IntelUser2000's speculation about a G9 SKU is correct.
 

IntelUser2000

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3. Intel don't expect AMD to make significant gains in 1T performance for a third time in a row with Genoa.

Where do you get this? 15% per generation is very respectable, and Intel cores are much larger which explains the better performance.

It's not like Intel's doing much better. In fact they need to do extra per year to make up for the fact that Willow Cove is only 5-7%.

And the roadmap is either flat out wrong or refers to a lower end segment. Example is Cascade Lake and Cooper Lake.

Several new 3dmark entries from i7-1165G7 appeared. 2.8 Ghz, 4.7 Ghz turbo:
i7-1185G7 should get 4.8 Ghz turbo (or more)

Not sure if its even reporting correctly. Every tweet for that chip the clocks go higher!
 
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