Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

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Carfax83

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Nov 1, 2010
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I expect Golden Cove to be a "full step" ahead.

What do you think about the merits of Intel's monolithic design approach vs AMD's chiplet based design philosophy?

Honestly I still prefer monolithic designs, as they seem more efficient overall. Intel has made some really excellent IMCs that just have much better memory performance than what AMD has done; especially in terms of latency.

It was actually shocking that Skylake could still compete somewhat favorably with Zen 2, despite it being a much older microarchitecture. Of course Zen 3 decisively put an end to that.

With Golden Cove, Intel looks like they will finally make a comeback though. I'm still disappointed that they seemingly abandoned AVX-512 with Golden Cove. Or perhaps they will bring back a HEDT line that has full sized Golden Cove cores all round and none of that big-little crap.

A Golden Cove based 10 core CPU with quad channel DDR5 would be right up my alley :cool:
 
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AMDK11

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Jul 15, 2019
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X86 CypressCove core 300 million transistors
Front-end
Cache L1-32KB 8-Way
Instructions µOP cache of 2250 entries Smarter prefetchers (smarter preselector)
Improved Branch Predictor
ITLB 16 entries (double 2M)
Allocation Queue (IDQ) 70 µOP / thread or 140 µOP single thread
LSD can detect up to 70 µOP loop / thread or 140 µOP single thread
5-way x86 decoder (1 comprehensive, 4 straight)
Back-end
Assignment of 5-Way Instructions
Instruction re-queuing (OoO (ROB)) 352 entries on the fly
Scheduler of 160 entries
Register Files - Integer 280 entries + FP 224 entries
10-Way Dispatch (dispatch from scheduler (execution unit ports))
Execution Engine
3x FP-ALU (Arithmetic logic floating point units (1x FMAC512bit or 2x FMAC256bit)) (in fact it is 1x FMAC512bit + 1x FMAC256bit)
1x ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)
2x StoreData (data warehouse)
2x AGU (loading addresses)
2x AGU (address generation)
Memory subsystem
In-Flight Loads 128 entries (loading in flight with L1D)
In-Flight Stores 72 entries (in-flight storage to L1D)
48KB 12-Way L1 Data Cache
Cache L2 512KB 8-Way -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------
X86 Zen3 core
Front-end
Cache L1-32KB 8-Way Instructions
µOP cache of 4096 entries
4-way x86 decoder (4 comprehensive)
Back-end
Instruction re-queuing (OoO (ROB)) 256 entries on the fly
Scheduler Integer 96 entries
Scheduler FP 64 entries
Register Files Integer 192 entries
Register Files FP 160 entries
Dispatch Integer 10-Way (shipping from the scheduler (ports of execution units))
Dispatch FP 3-Way (Shipping)
Execution Engine
6x FPU (2x FMAC256bit floating point units)
4x ALU (Arithmetic Logic Units)
2x StoreData (data warehouse)
1x Dedicated Branch
3x AGU (3x loading addresses or 2x address storage)
Memory subsystem
72 In-Flight Loads (loading in flight with L1D)
In-Flight Stores 64 entries (in-flight storage to L1D)
L1-Data Cache 32KB 8-Way
Cache L2 512KB 8-Way
 
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JoeRambo

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Jun 13, 2013
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Won't break any records in efficiency, that's for sure :)

Still, 4.2Ghz, DDR4 4266 and AVX512 on 1.26V in CPUZ should be generating plenty of wattage anyway? 14nm is at the end of the road here.
 
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cortexa99

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Jul 2, 2018
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Still, 4.2Ghz, DDR4 4266 and AVX512 on 1.26V in CPUZ should be generating plenty of wattage anyway? 14nm is at the end of the road here.
Voltage depends on your own luck in silicon lottery.
From what he said it seems that no matter of AVX512 or AVX2 the power is the same, because there's no real 512bit pipeline in RKL(256*2).


------------------EDIT-------------

hmmm intel postpone the microcode update of RKL
 
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Hulk

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Oct 9, 1999
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What do you think about the merits of Intel's monolithic design approach vs AMD's chiplet based design philosophy?

That is a tough question. Intel and AMD as of late have been looking for "gaps" in each other's armor. With Zen 2 AMD was behind when it came to work rate but took the approach of more cores all the way to 64 in order to open up another "front" in the war, of course requiring the chiplet strategy.

With Zen 3 they are still using chiplets but starting to put them back together a bit with the shared cache among all 8 cores. How much does the slower memory transactions of the chiplet approach hurt AMD? I don't know. When you compare Zen 2 to Skylake on paper Skylake looks like the simpler design yet it still performs better overall. Is AMD making up for the chiplet approach with a more complex, wider design vs similarly performing Intel parts? Or does Intel have smarter, better written algorithms for things like prefetch and OoO scheduling? We've learned that those things are super important.

One way I think we can better understand design choices is by looking back. Where a design is today is probably where the company wanted it to be a generation or two ago but the process or design wasn't available at that point in time.

I don't think there is any doubt that in a perfect world monolithic designs are better. But in that perfect world yields are perfect, die space is abundant, profit doesn't matter, etc... Chiplets make our imperfect world a little more perfect.

I think there will come a time where AMD will not be able to compete core-for-core with a monolithic design using chiplets. They may have to surrender the crown for as many cores as Intel can squeeze onto one die, but they still may be the go to choice for higher core counts. Sunny Cove is 217 million transistors and looks to compete with Zen 3. Do we know how many transistors for a Zen 3 core? On paper it looks considerably more complex than Sunny Cove. AMD could be making up for those extra transistors with the denser 7nm TMSC process node.

This brings up another important question. Where is the bulk of the market going in terms of core count? I think most of us here would agree that 90% of users are fine with a quad core processor. But in the constant push for sales advertising will convince users that they need 8 cores, so that is where the market will go. But can they push users into 12, 16 or more cores in mass? If not then Intel can sit back with 8 or 10 core monolithic designs and swallow up a large percentage of sales.

Look at the TV industry as an example. The move from 480i (North America) to 1080p was huge in terms of a visual difference yet the adoption rate was pretty slow considering how easy it was to show consumers the huge difference in visual quality. Part of this was due to FullHD panels being expensive back then. Now the push is on for 4k and even though it's a much harder side-by-side sell they're still pushing it. Mainly because it's not really more expensive to manufacture a 4k panel (just check current pricing) and 4k could be that extra "push" that gets someone to upgrade. But the market is meeting much firmer resistance with 8k, and that may be how it might be for over 8 core processors, at least for a while. I think this is where Intel is currently. They're going to focus on the bulk of the market. If that is what most people want/need then they can produce 8 core monolithic parts cheaper than chiplet designs and they have the built in advantage of faster memory access within the chip.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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This brings up another important question. Where is the bulk of the market going in terms of core count? I think most of us here would agree that 90% of users are fine with a quad core processor. But in the constant push for sales advertising will convince users that they need 8 cores, so that is where the market will go. But can they push users into 12, 16 or more cores in mass? If not then Intel can sit back with 8 or 10 core monolithic designs and swallow up a large percentage of sales.
Here the TechDeals guy and his Wife expound on that. They are emphatically for the dual-chiplet Zen2/Zen3 CPUs and "high core counts". Because of computing "Quality of life" and "smoothness".

Kind of like early on, what 8-core FX Piledriver CPU owners described, really.
 

VirtualLarry

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But the market is meeting much firmer resistance with 8k, and that may be how it might be for over 8 core processors, at least for a while. I think this is where Intel is currently. They're going to focus on the bulk of the market.
I think that's true, to some extent, but that's also because price and availability of the "high core count" consumer CPUs really push people to accept lower. If we saw per-core parity pricing, and wider availability of the higher core count models, I think that we would also likely see higher acceptance of them and higher sales.

After all, wasn't it in the last few years, that Intel claimed that the "majority" of the CPUs that they were selling, were their top core-count models (a few years ago, maybe)?
 
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thigobr

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I think software is catching up with the hardware and this will be even clearer when games start to be more optimized for the new 8 cores Zen2 console CPUs. Browsers are also good at using multiple threads... Just open more tabs! We can feel improvements even on smartphones. Quad cores don't have much life left... Intel is going back to 8 core on consumer platforms because they have no other option and because that's where most consumer/software development interest is focused right now.
 

Hulk

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I think that's true, to some extent, but that's also because price and availability of the "high core count" consumer CPUs really push people to accept lower. If we saw per-core parity pricing, and wider availability of the higher core count models, I think that we would also likely see higher acceptance of them and higher sales.

After all, wasn't it in the last few years, that Intel claimed that the "majority" of the CPUs that they were selling, were their top core-count models (a few years ago, maybe)?

I have a hard time accepting that for 90% of users a "smooth experience" requires more than 8 cores. Except for an occasional 2 second lag when editing in photoshop, dropped frame here and there when previewing while video editing, or running out of compute when mixing multitrack video, my overall computing experience with a 2013 quad core Haswell is pretty smooth. I'm pretty sure I'm in the higher end of user pool requiring a fair amount of compute, meaning in above the 90% I referenced.

Many people purchase a new computer and remark about the "smoother experience" and in reality the old computer was all "malwared up" or didn't have sufficient memory, or had like 500 unused programs, no ssd, clogged up registry. The new computer biggest asset for these types of average users isn't actually the faster processor but generally that it's "new."

Take that new computer with an 8 core processor and slip in a quad core and almost all of them wouldn't notice. There IS a 10% that would, but I'm talking about the rest.
 

ondma

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Here the TechDeals guy and his Wife expound on that. They are emphatically for the dual-chiplet Zen2/Zen3 CPUs and "high core counts". Because of computing "Quality of life" and "smoothness".

Kind of like early on, what 8-core FX Piledriver CPU owners described, really.
What the FX owners was "describing" was most likely their own confirmation bias.
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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I think most of us here would agree that 90% of users are fine with a quad core processor.
I have a hard time accepting that for 90% of users a "smooth experience" requires more than 8 cores.
Why is this about you? Take a look at what people are buying for their DYI systems from Amazon. If 90% of users are fine with fast quads, why are people predominantly buying 6-cores and 8-cores? Why is the 12-core CPU on the 3rd place in terms of sales?
 

ondma

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Why is this about you? Take a look at what people are buying for their DYI systems from Amazon. If 90% of users are fine with fast quads, why are people predominantly buying 6-cores and 8-cores? Why is the 12-core CPU on the 3rd place in terms of sales?
DIY systems are probably a very small portion overall of even the desktop market, not to mention to total PC market which is mainly laptops. Furthermore, DIY builders usually build it themselves because they need the computer for special uses, i.e. gaming or encoding which requires more cores. And some just want "moar cores" for the sake of having them and the possible reserve for the future.
 

Hulk

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Why is this about you? Take a look at what people are buying for their DYI systems from Amazon. If 90% of users are fine with fast quads, why are people predominantly buying 6-cores and 8-cores? Why is the 12-core CPU on the 3rd place in terms of sales?

ondma hit is on the nail. DIY is a small % of the market. Can we find the total number of PC sales from 2020 and get the under/over 8 core percentages? I believe that stat would support my point quite firmly.

I'm sorry if I implied this is "about me." That was certainly not my aim and I would hope my previous posts would indicate that. My point was that I'm a "higher end" user compared to the general population browsing the web most of the time and yet I'm getting by with a CPU from 2013 in order to fortify my point that 90% of people are fine with 8 cores.
 
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coercitiv

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DIY systems are probably a very small portion overall of even the desktop market, not to mention to total PC market which is mainly laptops.
My point was not gauging the entire PC market based on DYI sales data, but to at least sanitize any "90% of users need X" type of assertion with minimal information about user needs and wants.

I've seen this type of discussion play out in the forum before and it always ends up comparing somebody's projection about how users should behave with other people giving evidence of the contrary from real world examples.
 

Hulk

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My point was not gauging the entire PC market based on DYI sales data, but to at least sanitize any "90% of users need X" type of assertion with minimal information about user needs and wants.

I've seen this type of discussion play out in the forum before and it always ends up comparing somebody's projection about how users should behave with other people giving evidence of the contrary from real world examples.

Fine. It's just my opinion that most people can "get by" with an 8 core processor. You think that's an unreasonable statement I get it. I won't mention it further. I could back up my statement but I didn't think it that outlandish to require evidence.

If you think most people need 12 or 16 or 32 cores then that is your opinion. We shall agree to disagree.
 
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dullard

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May 21, 2001
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If you think most people need 12 or 16 or 32 cores then that is your opinion. We shall agree to disagree.
Just think about the hundreds of millions of office workers doing emails and Word documents and similar light computer work. The concept that they need more than even 4 cores is laughable.
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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Fine. It's just my opinion that most people can "get by" with an 8 core processor. You think that's an unreasonable statement I get it. I won't mention it further. I could back up my statement but I didn't think it that outlandish to require evidence.

If you think most people need 12 or 16 or 32 cores then that is your opinion. We shall agree to disagree.
Here we go again, if I don't pick a side I will be assigned one.
 

Thunder 57

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Just think about the hundreds of millions of office workers doing emails and Word documents and similar light computer work. The concept that they need more than even 4 cores is laughable.

I'd be willing to bet the laptops that sell the most come in a four core configuration. As in almost all. Desktops there is some more room but I bet quad and hex core dominate there.
 
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moonbogg

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I have a hard time accepting that for 90% of users a "smooth experience" requires more than 8 cores. Except for an occasional 2 second lag when editing in photoshop, dropped frame here and there when previewing while video editing, or running out of compute when mixing multitrack video, my overall computing experience with a 2013 quad core Haswell is pretty smooth. I'm pretty sure I'm in the higher end of user pool requiring a fair amount of compute, meaning in above the 90% I referenced.

Many people purchase a new computer and remark about the "smoother experience" and in reality the old computer was all "malwared up" or didn't have sufficient memory, or had like 500 unused programs, no ssd, clogged up registry. The new computer biggest asset for these types of average users isn't actually the faster processor but generally that it's "new."

Take that new computer with an 8 core processor and slip in a quad core and almost all of them wouldn't notice. There IS a 10% that would, but I'm talking about the rest.

I've been wondering about that myself. I upgraded my CPU and VR performance is better, but is it better because of the CPU or because this was the first time I had a clean OS install in the last 4 years? Can't really say.
 
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Hulk

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Here we go again, if I don't pick a side I will be assigned one.

When you quote somebody and write a remark you have picked a side. Be it for, against, or indifferent. Think about it. I'm not going to coerced into not voicing my opinions.
 
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