dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
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Like jpiniero and mikk said, the smaller cores aren't much of a power problem. I'll just put some rough numbers to it.If AL 8+8 is 125W, i wonder how will Intel hit red target if Raptor Lake is 8+16.
The similar 10 nm Jasper Lake N6000 has a 6 W TDP with 4 cores -- that works out to 1.5 W per core. If we realize that the cores don't actually use up the whole 6 W (there is the GPU and uncore in the same 6 W power envelope), then the actual small cores use less than 1.5 W each. If trust the Alder Lake mobile leaks, the small cores could be under 1 W each (necessary to meet the 5 W design with 1 bigger and 4 smaller cores https://www.techpowerup.com/news-tags/Gracemont#g279478-2) But, I'll stick with 1.5 W for this post since it is an arbitrarily adjustable number to some extent just by adjusting the base clock.
So, if Alder Lake's 8 small cores were similar to the N6000, they would use less than 12 W total. That leaves more than 113 W for the 8 bigger cores. If that rumor is correct and some Raptor Lake chips have 16 small cores, then that means the small cores still would use less than 24 W. That leaves more than 101 W for the 8 bigger cores.
The 8-core i9 11900 only has a TDP of 65 W. So big cores do not NEED the full 125 W. They'll be just fine with 101 W. Sure, they'll take more power if available, especially during the initial turbo period. But, they'll have acceptable performance with just 101 W.
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