Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

Page 690 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
The latter, of course. Just saying, you are aware neither of those are the numbers for SPR/RPL, even on a core per basis, right? And then you need to consider that L3 is shared, and SPR has a lot more cores...

The Alder Cove Cores on Sapphire Rapids are so constrained and unbalansed compare to Raptor Cove on desktop. HCC Sapphire Rapids have 1.875 MiB of L3 per Core and get this 2MiB L2 per core. IT must be the first time an Intel CPU that has more total L2 Cache per CPU than L3.

56C/116T Xeon W9 has 105 MiB of L3 and 112MiB of L2...
 
Last edited:

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
A full unrestrained Raptor Cove vs Genoa Would be an amazing match. 64C/128T With 192 MiB L3. But instead the best Sapphire Rapids will bring 60C/120T with 112 MiB..

Chips and Cheese made Cache System Simulation and Alder Lake gains IPC just by encreasing the shared L3 from 30 MiB to 36 MiB, and that happens to be Raptor Lake.

 
  • Like
Reactions: Joe NYC

Exist50

Platinum Member
Aug 18, 2016
2,445
3,043
136
A full unrestrained Raptor Cove vs Genoa Would be an amazing match. 64C/128T With 192 MiB L3. But instead the best Sapphire Rapids will bring 60C/120T with 112 MiB..

Chips and Cheese made Cache System Simulation and Alder Lake gains IPC just by encreasing the shared L3 from 30 MiB to 36 MiB, and that happens to be Raptor Lake.

More cache would be better for a number of workloads, sure, but it wouldn't work miracles. There's pretty much nothing that could be done to make Sapphire Rapids competitive with Genoa. Just a long, long wait to Granite or Diamond Rapids...
 
  • Like
Reactions: ftt

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
More cache would be better for a number of workloads, sure, but it wouldn't work miracles. There's pretty much nothing that could be done to make Sapphire Rapids competitive with Genoa. Just a long, long wait to Granite or Diamond Rapids...
Its a design choice. Golden/Raptor Cove has a huge penalty for L2/L3 cache Misses. They are banking on HBM on package memory to reduce the very expensive trip to main memory acess.

For desktop they have Large 3MiB of L3 per Core to mitigate that on Raptor Cove cores that extends to 4.5 MiB on many worloads


But on HCC and most 1S/2S System they are left with an enemic paltry 1.8MiB per core.
 

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
HBM is a niche product for AI workloads. Has nothing to do with the choice of L3.

Just about any app can benefit from the HBM as L3 because it's transparent to software no need to code.

1660318305298.png

HBM As LLC/L3

When the processor is booted in Cache mode all or a part of the HBM is used as cache. HBM cache is treated as a Last Level Cache (LLC/L3), which is located between MLC/L2 cache and addressable memory in the memory hierarchy. HBM caches the entire physical address space, and is itself cached by L2

The advantage of using the HBM as cache is that it is managed by the platform and is transparent to software. So no action is required for the developer to use the HBM in an application, which makes HBM as cache effective for developers unfamiliar with memory performance tuning, or for applications that are difficult to tune.




But most Xeons and the SPR Xeons W HEDT CPUs will lack HBM and are left with a LLC/L3 constrained System
 
Last edited:

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
Just about any app can benefit from the HBM as L3 because it's transparent to software no need to code.

Sure but the benefits are niche because it's not an on-die cache. It's latencies are much higher. Even the stacked SRAM of AMD chips are limited in benefit because at certain sizes the benefits just are'nt there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yuri69

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
So the earnings report is saying Intel lost sales and marketshare in client because low end sales evaporated. I am talking about sales to schools and such. Also it means AMD had little to no exposure.

According to third party data they lost lots of laptop share.

I know notebook losses are also driven by Alderlake mobile's significant regression in battery life. The idle power shot up significantly! I would avoid this generation personally for laptops.
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
4,112
2,108
136
Alder Lake failed in the mobile market, this is obvious by comparing the market adoption. For Intel standards it ramped very very slowly, Tigerlake ramped a lot faster. We are approaching September and ADL is so far off from Tigerlake it's a serious problem for them. In particular ADL-P/U where battery life is traditionally very important. I guess ADL-P/U will never really able to replace TGL-U. The problem also seems to be platform cost. ADL-P is basically a 1000+ EUR platform and ADL-U 800+ EUR. TGL-U is Intels last proper mobile CPU for the mass market.

ADL-H 226
ADL-P 103
ADL-U 149

TGL-H45 419
TGL-H35 104
TGL-U 1315
 

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
6,151
11,686
136
I know notebook losses are also driven by Alderlake mobile's significant regression in battery life. The idle power shot up significantly! I would avoid this generation personally for laptops.
Based on personal experience, the price tag is the bigger problem ATM. Laptops with TGL or Cezanne are shockingly cheaper than corresponding ADL or Rembrandt models. I think the market slowed down "unexpectedly" and clogged older inventory everywhere. There's plenty of TGL / Cezanne to be had with great discounts and great specs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tlh97 and shady28

LightningZ71

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2017
1,627
1,898
136
Notably, there are a ton of laptops out there in the sub $400 market with the 1115g4. If you don't do anything special with your laptop except surf, write emails, the occasional spreadsheet or document, and play videos, that is a perfectly usable platform. It'll even do light gaming.
 

Exist50

Platinum Member
Aug 18, 2016
2,445
3,043
136
Alder Lake failed in the mobile market, this is obvious by comparing the market adoption. For Intel standards it ramped very very slowly, Tigerlake ramped a lot faster. We are approaching September and ADL is so far off from Tigerlake it's a serious problem for them. In particular ADL-P/U where battery life is traditionally very important. I guess ADL-P/U will never really able to replace TGL-U. The problem also seems to be platform cost. ADL-P is basically a 1000+ EUR platform and ADL-U 800+ EUR. TGL-U is Intels last proper mobile CPU for the mass market.

ADL-H 226
ADL-P 103
ADL-U 149

TGL-H45 419
TGL-H35 104
TGL-U 1315
What ever happened with the native 2+8 die? Is it even available in products yet? I wonder if they've basically been using the 6+8 for everything thus far, as that would explain the high costs (and maybe even a bit of the power issue as well).
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
14,510
5,159
136
What ever happened with the native 2+8 die? Is it even available in products yet? I wonder if they've basically been using the 6+8 for everything thus far, as that would explain the high costs (and maybe even a bit of the power issue as well).

Dell does have an XPS available using U9 so it's out there. How much of U15 is 6+8 salvage versus 2+8 is definitely questionable. And U15 is def more popular (with OEMs) than P.
 

shady28

Platinum Member
Apr 11, 2004
2,520
397
126
Based on personal experience, the price tag is the bigger problem ATM. Laptops with TGL or Cezanne are shockingly cheaper than corresponding ADL or Rembrandt models. I think the market slowed down "unexpectedly" and clogged older inventory everywhere. There's plenty of TGL / Cezanne to be had with great discounts and great specs.

I've actually seen the major OEMs (Dell, HP, Lenovo) finally clear out the old Tiger Lake laptops in the past month or so. A couple of months ago I had looked and there were not many ADL laptops, now they are probably 90% of their online products. The OEMs probably discounted a ton of the Tiger Lake parts and sent them into retail channels is why they show up on Best Buy and Amazon now.

The server space, not so much. Bread and butter small HP and Dell servers are chock full of 14nm Cascade Lake Xeons. The AMD based ones like the HP DLXX5 servers (DLXX5 is AMD, DLXX0 is Intel) mostly have Zen 3 based EPYC 7300 series now in the midrange, and the Zen 2 based 72XX in low end servers. It looks to me like Ice Lake-SP never really arrived in the basic server arena, I don't see them outside of expensive HCI VM setups and edge / HPC systems. There will be some big write-downs if Intel's partners continue to hang onto these old platforms in their more basic offerings.

OTOH, there's that SQUIP problem with VMs able to spy on each on AMD platforms that may (will) become a big issue if not fixed quickly.
 
Last edited:

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
Sure but the benefits are niche because it's not an on-die cache. It's latencies are much higher. Even the stacked SRAM of AMD chips are limited in benefit because at certain sizes the benefits just are'nt there.
Its not much about benefit, but a way to mitigate the L3 imbalace on the Sapphire rapids design(due to the mesh design, the power requierements grow exponentially after 2MiB per core) the on package HBM will act as the LLC L4. L3 Capacity misses will go to the much faster On package HBM.

Interesting enough with DDR5 Optane SPR could have had a L5 Cache Hierarchy

On Die L3 112 MiB per 60 Core
On Package 64 GiB as L4(Adressable)
Allocated DDR5 DRAM as transparent L5(non-addresable)

Optane DCPMMs/DDR5 RAM combined as System memory.

I fully expect a HBM Only mode(No DDR5 DRAM sticks on MB) Sapphire Rapids will show the highest performance on general benchmarks due to the HBM being faster than off die DRAM and having a greater than 1 Tbs/s bandwith.
 

itsmydamnation

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2011
2,744
3,080
136
Its not much about benefit, but a way to mitigate the L3 imbalace on the Sapphire rapids design(due to the mesh design, the power requierements grow exponentially after 2MiB per core) the on package HBM will act as the LLC L4. L3 Capacity misses will go to the much faster On package HBM.

Interesting enough with DDR5 Optane SPR could have had a L5 Cache Hierarchy

On Die L3 112 MiB per 60 Core
On Package 64 GiB as L4(Adressable)
Allocated DDR5 DRAM as transparent L5(non-addresable)

Optane DCPMMs/DDR5 RAM combined as System memory.

I fully expect a HBM Only mode(No DDR5 DRAM sticks on MB) Sapphire Rapids will show the highest performance on general benchmarks due to the HBM being faster than off die DRAM and having a greater than 1 Tbs/s bandwith.
stop making crap up.

HBM is Dram, Slow clocked Dram at that!

caches do one of two things,
reduce latency
amplify bandwidth.

HBM acting as a cache will provide no latency benefit , infact misses to memory will probably be worse then if its acting as a scratch pad because extra latency on HBM cache miss.
What HBM will do is massively increase bandwidth which is why intel has shown bandwidth bound benchmarks so far.

This is no different then the previous knights family.
 

lobz

Platinum Member
Feb 10, 2017
2,057
2,856
136
The latter, of course. Just saying, you are aware neither of those are the numbers for SPR/RPL, even on a core per basis, right? And then you need to consider that L3 is shared, and SPR has a lot more cores...
stop making crap up.

HBM is Dram, Slow clocked Dram at that!

caches do one of two things,
reduce latency
amplify bandwidth.

HBM acting as a cache will provide no latency benefit , infact misses to memory will probably be worse then if its acting as a scratch pad because extra latency on HBM cache miss.
What HBM will do is massively increase bandwidth which is why intel has shown bandwidth bound benchmarks so far.

This is no different then the previous knights family.
ironically, the knight has fallen.... 🤣
 

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
Intel on board HMB2e/MCDRAM is so much better than DDR5 its not even a fair comparison(Latencies/Bandwidth)
 

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
YuuKi_Ans is confirming that the 8S and S8S are comin...

Screenshot_20220815-160238_Chrome.jpg

But so far those 8S SPR-SP are currently on Stepping B, which means that late 2023 release is likely
 
Last edited:

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
Intel on board HMB2e/MCDRAM is so much better than DDR5 its not even a fair comparison(Latencies/Bandwidth)

We told you this already. HBM is about bandwidth. Latencies are no better. If it was, you can be sure Intel will be all over promoting it.

The fact is latencies benefit all, while bandwidth benefits are limited. An extra layer will also cause higher latency on a miss. Do you even know what a Miss is?

Also it's not a cache, as it requires tags. These don't. Even the superfast low latency large cache in VCache provides only limited benefits. HBM is entirely HPC play. The volume compared to non HBM versions will be negligible as it always has been. Nothing to do with Sapphire Rapids cache hierarchy.
 

nicalandia

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2019
3,330
5,281
136
We told you this already. HBM is about bandwidth. Latencies are no better. If it was, you can be sure Intel will be all over promoting it.

The fact is latencies benefit all, while bandwidth benefits are limited. An extra layer will also cause higher latency on a miss. Do you even know what a Miss is?

Also it's not a cache, as it requires tags. These don't. Even the superfast low latency large cache in VCache provides only limited benefits. HBM is entirely HPC play. The volume compared to non HBM versions will be negligible as it always has been. Nothing to do with Sapphire Rapids cache hierarchy.
How Often does Windows duplicate L3 Capacity? I have seen a screenshot of performance monitor with twice as much Capacity for a ES SPR-SP. Perhaps a Windows bug or HBM2e being adressed?