Intel is dropping hyperthreading from i7 chips!

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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A part with eight cores is going to be faster than the four-core/eight-thread chips of a couple of generations ago and should in general also be faster than the six-core/12-thread 8th generation chips.

The bolded part is going to be wrong in the majority of applications that take advantage of many threads. Hyperthreading gives 20-30% gain in such applications, something going from 6 to 8 core will achieve, as increasing physical cores don't scale 100% either. Hyperthreading is also Intel's version of SMT, and it also plays a part in hiding memory gap, which doesn't happen with extra cores.

This then becomes a "gaming" focused chip. Hyperthreading also increases power consumed by 25-30%. That allows them to keep the same TDP rating as the 6 core with HT part without changing uarch or process while likely being a benefit to games, as games that support less than the maximum logical thread count suffers from having Hyperthreading enabled.
 
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piesquared

Golden Member
Oct 16, 2006
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I agree this is a terrible decision by intel. It's another move that just further dilutes their already weakened line up and pigeon holes this sku into a very small niche market.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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I agree this is a terrible decision by intel. It's another move that just further dilutes their already weakened line up and pigeon holes this sku into a very small niche market.

If this leak is true, it will really strengthen AMD's offerings for this next generation, unless Intel somehow pulls off a major "wow" repeat, let's just call it "Sandy Bridge 2.0", but I think that is very unlikely.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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Intel is acting like a type-cast actor. Now they their CPU chips are synonymous with "Gaming", they cripple features to make them only useful for such.

Thankfully, there is AMD for "the rest of us". (AMD Festivus Edition, anyone?)

Edit: AND the Gamers, if they so choose. Not trying to type-cast AMD either. But they excel for nearly everything.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
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A question.

It appears to me that the most popular interpretation of SMT, or HT in this case, is that there is a main thread and the 2nd one gets the unused resources. In other words the additional thread on the virtual core has less resources to operate.

I have always believed that there is no main thread but [2] threads vying equally for core resources. If HT gives, say a 30% increase, then, by my understanding, assuming equal loads, each thread will run at 65% full single thread performance. Am I correct?

If I'm correct, I think that I might prefer an 8C/8T model.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
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Intel is acting like a type-cast actor. Now they their CPU chips are synonymous with "Gaming", they cripple features to make them only useful for such.

Thankfully, there is AMD for "the rest of us". (AMD Festivus Edition, anyone?)

Edit: AND the Gamers, if they so choose. Not trying to type-cast AMD either. But they excel for nearly everything.
I was having the strangest thoughts to this effect recently. The main thing that kept AMD alive was the long term agreements with the consoles, a purely gaming niche. Now we really do seem to be having a role reversal. Not to the same degree, but interesting nevertheless.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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The article does mention 8C/16T will exist.... just not as an i7......it will be an i9.

So basically Core i7 goes from 6C/12T to 8C/8T.

For an expected price of $450, so that's a big jump in price compared to the mainstream CPUs for many generations now.
It'll be interesting to see the performance difference....
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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For an expected price of $450, so that's a big jump in price compared to the mainstream CPUs for many generations now.
It'll be interesting to see the performance difference....

Here is what the article mentions:

It looks like the next batch of Intel processors, probably branded 9th generation, is going to shake this situation up further. Benchmarks found in the SiSoft Sandra database list a Core i7-9700K processor. This increases the core count from the current six cores in the 8th generation Coffee Lake parts to eight cores, but, even though it's an i7 chip, it doesn't appear to have hyperthreading available. Its base clock speed is 3.6GHz, peak turbo is 4.9GHz, and it has 12MB cache. The price is expected to be around the same $350 level as the current top-end i7s.

For the chip that will sit above the i7-9700K in the product lineup, Intel is extending the use of its i9 branding, initially reserved for the X-series High-End Desktop Platform. The i9-9900K will be an eight-core, 16-thread processor. This bumps the cache up to 16MB and the peak turbo up to 5GHz—and the price up to an expected $450.

So $350 for 8C/8T and $450 for 8C/16T.

That doesn't seem too bad.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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Here is what the article mentions:



So $350 for 8C/8T and $450 for 8C/16T.

That doesn't seem too bad.

All comes down to $/performance for me. I'll buy anyone's CPU if it's a good value. But at $450, it had better be one heck of a performer.
 
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epsilon84

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Aug 29, 2010
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As I said in the main CFL thread, 6/12 to 8/8 seems like a sidrgrade to me, but other posters seem to think it should still outperform 6/12 clock for clock. This is based on the assumption that HT provides a 25% boost for MT performance.

6 x 1.25 = 7.5
8 X 1.00 = 8.0

There are certain apps that benefit more than 25% from HT, like Blender for example.

I think overall the new 8/8 i7s will probably perform better than the old 6/12 i7s but only just, and there will be cases where 6/12 will prove to be better
 

kjboughton

Senior member
Dec 19, 2007
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Once you have enough real cores, enabling HTT on top of such is too many threads where the law of diminishing returns is all too real.

Someone previous mentioned resource contention on a per-core basis. Bingo. The promoted benefit of HTT is similar technologies is to keep as many of the core systems in operation as possible so as to minimize the chance of a stall due to any one bottleneck. HTT keeps this process going so where highly parallel operations are mostly in use see the highest gains.

I prefer a large number of real cores over an enormous number of virtual cores. From my own personal experience i find this breakover occurs at 32 (real) cores. Other than a few synthetic benchmarks, very few applications/tools work well with additional cores available. Possible exceptions include h265 and well.... nothing else. I do quite a bit of encoding if you hadnt caught on yet.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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Supposed 4.7GHz all core turbo, do you expect it to flop?

Not flop per say, but I rarely predict the future performance of a component. I wait for proper reviews before making a decision. Plus, AMD could release another CPU to counter it, and Intel could lower the projected price. Lots of variables can happen before it is available for sale.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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if you look at 7700K 4c/8t vs 8600K 6c/6t they are very closely matched....
so it doesn't look very exciting if you expect that with the new i7 vs the 8700K...
 

epsilon84

Golden Member
Aug 29, 2010
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Not flop per say, but I rarely predict the future performance of a component. I wait for proper reviews before making a decision. Plus, AMD could release another CPU to counter it, and Intel could lower the projected price. Lots of variables can happen before it is available for sale.

Its performance is very predictable though, still Coffee Lake, still ringbus... What surprises could there be? I guess there is the possibility that clocks won't be as high as reported.

However, if it is indeed 4.7GHz (or even close to), then compared to the current competition,it justifies a $450 price tag IMO, especially if it is indeed soldered and can overclock north of 5GHz.
 

TheGiant

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Jun 12, 2017
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personally I take 8/8 any time over 6/12

with HT there are always buts and the greatest benefit from HT is on professional workloads
without HT there are no buts

I wonder, which chip will consume less power 8/8 or 6/12 ?

everything looks fine except marketing fail- i7 without HT
 

beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
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I'm waiting for Zen2 or next intel uArch as any lake-derived 14nm Intel will suffer from Meltdown and all Spectre variants related to it. Who knows what else there is lurking. AMD is safer because they respect privilege boundaries.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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I agree this is a terrible decision by intel. It's another move that just further dilutes their already weakened line up and pigeon holes this sku into a very small niche market.

I did not say it was a terrible decision. I just gave speculation as the reason for going that way. It's probably overall beneficial over 6/12, but not as much as people think, which was my point.

I have always believed that there is no main thread but [2] threads vying equally for core resources. If HT gives, say a 30% increase, then, by my understanding, assuming equal loads, each thread will run at 65% full single thread performance. Am I correct?

They are both wrong. The gain is dependent on the application.

SMT(HT) takes advantage of unused execution resources. The biggest gain SMT gives is from taking advantage of the unused core, but smaller gain also exist when memory stalls happen, like with cache misses.

So in quite synthetic loads like Linpack, the vector units are fully being used, so there's zero room for gain by having a second thread.

Also there's no gain to be had if the application supports equal or less number of threads compared to the total amount of physical cores. No point of having 16 logical cores if the application support is 8 or less.

30% is usually the best case scenario for Intel/AMD's version of SMT because they want to add minimal transistor and die space.
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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In other news, 8/8 chips may have better thermals than 6/12 chips in well threaded apps, since active silicon area is increasing for arguably the same power draw.
 

epsilon84

Golden Member
Aug 29, 2010
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I wouldn't call it crazy, just artificial market segmentation. I'm not a fan of it, but the net result on performance won't be that great either way compared to 6/12. Some apps will prefer the virtual cores, others will prefer the extra 2 physical cores.

Saying this is a 'gamers only' chip is ridiculous, as it should perform pretty similarly to a 8700K or 2700X in most situations.
 

Hans Gruber

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2006
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I have never thought of hyper threading as real additional cores. I thought of it as a gimmick that at one time was impressive but has lost much of the benefits it once had with far fewer cores. With that said you can't take away something that has been included since the i7 processor began.
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
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$450 seems ok to me? 8c/16t at 4.7GHz is very powerful for a mainstream cpu.

Zen 2 will probably be those speeds with probably (hopefully?) slightly better IPC but that is still 6+ months away.

THrow in those people on an 8600k or less and on a z370 board, and it will be a very useful upgrade.
 
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