Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

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mikk

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New Media and Visual Experiences in the Next Generation Graphics Architecture

https://hubb.blob.core.windows.net/5a741d00-0c8a-45e4-9112-cfe073fe4ed1-published/a1745f79-7ae9-4e9c-8fad-dad8c647f8e7/VSETS01 - SF16_VSETS01_103f.pdf?sv=2014-02-14&sr=c&sig=v4APfYKReCxAna+9hRjHNmQUjM//oL1OVQNQ7z2D5Cw=&se=2016-08-17T18:40:10Z&sp=r

Media Beyond 6th Gen Intel® Core™ Processor


•HEVC 10-bit decode and encode hardware acceleration support
•HEVC encode quality and energy efficiency improvement
•Better video processing (upscaling quality, color accuracy, wider color support, RAW image processing, etc.)
•Better memory bandwidth reduction such as media memory compression
•Better media scalability and transcode density
 

Sweepr

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Intel describes Kaby Lake's process as '14nm+'

“We are investing more effort in derivative technologies to make more use of these very expensive nodes and extend their life. Twenty years ago we would ramp up a node and two years later ramp it down again, Bohr said.

Thus Intel has already started making its next-generation chips on a 14+ node it says will deliver 12% better performance. At the 10nm generation it expects to deliver 10+ and 10++ variants over time, Bohr said declining to provide details.

www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330311
 

Sweepr

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The budget CPU overclocking dream may still be alive at Intel

Intel overclocking honcho Dan Ragland held a session about the overclocking features in Broadwell-E and Skylake processors today, and I caught up with him after to inquire about the prospect of future Pentium AE-esque products in upcoming generations of the company's CPUs.

While Ragland unsurprisingly wouldn't commit to any definite statements about Intel's product roadmap, he did indicate that the extreme overclocking community has expressed strong interest in a Pentium AE successor, and that the company has been thinking about ways to expand processor overclocking to more value-oriented chips in the future. That's a glimmer of hope for those of us who just want to have fun with cheap CPUs.

http://techreport.com/news/30533/the-budget-cpu-overclocking-dream-may-still-be-alive-at-intel

Overclockable Kaby Lake-S Pentium/Core i3 in the cards?
 
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VirtualLarry

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That would be nice, but you know that Intel's marketing head honchos are going to shoot that idea down, no matter how much one of their engineers thinks that would be a good idea.

Intel has to extract maximum overclocking tax for their CPUs, after all.

I wouldn't get too excited about the prospect of a Kaby Lake Pentium AE-type chip, though. Ragland cautions that Intel's first job is to turn a profit
 
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Sweepr

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Kaby Lake Desktop Specifications

intel_kaby_lake_cpu_1_zpsq5xylrlb.jpg


http://www.coolaler.com/content.php/6761
 
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mikk

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"Core i7-7700K is the highest order, 4C8T not locked, the core clock is 4.2GHz, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz"


+200 Mhz base clock, +300 Mhz Turbo


And it doesn't look to me that Kabylake won't launch a K- SKU initially.
 
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Sweepr

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That's a healthy base-clock boost for the "K" CPUs. Not bad.

Indeed, +200 MHz across the board.

"Core i7-7700K is the highest order, 4C8T not locked, the core clock is 4.2GHz, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz"

+200 Mhz base clock, +300 Mhz Turbo

And it doesn't look to me that Kabylake won't launch a K- SKU initially.

Impressive, kudos to Intel on their 14nm+ process. And it doesn't stop there, Kaby Lake-X could be clocked higher with a 112W TDP. Killer gaming chips, especially if they OC well.
 

Sweepr

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Looks like they delivered Tock-like improvements here. Cinebench single-thread score is up by 10%, OpenGL score (multi-thread) up by 19% relative to current i7-6500U.

On the iGPU side, Fire Strike Graphics Score increased almost 25% (1128 pts vs 905 pts).

Compared to the Bristol Ridge NBC tested a few weeks back, i7-7500U has a huge ST performance advantage (77 pts vs 142 pts @ CB ST) and >85% the performance of AMD's 15W APU on 3DMark. If previous generations are any indication, 3DMark is a best case for AMD and 15W Kaby Lake-U GT2 might perform better in actual games.
 

SAAA

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And that was a non-K 65W SKU, as expected for me.

Yeah that wccf (crap) deduction was all over the net after the leak. It was a successor to i7-6700 looking from a mile at the clocks.

Impressive, kudos to Intel on their 14nm+ process. And it doesn't stop there, Kaby Lake-X could be clocked higher with a 112W TDP. Killer gaming chips, especially if they OC well.

The 12% improvement stated is really showing indeed, if 10nm + and ++ do the same we might see decent clock uplifts for all the next generations.
Kaby-X sounds more and more like a 4.5, heck even a 5GHz chip if they turn off the IGP. I'd love to see some more cache on it though, even 64MB eDRAM would be enough...

Also it's interesting to note how 4GHz speeds are becoming more common even on locked parts, at least with turbo. The Hz wall has been broken?
I can't wait to see what different materials bring us then, one day we will all be talking about 10GHz and how it will finally be reached! :D
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
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Also it's interesting to note how 4GHz speeds are becoming more common even on locked parts, at least with turbo. The Hz wall has been broken?

Well, I don't know about more common. The 7600 would be the first locked part above 4 Ghz; well besides that Westmere Xeon. I suppose there's a chance the 7500 could turbo above 4 Ghz.

Kaby-X sounds more and more like a 4.5, heck even a 5GHz chip if they turn off the IGP. I'd love to see some more cache on it though, even 64MB eDRAM would be enough...

It sounds like it is a completely different die and the IGP is completely gone and not just turned off.
 

Sweepr

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Thinking a bit more about it, it's really amazing how far Intel was able to push ST performance while not increasing the core count. Coffee Lake looks like the right product to finally make the jump to mainstream hexa-cores. This generation is not as boring as it seems IMHO, Kaby Lake-U's 10-25% CPU/iGPU performance bump and 7700K's clockspeed (4.2-4.5 GHz) were nice surprises.

Not sure where to post this so I'll leave it here:

pcie5-ca055f534ed0435e.png
 

arandomguy

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Sep 3, 2013
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Thinking a bit more about it, it's really amazing how far Intel was able to push ST performance while not increasing the core count. Coffee Lake looks like the right product to finally make the jump to mainstream hexa-cores. This generation is not as boring as it seems IMHO, Kaby Lake-U's 10-25% CPU/iGPU performance bump and 7700K's clockspeed (4.2-4.5 GHz) were nice surprises.

It seems like you'd be upgrading at the tail end of both mainstream 4 cores and PCIe 3.0 compared to waiting for Coffee Lake.

I'm curious how Intel will handle SKUs, TDP, and ST performance for Coffee Lake given a move to 6 cores mainstream. If constrained to the same TDP it'll likely have to be rather behind a 7700k's ST performance.
 
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SAAA

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May 14, 2014
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Well, I don't know about more common. The 7600 would be the first locked part above 4 Ghz; well besides that Westmere Xeon. I suppose there's a chance the 7500 could turbo above 4 Ghz.

Well +200MHz across the lineup would make the i3-6320 successor reach 4.1GHz, then there are i7-7700 and i5-7600k at 4.2, possibly i5-7600 too.
That's quite a lot of standard CPUs this time, once only the highest end Xeon quads touched or surpassed 4GHz, now they have an 8 and 10 core at that turbo!
It's like 3GHz changed slowly into 4 going from 32 to 14nm, let's hope by the time 7nm is out 5GHz gets common enough... 6GHz overclocks won't be relegated on nitrogen anymore then.

I'm curious how Intel will handle SKUs, TDP, and ST performance for Coffee Lake given a move to 6 cores mainstream. If constrained to the same TDP it'll likely have to be rather behind a 7700k's ST performance.
I'm not too pessimistic about Coffe Lake turbo, Broadwell-E right now touches 4GHz and not more merely to give an edge at the quad core line, not for power limitations.
By the time 6 cores get mainstream they'll have the highest clock speeds at stock, with dodeca cores (or more) and quads or lower artificially limited to slower speeds. Same way you don't see 4.5GHz i3 Skylakes now, when they could easily be binned to reach that much in less than 95W.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
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I see more dilemma in the future with Kabylake vs Skylake-E. Super stupidly fast quad VS a slower 6 or 8 core Skylake? God that's frustrating as hell. Makes me want to rip out my eyeballs and mail them to Intel.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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I see more dilemma in the future with Kabylake vs Skylake-E. Super stupidly fast quad VS a slower 6 or 8 core Skylake? God that's frustrating as hell. Makes me want to rip out my eyeballs and mail them to Intel.

Buy the HEDT platform so that if you buy one and change your mind, you don't need to rip and replace your motherboard :)
 

nerp

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Dec 31, 2005
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Nice bump but nothing here to make anyone who invests in a skylake system over the past year and going forward several months to feel bad about their purchase.
 

RussianSensation

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Sep 5, 2003
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Thinking a bit more about it, it's really amazing how far Intel was able to push ST performance while not increasing the core count. Coffee Lake looks like the right product to finally make the jump to mainstream hexa-cores. This generation is not as boring as it seems IMHO, Kaby Lake-U's 10-25% CPU/iGPU performance bump and 7700K's clockspeed (4.2-4.5 GHz) were nice surprises.

Not sure where to post this so I'll leave it here:

pcie5-ca055f534ed0435e.png

4.5Ghz vs. 4.2Ghz is only a 7% boost, not 10%. If 7700K can only overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, it means Intel just pre-overclocked the more mature 14nm 6700K cores for the consumer.

If the average 7700K hits 4.8Ghz, and let's say the average 6700K hits 4.6Ghz, that's only a 4.3% boost. All of a sudden your 10-25% increase is off by a country mile. Some 6700Ks overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, which would lower the % increase to 2%.

The earliest logical upgrade for 6700K users will be Ice Lake or whatever Intel has in 2018. By that time PCIe 4.0 should be standard. Might be easily possible to skip that one too given how long 2600K/3770K have lasted. It's very hard to get excited about Kaby Lake when by now we should have had a $350-400 6-core mainstream Skylake on Z270. Furthermore, the closer we get to SKL-X platform launch, the less 7700K will make sense. SKL-X will bring IPC closer but offer a choice of 6 cores for not much more $ I bet.
 

zentan

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Jan 23, 2015
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Thinking a bit more about it, it's really amazing how far Intel was able to push ST performance while not increasing the core count. Coffee Lake looks like the right product to finally make the jump to mainstream hexa-cores. This generation is not as boring as it seems IMHO, Kaby Lake-U's 10-25% CPU/iGPU performance bump and 7700K's clockspeed (4.2-4.5 GHz) were nice surprises.

Not sure where to post this so I'll leave it here:

pcie5-ca055f534ed0435e.png

Yup,for a year on year if they could improve ipc by that much it would be a really solid show from single core/ST improvement. Clock bump along with a little ipc bump say even ~3-5% would put it ~10% plus above.
Yeah,may not be interesting for those who already have skylake or even haswell i7 K,but skylake owners were never the target for kabylake upgrade. Still it would be decent progress overall if all of those leaked benches hold true finally
 
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Aug 11, 2008
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4.5Ghz vs. 4.2Ghz is only a 7% boost, not 10%. If 7700K can only overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, it means Intel just pre-overclocked the more mature 14nm 6700K cores for the consumer.

If the average 7700K hits 4.8Ghz, and let's say the average 6700K hits 4.6Ghz, that's only a 4.3% boost. All of a sudden your 10-25% increase is off by a country mile. Some 6700Ks overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, which would lower the % increase to 2%.

The earliest logical upgrade for 6700K users will be Ice Lake or whatever Intel has in 2018. By that time PCIe 4.0 should be standard. Might be easily possible to skip that one too given how long 2600K/3770K have lasted. It's very hard to get excited about Kaby Lake when by now we should have had a $350-400 6-core mainstream Skylake on Z270. Furthermore, the closer we get to SKL-X platform launch, the less 7700K will make sense. SKL-X will bring IPC closer but offer a choice of 6 cores for not much more $ I bet.

The 10/25% improvement sweeper was talking about was in a U model, not the desktop. But basically i agree on the K models, the improvement in stock clocks looks impressive, but if they dont overclock much more than SL, then it is a minimal gain. Although some will buy it for the guaranteed faster clocks without messing around with overclocking.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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4.5Ghz vs. 4.2Ghz is only a 7% boost, not 10%. If 7700K can only overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, it means Intel just pre-overclocked the more mature 14nm 6700K cores for the consumer.

No, you are misunderstanding what Kaby Lake is. Kaby Lake is the same micro-architecture (more or less) as Skylake, but the actual circuit design is improved and it is manufactured on an enhanced 14nm process. It's not just pre-overclocked/cherry picked Skylake chips.

If the average 7700K hits 4.8Ghz, and let's say the average 6700K hits 4.6Ghz, that's only a 4.3% boost. All of a sudden your 10-25% increase is off by a country mile. Some 6700Ks overclock to 4.7-4.8Ghz, which would lower the % increase to 2%.

We'll see what Kaby Lake brings to the table for desktop overclockers, but for mobile it's a clear win: much higher clocks in the same power envelope + improved media engine.

The earliest logical upgrade for 6700K users will be Ice Lake or whatever Intel has in 2018. By that time PCIe 4.0 should be standard. Might be easily possible to skip that one too given how long 2600K/3770K have lasted. It's very hard to get excited about Kaby Lake when by now we should have had a $350-400 6-core mainstream Skylake on Z270. Furthermore, the closer we get to SKL-X platform launch, the less 7700K will make sense. SKL-X will bring IPC closer but offer a choice of 6 cores for not much more $ I bet.

It's actually SKX-X, not SKL-X :)

Anyway, SKX-X should be interesting because it'll be using the Skylake Xeon cores rather than the plain Jane Skylake cores; that means AVX-512 and if David Kanter is right, a larger L2$. I wouldn't be surprised if perf/clock at the core level for SKX-X is higher than SKL-S or KBL-S/KBL-X.

As far as six core mainstream, it looks to me that Intel's goal is to move enthusiasts from the mainstream DT platform to the enthusiast platform. That's why they are doing an interesting, iGPU-less KBL-X SKU as well as offering the SKX-X parts.

A reasonable strategy for a 6700K owner would be to make a platform move to Basin Falls (KBL-X/SKX-X platform) and enjoy the ability to use three generations of processors spanning from high TDP/specially binned quad core parts to very high core count SKX-X parts.

Good times coming for CPU enthusiasts, IMO.
 
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