Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[wildhorse2k]

Silicon Lottery claim to be bundling delid and a 1-year aftermarket warranty on their Skylake-X offerings.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1631319/skylake-x-binning

According to that topic they are considering it. 1 year warranty will be 5% extra on top of the base price.

To me offering warranty to overclockers seems like a very bad idea anyway. It's like offering cheap car insurance to drunk drivers. Insurance/warranty works for general population because there are lot of people who never need it. But with their customers its much more likely bad things will happen.

 

[lolfail9001]

But with their customers its much more likely bad things will happen.

Their customers are not generally not XOCers, anyway.

 

[MrTeal]

Delid is not something I was discussing in my post. So you are not actually reacting to my post at all. When you buy OC pretested CPU from them you don't get automatic delid.



My argument is if you are willing to pay extra and are an average customer, you perhaps should be buying a more core CPU from Intel or even get Threadripper for much more cores.

Ajay's post that you were quoting was pretty specific that he was glad companies like that were around so that he could buy a delidded CPU from them without taking the risk of damaging it himself. You then claimed they were overhyped. If you wanted make a general rant about the value Silicon Lottery brings to the table, perhaps you shouldn't have been quoting that particular post.

 

[Ajay]

Your arguments are only valid if you had planned on delidding anyway. I wouldn't buy it for the OC since the same chip OCs differently on different (individual?) boards.

I would delid for temperature control. I posted as a PSA. I'm not affiliated with SL. They offer post sales binning - I have no issue with those who choose such an option nor with those who do not.

 

[Ajay]

According to that topic they are considering it. 1 year warranty will be 5% extra on top of the base price.

To me offering warranty to overclockers seems like a very bad idea anyway. It's like offering cheap car insurance to drunk drivers. Insurance/warranty works for general population because there are lot of people who never need it. But with their customers its much more likely bad things will happen.

Maybe you should give your business advice to SL and not to us??

 

[TheF34RChannel]

I would delid for temperature control. I posted as a PSA. I'm not affiliated with SL. They offer post sales binning - I have no issue with those who choose such an option nor with those who do not.

Exactly! I can't think of another reason other than temp drops and the benefits that come with that. SL is perfect for those who want to own a delidded CPU but don't want to do it themselves, if they were to pick the delid option. It's the binned chips I don't believe in for my aforementioned reason, in which case I would see it a much better alternative to do what wildhorse2k said and spend the extra money on a higher model and get two more cores. However, that's just me and fortunately everyone thinks differently about such a matter.

 

[jpiniero]

Now that we have a better sense of what Skylake-X is like; it does seem like the 6 core Coffee Lake is a better bet TBH.

Thing is, it may be awhile before we get anything better, at least gaming wise. Intel managed to get Core near 5 Ghz but more than that is really pushing it. Icelake is probably all about EMIB, maybe some minor improvements CPU wise but that's about it. Tigerlake is just a clock speed increase in which the higher end won't see much of an improvement since Intel is running into the wall.

Maybe Intel has something in the pipeline about heat mitigation (and no solder isn't it).

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Looking at the Strix X299-E I see the water pump header is way down on the bottom; wouldn't that be too far away for an AIO pump cable?

https://www.pcper.com/image/view/823...n=node%2F67811

Edit: just checked the cable on mine and there's no way it'll make all the way down behind the tray unless maybe, just maybe, you run over your board which is a big no no for aesthetics... I'd like to be proven wrong, very much so.

Edit: Oh they have a dedicated AIO pump header mid left on the board; horrible position unless you can your cable underneath the plastic sound cover.

 

[Ajay]

Can't you use one of the two CPU_FAN headers in the upper left?

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Can't you use one of the two CPU_FAN headers in the upper left?

It won't be ideal unless you heavily tweak it in the BIOS. Besides, I need both for fans I'll get an extension cable for the pump and route it behind the tray and hopefully underneath the sound shroud. Anyway, sorry for derailing.

Going with 16GB (4x4GB) for Skylake-X (simply because 1. I don't need 32GB and 2. 32GB is so much more expensive it's ridiculous), what do you guys think the ideal speed would be (without having to tweak a plethora of BIOS settings to get it running; that's not something I enjoy honestly (tweaking for the CPU = awesome! For the RAM = headache))? I was kind of set on 3200MHz but now knowing that the platform can run much faster RAM (way over 4GHz) I may see benefit from that since we've seen how well e.g. FPS in games scale with the current mainstream gen with higher frequency RAM - I'm expecting this trend will continue on the HEDT platform.

PS: I'm still going back and forth between the i7-7820X and i9-7900X - darn you world! Time to get clearheaded and be sensible soon. I've got time, waiting for BIOS revisions and meanwhile board prices go down a bit, whereas CPU prices remain more or less constant where I live, unfortunately.

 

[Bouowmx]

3733 MT/s 17-19-19-39 appears to be the highest frequency (from standard 266 MT/s increments) and lowest latency at that frequency 4-module kits currently go. There is also 3866 MT/s 18-22-22-40.

 

[moonbogg]

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/co...up-to-10-cores-first-does-4-3-ghz-on-lcs.html

Guru3D asked some people at computex what clocks they got with the 8 and 10 core parts. 4.2-4.3 seemed to be what was attainable with liquid cooling. There's clearly lots of voltage headroom left though, so maybe they were limited by that TIM?! Also, SkylakeX is launching with only 10 cores with 12 cores and up having gone totally MIA. If they can't break past 4.3ghz, these chips aren't an upgrade for Haswell/Broadwell users unless more cores are desired. And if more cores are desired, well, AMD might have 16 of them for $850.

 

[2blzd]

I think its pretty obvious to anyone who follows the cpu business that the 12-18core SKY-X parts were a reaction to threadripper and ryzen in general. That's why they are not going to be available at launch and thats why specs are unknown other than core count. They're scrambling to pile up enough of their HCC parts away from their Xeon line up, while trying to figure out what they can bin them at. They are not MIA, they were/are a last hour addition. This was a marketing department decision and wasn't the original plan, which is why there a slides with no specs. They are waging a core battle on paper and then putting it on the engineers to make it work.

 

[krumme]

Indium to use for the solder is made in Canada so its not like you try to avoid china dependency. The environmental issues is also as i can tell a non issue. That leaves cost.
Skl x tim is surely made long before ryzen or they wouldnt throw away 75% st perf advantage to save a few bucks. Now they add a stack abobe lcc dies. That looks like scramble. So does 270 to 370. New agressive sklx prices. Its a turnover for them and a new situation. You cant hardly blame them for not planning and executing to an imaginary ryzen. That could easily be wasted. And was imo not the most likely outcome. Now its a new situation and skl is an outright disaster perf wise for enthusiast vs the expectations. Its a small segment but its worse for their brand value.

Bean counters not only often hurts product development but mostly brand. Look at amd. But most often the cost cutting is right. Its just not visible like when its stupid.

 

[mikk]

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/8370254
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/8370249

Geekbench 3.4.1 results from i7-7800X and i7-7900X.

 

[nvgpu]

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26836/Graphics-Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-45-

https://communities.intel.com/thread/115054

Intel 21.20.16.4678 driver for Kaby Lake & Skylake.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/co...up-to-10-cores-first-does-4-3-ghz-on-lcs.html

Guru3D asked some people at computex what clocks they got with the 8 and 10 core parts. 4.2-4.3 seemed to be what was attainable with liquid cooling. There's clearly lots of voltage headroom left though, so maybe they were limited by that TIM?! Also, SkylakeX is launching with only 10 cores with 12 cores and up having gone totally MIA. If they can't break past 4.3ghz, these chips aren't an upgrade for Haswell/Broadwell users unless more cores are desired. And if more cores are desired, well, AMD might have 16 of them for $850.

Those are the TBM2.0 clocks basically. That can't be all.

 

[blue11]

Those are the TBM2.0 clocks basically. That can't be all.

You can see in the XTU screenshot that they are just increasing the allowed turbo frequency at various core counts. If the CPU were electrically stable at higher frequencies (i.e. no voltage limit), they could have set a higher target frequency and let thermal throttling handle it. Since they didn't, this implies that 4.3 GHz is a hard limit, regardless of cooling.

Skylake-X:
No 5 GHz OC
No extra 10% IPC
No(?) real AVX-512
No solder
No competitive pricing

It's like Intel wants AMD to win.

 

[lolfail9001]

You can see in the XTU screenshot that they are just increasing the allowed turbo frequency at various core counts.

That's how multiplier overclocks work bro.

If the CPU were electrically stable at higher frequencies (i.e. no voltage limit), they could have set a higher target frequency and let thermal throttling handle it. Since they didn't, this implies that 4.3 GHz is a hard limit, regardless of cooling.

If you had spent 10 seconds thinking whether what you wrote makes sense, you would reconsider that sentiment quickly.

 

[vissarix]

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/8370254
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/8370249

Geekbench 3.4.1 results from i7-7800X and i7-7900X.

Wow that looks extremely interesting...If those scores are reliable a Skylake X 6/12 is quite a lot faster then an R7 1800X running at 4.1ghz which score around 30.000

 

[blue11]

That's how multiplier overclocks work bro.

If you had spent 10 seconds thinking whether what you wrote makes sense, you would reconsider that sentiment quickly.

Or maybe it is you that should think rationally? Wouldn't you rather run in 4.8 GHz in some apps and 4.3 GHz in the rest, instead of running at 4.3 GHz on all apps? Does it hurt your pride if your CPU has thermal throttling?

If the chips were only limited by TIM, they could definitely overclock harder, since they are just adjusting turbo targets anyway. Sure, some applications could cause throttling back to (oh no) only 4.3 GHz OC. Meanwhile, single-threaded or even non-FPU multi-threaded applications are running 4.4-4.8 GHz.

Of course, if the chips just can't get past 4.3 GHz, none of this is possible! I wonder what could be happening?

 

[Sweepr]

Core i7-7900X 10C @ 4.5 GHz, 1.15V

 

[wildhorse2k]

Those 4400+ DDR4s may only work on 7740K though. For Skylake-X I assume the top RAM speed will be 3600-4000. 3600 will probably be a safe bet not requiring much tuning.

Another interesting feature of X299 that hasn't been talked about is the M.2 RAID support. On Z270 it was possible to have RAID 0 through PCH - Intel Rapid Storage Technology. On X99 there was no RAID possibility for M.2 out of box, since M.2 was connected to CPU.

On X299 Intel supports Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC). Since M.2 can go directly to CPU it obviously can't be supported by PCH. It will support Raid 0 out of box. If you plug in special "dongle" (to be purchased from Intel), it will unlock premium features - Raid 1 and 5. There is an ASUS PCIe card that can hold 4 m.2 SSDs and they can be added to RAID. However currently it is speculated the RAID will be bootable only for Intel SSDs. We will see how it turns out.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3199...le-crazy-raid-configurations-for-a-price.html

Similar solution is available from highpoint though its not bootable (but they are working on making it bootable).

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-ssd7101b-overview.htm

 

[Sweepr]

Those 4400+ DDR4s may only work on 7740K though. For Skylake-X I assume the top RAM speed will be 3600-4000. 3600 will probably be a safe bet not requiring much tuning.

The IMC is a significant upgrade compared to Broadwell-E, 4000 MHz+ should be relatively trouble-free.

 

[blue11]

Core i7-7900X 10C @ 4.5 GHz, 1.15V

This doesn't look consistent with claims of 4.3 GHz OC limit. The Guru3D article showed 4.3 GHz at 1.25 V. I wonder which one is accurate.

On X299 Intel supports Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC). Since M.2 can go directly to CPU it obviously can't be supported by PCH. It will support Raid 0 out of box. If you plug in special "dongle" (to be purchased from Intel), it will unlock premium features - Raid 1 and 5. There is an ASUS PCIe card that can hold 4 m.2 SSDs and they can be added to RAID. However currently it is speculated the RAID will be bootable only for Intel SSDs. We will see how it turns out.

So they locked Intel RST behind a dongle? Not only are the X299s going to be starved out of lanes ($1000 for only 44), now you have to pay an additional charge to actually use them?! Meanwhile, on AMD you get 64 lanes, and there's no extra "DLC" to use them...