Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[raghu78]

7800x is already under $400. If Intel is being generous, CL version of 7700k will be the new i3. LOL probably not since Zen is not really on par in performance.

Intel can definitely launch an entry level Coffeelake i5 with 4C/8T which provides 7700k performance for USD 180. That would be very nice. Intel needs to get aggressive and not look at Ryzen but the upcoming Pinnacle Ridge (Zen on 14nm+) as the intended competition. AMD would look to launch a 6C/12T 4 Ghz CPU at USD 230-240 and a 6C/12T 3.6 Ghz CPU at USD 190-200 . Anyway the consumer is the big winner here as both Intel and AMD bring hex cores to mainstream.

 

[tamz_msc]

So is trying to keep the GCC segfaults on Ryzen hidden from the public while they are trying to find to way to fix it, so what? (ill be honest, i just learned about this an hour ago, but it is months old).

As i said earlier, VirtualLarry was saying people should wake up and buy AMD because of Intel anti-consumer practices, then i point out that AMD did anti-consumer practices as well at some point in time, and pointed out some of them. No one is good. I just fail to figure out whats wrong with that because some users jumped on the defensive right away. There are far more Intel anti-consumer practices than the one you mentioned, there is also more AMD anti-consumer practices than the ones i mentioned. Its not really a competition, thats not the point.

Did AMD remove the relevant threads from their support forums concerning the issue? No. So I don't see how they're "hiding it from public", when it's there for the public to find on the Internet. Using this as an example wasn't necessary to support your argument in the first place.

 

[tamz_msc]

The fact is that most people who post on this forum can buy a 7700k or 7740k CPU for the cost of one day's work. CPUs just aren't something worth shopping by price any more for most people. Who really cares if your CPU cost you 18 cents per day or 15?

Majority of this forum earn >100K$/year? Wonder how you arrived at this conclusion. I don't remember providing my income details while signing up.

What about those people not on these forums who don't earn that amount, but are still building/buying PCs?

 

[tamz_msc]

Try not to use words that are absolute. "Utterly useless." If you want to look at it that way literally everything aside from food/air/water is useless. Value, is in the eyes of the beholder. I think its ridiculous people put more value in a shiny stone that has limited exceptional qualities and goes on your finger. I'd call that useless, but lot of people don't.

My point is talking in that manner adds nothing useful to the discussion.

We can do better in the single threaded department. Do better as in, we can use them. Because vast majority of the people do not pursue the activities enthusiasts in Anandtech forums do. If you eliminate game playing you eliminate most of the companies and most of the revenue generation for all the companies. So with most buyers its always the responsiveness that matters.

The human senses are quite amazing. Once you get used to a speed that seemed fast enough, it no longer feels that way. People used to complain about 60Hz monitors. Now some people don't like handling anything under 120 or even 144Hz. I personally think anti-aliasing settings are an absolute waste in resources considering how little of a difference it makes(when you are playing the game) but there are a whole class of people arguing about the technical differences between AA modes.

Not to mention, parallel programming isn't just about just shouting at the programmers to do so. That would be irresponsible. When you could do more useful things like, making better games. Meaning single thread performance is the only realistic way to get consistently faster performance.

In fact we can do better than 0.5x seconds. I believe the true no-need-to-buy-another-computer era would occur if the industry actually gets to have persistent memory(like 3DXPoint) and we get instant boot/load computers.

Those words reflect numbers - total time saved - which are absolute, and at the end of the day what matters to the end-user, when it comes to typical single-threaded applications. How much faster is it opening that document? Loading a couple of tabs in the browser? Applying that unsharp mask on a single image? I think we should distinguish the cases when absolute and relative performance matters depending on the type of application. It makes zero sense to talk about relative performance when the deltas we are dealing with are of the order of a few tenths-of-a-second.

There is no argument to be had if we feel smug about 30% faster performance in opening a PDF when the actual numbers say that it's 2.2s on one CPU vs 2.8s on another.

 

[beginner99]

Ok so let's take a few single-threaded consumer workloads, not including things which usually run multi-threaded but may be restricted to a single-thread by the user, like encoding. I guess these are fairly representative, outside of corner cases like emulation and legacy games:

7740X is 23% faster than 1600X, but 675ms isn't anything earth-shattering. Say you open 100 of these types of PDFs in a day - what does it amount to - 67.5s in a day? Meh.

Suppose you're a consumer who has a YouTube channel doing gaming performance reviews. This would be relevant:

Again, comparing the 7740X and 1600X, the former is 16% faster. So you do 10 benchmarks which is 10X the data processing, and the 7740X saves you only ~90s? Some huge drawback if you have the 1600X I guess.

23% and 16% is nothing to sniff at. If we take an average of 20% that is the difference between having 100 or 120 fps. And while gaming, you have this difference all the time. Yes 650ms for loading a pdf is irrelevant but that doesn't completely alleviate the need for highest ST performance available.And if the CPU can't push out 120+ fps, there is not much you can do as most game settings have little to no influence on the CPU.

All I'm saying there is a niche for best ST performance and just because you can get a 8-core that beats it at cinebench and rendering for cheaper doesn't make said CPU irrelevant especially if you never render or transcode.

AMD is doing themselves a disservice by under-pricing. Few companies become top-dog by being the low-cost alternative. Think Apple.

No I think it's a good strategy. Once those AM4 boards are out, some people upgrading to Zen+/Zen2 is guaranteed. Their strategy is to gain market share and you need market share that software devs optimize for your CPU.

Majority of this forum earn >100K$/year? Wonder how you arrived at this conclusion. I don't remember providing my income details while signing up.

What about those people not on these forums who don't earn that amount, but are still building/buying PCs?

He as a point. I could go out and buy a 7900x with dual 1080ti without issue but I won't do it because it doesn't make sense and there are a lot better deals available. But whether I pay $230 for a R5 1600 or $350 for a 7800k doesn't matter much to be at all. It's worth the 15%+ additional ST performance.

 

[AdamK47]

Thought I'd share some 3DMark results from my 7740X system in the midst of the usual back and forth that goes on around here.

I won't be getting into their Hall of Fame top 100 with these results like I've done many times before. Those days have passed. These are all heavily multi-threaded benchmarks. Not truly indicative of actual gaming performance. Ran them all with the overclocks / settings for 24/7 use going forward.

Specs:
Intel Core i7 7740X @ 4.8GHz
MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
16GB TridentZ DDR4 @ 4133 with 18-18-18-38-2T timings
Two Nvidia Titan Xp in SLI @ +125 core / +500 memory
...and the rest in sig.

TimeSpy - 15832
http://www.3dmark.com/spy/2120817

FireStrike - 31461
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/13215111

FireStrike Ultra - 14099
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/13195866

Sky Diver - 51212
http://www.3dmark.com/sd/4753248

3DMark11 Performance - P33140
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12289780

3DMark11 Extreme - X22607
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12289786

An oldie, but a goodie, 3DMark06 - 42442
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17986237

Lets see some results from those Skylake-X systems.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

So I'm curious guys... if someone leaked Core i7-8700K specifications tomorrow, what's your final clock speed prediction?

3.9-4.0GHz base, 4.6-4.7GHz turbo.

 

[Anarchist Mae]

He as a point. I could go out and buy a 7900x with dual 1080ti without issue but I won't do it because it doesn't make sense and there are a lot better deals available. But whether I pay $230 for a R5 1600 or $350 for a 7800k doesn't matter much to be at all. It's worth the 15%+ additional ST performance.

I earn about $14k per year (converted), this effectively puts any single component more expensive than $300ish outside of the range of affordability excluding exceptional circumstances.

It's important to remember than $100k salaries are not the norm in the rest of the world, even for people who are computer professionals.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I hear ya, Stoatatlly. I'm living around the US federal poverty level too.

I spend a good portion of my income on hardware. I eat a lot of Ramen. (Just had some.)

 

[tamz_msc]

23% and 16% is nothing to sniff at. If we take an average of 20% that is the difference between having 100 or 120 fps. And while gaming, you have this difference all the time. Yes 650ms for loading a pdf is irrelevant but that doesn't completely alleviate the need for highest ST performance available.And if the CPU can't push out 120+ fps, there is not much you can do as most game settings have little to no influence on the CPU.

All I'm saying there is a niche for best ST performance and just because you can get a 8-core that beats it at cinebench and rendering for cheaper doesn't make said CPU irrelevant especially if you never render or transcode.

Context matters.

This low clock-speed, low IPC narrative is vastly exaggerated outside of specific instances of gaming, and even in gaming this issue is overblown as there is nothing objectively wrong about the experience of the vast majority of people who play games at 60Hz or are GPU-limited. It's as if you're having an existential crisis if you don't have a 144Hz 'gaming' monitor and/or some form of adaptive sync. It's ridiculous. It's only relevant to those who play competitively, and when firing up the occasional 12 y.o. RPG/RTS, which, as people should know better, would be CPU limited anyway. So I'm getting 40fps in the Imperial district in Oblivion with my CPU - while I could have got nearer to 60fps if I had bought the 'other' CPU. Big deal. When I first played it I couldn't even get 20fps - I'll take whatever I can.

The typical single-threaded stuff I do constitutes manipulating plots and figures, compiling LaTeX documents, doing small calculations in Mathematica - and I hardly feel the difference between an i7 3770 and a Xeon E5 2650v2.

He as a point. I could go out and buy a 7900x with dual 1080ti without issue but I won't do it because it doesn't make sense and there are a lot better deals available. But whether I pay $230 for a R5 1600 or $350 for a 7800k doesn't matter much to be at all. It's worth the 15%+ additional ST performance.

That isn't a very good comparison - and depending on your overall budget 120$ may mean the difference between a SATA and nVME SSD, a RX 580/GTX 1060 vs a GTX 1070 on sale, a full Windows retail license, and various other things. This isn't the same when you throw in 2500$ worth of equipment to the mix.

 

[PeterScott]

My prediction is that at best, Intel will price the 6c6T version at i7700K prices, with the 6c12T being at a new higher pricing tier.

I agree. Intel doesn't want to push it's prices down, they want more premium products.

So I expect 6 core Coffee Lake will be close to 7800X in pricing (much like 7740x is similarly priced to 7700K).

 

[TheGiant]

Does anyone know of the chipset compatibility? I have an Asrock z170pro4. I wonder if 6C/CT i5 will fit in there

 

[kellym]

If the new i3s become 4c/4t, I wonder if Intel will use HT or keep fixed clocks. It would be nice if they were like current i5s although I'm thinking Intel would clock them lower.

 

[beginner99]

So I expect 6 core Coffee Lake will be close to 7800X in pricing (much like 7740x is similarly priced to 7700K).

Agree. But then I expect it to perform accordingly or I will go with Ryzen which we can say already now with high certainty that it offers better performance/dollar than CFL 6c will. Now Intel could surprise us but given the Skylake-X pricing, TIM fiasco and ridiculous marketing slides, I doubt they will offer it for 7700k or even lower prices.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So is trying to keep the GCC segfaults on Ryzen hidden from the public while they are trying to find to way to fix it, so what? (ill be honest, i just learned about this an hour ago, but it is months old).

Um what? See below.

Seconding this. My Athlon 5350 didn't have a lot of grunt, but the iGPU was better than Intel's offerings. I actually fit the thing into the case of a dead NES to make one hella unique budget home theater PC.

I am always fascinated to learn what people are putting in the shell of an old NES. Maybe someday someone will shoehorn Skylake-X into an NES. That would be pretty funny if it could be made to work. Somehow I doubt it though. CLF-S? More likely.

6 core Coffeelake will be a more attractive proposition than the i7 7800x.

I think most of us saw that one coming. It'll take faster RAM clocks to really make it shine, but otherwise the platform and performance will better meet the needs of enthusiasts who want a 6c/12t chip.

Did AMD remove the relevant threads from their support forums concerning the issue? No. So I don't see how they're "hiding it from public", when it's there for the public to find on the Internet. Using this as an example wasn't necessary to support your argument in the first place.

Correct, nobody hid anything. In fact all the bug reports regarding the GCC issue are still outstanding. The problem, as I understand it, is that it's extremely difficult to reproduce the issue, making it also difficult to hammer down exactly what's causing it. Most people using compilers will never notice the problem.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Does anyone know of the chipset compatibility? I have an Asrock z170pro4. I wonder if 6C/CT i5 will fit in there

Asked and answered (and subsequently lost in this fast paced thread): no one knows. There is basically 1 report saying backwards compatibility, whereas the remainder states Z300 series only. Knowing Intel (2 CPU families per chipset) I am inclined to go with the latter.

Agree. But then I expect it to perform accordingly or I will go with Ryzen which we can say already now with high certainty that it offers better performance/dollar than CFL 6c will. Now Intel could surprise us but given the Skylake-X pricing, TIM fiasco and ridiculous marketing slides, I doubt they will offer it for 7700k or even lower prices.

My fear is what the 8700K will cost here (I'll still get it lol); let's do a live currency rate conversion: 6700K = 335 Euro/392 USD, 7700K = 331 Euro/387 USD, 7800X = 389 Euro/455 USD (today's prices, all inc. 21% tax).

 

[dullard]

Edit: a specific time frame and salary post is not worth the effort and is a distraction from this thread. Processors that last many years are quite cheap in relation to salary, other hobbies, other production tools, etc. Define cheap as you want. Being the cheapest of the cheap is not a good business strategy for the long term.

 

[pj-]

($330 typical CPU price) * (200 working days/year) = $66,000/year. Heck, if you go by lowest price the 7700k is only $308 today ($61,600/year to buy it with a day's salary) and the 7740X is at $319 ($63,800/year to buy it with a day's salary).

$66k is far from your $100k guess, just a bit above average US household salary, and honestly lower than most of Anandtech posters make.

• 78.2% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/100k-salary-elitist-club.2499882/
• 72.7% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...much-do-you-make.2423338/page-7#post-37226487
• 62.6% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-is-your-salary-yearly-pay.2286263/page-4#post-34317997

As far as the majority of people on this forum go, the CPU is not even a blip in their salary. I want AMD to be strong. AMD only gets strong by selling its CPUs for what they are worth. If you want the image (and profitability) of a premium company, then the first step is to charge premium prices when you have good products. AMD is setting themselves up for failure again.

While it's true that $330 is a day's "salary" for someone who makes $66k, you can't buy things with your salary. You buy them with post-tax money. In order for me to actually get paychecks totaling $66k a year, my salary would have to be around or over $100k (my effective tax rate for federal/state/local is around 40%).

 

[TheF34RChannel]

So...about those 8700K clocks...

 

[dullard]

While it's true that $330 is a day's "salary" for someone who makes $66k, you can't buy things with your salary. You buy them with post-tax money. In order for me to actually get paychecks totaling $66k a year, my salary would have to be around or over $100k (my effective tax rate for federal/state/local is around 40%).

Taxes or no taxes, the fact is that the processor sold in 2016 was the $330 6700k https://blog.neweggbusiness.com/components/top-cpus-2016-best-processors-business-systems/ and the top processor sold now is the $308 7700k https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Computer-CPU-Processors/zgbs/electronics/229189

Customers are willing to pay the premium price for a good CPU. Those two top selling CPUs are the highest cost Intel standard desktop processor (not the HEDT segment). Focusing on AMD, the top selling processor now is a Ryzen 7 (see the Amazon link). Cost wasn't a hinderence for these buyers.

There will always be budget buyers. The G4560 is quite popular right now for mining purposes. But the market is seemingly split into two groups: bare bones and top desktop. AMD has scraped by for decades on the bare bones. To thrive AMD needs to focus on top desktop, premium image, and quality (from OEMs). The upcoming Ryzen 3 isn't going to be their savior--it'll just encourage OEMs to put it in crappy motherboards with not enough memory and awful systems.

 

[AdamK47]

($330 typical CPU price) * (200 working days/year) = $66,000/year. Heck, if you go by lowest price the 7700k is only $308 today ($61,600/year to buy it with a day's salary) and the 7740X is at $319 ($63,800/year to buy it with a day's salary).

$66k is far from your $100k guess, just a bit above average US household salary, and honestly lower than most of Anandtech posters make.

• 78.2% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/100k-salary-elitist-club.2499882/
• 72.7% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...much-do-you-make.2423338/page-7#post-37226487
• 62.6% claim to make about that level or above in this poll: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-is-your-salary-yearly-pay.2286263/page-4#post-34317997

As far as the majority of people on this forum go, the CPU is not even a blip in their salary. I want AMD to be strong. AMD only gets strong by selling its CPUs for what they are worth. If you want the image (and profitability) of a premium company, then the first step is to charge premium prices when you have good products. AMD is setting themselves up for failure again.

I wish I had only 200 working days per year. It must be nice.

 

[IEC]

Taxes or no taxes, the fact is that the processor sold in 2016 was the $330 6700k https://blog.neweggbusiness.com/components/top-cpus-2016-best-processors-business-systems/ and the top processor sold now is the $308 7700k https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Computer-CPU-Processors/zgbs/electronics/229189

Customers are willing to pay the premium price for a good CPU. Those two top selling CPUs are the highest cost Intel standard desktop processor (not the HEDT segment). Focusing on AMD, the top selling processor now is a Ryzen 7 (see the Amazon link). Cost wasn't a hinderence for these buyers.

There will always be budget buyers. The G4560 is quite popular right now for mining purposes. But the market is seemingly split into two groups: bare bones and top desktop. AMD has scraped by for decades on the bare bones. To thrive AMD needs to focus on top desktop, premium image, and quality (from OEMs). The upcoming Ryzen 3 isn't going to be their savior--it'll just encourage OEMs to put it in crappy motherboards with not enough memory and awful systems.

Corrections for accuracy:
1) The top selling processor for Newegg Business in 2016 was the $330 i7-6700K.
2) The top processor based on Amazon's "Best Sellers" sales algorithm, updated hourly, is the i7-7700K followed by the Ryzen 7 1700.
3) The G4560 is a waste of money for miners and increases time to ROI for zero gain. 6 GPU rigs are ideally built using the cheapest Celeron or Pentium CPUs, not G4560 or above. For a while people were using cheap single core Semprons, as that is enough for mining... If building today on a B250 6 PCIe board or similar, a sub $40 G3930 beats the G4560 in this application hands-down.

For points 1&2, it is likely that the sales figures/distributions observed for these specific merchants closely mirrors the domestic (US) market. I suspect there are some regional differences, particularly in developing nations and emerging markets.

As to the overarching point about premium pricing: If the Coffee Lake processors perform like a 6-core version of Kaby Lake, then they will absolutely be sold as a premium desktop part, with margins to match. I suspect the i7-8700K will be $379+, but will likely sell well at that price as a premium product. It all depends on the performance.

 

[Christopher Bohling]

Didn't the 6700K and 7700K launch near $400 too?

 

[dullard]

Corrections for accuracy:
1) The top selling processor for Newegg Business in 2016 was the $330 i7-6700K.
2) The top processor based on Amazon's "Best Sellers" sales algorithm, updated hourly, is the i7-7700K followed by the Ryzen 7 1700.
3) The G4560 is a waste of money for miners and increases time to ROI for zero gain. 6 GPU rigs are ideally built using the cheapest Celeron or Pentium CPUs, not G4560 or above. For a while people were using cheap single core Semprons, as that is enough for mining... If building today on a B250 6 PCIe board or similar, a sub $40 G3930 beats the G4560 in this application hands-down.

For points 1&2, it is likely that the sales figures/distributions observed for these specific merchants closely mirrors the domestic (US) market. I suspect there are some regional differences, particularly in developing nations and emerging markets.

As to the overarching point about premium pricing: If the Coffee Lake processors perform like a 6-core version of Kaby Lake, then they will absolutely be sold as a premium desktop part, with margins to match. I suspect the i7-8700K will be $379+, but will likely sell well at that price as a premium product. It all depends on the performance.

Your corrections are accepted. If you have any better sales data by processor, I'll go with that. But until then, it is the best that I can find. Alternatively, we can go with PassMark's data which again shows a bunch of $300 CPUs in the most popular place (albiet limited to PassMark users and not necessarily the general population):
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/share30.html

I suspect your $379 price estimate is a tad high. Unless you are speaking of peak price right after launch.

 

[SocialJusticeWarrior]

Taxes or no taxes, the fact is that the processor sold in 2016 was the $330 6700k https://blog.neweggbusiness.com/components/top-cpus-2016-best-processors-business-systems/ and the top processor sold now is the $308 7700k https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Computer-CPU-Processors/zgbs/electronics/229189

Customers are willing to pay the premium price for a good CPU. Those two top selling CPUs are the highest cost Intel standard desktop processor (not the HEDT segment). Focusing on AMD, the top selling processor now is a Ryzen 7 (see the Amazon link). Cost wasn't a hinderence for these buyers.

There will always be budget buyers. The G4560 is quite popular right now for mining purposes. But the market is seemingly split into two groups: bare bones and top desktop. AMD has scraped by for decades on the bare bones. To thrive AMD needs to focus on top desktop, premium image, and quality (from OEMs). The upcoming Ryzen 3 isn't going to be their savior--it'll just encourage OEMs to put it in crappy motherboards with not enough memory and awful systems.

I don't believe AMD will ever be looked at as a premium brand especially when they don't have the performance crown. They should just focus on what they do best.