Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

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Yeroon

Member
Mar 19, 2017
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Intel sure likes their lakes lately. It's difficult to follow what's new in terms of CPU codenames....

We had separate but memorable codenames before, then fields, bridges, wells, and now since 2015 we have a multitude of lakes well into 2020 or so.


Gotta draw that codename vs time graph...

Yup, I'm mostly confused since the *well generation.
Done right (and I'd think as per original plan) it would be node/arch dependent (ie sandy - ivy bridge)
If you do draw a graph, throw in the HEDT/xeon name-dates, for extra confusion.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
14,510
5,159
136
Huh, and I thought Ice Lake was supposed to be DCG b/4 CCG - meh.

I'd have to think so. Kind of makes sense... Cascade Lake (14++) 2018, Ice Lake Server (10++) 2019; Sapphire Rapids (7) 2020.

Icelake mainstream is probably 10+ while Tigerlake is 10++.
 

TheF34RChannel

Senior member
May 18, 2017
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GqmW2.png
 
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WingZero30

Member
May 1, 2017
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So it appears that Skylake-W will be on a slightly different socket R LGA 2061 but using the same underlying platform Basin Falls.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
24,998
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The mythical 5+ Ghz chip for the NSA and HFT? Although I would think the TDP would be higher...
There may be a slight clock boost. And if TheF34RChannel's post is correct there is a big boost in features (quad channel faster ECC memory, far more PCI lanes, etc).

But I think the 140 W TDP is Intel's attempt to finally allow upgrades on the same motherboard. They are unrolling what they call a "scalable family" of workstation processors. The only way to actually be scalable is if the chips all have the same TDP. That way the motherboard, power supply, and cooling system all are fully capable to run any similarly pinned processor. Then you can buy a workstation with one line of processor and later on upgrade to any of the others.
 

blue11

Member
May 11, 2017
151
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Those:
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/761694-intel-x299-skylake-w/

don't seem to make any sense at all. There must be something we don't know to justify a 140W tdp i5...
There have always been quad-core server chips with ~140 W TDP, such as E5-1630v4 and E7-8893v4. The TDP can be explained in a number of ways. Usually all the cache on the die is enabled, so the power draw from the L3 is the same as the full chip. Additionally, due to binning, these quad-core chips are probably those with very high defect levels, so they may be particularly inefficient. Lastly, the TDP is officially only for sizing heatsinks, so not all chips may actually draw that much power.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
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There may be a slight clock boost. And if TheF34RChannel's post is correct there is a big boost in features (quad channel faster ECC memory, far more PCI lanes, etc).

But I think the 140 W TDP is Intel's attempt to finally allow upgrades on the same motherboard. They are unrolling what they call a "scalable family" of workstation processors. The only way to actually be scalable is if the chips all have the same TDP. That way the motherboard, power supply, and cooling system all are fully capable to run any similarly pinned processor. Then you can buy a workstation with one line of processor and later on upgrade to any of the others.
I thought scalable platform was Skylake-SP? The Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum chips.
Sklyake W is Workstation.
Or are they the same now?

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/microarchitectures/skylake#Codenames
 
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LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
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There have always been quad-core server chips with ~140 W TDP, such as E5-1630v4 and E7-8893v4. The TDP can be explained in a number of ways. Usually all the cache on the die is enabled, so the power draw from the L3 is the same as the full chip. Additionally, due to binning, these quad-core chips are probably those with very high defect levels, so they may be particularly inefficient. Lastly, the TDP is officially only for sizing heatsinks, so not all chips may actually draw that much power.
Yeah but the W 4C chip doesn't even have HT...
I think they just label all of the chips with the same TDP, regardless.
Probably for customer ease of mind that the chips are all compatible.
 
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blue11

Member
May 11, 2017
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Last edited:

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
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The "SP" in Skylake-SP stands for "scalable performance." The scalable platform is Purley (LGA-3647). It refers to how the same family of chips scales from 2S to 8S (not exactly, but it's less segmented than E5/E7).
It doesn't appear to stand for either actually, but we are talking about the same thing overall.
The W chips are not the "scalable" chips...
 
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Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
15,332
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There may be a slight clock boost. And if TheF34RChannel's post is correct there is a big boost in features (quad channel faster ECC memory, far more PCI lanes, etc).

Those extra features (PCIe lane, DRAM channels, etc.) only apply to Skylake-X, not to Kaby Lake or Cannon Lake (the internal architecture of the client based CPUs just don't support these features).
 
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Edrick

Golden Member
Feb 18, 2010
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So skylake-w is just the Xeon version of skylake-x.

Looks like the real platform to get will be the skylake-sp
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
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Meh, they also have a Quad Xeon Gold 6152 score now too, which gets 8041. Kind of interesting that Xeon Gold 6xxx will allow 4P (?)
 

Sweepr

Diamond Member
May 12, 2006
5,148
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DigiTimes reaffirms Coffee Lake-S in late August, this is their third article mentioning the earlier than expect launch:

Because of weak demand in the PC DIY market, Intel is considering bundling its Optane memory with motherboards using 200 series chipsets such as Z270, in the PC DIY channel to stimulate demand for the Kaby Lake platform. However, some retailers are pessimistic about the idea since the next-generation Coffee Lake is set to become available in late August and consumers are waiting for the new products.

...The retailers are now placing their hope in the third quarter and believe the new platform will stimulate demand.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20170518PD204.html