Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

Page 529 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

TheGiant

Senior member
Jun 12, 2017
748
353
106
Ask whoever you are getting your software off (Altair/Ansys/CD-adapco etc).

They will have data on the different architectures.

You may want to have a canary test* in your request email to ensure you are not talking to a sales idiot that knows f**k all.


*for example:

"We are looking at buying a new system for our CFD simulations, would <insert knowingly deficient/old configuration> this be the best for the job, or would you recommend something else instead?"


I know Ansys are, or at least were, part of AMD's development program, so should have good data on EPYC.
Well I did that. You can read more in manuals and forums than they give you.

I still think they the overall CFD champion is the combination:

  1. 4,8GHz coffee lake desktop core
  2. 8 Cores
  3. 6CH DDR4-3600LL memory
wanna buy it :)
 

Atari2600

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2016
1,409
1,655
136
Well I did that. You can read more in manuals and forums than they give you.

Nah, if what your getting is bad enough to be comparable to a manual, you unfortunately aren't getting a chance to talk to the right people.


I still think they the overall CFD champion is the combination:

  1. 4,8GHz coffee lake desktop core
  2. 8 Cores
  3. 6CH DDR4-3600LL memory
wanna buy it :)

Hmmm. Do you have another machine available for pre/post processing? Otherwise, I'd say too few cores - I suppose that'd also depend on your license setup.

Look at it this way, how much time do you spend cleaning cad and meshing up, and how much time do you spend running? Would you really want to be sat idle waiting on a job to run or rather be getting your next mesh ready for convergence, or for a design iteration?

Going back a few years, we'd an 8 core (dual socket Nahalem) in work and also added a 12 core (dual westmere) about 9 months later - the extra 4 cores made a helluva lot of difference to productivity as we could have simulations running in the background and do the setup and/or post processing in the foreground.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Drazick

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,436
1,654
136
Indeed. My suspicion arose because the 2nd chip on this socket was previously the now canceled Cannonlake desktop for the 400 series. That must have changed then.
It's possible as you and @Bouowmx pointed out that the 400 might have been targeted at a different cpu. The one thing I would caution both of you is that obviously the difference between 1055, 1056, 1051, 1050 isn't that that couldn't make a socket that supported all of these chips. It's that they didn't want to. The proof is in the 2011v1-v3. Eventual changes for PCIe 3.0 and DDR4 would have meant an incompatible socket no matter what. But Intel has had an agreement with the OEM's for at least a 2 year platform on the consumer setups and a 5 year agreement on the servers. So intel works around that by making the Server stuff electronically incompatible but same "platform" and on the desktops they have been changing sockets like clockwork.

While Intel has timed these swaps by "major" arch changes in the past. I wouldn't assume that an arch change from Coffee Lake to Ice Lake to require a new socket. I wouldn't assume that Coffee lake being the same arch as SL and KL will use the same socket. If anything there is a good chance Intel can get CL and IL into their own sockets because "more cores" on CL and new arch on IL.
 

TheF34RChannel

Senior member
May 18, 2017
786
309
136
It's possible as you and @Bouowmx pointed out that the 400 might have been targeted at a different cpu. The one thing I would caution both of you is that obviously the difference between 1055, 1056, 1051, 1050 isn't that that couldn't make a socket that supported all of these chips. It's that they didn't want to. The proof is in the 2011v1-v3. Eventual changes for PCIe 3.0 and DDR4 would have meant an incompatible socket no matter what. But Intel has had an agreement with the OEM's for at least a 2 year platform on the consumer setups and a 5 year agreement on the servers. So intel works around that by making the Server stuff electronically incompatible but same "platform" and on the desktops they have been changing sockets like clockwork.

While Intel has timed these swaps by "major" arch changes in the past. I wouldn't assume that an arch change from Coffee Lake to Ice Lake to require a new socket. I wouldn't assume that Coffee lake being the same arch as SL and KL will use the same socket. If anything there is a good chance Intel can get CL and IL into their own sockets because "more cores" on CL and new arch on IL.

Very possibly, yes (last paragraph). It depends on both how Ice Lake is build and what Intel actually wants to do socket wise. Most profitable would be a different socket/chipset.
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
4,112
2,108
136
I do not think Intel 300 series chipsets will be compatible with Ice Lake, because it is a new architecture. Socket H chipsets looking like (rows indicating cross-compatible products):
  • Lynnfield: 5 series
  • Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge: 6, 7 series
  • Haswell, Broadwell*: 8*, 9 series * Broadwell and 8 series are incompatible
  • Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Cannon Lake: 100, 200, 300 series
  • Ice Lake: ?
See that different rows are not compatible with each other, and between each row is a Tock, or now, Architecture.


I wouldn't rule it out at this point because Intels 300 board series (excluding Z370) brings support for both IMVP8 and IMVP9 voltage regulators. IMVP9 is new with Icelake. Coffee Lake isn't supported by 100 and 200 series by the way.

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...s-out-page-501.2428363/page-480#post-38931703
 
  • Like
Reactions: Arachnotronic

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,436
1,654
136
Very possibly, yes (last paragraph). It depends on both how Ice Lake is build and what Intel actually wants to do socket wise. Most profitable would be a different socket/chipset.
Honestly it is probably best to be in a wait and hold. My personal guess is Coffee Lake is a new socket. It matches the timeline they have been following awhile. But until Intel actually announces it, it is anyone's guess. I just get perturbed when people act like it's a given that Coffee Lake will work on 1051. I'd rather be steadfast that it isn't and be pleasantly surprised if it did. Seems silly to stick head in the sand about it possibly not working just to be outraged when it isn't.
 
Mar 10, 2006
11,715
2,012
126
Honestly it is probably best to be in a wait and hold. My personal guess is Coffee Lake is a new socket. It matches the timeline they have been following awhile. But until Intel actually announces it, it is anyone's guess. I just get perturbed when people act like it's a given that Coffee Lake will work on 1051. I'd rather be steadfast that it isn't and be pleasantly surprised if it did. Seems silly to stick head in the sand about it possibly not working just to be outraged when it isn't.

Coffee Lake is 1151.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
14,510
5,159
136
I wouldn't rule it out at this point because Intels 300 board series (excluding Z370) brings support for both IMVP8 and IMVP9 voltage regulators. IMVP9 is new with Icelake. Coffee Lake isn't supported by 100 and 200 series by the way.

I do think Icelake is going to be an entirely new socket regardless of what may have been planed.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
14,510
5,159
136
The only site I found to "confirm" it was wccftech.com. I'll leave it at that. If they are legit enough for you then so be it.

There's been enough out there to suggest that it is true. However Coffee is only going to work on 300 series boards.
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,436
1,654
136
There's been enough out there to suggest that it is true. However Coffee is only going to work on 300 series boards.
That would be just as bad imho. Then you are just keeping the socket to say you are keeping the socket. I guess it would allow the OEM's to continue offering SL and KL systems after they have made a transition to the new boards.
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
4,112
2,108
136
The only site I found to "confirm" it was wccftech.com. I'll leave it at that. If they are legit enough for you then so be it.


He is correct. Coffeelake is for LGA 1151 but incompatible with current boards because of small changes to the socket power supply. Something like 1151-2.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheF34RChannel

Sweepr

Diamond Member
May 12, 2006
5,148
1,142
131
I was right (10C/18C/28C). :D

Xeon-Scaleable-Processor-5.jpg


Xeon-Scaleable-Processor-4.jpg


https://videocardz.com/70874/intels-epyc-response-xeon-scalable-processor-skylake-sp
 
Last edited:

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
15,332
7,792
136
I do not think Intel 300 series chipsets will be compatible with Ice Lake, because it is a new architecture. Socket H chipsets looking like (rows indicating cross-compatible products):
  • Lynnfield: 5 series
  • Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge: 6, 7 series
  • Haswell, Broadwell*: 8*, 9 series * Broadwell and 8 series are incompatible
  • Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Cannon Lake: 100, 200, 300 series
  • Ice Lake: ?
See that different rows are not compatible with each other, and between each row is a Tock, or now, Architecture.

Well, that will suck. Passed this year, again, on upgrading my CPU/Mobo/Ram (upgraded GFX).
A hexacore Coffee-Lake looked good (because of likely high clocks over Ryzen), but no option for n+1 upgrade - boo hoo!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pick2

beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
5,208
1,580
136
It is hard to keep up with all the various processor variants either coming out or coming out in the next 12 months, but what are you saying you were right about?

I'm not disputing, just want to know. :)

About how many cores the 3 different dies have.
 

Wyrm

Junior Member
Jun 20, 2017
23
19
51
Well, my current solver machine is Broadwell 14C Xeon with 256GB of ECC memory. I am not going to buy a new one just making research of what is important. However if some of the new products will be cheaper and comparable in performance I will sell this one, still has a nice value.

Your hardware already looks to be top notch. I would probably consider looking into further software optimization instead of chasing the absolute best hardware on the market unless you have other reasons to.

I am not even thinking about buying something without ECC for the Solver machine.

Then Skylake-X won't meet your requirements. Threadripper is rumored to support ECC with some motherboards though. I have to give AMD props for that.

As you are saying not everything is well multithreaded.My desktop i5-6600K oced to 4.3GHz (with DDR4 3200) is sometimes significantly faster for some types of calculations.
For fortran I am using a intel compiler...

If you have access to the entire Intel parallel studio it should also have a fancy cpu/memory profiler with a GUI that shows runtime cost of specific lines in your source code. Very convenient to catch an unexpected bottleneck. It's not cheap for commercial use though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheGiant

TheGiant

Senior member
Jun 12, 2017
748
353
106
Nah, if what your getting is bad enough to be comparable to a manual, you unfortunately aren't getting a chance to talk to the right people..

Well I hope you are right, because I am losing patience sometimes....

Hmmm. Do you have another machine available for pre/post processing? Otherwise, I'd say too few cores - I suppose that'd also depend on your license setup.

Look at it this way, how much time do you spend cleaning cad and meshing up, and how much time do you spend running? Would you really want to be sat idle waiting on a job to run or rather be getting your next mesh ready for convergence, or for a design iteration?

Going back a few years, we'd an 8 core (dual socket Nahalem) in work and also added a 12 core (dual westmere) about 9 months later - the extra 4 cores made a helluva lot of difference to productivity as we could have simulations running in the background and do the setup and/or post processing in the foreground.

Well I have a good experience going from more cores to less with much higher frequency. This is it. If SKL-X supported ECC I would probably posting some results here already. Then Xeon can not be OCed that way. A shame.

The solver vs computer idle time- that is always the same. At the start of the project you are iterating to model the right "reality" conditions. At the end, no computer is fast enough :)

Hovewer I must say the computing power of last years is heavily based on individual and custom optimization which can do more than any HW.