Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

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R0H1T

Platinum Member
Jan 12, 2013
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The funny thing is that the 7700K was released in what, January? Ryzen was released in what, February or March? If Intel had all this advanced intelligence years in advance, they knew when Ryzen was likely releasing - AMD, AFAIK, was always targeting fall of 2016. If Intel had been sandbagging all these years but yet had this incredible intelligence on Ryzen's performance and were scared, why wasn't the 7700K a larger leap in performance? As you mention above, we've largely since single digit increases since Sandy Bridge with maybe the exception of Ivy --> Haswell.
You don't plan for vaporware years in advance, but you do plan for contingencies years in advance, if that means stacking up weird product lines (according to you) so be it. For me KBL was always plan A, remember AMD were targeting 40% IPC over Excavator but clearly exceeded that. So, Intel must've planned something that could probably match or exceed a 60% IPC, worst case scenario for them, hence KBL-X. Now you can pretend that KBL-X & 18 core Xeon turned SKL-X were always in the pipeline but not many will buy that.
As to Coffee Lake's performance and "tweaking" the cores, preliminary leaks indicate we may see a 10-11% boost in ST performance. Much of that is likely due to cache changes, but that's still a nice performance. Remember, you guys are missing the fact that Intel's original roadmap from YEARS ago had Cannonlake arriving late last year or early this year and it had more than 4 cores.
They won't, not across the board & certainly not without stock clocks going up. That's the biggest ST gain since SB, ain't happening with a marginal cache restructuring.
Why would they? Socket 1151 was also designed years ago. Intel never intended to release Coffee Lake and maybe not even Kaby Lake, because they were fully focused on Cannonlake. When they ran into process issues they had to keep working on those while doing a product refresh, which turned out to be KBL/CFL. I suspect CFL isn't a direct insert into today's boards because of VRM specs but I don't know for sure. Intel had several versions of socket 2011 as well, so this is along those same lines.
Yes & no one said Intel had the final Zen silicon in it's hand did they? But there are other ways to get info & you don't have to go full flame mode just to get a hint of your competitor's offering.
It was a "rush" job only in the sense that Cannonlake was cancelled on the desktop and Intel had to do another product release to satisfy shareholders, keep sales going, etc. It was not a response to AMD other than them changing the release date.
Sure why not, a vaporware 18 core (it is till the time it's released) & desktop CFL models that may sell by the end of fall?
 
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dooon

Member
Jul 3, 2015
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Z370 chipset launch October.
Z390 chipset launch Next Year !
CFL - S, but the platform side, that is, the corresponding chipset, will be introduced in two stages.
First, when CFL-S is introduced, a chipset called Z370 is introduced.
However, this Z370 is actually applied to the die of the Intel 200 series chipset currently being provided for Kaby Lake-S.
On the other hand, Z390 that will be launched next year will be the new generation die base developed for Cannon Lake.
Other Intel 300 series chipsets will be launched next year as well.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/ubiq/1076326.html
 

pantsaregood

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Feb 13, 2011
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IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
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I find it hard to believe on tech forums people actually believe companies like Intel won't be keeping tabs on what their competition is doing especially since Zen was in development for years.

Also some of you really don't understand that people in the industry to talk and communicate with each other - its not something like the silly forum wars with bricked up walls between the sides. No wonder when several people have worked for competing companies throughout their careers.Sure NDA stuff will stay that way,but its not going to be easy to keep projects 100% secret,as these are not some government black project!!

I should know I have mates who work for large tech companies in R and D(they also fund many labs in unis,and I have touched on this in the past) - OFC they will be judging their responses on what the competition has in the pipeline,and the ones who don't usually end up going tits up. Look at Nokia and Kodak for examples of companies which didn't do so.

It happens everywhere else. Its seems hardware enthusiasts have this weird concept,companies just make products without even evaluating what the market will be in the next few years. What the competition will have will be a consideration,and Intel knows this very well after what happened with the Athlon 64. They won't be making the same mistake twice.Like I said the ones which don't usually collapse.

Only the paranoid survive! ;)

I'm not sure if the bolded is directed at me or not, but if so, perhaps I've not made myself clear. It is the duty of EVERY company to keep track of what their competitors are doing and Intel is no different. What I take issue with is that AMD fans are acting as if this is somehow a unique situation because of Ryzen, and that Intel is so afraid of Ryzen that they're rushing processor designs out the door to compete. But let's look at the facts as I've stated in earlier posts:

1. Ryzen was originally due out in Fall 2016 and I'm sure Intel knew that fall 2016 would happen, give or take a quarter. Listening to some AMD fans, Intel not only knew this but apparently knew how Ryzen would perform years in advance. Let's assume those fans are correct for this analysis.
2. Intel was originally supposed to release CannonLake in a similar timeframe but due to process issues, had to back down. In order to keep shareholders and customers happy, what does Intel need to do? They need to release and ship product. Enter KabyLake and (later) Coffee Lake.
3. So Q1 2017 rolls around, and Intel releases KabyLake. If AMD fan logic holds and Intel had all of this advanced knowledge of AMD's performance and plans, why didn't Intel release a hexcore mainstream model then? I mean, listening to some AMD advocates, it seems Intel can throw together CPUs with a bazillion cores in just a few weeks, so why didn't Intel do that? Why ship the 7700 if you're afraid of what AMD has up its sleeve? This is where the contention of AMD fans comes face to face with reality - it IS likely Intel knew how Ryzen would perform and Intel knew the 7700K would still be faster in most mainstream scenarios and that Coffee Lake would close or eliminate the MT gap.
4. AMD has already had a couple of price cuts. What's that tell us? It tells us a couple of things: 1) Intel's CPUs are still benchmarking faster in the applications most end users use and to compete, AMD is cutting prices. 2) The first point directly flies in the face of what Lisa Su said earlier - that AMD was done being a the "low end" or "budget" choice. No matter how cheap Ryzen is to produce, cutting product prices does cut margins and that makes shareholders cringe. They wouldn't do it unless they had to.

I want AMD to succeed. I want a more competitive landscape. But we have to face reality when we look at the marketplace. Ryzen and TR are fine products but Intel is still faster at every core count. It remains to be seen if this will hold true at the 16 core count, but my guess is that it will and that the 7940 will probably best the 1950X in most MT benches. Yeah, if you want to talk about performance/$, AMD obviously leads there and is why I have a couple of Ryzen boxes as secondary PCs.
 

TheF34RChannel

Senior member
May 18, 2017
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So mobile only, I'm not happy that my suspicions were correct, actually.

Is it sure that Z370 won't launch before October? Because then it doesn't matter if desktop CFL launches in September or not because there's nothing to stick it in :D
 

eddman

Senior member
Dec 28, 2010
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Icelake is likely to be at best no faster in games (and has a good chance at being slower) so it's not like people would upgrade anyway.
Well there are other customers besides gamers alone. Yes, Ice lake's transistor performance might be lower, but since it'll be denser and consume less, intel might even go for 8c i7s, which would also mean 6c/12t i5s. Those would be nice upgrades for people that need them.

Well, that certainly could be correct. Except the 8700k is $385 and the 1700 is $269 I think.
The 8700K should be able to almost match 1700X in all-cores utilization scenarios, and once the load drops to 7 cores and less, it'd be faster. I doubt the non-X 1700 could match it.
 
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IndyColtsFan

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You don't plan for vaporware years in advance, but you do plan for contingencies years in advance, if that means stacking up weird product lines (according to you) so be it. For me KBL was always plan A, remember AMD were targeting 40% IPC over Excavator but clearly exceeded that. So, Intel must've planned something that could probably match or exceed a 60% IPC, worst case scenario for them, hence KBL-X.

Well, that's kind of my point actually - KabyLake *IS* what Intel released to combat Ryzen so from that perspective, it was definitely plan A. In their earlier roadmaps though, I don't believe it was there - I thought (and I could be mistaken, so someone can correct me) that CannonLake was going to succeed Skylake. Perhaps Kaby was there to bridge the gap, but I know Coffee Lake wasn't. Also, KBL-X is minimally faster than KBL as far as I know. It has slightly more OC headroom but AFAIK, IS the 7700.

Now you can pretend that KBL-X & 18 core Xeon turned SKL-X were always in the pipeline but not many will buy that.

I do believe KBL-X was always in the pipeline, but not for the reason you believe and definitely not because of Ryzen. I personally believe Intel's intention was to move all of the K level SKUs to HEDT and KBL-X was going to be their first attempt. I also don't pretend that the 7980 was always intended - it was one of those contingency plans Intel made "just in case," but I do believe they only intended SKL-X to go up to 10 cores and that was it.

They won't, not across the board & certainly not without stock clocks going up. That's the biggest ST gain since SB, ain't happening with a marginal cache restructuring.

Yes, that's probably accurate - the 10-11% probably won't hold across the board, but that actually once again flies in the face of the arguments made by AMD fans. If Intel were sandbagging and were suddenly faced with a huge competitive obstacle, wouldn't they release something faster? Some folks act as if Intel has all these massive performance enhancements in a closet somewhere and are just holding them back for the right moment. Well, obviously, either they don't have them OR they don't think they need them against Ryzen. Take your pick.
 

R0H1T

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Jan 12, 2013
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So Q1 2017 rolls around, and Intel releases KabyLake. If AMD fan logic holds and Intel had all of this advanced knowledge of AMD's performance and plans, why didn't Intel release a hexcore mainstream model then? I mean, listening to some AMD advocates, it seems Intel can throw together CPUs with a bazillion cores in just a few weeks, so why didn't Intel do that? Why ship the 7700 if you're afraid of what AMD has up its sleeve? This is where the contention of AMD fans comes face to face with reality - it IS likely Intel knew how Ryzen would perform and Intel knew the 7700K would still be faster in most mainstream scenarios and that Coffee Lake would close or eliminate the MT gap.
The 7740x, 7800x & 7820x also have to be sold, don't they? If they release(d) a mainstream octa core their whole lineup & proposed lineups from a few years back would lose value instantly, faster than the last ethereum flash crash.
Yes, that's probably accurate - the 10-11% probably won't hold across the board, but that actually once again flies in the face of the arguments made by AMD fans. If Intel were sandbagging and were suddenly faced with a huge competitive obstacle, wouldn't they release something faster? Some folks act as if Intel has all these massive performance enhancements in a closet somewhere and are just holding them back for the right moment. Well, obviously, either they don't have them OR they don't think they need them against Ryzen. Take your pick.
Intel were sandbagging on more cores, they can't increase IPC on the fly, as I said to another poster previously. A hypothetical mainstream octa or hexa core not only eats into the existing 6700(k) & 7700(k) sales but also devours the solderless 7740x, 7800x & 7820x in most cases. You don't cut the nose to spite the face, not when you're Intel. This (CFL) is obviously a compromise IMO, we can agree to disagree here.
 

raghu78

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Aug 23, 2012
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https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/ubiq/1076326.html

Coffeelake launch in Oct 2017.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11738...tarting-with-kaby-lake-refresh-for-15w-mobile

"In our pre-briefings, Intel only mentioned Coffee Lake in the context of the fact that today’s launch is not Coffee Lake. Because media were expecting this to be Coffee Lake (and expecting it to be a desktop processor launch), the question ‘is this Coffee Lake’ was actually asked several times, and the answer had to be repeated. These four new CPUs are still Kaby Lake CPUs built on the same 14+ technology, with minor updates, and bringing quad cores to 15W.

So when is Coffee Lake on 14++ (or Cannon Lake) coming? Intel only stated that other members of the 8th Generation family (which contains Kaby Lake Refresh, Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake) are coming later this year. Desktop will come in the autumn, and additional products for enterprise, workstation and enthusiast notebooks will also happen. As for today's 8th Generation U-series announcement, Intel tells us that we should start seeing laptops using the new CPUs hit the market in September."
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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So 8th generation launches with rebrand parts? Not good.
"That being said, Intel is likely to have created new masks and revisions for this silicon to account for the lower power window as well as implementing HDCP 2.2 support and other minor fixes."
 

Bouowmx

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2016
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Need everyone to step back from the AMD-Intel debate for a bit. [Not a literal command]

Core i5-8250U, 8350U, i7-8550U, 8650U are Kaby Lake-R[efresh], manufactured on 14 nm +. Business is business, but manufacturing process all lined up in 7th generation, when all processors were 14 nm +. Now 8th generation has 14 nm +, 14 nm ++, and 10 nm.

Is the per-core Turbo frequencies of Kaby Lake-R known yet?

And Facebook stream in an hour.
 

scannall

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Jan 1, 2012
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I'm actually expecting a tangible IPC increase with the 8700K. I'll be disappointed if it's not there.
Why would you expect a big IPC increase? Intel has been massaging, refining and tuning the same Core uarch for a decade now. There really isn't much left to pick. With process shrinks they can throw more transistors at it, but any gains are not going to be some huge breakthrough.

This isn't a knock on Intel btw. There has been no reason at all to build a new uarch from scratch. Until very recently their lead was so huge, that throwing mountains of time and money at a new uarch made no sense. And it's debateable if it would make sense now either. Giant gamble, giant investment on something that may well fail. There are many more duds than winners littering the CPU landscape. It's not something you do unless you're backed into a corner, with no other choice.
 

raghu78

Diamond Member
Aug 23, 2012
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So they were able to bring quads to 15W with 14nm+?

That sounds very good to me, overall.

It makes 14nm++ on desktop sound very promising.
15W with quads was always possible at 14/14+. They had to lower base clocks to fit the 15w TDP. Intel did not need to do it in the past as there was no competition. Now with Raven Ridge 4C/8T at 15w TDP scheduled to launch by year end thats no more the case. Anyway consumers can rejoice that quad core comes to ultrathin notebooks.
 

pantsaregood

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Feb 13, 2011
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I'm actually expecting a tangible IPC increase with the 8700K. I'll be disappointed if it's not there.

There will be no IPC increase, only additional cores.

Traditionally, process refinements like Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake have been referred to as CPU stepping instead of new codenames. Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake are fundamentally the same architecture.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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Well, if anything, the box-art looks really nice :)

The package seems to have different proportion than Core X and last years CPUs though - its thicker? Any idea why? If i did not know better, i would almost think, there is cooler inside, based on that pic.
Ryzen CPU boxes are thicker... Intel is forced to compete with AMD. :p
 
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Zucker2k

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Feb 15, 2006
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That's slightly ironic that I'm even debating this point. I used to advocate running an overclocked Skylake Celeron/Pentium (above 4.0Ghz), or even a G3258 Haswell at 4.0Ghz+, for running Firefox, since it isn't heavily threaded.

But this forum collectively told me that "I was doing it wrong", and "browsing is FASTER with MORE CORES", and "Use Chrome, it's multi-threaded" (blech, spyware).

And I would call AMD's Ryzen 5 1600X a "mainstream" CPU, it clocks relatively high (turbo to 4.0Ghz), has decent (Broadwell-esque) IPC, and has 6C/12T, something that Intel is only JUST NOW (soon) coming out with in their mainstream lineup.

And it's great for gaming. Within 5% of a 7700K, with better minimums.
I see what you did there. You backed yourself into a corner. Name AMD's mainstream lineup, and you could only come up with one? But I see your dilemma. The entire Ryzen lineup suffers the same fate when it comes to lightly threaded tasks and gaming so the R5 1600X with its 4ghz turbo clock, and lower price compared to the 8 core variants, has to be your best example. And what happens to that chip in lightly threaded tasks and gaming compared to the 7600k and 7700k?
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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Name AMD's mainstream lineup, and you could only come up with one? But I see your dilemma. The entire Ryzen lineup suffers the same fate when it comes to lightly threaded tasks and gaming so the R5 1600X with its 4ghz turbo clock, and lower price compared to the 8 core variants, has to be your best example. And what happens to that chip in lightly threaded tasks and gaming compared to the 7600k and 7700k?
Well, it blows away the 7600K, IMHO. Just because a task is "lightly threaded", doesn't mean that the user isn't running a dozen of them at once, A/V in background, music, web browsing, Skype, etc.

I just know that AMD gives you: 1) more cores for the money, and 2) because those cores have an IPC between Broadwell and Skylake, they don't suck like BullDozer / PileDriver, and actually give you MORE MT performance than Intel, for the same $$$ amount. (Granted, this is because AMD wants to claw back marketshare, and underprices their CPUs slightly. Once AMD commands a decent share of the market, and you know that they will, they may raise prices slightly, with Zen+ / Zen2 CPUs.)
 

Sweepr

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May 12, 2006
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From the livestream: Following KBL-R they will launch the desktop products, then enterprise and notebook enthusiast products.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
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From the livestream: Following KBL-R they will launch the desktop products, then enterprise and notebook enthusiast products.
Are they giving any real details? When will we see the specs (although that is mostly known already), reviews, prices, and availability?