Question Raptor Lake - Official Thread

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Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Since we already have the first Raptor Lake leak I'm thinking it should have it's own thread.
What do we know so far?
From Anandtech's Intel Process Roadmap articles from July:

Built on Intel 7 with upgraded FinFET
10-15% PPW (performance-per-watt)
Last non-tiled consumer CPU as Meteor Lake will be tiled

I'm guessing this will be a minor update to ADL with just a few microarchitecture changes to the cores. The larger change will be the new process refinement allowing 8+16 at the top of the stack.

Will it work with current z690 motherboards? If yes then that could be a major selling point for people to move to ADL rather than wait.
 
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biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
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Yes p-cores are very big for both intel and amd, and amd has to pay for 16 of the big ones for one CPU while intel only has to use 8 of them and fills up the rest with much smaller and thus much cheaper cores.

If you are not running a server but instead run a big amount of multitasking you will have a lot of things running that only need small amounts of compute and a lot of things that need a lot of compute, so it's also more efficient to run one category on the e-cores and the other one on the p-cores, it will take some time for the thread director to be improved enough for this to work well enough but it will be worth it in the end.

At some time we only had single core CPUs and we had to deal with windows issues for a long time until it could handle dual cores well enough, this is the same thing.

But at the same time they use TSMC 5nm and "Intel 7" so size differ also because of fabrication process, and when AMD starts using "c" cores they should help in that regard. It would be interesting to know the difference in costs and margins between AMD and Intel. While I don't know how important it is, then the whole AVX512 debacle is something at least some users will also need to take into consideration.
 

TheELF

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Dec 22, 2012
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But at the same time they use TSMC 5nm and "Intel 7" so size differ also because of fabrication process, and when AMD starts using "c" cores they should help in that regard. It would be interesting to know the difference in costs and margins between AMD and Intel. While I don't know how important it is, then the whole AVX512 debacle is something at least some users will also need to take into consideration.
Yes we have no idea how much more amd is paying for the cores, tsmcs 5nm is supposedly more advanced so probably more expensive and tsmc has also like an 50% margin on products and amd has to use twice as many full cores.

We know by the amount of lower end tier CPUs AMD releases (zero) that they do not get enough chiplets for everything they want to make.
 

Hulk

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The thing is.... From now on You must always have a Flagship CPU because otherwise it would feel like a downgrade if you go mainstream mid-tier CPU even if its of a next gen. That's like going from the 5950X to the 7700X

Honestly I'm at the age where I can splurge a bit on hobbies. The CPU upgrade was completely unnecessary. But I wanted it. It's kind of crazy as I was the guy that kept the 4770K for 7 years. Also I want to sell the 12700K ASAP because Raptor has made Alder "Captain Dunsel."
 

Carfax83

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Nov 1, 2010
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Low 90's during the 250W tau, low 80's at 200W.
I might tune it down a bit and see how much performance I lose.

What are you using for the cooling? I'm trying to decide whether to go air cooling or to get an AiO. I personally prefer air cooling to water cooling as I don't trust the latter, but Raptor Lake obviously runs ridiculously hot when left to it's own accord.
 

Kocicak

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Jan 17, 2019
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Even a small air cooler as Freezer 34 esports duo can cool these CPUs with 190W power draw limit easily, it already has some safety margin in it. 220W will probadly be too much for it.
 

Carfax83

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Nov 1, 2010
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Even a small air cooler as Freezer 34 esports duo can cool these CPUs with 190W power draw limit easily, it already has some safety margin in it. 220W will probadly be too much for it.

If I do the air cooling route, I will use a Noctua NH-U12A, which is the best one they have at the moment.

I'm curious to see what clock speeds a 13900K will be able to achieve with such a cooler and power limited and undervolted.

If I can get 5.2ghz all core with stability then I would be happy. I would also use a Fractal Design Torrent case, which is supposed to be the best for air cooling.
 

Doug S

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Feb 8, 2020
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Yes we have no idea how much more amd is paying for the cores, tsmcs 5nm is supposedly more advanced so probably more expensive and tsmc has also like an 50% margin on products and amd has to use twice as many full cores.

We know by the amount of lower end tier CPUs AMD releases (zero) that they do not get enough chiplets for everything they want to make.


Back in 2020 a table of reported TSMC wafer prices was published, it may differ from customer to customer and change over time, but the magnitude of the difference between them probably remains similar. N7 was $9346 and N5 was $16998.
 

Hulk

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What are you using for the cooling? I'm trying to decide whether to go air cooling or to get an AiO. I personally prefer air cooling to water cooling as I don't trust the latter, but Raptor Lake obviously runs ridiculously hot when left to it's own accord.

Noctua NH-U12A
I have a mATX case so I'm kind of limited. The 13900K is pushing my cooler no doubt. It's pretty good for about 200W long term. I can push 250W for short periods. Also I think I need to dial up my case fan a bit, I have it set for my old 12700K and I did notice lower temps with the case open.
I feel the same as you about AiO's but I'm thinking by now the tech is pretty proven from a reliability point of view.
 
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Hulk

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If I do the air cooling route, I will use a Noctua NH-U12A, which is the best one they have at the moment.

I'm curious to see what clock speeds a 13900K will be able to achieve with such a cooler and power limited and undervolted.

If I can get 5.2ghz all core with stability then I would be happy. I would also use a Fractal Design Torrent case, which is supposed to be the best for air cooling.
Just noticed this post! I think with that case, good paste and application, you can hold 5.2 all core. Capping at 200W I'm at 5GHz all core, 3.7 for the E's.

I have the P's set like this in the BIOS.
5.8 One core
5.6
5.5
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5.0 8 cores
 

Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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Yes p-cores are very big for both intel and amd, and amd has to pay for 16 of the big ones for one CPU while intel only has to use 8 of them and fills up the rest with much smaller and thus much cheaper cores.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Intel's P cores are not very area efficient, even when compared with AMD's cores. Of course now that AMD has added AVX-512 support they're starting to balloon a bit as well.

Intel can fit about 4 of their E cores into the space that a single P core would occupy. Making a monolithic chip that would be competitive on core count isn't feasible for Intel, hence the inclusion of E cores which mean they can make a competitive chip without it taking up significantly more die area. AMD uses chiplets so the economics are completely different for them.

Intel has managed to build a reasonably balanced chip that can pull off the best of both worlds to deliver top notch single or lightly threaded performance with the P cores, but include enough E cores that ensure they don't fall behind in multithreaded workload either. The main problem for them is that it's still a monolithic die. The ~$300 i5 uses just as much silicon as the ~$600 i9 and they'll have more junk dies if they're defective in some way that they can't meet the minimum specifications. They're being far more price competitive though and an i5 for $300 will get you more than an R5 does if you're not looking for a particular niche.
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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Is it not better to set the power limit with a power limit, rather than limiting frequency for different core counts? You are taming the CPU too much and loosing performance.
Power limit and even lowering the max temperature setting, there should be an option that allows you to adjust it via an offset. I have mine set to 90C instead of 100C. You then set the maximum cooling noise you're comfortable with @ max temp, and you're done, the CPU will run as fast as possible within the power and the temperature limit.
 
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Hulk

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Power limit and even lowering the max temperature setting, there should be an option that allows you to adjust it via an offset. I have mine set to 90C instead of 100C. You then set the maximum cooling noise you're comfortable with @ max temp, and you're done, the CPU will run as fast as possible within the power and the temperature limit.

Possibly. But here is my thinking. Within a power budget if I cap the P's at 5GHz all core then perhaps the E's run at 3.8. But if I let the P's go to 5.2 that might reduce the E's to 2.5. It would require testing but my thought was to try and keep the E's and P's in the more efficient part of their v/f curves.
 

Exist50

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Possibly. But here is my thinking. Within a power budget if I cap the P's at 5GHz all core then perhaps the E's run at 3.8. But if I let the P's go to 5.2 that might reduce the E's to 2.5. It would require testing but my thought was to try and keep the E's and P's in the more efficient part of their v/f curves.
Since they all share the same voltage, you'll need to be careful. I'm not sure if there's a way to limit the max voltage it's allowed to boost to, but that kind of constraint might be worth testing.
 

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
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Possibly. But here is my thinking. Within a power budget if I cap the P's at 5GHz all core then perhaps the E's run at 3.8. But if I let the P's go to 5.2 that might reduce the E's to 2.5. It would require testing but my thought was to try and keep the E's and P's in the more efficient part of their v/f curves.
So in other words you're arguing that Intel engineers don't know how to balance their clock/power curve :p

Joke aside, on Alder Lake they tend to aim for the frequency combo that takes maximum advantage of the shared voltage (P core, E core, ring bus). The only time I've seen the power management go haywire was when I limited power bellow 35W: at that point something snapped in the internal logic, and IIRC I had to manually limit P core fmax to "help" power managemtn make the correct choices again.
 

controlflow

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Feb 17, 2015
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Club386 finally did a review comparing 13900k vs 7950x in gaming using a proper RTX 4090. FYI Both systems used DDR5-6000 CL30 here.


The results at FHD resolution make things quite clear. When we are actually CPU bound in a game, the 13900k puts some pretty solid distance from the 7950x.
1666640055261.png
1666640066919.png

You can look through the review, things are a bit closer in some games and a bit further apart in others but the 13900K is a beast at gaming. AMD will certainly be needing the 3D cache models of Zen 4 to compete here. I suspect a Zen 4 3D vs 13900K (or future KS) with DDR5 7000+ will be pretty closely matched in gaming.
 
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Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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So in other words you're arguing that Intel engineers don't know how to balance their clock/power curve :p

Joke aside, on Alder Lake they tend to aim for the frequency combo that takes maximum advantage of the shared voltage (P core, E core, ring bus). The only time I've seen the power management go haywire was when I limited power bellow 35W: at that point something snapped in the internal logic, and IIRC I had to manually limit P core fmax to "help" power managemtn make the correct choices again.

That is a very good point so it might be best to just set the power limit and leave it alone.
 

nicalandia

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Jan 10, 2019
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Club386 finally did a review comparing 13900k vs 7950x in gaming using a proper RTX 4090. FYI Both systems used DDR5-6000 CL30 here.

You an look through the review, things are a bit closer in some games and a bit further apart in others but the 13900K is a beast at gaming. AMD will certainly be needing the 3D cache models of Zen 4 to compete here. I suspect a Zen 4 3D vs 13900K (or future KS) with DDR5 7000+ will be pretty closely matched in gaming.

Either a 7700X or a well tuned 7950X(single CCD) should be able to exceed the 7950X stock performance.
 
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