- Oct 9, 1999
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When Intel had a comfortable lead over AMD both in terms of architecture and process their product stack was pretty well organized. Sandy Bridge die shrink to Ivy Bridge, new architecture to Haswell, then Broadwell, etc... The tick/tock. But when their process stalled at 14nm things got very convoluted and confusing. Skylake core for 5 years and various process optimizations. Fail at 10nm, back to 14nm, ... All the while AMD was slowly but inexorably catching up...
I believe all of this craziness in naming schemes, processes, and architectures for specific markets such at Coffee Lake 1 and Coffee Lake 2, Kaby, Kaby R, etc... is a result of let's not say mad scrambling to get out competitive products in niches, but "highly panicked scrambling." When you are in the lead you can release parts when you want in a nice, orderly fashion. When you are behind you have to get something out the door to compete. It's kind of like how they say a boxer has a plan until the first time they get punched in the face.
And it looks like that is what's going on today. That's what I'm reading into this minor informational release on Rocket Lake.
You would think that Rocket Lake's core (Cyprus Lake) would be a derivative of their current "best" core, which seems to be Willow Cove. But it appears as though Cyprus Cove is a derivative (says Intel) of Sunny Cove with the addition of the new AVX 512 instructions, which are already present in Willow Cove? Does Cyprus Cove include the larger L1/L2 of Willow Cove?
I'm wondering.... Zen 3 is coming and Intel knows this. Based on what we know so far it looks as though Zen 3 will have an advantage over Sunny/Willow/Cyprus Cove when it comes to IPC in most areas. BUT, perhaps Intel is thinking they may be able to make up that difference in IPC with high clocks, which they can't do on their 10nm process. So they are taking the "Cove" architecture, stripping out anything that may restrict clock speed and creating Cyprus Cove at 14nm in hopes of possibly beating AMD in a few single threaded benches/apps on a core that is nearly as good IPC-wise as Zen 3 but can clock 10 or 15% higher. Hence we are hearing about this Cyprus Cove core, which seems to be a strange child of Sunny Cove and Willow Cove and manufactured on a very mature 14nm process... Viola! Rocket Lake S. And they may be able to carve out a couple more small market niches from Zen 3.
I am really enjoying the CPU Wars these days.
I believe all of this craziness in naming schemes, processes, and architectures for specific markets such at Coffee Lake 1 and Coffee Lake 2, Kaby, Kaby R, etc... is a result of let's not say mad scrambling to get out competitive products in niches, but "highly panicked scrambling." When you are in the lead you can release parts when you want in a nice, orderly fashion. When you are behind you have to get something out the door to compete. It's kind of like how they say a boxer has a plan until the first time they get punched in the face.
And it looks like that is what's going on today. That's what I'm reading into this minor informational release on Rocket Lake.
You would think that Rocket Lake's core (Cyprus Lake) would be a derivative of their current "best" core, which seems to be Willow Cove. But it appears as though Cyprus Cove is a derivative (says Intel) of Sunny Cove with the addition of the new AVX 512 instructions, which are already present in Willow Cove? Does Cyprus Cove include the larger L1/L2 of Willow Cove?
I'm wondering.... Zen 3 is coming and Intel knows this. Based on what we know so far it looks as though Zen 3 will have an advantage over Sunny/Willow/Cyprus Cove when it comes to IPC in most areas. BUT, perhaps Intel is thinking they may be able to make up that difference in IPC with high clocks, which they can't do on their 10nm process. So they are taking the "Cove" architecture, stripping out anything that may restrict clock speed and creating Cyprus Cove at 14nm in hopes of possibly beating AMD in a few single threaded benches/apps on a core that is nearly as good IPC-wise as Zen 3 but can clock 10 or 15% higher. Hence we are hearing about this Cyprus Cove core, which seems to be a strange child of Sunny Cove and Willow Cove and manufactured on a very mature 14nm process... Viola! Rocket Lake S. And they may be able to carve out a couple more small market niches from Zen 3.
I am really enjoying the CPU Wars these days.