XBitlabs: Intel Cans Rockwell Processors for Desktops - Spy-Shot From Intel’s Roadmap

[ShintaiDK]

I think people confuse laptops with PGA and desktops with LGA in terms of BGA migration.

The Skylake roadmap shows Broadwell as LGA1150 on the desktop as well.

Hell, even Skylake desktop is LGA on the roadmap!

So do we really need to still discuss those silly rumours?

 

[NTMBK]

I think people confuse laptops with PGA and desktops with LGA in terms of BGA migration.

The Skylake roadmap shows Broadwell as LGA1150 on the desktop as well.

Hell, even Skylake desktop is LGA on the roadmap!

So do we really need to still discuss those silly rumours?

Yeah, Skylake in LGA also matches the rumours- even the very original Semiaccurate rumour said that Skylake was LGA.

And where does it say on that Skylake roadmap does it say that Broadwell is LGA? It says that there is an LGA, 22nm, "Haswell Refresh Platform".

 

[IntelUser2000]

So why does the top of the slide say "[De]sktop Platform Roadmap"?

It's confusing because we can't see what it says all the way at the right side. Right-Bottom of Shark Bay also says Haswell with LGA1150. Shark Bay is probably there because its meant for desktop AIO systems(or even specialized ones like NUC).

EDIT: Also, this:

That centre one says "mobile or desktop".

Desktop as in "Desktop AIO" or "Desktop NUC".

 

[Lonbjerg]

So Intel will only focus on High-End desktops from now on ?? is that what you saying ??

Intel got AMD beaten in the areas were Intel cares:

-x86 servers
-x86 desktops
-x86 laptops

Job done.
So I would wager Intel cares more about spoiling ARM's party...than AMD.

And I'll bet they do what they did with SSD's.
Enter the market, take the crown...and then let other canabalize the low margins areas, while they focus on high protis areas...just like Intel.

but funny how you made a fallacy in defense of AMD...due to me posting facts...must be bugging you that AMD is on a downwards slope?

 

[ShintaiDK]

And where does it say on that Skylake roadmap does it say that Broadwell is LGA? It says that there is an LGA, 22nm, "Haswell Refresh Platform".

LGA1150 covers the green area as well. Aka Broadwell.

Face it, the techsites did a collective poop due to silly rumours from the usual sensationalism crowd.

 

[IntelUser2000]

NTMBK, you are right. Intel merged the names from being seperate until the Ivy Bridge generation to combined in Haswell. That probably signifies that the platforms are closer than ever before. I assume the focus is towards mobile.

The two different platforms are called now Shark Bay 2-chip and Shark Bay 1-chip.

Yes, so its not unbelievable now that Broadwell isn't coming to desktops, but this isn't anything unusual in the long-term plans. They did that last time with Lynnfield and Bloomfield when they didn't get 32nm quad core successor to Lynnfield.

Originally Posted by AtenRa So Intel will only focus on High-End desktops from now on ?? is that what you saying ??

No, that means in the short-term the focus will be anywhere but the high-mainstream desktop(the LGA115x market).

 

[mrmt]

My real confusion here is with xbitlabs. They turn out quality work, often, but then they have these one-off "articles" like the one here in the OP where you just can't help but scratch your head and wonder what planet the author has been living on these past 2 years

Quality? What about those articles where they distorted the financial statements of Intel and AMD? And the series of article about Rory Read speech in a conference in a bank, where they painted a rosier picture than Rory Read himself?

If there was quality there, it dies some time ago. What we have now is a click grabber, and that's it.

 

[NTMBK]

LGA1150 covers the green area as well. Aka Broadwell.

Face it, the techsites did a collective poop due to silly rumours from the usual sensationalism crowd.

Yes, the green bit is all LGA1150, but it is all Haswell. The significant bit is the processes listed at the top. 14nm is very clearly only coming in at the time that Skylake comes in, and not a moment sooner. It doesn't come in with the green LGA1150 bit.

It makes sense, in all honesty. The shrink to 22nm didn't give desktop users much to shout about- Ivy Bridge was a let down for most desktop power users. Minor performance improvements, but not worth an upgrade. It was most valuable in mobile, where there is now a tangible improvement in battery life (something users really care about) and the performance you can fit into a given thermal envelope.

Making the 14nm shrink mobile only also means that there is extra 14nm fab capacity to use. This chimes perfectly with the accelerated Atom roadmap. At 22nm Intel did desktop first and delayed their Atom- but at 14nm they are going Atom first, and only doing a 14nm desktop at the refresh. Putting the lower power process into mobile and tablets first seems like a very clever move to me.

 

[Idontcare]

Quality? What about those articles where they distorted the financial statements of Intel and AMD? And the series of article about Rory Read speech in a conference in a bank, where they painted a rosier picture than Rory Read himself?

If there was quality there, it dies some time ago. What we have now is a click grabber, and that's it.

Their financial articles are lacking, no question.

The quality stuff I am thinking of are reviews like this one: 120mm Fan Roundup: 1350 RPM or Lower Rotation Speed

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yes, the green bit is all LGA1150, but it is all Haswell. The significant bit is the processes listed at the top. 14nm is very clearly only coming in at the time that Skylake comes in, and not a moment sooner. It doesn't come in with the green LGA1150 bit.

It makes sense, in all honesty. The shrink to 22nm didn't give desktop users much to shout about- Ivy Bridge was a let down for most desktop power users. Minor performance improvements, but not worth an upgrade. It was most valuable in mobile, where there is now a tangible improvement in battery life (something users really care about) and the performance you can fit into a given thermal envelope.

Making the 14nm shrink mobile only also means that there is extra 14nm fab capacity to use. This chimes perfectly with the accelerated Atom roadmap. At 22nm Intel did desktop first and delayed their Atom- but at 14nm they are going Atom first, and only doing a 14nm desktop at the refresh. Putting the lower power process into mobile and tablets first seems like a very clever move to me.

The dark green bit is not Haswell, its Broadwell unlike the light green part.

Its the "Haswell platform". You know Intel never renames the overall platform.

 

[NTMBK]

The green bit is not Haswell. Its the "Haswell platform". You know Intel never renames the overall platform.

And the green part is 14nm.

The green part appears on the roadmap during the 22nm section, and the 14m section appears at exactly the same time as SkyLake...

 

[ShintaiDK]

The green part appears on the roadmap during the 22nm section, and the 14m section appears at exactly the same time as SkyLake...

And the dark green also covers 14nm.

And how many mobile products do you know that ships with Z series? The correct answer is none.

 

[NTMBK]

And the dark green also covers 14nm.

Haswell-E also runs over the 14nm segment, and I think we can definitely agree that that isn't 14nm! The period they run for is the amount of time they will be available for, so I take that as meaning that low end Haswells will still be sold at the same time as high end Skylakes. (Which makes sense- Intel introduces their Pentiums and Celerons much later than their Core iXs.) Of course, without the left hand side of the slide its a pain to interpret, so I may be misreading it. I really wish they had photo'd the entire thing, there's some info about 14nm Atom which is also cropped off

And how many mobile products do you know that ships with Z series? The correct answer is none.

I'm afraid you'll have to explain that one to me, I'm a bit lost.

 

[NTMBK]

Ah wait, I get it now. Haswell is launching with Z87, but then there is Z97 which is a newer LGA1150 platform. Surely this is the Haswell Refresh Platform, then? The newer chipsets which are compatible with existing Haswell chips, but bring a few new features like SATA Express etc. No need for the new chipset to also have Broadwell come out on LGA at the same time though.

 

[Pilum]

I'm afraid you'll have to explain that one to me, I'm a bit lost.

The 9-series of chipsets was announced for 2014 (6=SNB, 7=IVB, 8=HSW, 9=BRW). It includes the Z97 chipset for "High-end Enthusiasts". Does that make sense if there'll be no CPUs to accompany the new chipset?

Edit: I was too late. And a chipset-only update is a possibility, but has Intel done that before?

 

[beginner99]

At first thought bga-only sounds bad but in reality especially considering the progress (or lack thereof) in CPU performance, a platform will be outdated anyway before you need a new CPU.
I still have a lynnfield and if I upgrade it will be a new display and new GPU.

 

[mikk]

Haswell refresh means new chipsets (maybe DDR4 support) for desktop. There is no Broadwell planned for desktop. No surprise really. And btw not the first time Shilov failed.

Intel Atom "ValleyView" (VLV) processor will have two current-generation Atom cores

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...em_on_Chip_with_Ivy_Bridge_Graphics_Core.html

At this time I contacted him and told him Valleyview will get Silvermont cores on a new OoO architecture. He refused to believe it.

 

[NTMBK]

Haswell refresh means new chipsets (maybe DDR4 support) for desktop.

Actually the memory controller is integrated into the CPU, so they couldn't add DDR4 with just a chipset upgrade like they used to do.

 

[mikk]

Actually the memory controller is integrated into the CPU, so they couldn't add DDR4 with just a chipset upgrade like they used to do.

Sure but new boards are needed nevertheless and I think it's a good plan to combine such a bigger change in infrastructure with new chipsets for marketing reasons.

 

[Idontcare]

At first thought bga-only sounds bad but in reality especially considering the progress (or lack thereof) in CPU performance, a platform will be outdated anyway before you need a new CPU.
I still have a lynnfield and if I upgrade it will be a new display and new GPU.

I'd venture a guess to say that for 98% of the desktop space, BGA-only is simply not an issue.

The absolute number of people who actually replace their processor without replacing their mobo is going to be a rather small number I suspect.

The bigger (IMO) issue is going to be the mobo makers, as their job of selling enthusiasts on high-end $300+ mobo's which can't have the processor removed/swapped is going to be a real buzz-kill and will cast a pall over that entire lucrative market segment.

I own both a $350 Asus ROG MIVE-Z and a $230 Asus ROG CVFZ, but if that MIVE-Z came with a soldered-on CPU which couldn't be swapped out with another "play cpu" then I would simply not have bought it.

They may as well solder-on the ram while they are at it, or solder the SSD straight to the mobo for all it matters at that point. (which IS how the whole smartphone/tablet/pad industry works, so that may just be the future of desktops too)

But those $60 mobos or $100 mobos that get bought in volumes, a soldered-on CPU isn't really going to put a damper on that market segment.

 

[Phynaz]

Well if this roadmap is legit, Kaveri will not have any competition in its price market for the entire 2014.

Keep dreaming.

 

[tynopik]

I'd venture a guess to say that for 98% of the desktop space, BGA-only is simply not an issue.

The absolute number of people who actually replace their processor without replacing their mobo is going to be a rather small number I suspect.

I don't think the issue is replacing cpus so much as freely mixing and matching motherboards and cpus.

Now will your favorite motherboard come in 20 different varieties for every flavor of cpu? I don't think so . . .

And this doesn't just impact hobbyists, it also impacts local PC shops that still build systems.

 

[A5]

I don't think the issue is replacing cpus so much as freely mixing and matching motherboards and cpus.

Now will your favorite motherboard come in 20 different varieties for every flavor of cpu? I don't think so . . .

And this doesn't just impact hobbyists, it also impacts local PC shops that still build systems.

The mobo makers would just sell the K-series CPUs with their high-end "enthusiast" stuff and then sell the cheap commodity boards with stuff like an i5-3220 or an i3.

They get to force the enthusiasts into their high-margin "premium" boards, like how Intel nudged enthusiasts to higher-margin i5 and i7 chips with the K-series.

 

[A5]

The 9-series of chipsets was announced for 2014 (6=SNB, 7=IVB, 8=HSW, 9=BRW). It includes the Z97 chipset for "High-end Enthusiasts". Does that make sense if there'll be no CPUs to accompany the new chipset?

Edit: I was too late. And a chipset-only update is a possibility, but has Intel done that before?

Various flavors of the Pentium 4 had several different versions of the 800 and 900 series chipsets. There were like 5 different south bridges, too. I don't know how those launches lined up with the various P4 refreshes, though.

Core 2 ran on 3 different chipset families - 965, 30-series, 40-series, but I don't have the time to look up how that corresponds to CPU launches. I think the P45 was a standalone launch.

 

[AtenRa]

Keep dreaming.

Dreaming or not, without a 14nm APU from Intel at sub $150.00, there is no competition for Kaveri APUs in desktops.