Intel Broadwell Thread

[zir_blazer]

More than two weeks since launch and still no availability. Newegg doesn't have them, Amazon claims that they "ship between one or two months" and cost around 100 U$D more than the MSRP.
With such a paperlaunch, I can't have high hopes than Skylake gets anywhere.

And I'm dissapointed that I didn't hear of any other Motherboard with a 8-Series Chipset getting Broadwell support. I'm absolutely convinced they can all do it, but Intel is artificially limiting them. I'm interesed since it may be possible to BIOS modders to extract microcode from Broadwell supporting C226 or the H87 and try it in other Motherboards, which is something that was done in the past on some platforms with good results.

 

[nenforcer]

Yeah I hear you. I'm still waiting for retail availability on these chips and the most I can drum up is late June. It's suppose to be limited availability but since these are the last chips from Intel supporting DDR3 I expect there to be quite a bit of demand, even at the price they are charging. There will probably be quite a few upgraders who want to update their chip without upgrading both motherboard and memory.

I've also got a pair of MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming that I got a smoking discount on at Fry's electronics that I'm hoping can take a BIOS update to accept these chips. It's nearly pin compatible with the Z97-GD65 Gaming and it has a Dual BIOS so I think I can't attempt a flash and if it doesn't work switch to the other BIOS.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yeah I hear you. I'm still waiting for retail availability on these chips and the most I can drum up is late June. It's suppose to be limited availability but since these are the last chips from Intel supporting DDR3 I expect there to be quite a bit of demand, even at the price they are charging. There will probably be quite a few upgraders who want to update their chip without upgrading both motherboard and memory.

I've also got a pair of MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming that I got a smoking discount on at Fry's electronics that I'm hoping can take a BIOS update to accept these chips. It's nearly pin compatible with the Z97-GD65 Gaming and it has a Dual BIOS so I think I can't attempt a flash and if it doesn't work switch to the other BIOS.

There should be Skylake boards with regular DDR3 slots.

 

[crashtech]

Yeah, I was going to sell my current CPU just to play with this shiny new toy, but oh well.

 

[PPB]

More than two weeks since launch and still no availability. Newegg doesn't have them, Amazon claims that they "ship between one or two months" and cost around 100 U$D more than the MSRP.
With such a paperlaunch, I can't have high hopes than Skylake gets anywhere.

And I'm dissapointed that I didn't hear of any other Motherboard with a 8-Series Chipset getting Broadwell support. I'm absolutely convinced they can all do it, but Intel is artificially limiting them. I'm interesed since it may be possible to BIOS modders to extract microcode from Broadwell supporting C226 or the H87 and try it in other Motherboards, which is something that was done in the past on some platforms with good results.

Ask in biosmods, sure those guys know how to fiddle with BIOS and stuff.

And you are right, no broadwell in anything but 9x chipsets will probably be an artificial limitation, like no-OC was on anything but Z chipsets, or even RAM OC is to anything but Z chipsets (I'm investigating a B85 board because the bios allows you to up the RAM speed up to 3200mhz, if it is stable and functional it only shows that Intel chipsets are basically BS).

 

[DrMrLordX]

More than two weeks since launch and still no availability. Newegg doesn't have them, Amazon claims that they "ship between one or two months" and cost around 100 U$D more than the MSRP.
With such a paperlaunch, I can't have high hopes than Skylake gets anywhere.

Sad. What good is it for Intel to have the best iGPU on the market if it's not actually on the market?

There should be Skylake boards with regular DDR3 slots.

You sure? I thought all Skylake boards were going to require UniDIMM format for DDR4 and DDR3L.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Sad. What good is it for Intel to have the best iGPU on the market if it's not actually on the market?



You sure? I thought all Skylake boards were going to require UniDIMM format for DDR4 and DDR3L.

You can buy it in europe.

 

[crashtech]

I wonder what drives the lack of availability here in the US. OEMs getting first pick?

 

[Dave2150]

Same story in the UK - most of the most well known retailers haven't even bothered to list this part, the ones that have are still on the preorder stage.....

Fullsteam ahead to Skylake, Broadwell was a total fail for desktop PC's, since it's unavailable.

 

[mikk]

In Germany it is availabe in a couple of shops.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You sure? I thought all Skylake boards were going to require UniDIMM format for DDR4 and DDR3L.

What is UniDIMM, some sort of pin-compatible DDR3L and DDR4 DIMM format? Sounds like a bad idea. Does that mean that DDR4 DIMMs sold today, are going to be incompatible with Skylake?

 

[ehume]

UniDIMM.

UniDIMM (short for Universal DIMM) is a specification for dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), which are integrated circuits mounted on printed circuit boards (PCBs) and designed to carry dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). UniDIMM modules can be populated with either DDR3 or DDR4 chips, and the computer's memory controller must support both memory standards as UniDIMMs contain no additional memory control logic. The UniDIMM specification was created by Intel for its 2015 Skylake microarchitecture, whose integrated memory controller (IMC) is announced to support both DDR3 and DDR4 memory technologies.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yeh, wot e sed.

It looks to me like it will enable Intel to pack DIMMs with DDR3 or DDR4 without having to increase the size of the IMC to support both standards. UniDIMM may do to AMD what RDRAM never could.

 

[zir_blazer]

Yeh, wot e sed.

It looks to me like it will enable Intel to pack DIMMs with DDR3 or DDR4 without having to increase the size of the IMC to support both standards. UniDIMM may do to AMD what RDRAM never could.

False. Skylake IMC DOES support both DDR3 and DDR4. Even Haswell-E does, but it is a nearly unadvertised capability.

The idea of UniDIMM is to make a slot type where you can use modules with either DRAM under the same slot, and thus Motherboard. Previously, like what AMD did with Denebs, if you wanted to use DDR2 you needed a Motherboard with that slot type, and if you wanted to plug in DDR3, you needed a new Motherboard too. In this case, the same slots could use modules with either DRAM type, thus if you currently use a DDR3 UniDIMM, you could at a later time upgrade to a DDR4 UniDIMM simply by replacing the current modules. This is to ease DRAM inventory management without depending on replacing the rest of the platform.

 

[ShintaiDK]

All the shown 100 series boards havent had UniDIMM yet. And it seems the factor is packed away for now.

From 2017 we gonna start to see PCM instead of DDR as well. Tho begining in the server space.

 

[zir_blazer]

All the shown 100 series boards havent had UniDIMM yet. And it seems the factor is packed away for now.

Because UniDIMM is a replacement for SODIMM for mobile, not the typical Desktop. If you are going to see it somewhere, it would be on OEM Motherboards, not the end user ones that Desktop Motherboards manufacturers were showcasing.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Because UniDIMM is a replacement for SODIMM for mobile, not the typical Desktop. If you are going to see it somewhere, it would be on OEM Motherboards, not the end user ones that Desktop Motherboards manufacturers were showcasing.

Well even Skylake NUCs wont use UniDIMM. And only S models if I recall right even support both.

 

[PaulIntellini]

it seems Intel switched from 8T SRAM for L1 caches to 10T SRAM.


https://www.chipworks.com/TOC/Intel_Broadwell_SR217_Core_M-5Y10_SAR-1409-801_TOC.pdf

6 SRAM Cell Analysis
6.1 Overview
6.2 Plan - View L3 Cache (High Density) SRAM Analysis
6.3 Cross- Sectional L3 Cache (High Density) SRAM Analysis
6.4 Plan - View L2 Cache SRAM Analysis
6.5 Plan - View 10T SRAM Analysis
6.6 Plan - View Multiport SRAM Analysis

 

[ShintaiDK]

10T would reduce power consumption. So I am not really surprised with the increased transistor budget.

 

[PaulIntellini]

10T would reduce power consumption. So I am not really surprised with the increased transistor budget.

more transistors => more area => more leakage => more power consumption. (i know it's not that simple..)

there seem to be a lot of different "10T" SRAM concepts. so who knows..

lot's of different tradeoffs:
- VMIN
- performance
- leakage
- SER
- aging
- assist circuits
- multiple fins vs. multiple transistors

 

[ShintaiDK]

more transistors => more area => more leakage => more power consumption. (i know it's not that simple..)

there seem to be a lot of different "10T" SRAM concepts. so who knows..

lot's of different tradeoffs:
- VMIN
- performance
- leakage
- SER
- aging
- assist circuits
- multiple fins vs. multiple transistors

Look at last time, from 6T to 8T.

 

[PaulIntellini]

Also, the MIM capacitor now has a middle plate (22nm only had top and bottom)

Figure 7.4.1 MIM Capacitor Top Plate – TEM - EDS
Figure 7.4.2 MIM Capacitor Middle Plate – TEM - EDS
Figure 7.4.3 MIM Capacitor Bottom Plate – TEM - EDS

so twice the capacitance ?

 

[DrMrLordX]

False. Skylake IMC DOES support both DDR3 and DDR4. Even Haswell-E does, but it is a nearly unadvertised capability.

Hmm, alright then. The linked quote certainly made it seem like it would have permitted Intel to go with a smaller transistor budget on their IMC, but maybe I'm just misinterpreting that.

Because UniDIMM is a replacement for SODIMM for mobile, not the typical Desktop. If you are going to see it somewhere, it would be on OEM Motherboards, not the end user ones that Desktop Motherboards manufacturers were showcasing.

That's good news, actually, especially for anyone hoping for interoperability of current-market DDR4 and future LGA1151 boards. The fear generally was that Intel was shifting to UniDIMM everywhere, rendering older DIMMs obsolete.

While I see your point regarding the value of UniDIMM, it is somewhat-ironic to consider that it would have the effect of making all commercially-available DIMMs useless on any platform that supported it. Old DDR2/DDR3 hybrid boards had the advantage of being able to support either DDR2 or DDR3 as the user needed, at the added expense of supporting all those different slots on the same board. It gave the user the advantage of being able to keep their DDR2 if they already had it from a previous build (or DDR3 if for some reason they had some of that lying around instead, though that was usually not the case).

If Intel HAD switched to UniDIMM for all LGA1151 boards, then nobody would have been able to keep their DDR3 or DDR4 since it would all have been incompatible with UniDIMM slots.

I can see where it gives OEMs some additional options wrt system configuration.

 

[know of fence]

So regarding the 5775C, do you think we'll ever get (part 2) of the Broadwell review now that almost 3 weeks have passed since June 2. Perhaps AT will publish a (Part 1) refresh and go straight to Skylake?

 

[Abwx]

Also, the MIM capacitor now has a middle plate (22nm only had top and bottom)



so twice the capacitance ?

Half if the plates are the same sizes...