Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

[DrMrLordX]

I suppose it all depends on how fast the Gracemont cores in Alder Lake actually are.

Supposedly, same IPC as Skylake, or close to it. Though being Atom, I would expect clocks to be around 3 GHz tops. So temper your expectations.

 

[lobz]

Ideally, the 40% gain would translate into 40% gain in MT and 25% gain in ST, but based on leaks it could be that Tigerlake offers Icelake CPU core performance at half the power, or 25% performance increase in general with same power.



It's 19% in ST Integer, then there's the whole user-submitted part.



1) Fair point.
2) Some not all. We'll never get Core-iso or Process-iso comparisons. For all I know 10nm SF is better than 14nm in most curves.

I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that TGL has 19% higher ST integer IPC than ICL?

 

[lobz]

From where did you get 1 year? It could come early 2021....or never.

What could come early 2021? I mean, Rocket Lake comes early 2021 and there's no DDR5 there for sure.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that TGL has 19% higher ST integer IPC than ICL?

I have no idea how you got that from my post. The overall score shows 17% but in Integer its 19%. You said its 3% decline but when you take into account Integer it doesn't show any decline. Yes WC should be actually faster but there's the user submitted part.

What could come early 2021? I mean, Rocket Lake comes early 2021 and there's no DDR5 there for sure.

Actually designs happen throughout the year. Even now, Icelake laptops are coming out.

I suppose it all depends on how fast the Gracemont cores in Alder Lake actually are.

Gracemont should be 5-10% faster than Skylake if it improves 30% like Tremont did. That's how old Skylake is, and how long ago it should have retired.

 

[jpiniero]

What could come early 2021? I mean, Rocket Lake comes early 2021 and there's no DDR5 there for sure.

That would be Tiger and LPDDR5.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Fanless designs coming to higher TDP parts:

Huawei MateBook X 2020 will feature a novel fanless design, come with an Intel CPU/Nvidia GPU combo, and could be priced under 10,000 yuan (US$1,438)

More details about the upcoming Huawei MateBook X 2020 laptop have started being shared online. It’s believed the device sports a novel cooling solution that doesn’t rely on fans. It is also rumored that the MateBook X 2020 could sport Intel CPUs and an Nvidia GPU, come in four different colors...

www.notebookcheck.net

This is actually the design Intel said future laptops will have.

As for the components, it has been reported that the Huawei MateBook X 2020 will offer users a choice between Intel Core i5 and i7 processors from the 10th Gen Comet Lake family. For graphics processing, an Nvidia GeForce MX250 GPU has also been mentioned.

Huawei has seemingly chosen to opt for a novel fanless design for the MateBook X 2020,

n the Huawei MateBook X 2020 laptop, the heat pipes are apparently connected to the screen hinges, thus utilizing the latter as a form of radiator for the excess heat.

That's pretty amazing, if it allows a low power U CPU and a low end dGPU to work without a fan. Intel said it will actually use most of the screen for dissipating heat, not just the screen hinges. The novel design is likely why it uses the older Comet Lake part though. Perhaps a next gen with Tigerlake or even Alderlake would be amazing.

Improved thermal design is how we went from a 4.5W fanless to a 9W fanless, and this.

 

[lobz]

That would be Tiger and LPDDR5.

Yes but that is NOT DDR5, which was implied here. That's why I don't really understand, because Tiger Lake is coming in a few weeks, not early 2021.

 

[ScopedAndDropped]

Fanless designs coming to higher TDP parts:

Huawei MateBook X 2020 will feature a novel fanless design, come with an Intel CPU/Nvidia GPU combo, and could be priced under 10,000 yuan (US$1,438)

More details about the upcoming Huawei MateBook X 2020 laptop have started being shared online. It’s believed the device sports a novel cooling solution that doesn’t rely on fans. It is also rumored that the MateBook X 2020 could sport Intel CPUs and an Nvidia GPU, come in four different colors...

www.notebookcheck.net

This is actually the design Intel said future laptops will have.






That's pretty amazing, if it allows a low power U CPU and a low end dGPU to work without a fan. Intel said it will actually use most of the screen for dissipating heat, not just the screen hinges. The novel design is likely why it uses the older Comet Lake part though. Perhaps a next gen with Tigerlake or even Alderlake would be amazing.

Improved thermal design is how we went from a 4.5W fanless to a 9W fanless, and this.

Tigerlake is launching in 2 weeks. Why bother with a CML+MX250 when they could've just gone for a TGL only model. It's not going to be that much slower graphically and should be faster on the cpu.

Edit: It's not even a cheap laptop. Surely the space saving going with 1 die only would've been worth it.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Tigerlake is launching in 2 weeks. Why bother with a CML+MX250 when they could've just gone for a TGL only model. It's not going to be that much slower graphically and should be faster on the cpu.

They have to because a big part is being changed. So which is why I said the next version can have Tigerlake or even Alderlake.

The HP Dragonfly convertible was in the same situation. It originally came with Whiskeylake 8th Gen, and later it introduced with Cometlake 10th Gen.

With Tigerlake, they'd have to take a risk on not just the platform change(CPU, power management, PCB) but deal with the new cooling setup as well. The Tigerlake version can be even better as since Icelake it uses FiVR and allows noticeable board and thickness reductions, allowing for more compact form factors or have more space for larger battery.

Say any one of us suddenly decided to make a laptop. Logically you'd go for a cheaper and easier to make platform such as Geminilake. In fact most small vendors start that way. The reduced power/pin count/component count requirements significantly ease development. Then when you get that going, you can go for newer ones, even newest/high end ones such as Icelake/Cometlake.

 

[mikk]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1295362916456136705

Assuming Tigerlake is 145 mm² overall it looks to me Xe LP GT2 is roughly 45 mm² in size (including the uncore, media engine etc)

 

[jpiniero]

So it looks like the Ice Lake HCC die has 28 cores... based upon the die shot I would have to say the full XCC would then be 40.

 

[LightningZ71]

Maybe, or maybe 38, with an additional PCIe block and an additional DDR block. Though, if we are still suspecting that Intel 10nm is still having issues with yield pressure, I wonder what their wafer yield efficiency would be on a die that large?

 

[PaulIntellini]

Or mabye 42 (adding 2*7)

 

[IntelUser2000]

28 cores is supposedly this year while the 38C XCC will be next year. Sapphire Rapids has to be a huge gain just to catch up.

165mm2 for a 6C Tigerlake. That's actually not too bad.

The Xe graphics in Tigerlake is 46.8mm2, compared to 39.5mm2 for Icelake. This is despite the fact that they added 50% more execution units and has additional features both in the EUs and media units. It even adds more FiVR which takes up ~1mm2 of space. Not only the EUs are much smaller, so are the non-EU section.

 

[inf64]

Is Sapphire Rapids confirmed to be GoldenCove? If it is WC they have no chance of catching up to Milan, let alone Genoa.

 

[jpiniero]

Or mabye 42 (adding 2*7)

It's 6 tile wide. What I was thinking is that XCC would add two rows of cores underneath the bottom row that has the memory controller on it.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Is Sapphire Rapids confirmed to be GoldenCove? If it is WC they have no chance of catching up to Milan, let alone Genoa.

The issue is that with 10nm, 64 Golden Cove cores may be too large considering 64 Willow Cove cores(with L3 cut down to 1.875MB) are going to be over 500mm2. If you add I/O and uncore, it'll easily be north of 700mm2.

If you believe MLiD, they want to have a 72 core Sapphire Rapids. 13% higher cores against better uarch(Zen 4) would at least keep SPR in the competitive ballpark. Unlike now which is potential Zen 3 64 cores versus 38 Icelake.

 

[lobz]

The issue is that with 10nm, 64 Golden Cove cores may be too large considering 64 Willow Cove cores(with L3 cut down to 1.875MB) are going to be over 500mm2. If you add I/O and uncore, it'll easily be north of 700mm2.

If you believe MLiD, they want to have a 72 core Sapphire Rapids. 13% higher cores against better uarch(Zen 4) would at least keep SPR in the competitive ballpark. Unlike now which is potential Zen 3 64 cores versus 38 Icelake.

Making matters worse, 64C Zen 3 will be out before anything more than 28C from Intel. This is slowly becoming ridiculous.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Making matters worse, 64C Zen 3 will be out before anything more than 28C from Intel. This is slowly becoming ridiculous.

Yea I think the consensus is that 28C ICL-SP will be out sometime end of this year with 38C version coming early next year. They'll be in a slightly better position with Icelake-SP but rest will have to be made up with pricing.

 

[trivik12]

Only question around ICX-SP servers are clockspeed. The mobile chips have very low clockspeeds. Would 10+ (not SF) provide much better clock speeds. Then the IPC improvement compared to CMT should help. Plus intel has Optane DIMMs which makes it a unique product. So they should be ok until SPR next year end.

 

[PaulIntellini]

It's 6 tile wide. What I was thinking is that XCC would add two rows of cores underneath the bottom row that has the memory controller on it.

but it's 7 tiles high. Not saying 42 (28+2*7) cores will be done, but it could be (check out that lonely core in the bottom tile, so a core could probably be added to the top tiles as well.

 

[mikk]

The Xe graphics in Tigerlake is 46.8mm2, compared to 39.5mm2 for Icelake.

Looks slightly smaller to me. I got 45 mm² yesterday and now I did a new calculation from this picture: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15993/202008180148441.jpg

...and I get 43 mm². ~30% of the chip area belongs to Gen12 LP GT2. Impressive improvement from Intel.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Looks slightly smaller to me. I got 45 mm² yesterday and now I did a new calculation from this picture: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15993/202008180148441.jpg

...and I get 43 mm². ~30% of the chip area belongs to Gen12 LP GT2. Impressive improvement from Intel.

There's a better picture on twitter without the orange outline. The outline messes up the calculation a bit. Not that 2mm2 matters.

 

[eek2121]

Making matters worse, 64C Zen 3 will be out before anything more than 28C from Intel. This is slowly becoming ridiculous.

Slowly? It was ridiculous when the first EPYC 64C part launched!

Only question around ICX-SP servers are clockspeed. The mobile chips have very low clockspeeds. Would 10+ (not SF) provide much better clock speeds. Then the IPC improvement compared to CMT should help. Plus intel has Optane DIMMs which makes it a unique product. So they should be ok until SPR next year end.

I imagine clock speeds will be a bit better than Rome.

 

[Markfw]

Slowly? It was ridiculous when the first EPYC 64C part launched!

I imagine clock speeds will be a bit better than Rome.

But by the time it comes out, it will be competing with Milan, which most likely will have higher clockspeeds.