Eug
Lifer
- Mar 11, 2000
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That is a good point, but it sounds like Coffee Lake S-series chips that are 65 Watt TDP will likely be quad-core. The 6-core models will be 95 Watt parts most likely.My opinion, I consider Intel Kaby Lake dead; upcoming Coffee Lake increases core count throughout the line-up. I wouldn't consider scratching a Kaby Lake itch,
Except Core m, which will likely remain 2 cores, transitioning to 10 nm Cannon Lake at end of year (Intel target).
http://digiworthy.com/2017/06/07/intel-roadmap-8th-gen-coffee-lake-s/
On the Mac side, they usually have two i5 and one i7 27" iMac model. The two i5 machines are 65 Watts, and the i7 is 91/95 Watts. This time around I went with the slowest of the three. I suspect even if Apple were to release 6-core iMac with Coffee Lake, it wouldn't be until 2018 and we'd again have the entry level and mid-tier machines being 4-core, with the high end machine being a 6-core i7 for about 20% higher cost. (That's overall cost, not just CPU cost.)
I'm just guessing of course, but that's how I see it playing out, and given that scenario I don't feel like waiting another year, esp. since Kaby Lake ticks off the other checkboxes I was looking at, including hardware 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC and VP9 decode, as well as hardware 8-bit and 10-bit HEVC encode (and 8-bit VP9 encode). Also, for fiscal year related budget reasons, it makes more sense for me to buy it this year than next.
The other thing I wonder about is single-thread clockspeed. How highly will the 95 Watt 6-core parts be clocked when compared to the 65 Watt quad-core parts of the same general class?
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Note however, I say this as someone who is coming from a Penryn MacBook Pro and a Lynnfield iMac. Mind you, the last time around I did take your advice. I waited until the iMacs got quad-core options and then eventually bought one. The i5 model iMacs of that period were dual-core, so I splurged and got the quad-core Core i7. For my usage though, the jump from 2-core to 4-core was pretty significant. The jump from 4-core to 6-core will likely be less significant. It should also be noted that at that time the dual-core parts were much higher clocked than the quad-core parts, although I don't see that happening to anywhere near the same extent this time around.
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