Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[JoeRambo]

Notice there are a few outliers in games and also a few apps that skew the average . Once the core parking stuff and schedulers are sorted out, Ryzen will be a fine gaming CPU.

It is already nice gaming CPU and i believe 1600x stuff will bring even more epic value, but Intel is ahead in gaming performance.

I don't want to turn this into another "Ryzen" thread, but Ryzen has inherent disadvantage in memory hierarchy and that is going to hurt in games and certain apps like archivers. I believe they are going to hurt in some server workloads like JVM app servers as well, what AMD has shown us is basically a load of super parallel work - each thread works on it's own matrix memory chunk and there is little (if any?) inter core traffic. Now imagine instead JVM garbage collecting memory region that was dirtied by some CPU in other CCX and is in L2 and L3 of that chip. Broadwell and Skylake have some serious platform advantages here for these types of workloads.

You can't fix L3 cache over the night, when it is eviction cache and you can't do hw prefect to it. Same with L3 cache being split in CCX domains. Some of AMD performance is definitely coming from 512KB L2 cache, it fits more working sets and is very performant and probably does help in hiding weaker L3 and memory controller performance.

Intel has been lazy with L2 sizes, cause they were able to get away with it, server Skylake cores are finally fixing it and if they can get clocks 4+Ghz that CPU is going to perform even greater with those larger working sets.[/QUOTE]

 

[Ajay]

Well, it was only a 200mhz base increase and 100mhz single core turbo increase, from HW to KL.
I think a typical o'clock was 4.4 for a 6900K, so maybe you would get 4.6 with SL-X plus the ipc increase from HW/BW to SL/KL.

I'd give it a 5-8% ipc increase plus the clock speed advantage, plus the cache improvements. So it should be a decent jump over BW-E.

Well "smoke" was kind of a joke - we don't see big gains anymore. Top bin for the 6900k was 4.4GHz @ silicon lottery. So 'decent jump' is likely more appropriate. Still, along way off, even for good leaks.

 

[Conroe]

I think skylake-X will be fast enough that we will not have to suffer posters peddling Zen in Intel threads. It's just a meaningless prediction so don't hold me to it.

 

[CHADBOGA]

I think skylake-X will be fast enough that we will not have to suffer posters peddling Zen in Intel threads. It's just a meaningless prediction so don't hold me to it.

But when the next generation of consoles . . . . . . . .

 

[Arachnotronic]

It is already nice gaming CPU and i believe 1600x stuff will bring even more epic value, but Intel is ahead in gaming performance.

I don't want to turn this into another "Ryzen" thread, but Ryzen has inherent disadvantage in memory hierarchy and that is going to hurt in games and certain apps like archivers. I believe they are going to hurt in some server workloads like JVM app servers as well, what AMD has shown us is basically a load of super parallel work - each thread works on it's own matrix memory chunk and there is little (if any?) inter core traffic. Now imagine instead JVM garbage collecting memory region that was dirtied by some CPU in other CCX and is in L2 and L3 of that chip. Broadwell and Skylake have some serious platform advantages here for these types of workloads.

You can't fix L3 cache over the night, when it is eviction cache and you can't do hw prefect to it. Same with L3 cache being split in CCX domains. Some of AMD performance is definitely coming from 512KB L2 cache, it fits more working sets and is very performant and probably does help in hiding weaker L3 and memory controller performance.

Intel has been lazy with L2 sizes, cause they were able to get away with it, server Skylake cores are finally fixing it and if they can get clocks 4+Ghz that CPU is going to perform even greater with those larger working sets.

Your posts are always really thoughtful and technically informed. Are you a software developer or a chip engineer?

 

[JoeRambo]

Your posts are always really thoughtful and technically informed. Are you a software developer or a chip engineer?

Software dev and gamer, but always looking for more performance

I'd love the reviews to provide more deep dives and insights, lately they are reduced to "X told us that...". Without the chip in hands most of us are reduced to speculation and reliance on forum greats like The Stilt.

What if reviewers actually tried to make sense of test results by looking at performance counters and comparing them between chips? Some easy stuff like comparing I$ miss rates for Intel / AMD with and without SMT are easy ones (I'd suspect 64KB I$ on Zen to provide substantial benefit here). Then move on to evaluate L2 cache misses for those "fixed" workloads like Cinebenches and so on. LLS is harder to compare since they are so different, but still, basics like miss rates would already be nice. Amd even made things easier by CCX having 8MB of LLS here.

 

[lopri]

BIOS is still improving at a rapid rate and those reviews take time. They will come as they have in the past.

 

[psychok9]

Hello guys, I need some advice from people who know Kaby lake and sky lake architecture.
I'm looking for a cpu for virtualization lab, linux and gaming. I don't have a great budget, maximum of 350-400€ for the cpu.
I'm worried because Intel 7700k&co still on 4 cores... and I was thinking if it is worth wait next Intel 6-8 core cpu.
What do you think?

 

[DrMrLordX]

In your case you might be better off waiting for Coffeelake. What are you using right now?

 

[psychok9]

I'm using 3770k@4.5GHz,16GB DDR3,nVidia 980TI

 

[DrMrLordX]

Well it's like this: Intel will charge a premium for their HEDT stuff. Only the 6-core CPUs like the current 6800k will fit inside your budget, and the boards will be $150 minimum.

Coffeelake will bring 6-core CPUs to Intel's mainstream desktop in Q1 2018. The cores will allegedly be the same as in Kabylake.

 

[french toast]

Well it's like this: Intel will charge a premium for their HEDT stuff. Only the 6-core CPUs like the current 6800k will fit inside your budget, and the boards will be $150 minimum.

Coffeelake will bring 6-core CPUs to Intel's mainstream desktop in Q1 2018. The cores will allegedly be the same as in Kabylake.

Yea If i7 8700k is really 6/12 and can hit the same clocks as 7700k, seriously that is a whole lot of processor for 350$.

 

[psychok9]

Yea If i7 8700k is really 6/12 and can hit the same clocks as 7700k, seriously that is a whole lot of processor for 350$.

It will be a long time ... at this point I'm undecided between 6800k and 7700k

 

[french toast]

It will be a long time ... at this point I'm undecided between 6800k and 7700k

That's easy, 6800k will be a better long term choice for sure.

 

[Sweepr]

- Skylake-SP workstations out in late H1-2017
- Coffee Lake-S workstations out in H1-2018 (looks like Q2)

Now considering Xeon E3 usually launches after its desktop counterparts from the same generation (Kaby Lake-S based Xeon E3 v6 isn't out yet while Core 7th Gen is) - 6C/12T Core 8th Gen should arrive Q1-2018.

Skylake-SP workstations in late H1 also reassures the possibility of Skylake-X launching in August.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think skylake-X will be fast enough that we will not have to suffer posters peddling Zen in Intel threads. It's just a meaningless prediction so don't hold me to it.

Only thing that will prevent that is the ban hammer.

 

[french toast]

Only thing that will prevent that is the ban hammer.

Right, the same for those bigging up Intel in ryzen threads.

 

[Sweepr]

Skylake-SP smashing SiSoftware's Multi-Media scores:

- 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8180 CPU @ 2.50GHz (28C 56T 3.8GHz, 2.4GHz IMC, 28x 1MB L2, 38.5MB L3): 5836.15Mpix/s

Here's the best Broadwell-EP result, in comparison:

- 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2696 v4 @ 2.20GHz (22C 44T 3.79GHz, 3.77GHz IMC, 22x 256kB L2, 55MB L3): 2540.77Mpix/s

 

[Ajay]

Skylake-SP smashing SiSoftware's Multi-Media scores:

- 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8180 CPU @ 2.50GHz (28C 56T 3.8GHz, 2.4GHz IMC, 28x 1MB L2, 38.5MB L3): 5836.15Mpix/s

Here's the best Broadwell-EP result, in comparison:

- 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2696 v4 @ 2.20GHz (22C 44T 3.79GHz, 3.77GHz IMC, 22x 256kB L2, 55MB L3): 2540.77Mpix/s

Wow! Is SIS MM running AVX code? If not, maybe SKLX will best BDWE by quite a bit...

 

[mikk]

Looks like there is AVX 512 support in Sisoft.

http://www.sisoftware.eu/2016/02/24/future-performance-with-avx512-in-sandra-2016-sp1/

 

[Nothingness]

Wow! Is SIS MM running AVX code? If not, maybe SKLX will best BDWE by quite a bit...

It surely is running AVX-512: this 2x speedup shows AVX-512 performance over 256-bit AVX2.

 

[psolord]

Do we have any info on what platform coffelake will be coming?

Are they supposed to be z270 compatible or X99 compatible? Or maybe a z370?

Also is there some kind of solid info that we are looking at 6/12 for mainstream systems at 350 or thereabout or is it just a rumor?

 

[Bouowmx]

Nothing much about Intel Coffee Lake is solid, apart from the branding Core i[357]-8000 series.

The Internet is understanding that Coffee Lake is the mainstream successor (socket H) to Kaby Lake. Since socket H only changes with "Tock", now "Architecture", the past predicts Coffee Lake will retain the current socket (H4: LGA 1151).

The final paragraph of https://benchlife.info/intel-will-not-announce-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-with-x299-in-computex-01222017/ says there will be 300 series chipsets accompanying Coffee Lake. There is no confirmation whether 100 and 200 series chipsets will be compatible.

There is also no confirmation on pricing.

 

[jpiniero]

Do we have any info on what platform coffelake will be coming?
Are they supposed to be z270 compatible or X99 compatible? Or maybe a z370?

Actually there will be both apparently.. models on X299 and 300 series. As for Coffee Lake being backwards compatible with 200 or 100 series, don't plan on it. Main new feature on the 300 series is Wi-Fi standard.

Also is there some kind of solid info that we are looking at 6/12 for mainstream systems at 350 or thereabout or is it just a rumor?

I think it's reasonable to think that the pricing will be similar to current models.

 

[jpiniero]

Wow! Is SIS MM running AVX code? If not, maybe SKLX will best BDWE by quite a bit...

It definitely is using AVX-512. There are also Processor Arithmetic scores but those are not so good when you factor in the TDP for the 8180 is going to be above 200 W.

BTW, my guess is that Gold is 2-socket only and Platinum is more than 2 socket.