The 8 Core CPU: Are they replacing 4 Cores as the standard? (Poll Inside)

[Topweasel]

And I would gladly take a 50% increase in cores, however I'm not willing to spend about ~$400 or more to do it.

It's a great CPU just for that reason. Kaby Lake is damn good and 50% more cores with nearly the same speed makes it that much more awesome. That said the point that was being made about a game running better with CFL because of other things but core count is wrong. All else equal but core count, it's got to be the cores.

 

[moonbogg]

I can guarantee you guys that if Intel had a choice, they would NEVER release a six core CPU at that price range and they had no choice but to sacrifice margins for that.

I believe you. I also agree that Intel had no choice but to release the 6 core. They also have no choice but to release a fair priced 8 core or face irrelevance very quickly. Their margins will be fine, they just won't be making monopoly margins anymore. I'll shed a tear for them when I get around to it.

 

[whm1974]

It's a great CPU just for that reason. Kaby Lake is damn good and 50% more cores with nearly the same speed makes it that much more awesome. That said the point that was being made about a game running better with CFL because of other things but core count is wrong. All else equal but core count, it's got to be the cores.

In my case the i5-8400 would be more of a sidegrade over my i5-4670 at this time. Yes I could find and start doing stuff that would make the extra two cores worthwhile, but I don't feel like replacing very useable hardware.

 

[whm1974]

Speaking of my Post #128 above, I'm thinking that it will be three to five years before mainstream 6 and 8 core CPUs will be widespread enough to be "The Standard" at least for mid-ranged systems.

 

[moonbogg]

Speaking of my Post #128 above, I'm thinking that it will be three to five years before mainstream 6 and 8 core CPUs will be widespread enough to be "The Standard" at least for mid-ranged systems.

In 9 months they will be Bog standard.

 

[whm1974]

In 9 months they will be Bog standard.

I doubt that would be the case that the majority of gamers will be replacing their quad core CPUs with 6 and 8 core ones over the next 9 months. If anything it be the ones with dual cores who will be doing the replacing, with quads.

 

[moonbogg]

I doubt that would be the case that the majority of gamers will be replacing their quad core CPUs with 6 and 8 core ones over the next 9 months. If anything it be the ones with dual cores who will be doing the replacing, with quads.

It was a joke. Get it? Bog standard? Google "bog standard" and you'll see. That's an actual phrase. And no, in 9 months I know most won't have them, but millions already do with Ryzen and TONS will buy the Intel 8 core. That's totally BOGG standard if you ask me.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I’m going to say something shocking and controversial. I believe anyone with a 2600k or above will likely be fine for the next 3-4 years, assuming the system has 16+ GB of RAM and a 980 Ti or above. I’ll tell my upgrade plans a little later in this post, but I’m still skeptical that 6+ cores will be a hard requirement in this timeframe.

It took forever for games to fully take advantage of 4 cores and we are just seeing 6+ cores being used over the last couple of years. Even still, the 2600k and above are having no real issues with games at 1080P as long as the graphic card is a 900 series or above. I had this debate with someone earlier this year who insisted that PC sales would “explode” this year and all this new, hex core+ loving software would be pouring out of the orifices of every developer alive because of the renewed competition due to Ryzen. But let’s look at the facts: 1) PC sales are still declining; Gartner said we may see a single-digit overall increase in sales this year in the “PC” category, but they attribute that to corporate upgrades and mobile products. 2) Big, AAA games for the PC seem to be getting more rare. 3) We’ve had hex core CPUs since what, 2009 or 2010, and games taking advantage of the extra cores are still relatively rare. In terms of productivity, there are obviously more packages using more cores, but the big driver of what will be “standard” will be business refreshes in the next few years. Most businesses I see deploy i5 machines and I am not entirely convinced we will see 8 core i5s in 3 years and with i3s being beefed up, businesses may start deploying those instead.

As far as my plans go, I’ve got my 8-core machine (Ryzen 1700x), 12-core machine (dual Xeon 2620 server), and of course the legendary i7-2600k. For me, the 2600k can probably serve as my main machine for another 2-3 years. But at over 6 years old, with many of those years seeing 12-18 hours of daily usage with a 1 Ghz overclock, I wonder how much longer the hardware will actually survive unscathed. I’ve got an 8700k on preorder because I think I have to draw a line in the sand at some point after years of canceling upgrade plans. Yeah, I’d love an 8+ core i7 or i9, but the 8700k should handily outperform them in most games and I can get the CPU, board, and RAM for less than the cost of an i9. When I bought my 2600k in 2011, I thought 8-core CPUs would be mainstream by my next scheduled upgrade in 2014. Oh, how wrong I was!

Even still, there’s this little voice screaming in the back of my head to hold out a few more months to see if an 8-core CFL materializes.....

 

[epsilon84]

I’m going to say something shocking and controversial. I believe anyone with a 2600k or above will likely be fine for the next 3-4 years, assuming the system has 16+ GB of RAM and a 980 Ti or above. I’ll tell my upgrade plans a little later in this post, but I’m still skeptical that 6+ cores will be a hard requirement in this timeframe.

Gotta agree with you there. I'm in a pretty similar position, I recently finally upgraded my 2500K and dropped in a 2600K for cheap. I have to admit, the difference was quite substantial and definitely noticeable. In 2011 the 2500K was just as fast as the 2600K for games, in todays games the extra threads on the 2600K helps a lot, especially in minimum framerates. Overclocked to 4.4GHz, plus an upgrade of the RAM from 8GB DDR3-1600 to 16GB DDR3-2133 has made a huge difference to my gaming experience (My GPU is an R9 Fury which is roughly equivalent to the 980 Ti you mentioned)

I nearly impulse bought an i5 8400 recently, but then realised the cost of a Z370 motherboard plus 16GB of DDR4-3200 would have cost me over $500 for a rather small gain in gaming, it might not even be noticeable as my R9 Fury would be the limiting factor in many games.

It would take an overclocked 8600K/8700K to see appreciable differences over an overclocked 2600K, and even then, you would need a high end GPU to take advantage of the additional CPU overhead.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to own a 8700K right now, I just can't justify overhauling my 2600K rig just yet, especially with current DDR4 prices. Perhaps I will when the next gen of GPUs hit and DDR4 prices come down to earth...?

 

[PeterScott]

I’m going to say something shocking and controversial. I believe anyone with a 2600k or above will likely be fine for the next 3-4 years, assuming the system has 16+ GB of RAM and a 980 Ti or above. I’ll tell my upgrade plans a little later in this post, but I’m still skeptical that 6+ cores will be a hard requirement in this timeframe.

It took forever for games to fully take advantage of 4 cores and we are just seeing 6+ cores being used over the last couple of years. Even still, the 2600k and above are having no real issues with games at 1080P as long as the graphic card is a 900 series or above. I had this debate with someone earlier this year who insisted that PC sales would “explode” this year and all this new, hex core+ loving software would be pouring out of the orifices of every developer alive because of the renewed competition due to Ryzen. But let’s look at the facts: 1) PC sales are still declining; Gartner said we may see a single-digit overall increase in sales this year in the “PC” category, but they attribute that to corporate upgrades and mobile products. 2) Big, AAA games for the PC seem to be getting more rare. 3) We’ve had hex core CPUs since what, 2009 or 2010, and games taking advantage of the extra cores are still relatively rare. In terms of productivity, there are obviously more packages using more cores, but the big driver of what will be “standard” will be business refreshes in the next few years. Most businesses I see deploy i5 machines and I am not entirely convinced we will see 8 core i5s in 3 years and with i3s being beefed up, businesses may start deploying those instead.

As far as my plans go, I’ve got my 8-core machine (Ryzen 1700x), 12-core machine (dual Xeon 2620 server), and of course the legendary i7-2600k. For me, the 2600k can probably serve as my main machine for another 2-3 years. But at over 6 years old, with many of those years seeing 12-18 hours of daily usage with a 1 Ghz overclock, I wonder how much longer the hardware will actually survive unscathed. I’ve got an 8700k on preorder because I think I have to draw a line in the sand at some point after years of canceling upgrade plans. Yeah, I’d love an 8+ core i7 or i9, but the 8700k should handily outperform them in most games and I can get the CPU, board, and RAM for less than the cost of an i9. When I bought my 2600k in 2011, I thought 8-core CPUs would be mainstream by my next scheduled upgrade in 2014. Oh, how wrong I was!

Even still, there’s this little voice screaming in the back of my head to hold out a few more months to see if an 8-core CFL materializes.....

Not controversial at all. For gaming, Unless you regularly buy Titan class GPUs and run at 1080p, games are GPU bound.

Here is a recent 2600k to 8700K comparison. For games if you have a 1070 or lesser card, upgrading from a 2600K to 8700K would be pretty much impossible to detect without running benchmarks.
https://youtu.be/gMFd0aVhVKU?t=6m53s

I am finally looking to upgrade my 2008 vintage PC with 3.2GHz OC C2Q, and when I get very logical about it, I could probably keep it running for years with just a GPU upgrade, and it's my only PC used for gaming, internet, productivity, Video encoding.

I will be more controversial and say when I really think about it, the ~10 year old CPU is not really holding me back. I record OTA TV, and encode it with Handbrake, but other than Video Encoding and gaming nothing really pushes my Ancient CPU.

Video Encoding would be 3x or 4x faster with a new CPU and that sounds great, but the thing is that really doesn't affect me much, because it would move 120 minute encodes to 30 minute encodes at best. They would still have to be background, or overnight activities.

Also Video encoding is pretty smart about running background threads. I can encode video, watch videos, and surf the web without noticing any impact in computer usage, while doing so. I guess the only difference would be that I might be able to get away with gaming and Video Encoding together, something that does cause hiccups. But since I only encode 2 or 3 shows a day, it isn't a big deal to not do both at the same time.

 

[stockwiz]

I don't think intel will release the 8 core part unless AMD's next processors can provide some clockspeed and IPC gains. Right now a ryzen 1700 overclocked has around the same IPC performance as my 2600K overclocked so there's no reason for me to pick up Ryzen, but I am going to pick up an 8700K and give my 2600K build to my nephew as the old Q6600 computer he's using just crapped out and I could get another power supply but I'd rather indulge my hobby/upgrade bug.

8 core ice lake for $400? Not if AMD doesn't step up to the plate, but I just thank them for finally ending the quad core era for the mainstream platform. Now seems like a good time to upgrade. I have this gut feeling it will take them well into 2019 to release ice lake and get the 10nm rollout, and that they're going to coast along with this 8700K part for awhile since it's proving to be so popular.

 

[moonbogg]

I’m going to say something shocking and controversial. (A) I believe anyone with a 2600k or above will likely be fine for the next 3-4 years, assuming the system has 16+ GB of RAM and a 980 Ti or above. I’ll tell my upgrade plans a little later in this post, but (B) I’m still skeptical that 6+ cores will be a hard requirement in this timeframe.

(C) Even still, there’s this little voice screaming in the back of my head to hold out a few more months to see if an 8-core CFL materializes.....

A: True. Programs and games will work just fine and with good performance in almost all cases.
B: More cores won't be any kind of requirement at all for consumer stuff and most games. No way. They might run faster, but not be needed for sure.
C: 8 core Intel chips are coming. If Ryzen gets ANY better next round, 8700K will lose some of its shine and we'll be back in a similar situation as R7 1700 vs 7700K again. Its debatable as to which CPU is better. Intel can't like that. They want the best CPU, period. Right? Only 8 cores will give them that, not 6.

Again, here's the thing. It doesn't matter if we need 8 cores or not. It doesn't matter if they are going to be useful to most people, although I think they will be useful of course. The reason we are getting them is because AMD offers them to people for a fair price now and they are improving Ryzen and it will get better moving forward. Intel must keep moving forward as well! They can't release a good 6 core and be done for the next 7 years like they did with 2600K. They are not operating in isolation anymore. They have a competitor who just came out swinging and they are recovering in the corner right now for the next round. Intel has to fight back with 8 cores or they will LOSE.

I'll just ask this: how would an 8700K look compared to an R7 1700@4.6ghz with a slight IPC bump? I'd get the Ryzen myself and so would a lot of other people. Intel just found that out when armies of people bought Ryzen over 7700K. 8700K is compelling enough to shift things in Intel's favor, but if the Ryzen gets faster, then its right back to where we were before. Intel needs an 8 core.

 

[moinmoin]

I can guarantee you guys that if Intel had a choice, they would NEVER release a six core CPU at that price range and they had no choice but to sacrifice margins for that.

Indeed. I guess this is what this thread really is all about: Commoditization of the core count. Intel never stopped increasing the core count, beyond four cores they just limited them to the premium market, be that HEDT or servers. AMD tried to break that up with their Bulldozers, and failed miserably so nothing changed in the market (except for Atoms incidentally). With Ryzen AMD went for the full juggernaut, toppling not only the previous common core count in the mainstream market, but also in the HEDT market as well as for the one and two sockets server market. This could have failed as well, but this time AMD's chips' performance and efficiency is good enough to make Intel's pricing per core questionable to sufficient parts of the market, so they had to follow suit and sacrifice margins for that.

 

[traderjay]

and i7 or i5 from the 2xxx generation is more than adequate for the 95% of the home users out there and none of their applications (web, office or video watching) will max out the system. My oldest system at home is the i7-980x and that thing still flies and is virtually indistinguishable from the latest and greatest in daily applications.

I would say that the advent of SSDs unleashed a new sign of life on older systems that relies on 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm drives. This is the reason why the PC market is a perpetual race to the bottom and every OEM is suffering from a margin perspective.

Anandtech crowd are different and most of us are cutting edge and thus cannot use the same lens to view the average home users.

One of my investment thesis was that with the advent of 4K recording in phones and super high Megapixel photos, higher end gears should pick up a bit but after some field research, I found that VERY few folks ever do any post edit on the PC and simply shares them as is on the various social platforms. I don't know what it will take to move the needle in the consumer space, maybe 360 degree VR videos?

 

[moonbogg]

Not according to your own poll. Sorry, but your opinion seems to be in the minority. This does not necessarily make it wrong, just not popular.

What about now? Getting pretty close.

 

[TahoeDust]

What about now? Getting pretty close.

Haha...so it must be true!

 

[moonbogg]

Haha...so it must be true!

I just thought it would be cool to take your old comment, wait for the poll to lean in the "correct" direction and THEN quote your post and be like, "Huh what you mean?"

EDIT: Now watch, people will go change their vote to throw egg on my face. That would be awesome.

 

[TahoeDust]

I just thought it would be cool to take your old comment, wait for the poll to lean in the "correct" direction and THEN quote your post and be like, "Huh what you mean?"

EDIT: Now watch, people will go change their vote to throw egg on my face. That would be awesome.

All in good fun my man. I think the term "Standard" is too vague to get a clear result. 8 core will become the standard for high end and enthusiast machines pretty soon. I still think it is going to be a while before we start seeing them in the average Big Box store's laptops.

 

[Donts00tmesanta]

Props to ryzen in forcing Intel to up their game. They've been stagnant way too long. When an ivy bridge CPU can still game.

 

[TheELF]

Props to ryzen in forcing Intel to up their game. They've been stagnant way too long. When an ivy bridge CPU can still game.

Huh? AMD was the stagnant one having released their last desktop CPU some 5-6 years ago!AMD was forcing intel to keep releasing the same crap because anything better and AMD would't be selling anything,if AMD where to close down intel would be facing monopoly charges...
And that's the same reason we won't get anything better from intel next year,six cores will be it for the entire run of ryzen.

 

[raghu78]

Huh? AMD was the stagnant one having released their last desktop CPU some 5-6 years ago!AMD was forcing intel to keep releasing the same crap because anything better and AMD would't be selling anything,if AMD where to close down intel would be facing monopoly charges...
And that's the same reason we won't get anything better from intel next year,six cores will be it for the entire run of ryzen.

AMD was designing a new CPU core after the Bulldozer disaster. Its not easy designing an x86 core from a clean sheet. It takes 4-5 years from design to finished product. So yes when AMD had Zen ready and it started selling well it pushed Intel to react by pushing forward the CFL 6c launch from early 2018 to late 2017.

 

[TheELF]

AMD was designing a new CPU core after the Bulldozer disaster. Its not easy designing an x86 core from a clean sheet. It takes 4-5 years from design to finished product. So yes when AMD had Zen ready and it started selling well it pushed Intel to react by pushing forward the CFL 6c launch from early 2018 to late 2017.

It didn't "push" intel do do anything,it alowed intel to finaly release a CPU they would have released years ago if AMD could keep up.
You think intel doesn't like to make money?
Intel would happily glue 2 more cores to the same chip every year and sell like crazy,but doing so would ruin amd and put intel into the spotlight of the antitrust law.

 

[raghu78]

It didn't "push" intel do do anything,it alowed intel to finaly release a CPU they would have released years ago if AMD could keep up.
You think intel doesn't like to make money ? Intel would happily glue 2 more cores to the same chip every year and sell like crazy,but doing so would ruin amd and put intel into the spotlight of the antitrust law.

dude if you think the CFL launch was not pulled in from Q1 2018 to early Q4 2017 you are in denial. The CFL launch volume was laughable. btw AMD has just started their return to high performance computing. They will turn it up a notch with 2018 Zen+ (on 12LP) and 2019 Zen 2 (on 7LP). You are talking of 8 cores. Heck AMD is going to bring 12 cores to mainstream in 2019.

 

[Asterox]

AMD was designing a new CPU core after the Bulldozer disaster. Its not easy designing an x86 core from a clean sheet. It takes 4-5 years from design to finished product. So yes when AMD had Zen ready and it started selling well it pushed Intel to react by pushing forward the CFL 6c launch from early 2018 to late 2017.

In reality Zen or Ryzen, this is not a clean sheet or totaly new CPU design.AMD "green CPU" was pretty fast finished in 2-3 years, or just listen carefully Jim Keller short presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idRLZTy9Pio

 

[PeterScott]

In reality Zen or Ryzen, this is not a clean sheet or totaly new CPU design.AMD "green CPU" was pretty fast finished in 2-3 years, or just listen carefully Jim Keller short presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idRLZTy9Pio

I don't hear it that way at all. He said they used DNA of both previous families (low power and high frequency), but really he is just talking about using learnings from the past, and performance traces of x86 instructions passes.

But he never contradicted that it was a "from scratch design" and he said they used a "clean sheet of paper"