Coffee Lake: Intel Going for 6 Cores Processors on Laptops

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Sep 15, 2016.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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  2. GeniusPr0

    GeniusPr0 Maha Guru

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    Easily done if the clocks are kept very low.
     
  3. lucidus

    lucidus Ancient Guru

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    "Coffee Lake"?! :p
     
  4. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    Increasing mainstream core count has been extremely difficult for Intel. Otherwise we wouldn't have had a decade of quad-cores. Although not even all i7 laptop CPUs have been quad-cores, so I guess a mainstream laptop CPU for Intel has been a dual-core.

    Easily done? Not if you study the history.
     

  5. rl66

    rl66 Ancient Guru

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    sound marvelous for me :)

    ((btw i was loving your captain kitty avatar :) ))
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2016
  6. GeniusPr0

    GeniusPr0 Maha Guru

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    Huh, what are you on about?

    Multicore processors with higher core counts than 4 have all been Xeons. Hence the same pin layout.

    X79 and X99 relies on the Xeon refresh.

    It has nothing to do with history.
     
  7. rl66

    rl66 Ancient Guru

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    not so, intel have intentionaly locked mainstream architecture to quad since years, sock 1056, 1055, 1050 etc... it's on socket spec!!! :banana:.

    and reserve over 4 core for pro and entusiast segment (also more lucrative i think...) there is 6, 8, 10, 15, 20 core Xeon since as long this socket limit exist (4 physical core).
     
  8. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    I'm curious, what would you guys expect an i7 - 6 core part to be priced at? What would you expect a 4 core to be priced at?
     
  9. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    I don't consider server CPUs like Xeons mainstream, but I admit that's just my interpretation of what mainstream means, from a private consumer's point of view.

    Intel writes those socket specs itself, so that means nothing. They have a pretty good time writing them as well, changing the socket almost as often as they can.
     
  10. rl66

    rl66 Ancient Guru

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    it mean a lot.
     

  11. BlueRay

    BlueRay Guest

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    I hope they will be priced as mainstream if they go mainstream. 400-500 euros is not a mainstream price. They should be priced at 300-350 euros if they are to be called mainstream. But this is Intel so we don't know what excuse they will find to price them high again.
     
  12. Andrew LB

    Andrew LB Maha Guru

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    Considering the fact that 90% of computer users don't run software that even if properly threaded, would benefit from a higher core count at lower clock speeds. If you plan on running highly specialized software that has actual benefit from high core counts, then you're not what intel thinks about when making consumer processors. Go buy a Xeon.
     
  13. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    The pricing is tricky. In the vast majority of situations the 2 extra cores are going to do nothing for performance. If quads get slotted down at 200, most people will just ignore the 6 core and go for the quads. Which is why Intel has been avoiding it for so long and using the features of X99/Enthusiast as a separator.
     
  14. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    The codenames are a little confusing to me. I understand Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and somewhat Cannonlake (they're all the same architecture) but why do they continue using -lake suffixes after Cannonlake?
     
  15. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    In a market with actual competition, lower than a current i7. A Skylake i7 has 1.75B transistors.

    Fiji has 8.9 billion
    . Even if Intel's transistors at 14nm have 200% the cost of production of the 28nm node (and they don't, the main reason being that they economize on waffers so much), a $300 GPU of today, with 4GB of HBM on top of it, a massive cooling and power delivery system, with almost 5x the transistor count, profitably sells for $40 less than that i7.

    The current pricing is simple gouging from Intel.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2016

  16. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    I guess I'm not so much talking about the maximum price, but the difference between a Quad and Six core. Like, if I was to buy an Intel processor right now, the difference between a 6700K and a 6800K is $100 -- but I wouldn't pay it. I don't think the two extra cores are worth $100, in fact ignoring motherboard pricing/pci-e lanes for a minute, I don't even think the platform is worth $100 more.

    So let's say a 6 core comes in at $340 and Intel puts a quad at $240. Even as a gamer, I'd personally buy the quad, given that everything else about them is the same. In terms of general computing -- the two cores would be worth even less - especially if the clock speed of the 6 core is lower. So either Intel would have to seriously limit functionality of the quad, or they'd have to sell the 6 core at only slightly above quad prices.

    And obviously this is my opinion, some people might feel that the performance increase the 6 cores offers in some games is worth it -- but I think in general, ignoring gaming, it's tough to price that.
     
  17. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    No, you have a point. What I was trying to explain is that the 115x/2011 dichotomy is completely bogus, and along with the prices of the processors themselves, a marketing trick. AMD seems to be doing fine for a single socket (AM4) for all their CPUs, Intel could have easily done the same with 2011. It would be interesting to have a website that would do teardowns and cost estimates, like they exist for smartphones.

    Of course you have the R&D costs on top, but even so, we could have had some ballpark figures. Even the duopoly we have on GPUs has reached ridiculous levels (see 1070/1080 pricing compared to what they pack), but Intel CPUs are on another level.
     
  18. fry178

    fry178 Ancient Guru

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    Your wrong on the gpu part. Lookup/remember how much a 7900gt cost. Even when i go back and look at 470/570/670, compared to MSRP of the gtx1070 (supply and demand prices are always higher,so i don't compare those).
     
  19. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    Intel has decided for the software developers that it's not profitable to make (private consumer) software that requires more than four cores. Nobody's going to make games for 6 cores if only 0.5% (if even that) of people have such CPUs. If six cores were as common as four cores now, you can bet many games would have six cores as a recommendation if not a requirement, just like they now have a four cores requirement.

    And no, I'm not going to buy a Xeon. I'm not running a server. If I had more money than I could use, I'd have bought one of those 6-core Intel chips and been happy with it.

    Intel makes so obscene annual profit that they could build a private space station and still have plenty of it left. Their R&D expenses are well under control, and why wouldn't they be when AMD had all but given up for many years?
     
  20. Corrupt^

    Corrupt^ Ancient Guru

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    Fingers crossed i5's in laptops now get quads when i7's get 6.

    It even amazes me today how crap some laptops are the second you start multitasking, unresponsive, ...
     

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