Sunday, June 16th 2013
Haswell-E - Intel's First 8 Core Desktop Processor Exposed
Another day, another Intel leak and a few surprises as well. During the last few days we covered Intel's desktop roadmap for the next twelve months, bringing you news and insights on Intel's plans for the aforementioned time interval. Today we bring you news on what's to follow in the second half of 2014, specifically, on Intel's Premium Desktop plans for the interval, namely Haswell-E, DDR4 and the X99 PCH.
Haswell-E will be Intel's last and best offering using the 22 nm fabrication process, it will come in two versions, core count wise, 8 core part(s) as well as 6 core part(s) with hyper-threading enabled, therefore, boasting no less that 16 execution threads for the 8 core chips and 12 execution threads for the 6 core version(s). Judging by that alone, Haswell-E should constitute a far superior upgrade over Ivy Bridge-E, compared to what the latter will be in relation to Sandy Bridge-E, Haswell-E offering two additional physical cores that translate into four additional execution threads. The new chips will boast 2.5 MB of L3 Cache per core, summing up to 20 MB total L3 cache for the 8 core parts. TDP will remain in the same neighborhood it was in the case of its predecessors, around 130-140 W.
Haswell-E will of course be accompanied by a new platform, dubbed Wellsburg, the X99 chipset will bring a host of new features, the most important one being quad channel DDR4 support. With four basic frequency settings, starting at 1333 MHz and moving up in increments of 266 MHz to a maximum of 2133 MHz, at which point overclocking should be employed to attain superior clocks. However we sincerely doubt that any DDR4 modules/kits, clocked below 2133 MHz, will be made available for this platform. Modestly clocked (1333 MHz), low voltage (1.2 V) kits are supported by the new platform as well. The DIMM connector was also modified to support Non Volatile DIMMs, receiving four more pins for the purpose (288 instead of 284), modification that will not negatively impact compatibility with 284 pin modules in any way.
Other points of interest regarding the X99 chipset are:
Given the information at hand, trying to quantify performance gains, speculate on overclocking potential and other such conclusory attempts to wrap up the above presented information, I admit is quite enticing and intriguing, but I'll end here and outsource the pleasure of doing that to you.
Post Scriptum
A big hand for radrok, for bringing this to my attention.
Source:
VR Zone
Haswell-E will be Intel's last and best offering using the 22 nm fabrication process, it will come in two versions, core count wise, 8 core part(s) as well as 6 core part(s) with hyper-threading enabled, therefore, boasting no less that 16 execution threads for the 8 core chips and 12 execution threads for the 6 core version(s). Judging by that alone, Haswell-E should constitute a far superior upgrade over Ivy Bridge-E, compared to what the latter will be in relation to Sandy Bridge-E, Haswell-E offering two additional physical cores that translate into four additional execution threads. The new chips will boast 2.5 MB of L3 Cache per core, summing up to 20 MB total L3 cache for the 8 core parts. TDP will remain in the same neighborhood it was in the case of its predecessors, around 130-140 W.
Other points of interest regarding the X99 chipset are:
- Up to six USB 3.0 ports
- Up to eight USB 2.0 ports
- Up to ten SATA 6 Gbps ports
- Integrated Clock support
- TDP of 6.5W
Given the information at hand, trying to quantify performance gains, speculate on overclocking potential and other such conclusory attempts to wrap up the above presented information, I admit is quite enticing and intriguing, but I'll end here and outsource the pleasure of doing that to you.
Post Scriptum
A big hand for radrok, for bringing this to my attention.
77 Comments on Haswell-E - Intel's First 8 Core Desktop Processor Exposed
I'm so damn pissed about the fact that Z87 Haswell is such a better platform than X79 SB-E that it was about time Intel did something for its flagship.
By pretty much all reviewer accounts Haswell brings almost no performance gains over IB which brought almost no perfomance gains over SB - other than the GPU section. Intel does continue to lower power consumption which is useful for laptops but it really means nothing for desktop unless you are paying some astronomical rates for electricity which most folks aren't. Using a toaster or other common household device would consume way more than any power saving from Haswell. AMD has also lowered their power consumption on laptop Trinity and Richland APUs so Haswell really has no advantage there and is woefully inadequate in GPU performance.
For Intel to release an 8-core consumer desktop CPU, you know they are feeling the heat of poor performance from IB and now Haswell, especially with AMD about to launch Kaveri and Steamroller in Q4. It's all good for consumers because you can pick your poison be it best performance and value or over-priced exploitation. The choice is completely yours.
Haswell is exciting for me for other reasons. Not one single reviewer has touched on why. I fully understand why most are un-impressed. They lack vision. I hate to say that, because I respect a lot of these guys, but really...total lack of vision. Haswell-E isn't going to magically change that.
PCIe 3.0 certified, DDR4, tons of USB 3.0 and SATA ports, integrated VRM, 6.5 W TDP on the southbridge. Great.
The motherboard manufacturers won't have much room for their gimmicks, like fans or heatpipes.
As for the DDR4, there's hope for the memory to rise up to 4266 Mhz (MT/s), with starting speeds on 2133 Mhz. Tons of bandwidth :D random access latency times in absolute figures we know haven't decreased nor increased, just the ability to chain/interleave accesses or put more GBs without impacting performance. This must be challenging for the new instructions in Haswell that do gathering.
www.realworldtech.com/haswell-cpu/2/
That worth waiting for people who have everything almost latest.
Now only DDR4, SATA Express and more than 6 cores is important.
This platform worth waiting 100%. Even to everybody leave 50e every month it's enough for
8 cores Intel Black and one Black motherboard.
IB-E is to similar with SB-E, Haswell is same as my 4 cores, DDR3, 7%, SATA III same speed, little better performance,
20% worse OC. Motherboards are much better but for Haswell than for IB but X99 will be even better.
We must attack on Intel and press them to make that monster like people deserve, with 1000MHz OC possible on AIR and good performance difference.
At least 15% clear from IB-E/
Question for all of us hold-outs is when does this actually release? If it comes out next year then Ivy Bridge-E could very well be the shortest lived product ever.
I'll take my quad channel, high speed DDR3 over that quad channel, same speed or only slightly faster DDR4 that requires a new board and CPU.
Besides, 32GB of DDR3-2800+ and a six-core IVB-E should be powerful enough for a few more years and by then X119 or whatever they plan on calling the next HEDT platform should be out and I'll be ready to upgrade again. Hell, X58 is just now starting to lag behind a little, and it's been around for what, nearly 6 years?
I suppose my point is this: I can justify an upgrade to IVB-E and some new RAM in six months, but I can't justify building an all-new system just for DDR4 and a slight CPU performance boost in a year and a half. To those that don't already have an HEDT platform, this may be appealing, but DDR4 needs time to mature on the open market before I'll consider going there...
EDIT: Another point is that with any of the SB, SB-E, IVB, and Haswell i7 chips, you put a slight OC on them and you'd be hard-pressed to find a real-world application(not benches or crunching/folding) that actually stresses all cores, much less stresses all cores to 100%. Why waste time with four more threads that run a little slower when eight/twelve threads aren't being fully utilized? E-peen, that's all I can figure...
Looking back, I should have built an X58 rig when they were new. I would just now be looking to upgrade, lol. That being said, with this X79 rig I don't even need to upgrade to IVB-E and it should last a few more years. I'm really just looking forward to IVB-E for higher RAM speeds and a new overclocking adventure. I'm sure a lot of people will love their X99 rigs, but the appeal to me is really just getting a look forward.
You can't deny Intel is innovating [performance wise] at a slower pace than enthuisiasts or early adopters would like.
It's astonishing how people think that it's so easy to change a CPU or how a modern computer works, it's completely outstanding and blows my mind. The reality of it is that it isn't that easy and the more changes you make the more money, time, and effort it will cost.Just because Intel hasn't improved performance doesn't mean that they're not innovating. I see a number of changes to Haswell that aren't CPU performance related that are worthy of note.