Friday, April 21st 2017
Intel's X299 Platform to Counter AMD's X399 with 12-core CPUs
Intel's X299 HEDT platform, whose launch we recently covered as having been pushed forward by the company so as to better compete against AMD's upcoming X399 HEDT platform, has some new, juicy rumors floating about it. Namely, Bench.Life has reported that Intel's upcoming Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X lines of high performance CPUs will also feature 12-core offerings on its Skylake-X materialization, instead of just the previously reported 6, 8, and 10-core designs.
This really looks like an Intel that's stretching its manufacturing and chip design prowess so as to prevent itself from being buried in higher-performing, higher core and thread count offerings from its rival AMD, which has turned Intel's line-up in the mainstream consumer market head-over-heels already. Latest reports peg the new series as being presented on Computex 2017 (specifically, on may 30th), with availability being expected on June 26th. Which platform are most interested in, and what do you think of this move from Intel?
Sources:
Bench.life, Videocardz
This really looks like an Intel that's stretching its manufacturing and chip design prowess so as to prevent itself from being buried in higher-performing, higher core and thread count offerings from its rival AMD, which has turned Intel's line-up in the mainstream consumer market head-over-heels already. Latest reports peg the new series as being presented on Computex 2017 (specifically, on may 30th), with availability being expected on June 26th. Which platform are most interested in, and what do you think of this move from Intel?
68 Comments on Intel's X299 Platform to Counter AMD's X399 with 12-core CPUs
Second: Intel released so many CPU generations since AMD Bulldozer, that the mere +5% gains add up to almost the same AMD managed (+52% IPC from Ryzen marketing).
The end result is that AMD single-core performance is still behind Intel (but it's a smaller gap compared to 2011). And what about applications that don't benefit from multi-core performance? Should we sacrifice performance in those?
IMO the best thing about Ryzen is that it almost matched Intel in single-core tasks. It makes these CPUs so much more usable in general usage - not just games or encoding or whatever.
Yes, we should expect more cores in the future, but a single core just must not become slower than it is now.
Also, I think you greatly overestimate the importance of HEDT systems. No one optimizes stuff for them - that's why most apps use 2-4 cores, while you could have bought almost double that for years. Everything is optimized for laptops.
This is also the reason why many apps are not looking well on 4K monitors - because the standard in laptops is 1080p. Even if you run something that should benefit from high resolution (e.g. Photoshop or AutoCAD), you'll notice that icons are tiny and it's often hard to hit a button...
And if intel keeps there prices as they are now, i am deffently not gonna upgrade this time.
Intel have hands full. And they're scrambling to save what they can. I'm firmly in Intel camp since forever, but if AMD delivers 16/32 core/thread chip for 1000$, a lot of folks will jump into it (me included). And if there is option for a dual CPU boards designed for consumer (I just cringe thinking about Xeons prices) market based on Ryzen/Naples/whatever then it will be absolute no-brainer to forget about Intel.
Intel does good stuff, but for past 15 years they've milked every ounce of $$$ they could. Now its a bit of time for payback and running around scared with pants/underpants* (full) on fire.
X299 will offer marginal improvement over X99 so there is not much to expect (and they supposedly cut connectivity by 2 SATA ports which is just great if you need those). X390/399 shapes, on the other hand, to be something really new which is not Intel. Just don't screw connectivity or PCIe slots/lanes like baby-Ryzen did with its utterly laughable 24 lanes.
* - take your pick on English english you prefer. :D
This isnt bad for intel at all. They just make consumer grade CPUs with more cores too appease people looking at the cor count on newegg.
If anything I think this might be bad for AMD because they will pump themselves up with core counts and parade it for 6 months and then intel will just drop a chip that also has 16 cores and the performance numbers will speak for themselves.
Ryzen changed all that and now Intel's feeling pressure, so they went ahead and "deployed" their "hidden" processors. But this doesn't happen overnight so time is needed for both board makers as well as CPU fabs to have the production ready.
Personally, i would have preferred Intel went with the "lower current prices" approach but just the fact that Intel's under pressure is good news, IMO.
Skylake-X has been on the roadmap for two years, and would have been "deployed" regardless of Ryzen. Intel don't spend billions of dollars developing a chip and not use it, that's preposterous. Intel might not have much competition in the consumer space, but the server and workstation market simply can't get enough performance. You are giving AMD "credit" for things that have nothing to do with them. These products would have been the same without Ryzen. The only impact Ryzen can have in the short term is pricing, and the jury is still out on that one…
But it's not that easy to suddenly speed up release date because there's a whole logistical process involved, so it takes several months.
1 Core = 100€
And even with Ryzen I don't really see any advantage. The multi-thread and single-thread performances scale equally well in both cases.
We generally don't know much about Naples yet - even though it's expected to launch in a matter of weeks.
For example I am really interested in the memory latencies. We've already seen that the design modularity of Infinity Fabric brings some disadvantages in a dual CCX Ryzen CPU. What will happen in a Naples that's basically 4 Ryzen dies in a single package?
A better comparison may actually be with the 1700X instead of the 1800X because it comes from behind in single to be ahead in multi. Obviously we haven't seen Naples CB15 as of yet but, depending on how it scales, it's quite possible AMD will be ahead of Intel in this.
You are ofc correct: the latency between CCXs will be a key factor and we have yet to see how 4 dies in a single package affect latencies. This will "make or break" the success of AMD's server line of CPUs, IMO.
Skylake-X would have been released without Ryzen, it's launch window was even public last year. CPUs are not made over night.