Wednesday, May 13th 2020
Intel "Alder Lake" LGA1700 to Feature DDR5; "Rocket Lake" Thermal Specs Leaked
PTT leaked some juicy details of the upcoming Intel "Rocket Lake" and "Alder Lake" processor generations. "Rocket Lake" will power Intel's 11th generation Core processor series in the LGA1200 package, and are rumored to be a "back port" of Intel's advanced "Willow Cove" CPU cores to a 14 nm-class silicon fabrication node, with core-counts ranging up to 8. The idea for Intel is to sell high IPC, high clock-speed desktop processors for gaming.
According to the PTT report, there will be three kinds of SKUs for "Rocket Lake" based on TDP: 8-core parts with 95 W TDP rating; and 8-core, 6-core, and 4-core parts in 80 W TDP and 65 W TDP variants. For the 95 W (PL1) parts, the power-levels PL2, and PL4 are reportedly set at 173 W and 251 W, respectively, and a 56-second Tau (a timing variable that dictates how long a processor can stick around at an elevated power-state before retreating to PL1, which is interchangeable with the TDP value on the box). The 80 W TDP parts feature 146 W PL2, 191 W PL3, and 251 W PL4, but a lower Tau value of 28 seconds. For the 65 W parts, the PL2 is 128 W, PL3 is 177 W, and PL4 251 W, and the Tau value 28 seconds.
The report also points to the high likelihood of Intel's upcoming LGA1700 socket, on which "Alder Lake" debuts, to feature DDR5 memory interface. According to @Chiakokhua (The Retired Engineer), interpreting the PTT report, "Alder Lake-S" can reportedly handle DDR5 at 4800 GT/s (reference), with one 1DPC (one DIMM per channel, interchangeable with one single-rank DIMM per channel). With 2DPC (two DIMMs per channel or one dual-rank DIMM per channel), the memory controllers can only handle data rates of up to 4000 GT/s reference. Overclocking will be possible in both cases. At least 6 PCB layers will become a practical necessity for motherboard designers to have typical 2DPC-capable setups (four DIMM slots).
Sources:
PTT Online, Chiakokhua (Twitter), MeibuW (Twitter)
According to the PTT report, there will be three kinds of SKUs for "Rocket Lake" based on TDP: 8-core parts with 95 W TDP rating; and 8-core, 6-core, and 4-core parts in 80 W TDP and 65 W TDP variants. For the 95 W (PL1) parts, the power-levels PL2, and PL4 are reportedly set at 173 W and 251 W, respectively, and a 56-second Tau (a timing variable that dictates how long a processor can stick around at an elevated power-state before retreating to PL1, which is interchangeable with the TDP value on the box). The 80 W TDP parts feature 146 W PL2, 191 W PL3, and 251 W PL4, but a lower Tau value of 28 seconds. For the 65 W parts, the PL2 is 128 W, PL3 is 177 W, and PL4 251 W, and the Tau value 28 seconds.
17 Comments on Intel "Alder Lake" LGA1700 to Feature DDR5; "Rocket Lake" Thermal Specs Leaked
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System
Advertising a TDP based on average before boost is lying to the public.
I dont think there are any relevant 8th gen 10nm chips though - there was that one low-volume one (i3-8121U) that shipped in like two China-only laptops with Radeon RX 540 graphics due to the iGPU being defective (so that Intel could avoid shareholder lawsuits after promising 10nm would "ship for revenue" in 2018 or something). 8th gen for all intents and purposes was 14nm only.
10th gen is a mix of 14nm (ix-10xxx) Skylake architecture (I believe the latest tweak of this is Comet Lake? See, I can't keep them straight either.) and 10nm Ice Lake architecture (ix-10xxGx) chips. Ice Lake is only in the U and Y series, i.e. low power (the fastest are the 28W chips in the MBP 13"). Everything else is still a Skylake derivative. Ice Lake has ~18% higher IPC than Skylake/CML chips, but doesn't clock nearly as high. They also stop at 4c for U-series vs. 6 cores in the CML series, so the older tech is actually faster overall. Ice Lake chips have a much better iGPU though, coming reasonably close to AMD's latest in its G7 configuration. So in general, for Intel 10th gen you have to choose between CPU or GPU performance in mobile, while in H- (high end mobile) or S-series (desktop) chips you get yet another slightly faster Skylake derivative.
The upcoming Rocket Lake chips are reportedly a back-port of the Ice Lake cores (or possibly their successor) onto 14nm for desktop use. The IPC increase is desperately needed there, but how high they will clock is an open question - Intel needed 5 generations to make Skylake clock as high as it does today, so I don't expect Rocket Lake to go quite that high even if the 14nm process is highly optimized for high clocks.
You just know its not going anywhere anytime soon. Waste of time and effort trying to decipher their codename language. Stick it where the sun don't shine, thx. This company is now safely and definitively relegated to the mindshare graveyard, where dead FX processors lay buried. Funny how things change.
CML? still 14nm. Same architecture. Still PCIe 3.0. No new ST performance beyond stock speeds
RKL? still 14nm. +20% ST performance, but oh that heat on the same node. Mature ddr4 speeds, maybe 5200Mhz-5400Mhz? Last monolithic Intel CPU. Last Intel fast ring bus. PCIe 4.0. 20CPU lanes (4 more). Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 compliant)
ADL? 10nm. Another small increase in ST performance. 8+8 mesh bus latency? I dunno Dr. Frankenstein jumbled chip? DDR5 speeds low/latency high at infancy? PCIe 4.0
MTL? 7nm running cooler. Increased +15-20% ST performance. PCIe 4.0. DDR5 more mature.
I dunno what to do. :oops:
I just want to build a super fast PC with 1080P 240Hz Display for best gaming, esp the old games since I don't have any interest in the new games when they want to shoehorn all the polticial trash into them and kill them like - Wolfenstien, Mass Effect, Gears of War etc.