Xex360Why they are stuck at 8 cores? Something with 10 cores could give them the edge over AMD in gaming.

Likely because they don’t want to make a die that big. Isn’t that why Arrow Lake might only be 6 P cores? Intel did one generation of 10c (before e-cores anyway), and it didn’t last before they dropped back to 8C. I really wonder if AMD knew what Intel’s max die size target was, and they made Ryzen what it was to put even more pressure on Intel at the high end. We pretty much jumped from 4C/8T at the high end to 8/16, just like that. Intel had to go to e-cores just to keep desktop die sizes economical. They are making it work to some degree.

12 e-cores?

A genuine query.... W T F is intel doing? These now look more like server/workstation/encoding chips.... why not cut cost, cut thermals, cut power consumption and just drop another 8C 16T i7 variant without the E?

Or is Intel just lost in competing for the higher MT score card?

Reduced cache? Where X3D has excelled Intel is reducing memory.

I don't get it... unless 14th Gen earns great points with efficiency, power consumption and significantly superior ST performance uplift - doesn't excite me.

This time next year, that 14900K will be $899 with a motherboard and 2 sticks of DDR5.

NucleoproteinYes, and your CPU is taking 55W more, which is like 1/3 more of 5800X3D so it should have about 1/3 better performance and clearly it does not have that.

Curious why i have not seen any Xeon with E-Cores :)

They don't like to mix P and E cores. There is no software to schedule efficiently for server workloads, or even most "technical" workstation stuff. I have a feeling that the desktop scheduling in Windows is also very primitive and has lots of hardcoded software package recognition (for games, mainly).

So you have Xeons with P-cores only and you will have Xeons with E-cores only.

Although, technically there are slow and fast cores in SP Xeons for quite a while. Not all cores are capable of reaching max turbo. I don't know whether Windows or Linux schedulers know about this.

NucleoproteinYep, E-Core are good for Cinebench scores :roll:

Plenty of productivity and scientific apps etc show the 13700K as fast or faster than 7900X in MT loads, not just cinebench. One app I use is COMSOL and 13700K kicks the shit out of the 7900X. Those 8 E cores are often a lot stronger than the additional 4 P cores of the 7900X.

AMD should have offered hybrid design from the get go with AM4 IMO. 7920X 12 Zen 4 + 4 Zen 4c for example and 4c cores have SMT unlike Gracemont E cores.

Minus InfinityPlenty of productivity and scientific apps etc show the 13700K as fast or faster than 7900X in MT loads, not just cinebench. One app I use is COMSOL and 13700K kicks the shit out of the 7900X. Those 8 E cores are often a lot stronger than the additional 4 P cores of the 7900X.

AMD should have offered hybrid design from the get go with AM4 IMO. 7920X 12 Zen 4 + 4 Zen 4c for example and 4c cores have SMT unlike Gracemont E cores.

AMD may very well jump on this bandwagon but.... most of us don't want to pay the extra premium for BS e-cores and we're more than happy to stick with P and P alone! Either drop variants 1) P-only, 2) P.e or scrap it all-together for the i9 space (or i8e)

I'm a i7-7700K and 9700K carrier for gaming mostly single threaded workloads. The first is a quad MT and the latter ST 8 cores - all Ps by design. Now we're compelled to buy into the e-core surplus and most of us don't even need it. I don't believe for a second this is a well-intentioned endeavour to serve the productivity/server space.... it seems like a distressed endeavour to remain relevant on the score sheet (obviously some will benefit significantly but others have to pay the added premium to keep the wheels greased for the minority).

wheresmycarAMD may very well jump on this bandwagon but.... most of us don't want to pay the extra premium for BS e-cores and we're more than happy to stick with P and P alone! Either drop variants 1) P-only, 2) P.e or scrap it all-together for the i9 space (or i8e)

I'm a i7-7700K and 9700K carrier for gaming mostly single threaded workloads. The first is a quad MT and the latter ST 8 cores - all Ps by design. Now we're compelled to buy into the e-core surplus and most of us don't even need it. I don't believe for a second this is a well-intentioned endeavour to serve the productivity/server space.... it seems like a distressed endeavour to remain relevant on the score sheet (obviously some will benefit significantly but others have to pay the added premium to keep the wheels greased for the minority).

Last I checked the world doesn't revolve around gamers. It's a fact for productivity the e-cres are working well and it's not like somehow the Intel cpu's are poor at gaming. Look at the 1% lows across the benchmarks and see how much better Intel is on average. AMD need's v-cache to be as good.The price of the Intel cpu's is not higher than the older designs lacking E-cores, so how are you worse off. Disable them if you hate them so much.

And in case your wondering I don't any Intel cpus, both my PC run AMD.

I don't think the e-core approach is necessarily bad when you just a need a few more threads to do some gutter work while the p-cores chew their way through tougher tasks. I might eat my words later but for the moment this is my thought process. More people probably have umteen browser tabs open than ever before and Microsoft Office continues to get worse so more ecores can be useful outside a gaming context.

It seems to me 6 p-cores respond well to more juice (which Intels design can take) but 8 p-cores is on the verge of meltdown so going the 6 p-core++++++++ e-cores route makes sense until they can engineer their way into performance competitiveness more effectively without needing to push more power into their chips which AMD can't really do. Perhaps 14th gen is where 8-pcores are more feasible finally?

13th gen seems to be competitive I don't recall why e-cores are so controversial. I understand obviously it was to compete with AMD in core count and getting the upper hand in Cenebench scores. Early renditions were lackluster and Intel needed moar power to flex enough not to be completely outshined by Ryzen.

I'm willing to try an e-core cpu perhaps next year but a bit nervous what board to pick and how to tamp the power levels down to normal if the board is over juiced if nothing better so I can objectively compare the Intel vs. AMD experience for myself. Even the 12600/12700/12900 seems pretty respectable in terms of price/performance ratio at the moment although I'm more interested in trying a 13th gen chip.

So much complaints about e-cores I don't get why there aren't more complaints about duel chiplet Ryzens having the 2nd gimped chiplet instead of a separate sku that features two perfect chiplets.

DavenYou know what else gives a massive boost in performance, more P-cores. I guess I don’t get it. You can have 16 AMD P-cores with the same total performance as 8 Intel P-cores plus 16 Intel E-cores for less energy usage. Why go with the higher power, heterogeneous version other than brand loyalty?

I think to be fair 16 AMD p-cores are not the same. The 2nd chiplet of 8 cores tends to be weaker but you can kind of mitigate that with curve optimizer based on something I read recently.

AusWolfNo, it's a Core i8. :D

Lets call it i7+++

Pcore vs ecores?
more like quality vs quantity.
If ecores are so great for gaming they should have used only ecores for their CPUs. Well Intel didnt. So I guess these ecores are good for some tasks not all.

ratirtPcore vs ecores?
more like quality vs quantity.
If ecores are so great for gaming they should have used only ecores for their CPUs. Well Intel didnt. So I guess these ecores are good for some tasks not all.

Huh? Why would they use only ecores ever? Pcores have higher st, so even if ecores were absolutely great for games, theyd still use pcores on top for the st workloads.

fevgatosHuh? Why would they use only ecores ever? Pcores have higher st, so even if ecores were absolutely great for games, theyd still use pcores on top for the st workloads.

You have just mentioned that the zen4 cores are slower than Intel's ecores. Yet Intel still needs Pcores to keep up even though everyone says 1pcore is not equal to 4ecores taking same space.

ratirtYou have just mentioned that the zen4 cores are slower than Intel's ecores. Yet Intel still needs Pcores to keep up even though everyone says 1pcore is not equal to 4ecores taking same space.

No, I didn't say they are slower. I said they are both inefficient.

Xex360Why they are stuck at 8 cores? Something with 10 cores could give them the edge over AMD in gaming.

They can't fit too many cores with a 10nm manufacturing easily, keep the power consumption low and at the same time fight against AMD's up to 16 cores Ryzen CPUs. They can't achieve all those goals at the same time if they increase P cores.

By using a hybrid design they can advertise much higher number of cores, not just eliminating AMD's marketing advantage but turning it around and making it their advantage and in some occasions where P cores are sleeping, while E cores doing the light work, advertise high efficiency, even when in fact their CPUs are much more power hungry.

So, why add more P cores? Most if not all apps are more than happy with 8 P cores and multithreading apps will show a high score thanks to having a much higher number of cores when utilizing all of those E cores.

Intel will start integrating more P cores when it's CPUs start losing in benchmarks because of it. If games start getting optimized for 10 or 12 cores, Intel will have to offer something with more P cores. Until then they have no reason to add one P core in place of 4 E cores. The average consumer will buy a 24 Cores CPU( 8+16 ) over an 18 Cores CPU ( 10 + 8 ) at the same price.

fevgatosNo, I didn't say they are slower. I said they are both inefficient.

Well then, if you are after efficiency you are not after performance.

fevgatosThat is absolutely true. Zen 4 cores are similar to ecores in performance / wattage, and they both stink. You can even watch the review from this very site, when they compare 1p vs 1 zen 4 core, the zen 4 core is both slower and draw more power, rofl :roll:

just a reminder.

fevgatosHuh? Why would they use only ecores ever? Pcores have higher st, so even if ecores were absolutely great for games, theyd still use pcores on top for the st workloads.

They do have E-core-only parts. Alder Lake-N (Like the N95, N100, N300...etc.) for cheap, low-powered computers. :laugh:

phanbueyThey're 2 nodes behind so the fact they're even remotely competitive is a small miracle. It's forcing their design teams to get creative which I kind of like.

I used to be a huge AMD fan in the early zen days but since Zen 3 i feel like they're changing roles.

No they're a single node behind, intels 10nm is literally more dense than tsmc's 7nm.... Guess it really does show why node's naming hasn't represented a single dimension of the transistor's in ages, people like you punish intel for lying by less lmfao.

Is this for Socket 1700 LGA also?

Prima.VeraIs this for Socket 1700 LGA also?

Yes the last gen for LGA1700.

FrozokenNo they're a single node behind, intels 10nm is literally more dense than tsmc's 7nm.... Guess it really does show why node's naming hasn't represented a single dimension of the transistor's in ages, people like you punish intel for lying by less lmfao.

Right intel gives a range of transistor density AT 10NM SIZE they list the max density to show that they're not as far behind - they CAN pack them really close together though, you're right -- therefore they're not as far behind -- you must have also seen their very accurate marketing slides talking about their node density.

Obviously the lithography still matters - TSMC is already making Apple chips on 3nm and we have nothing from intel on their 7nm process, that they're calling 5, because marketing slides.

Hopefully they gain some steam through 2024-2026 with stacked nanosheet.

I find it funny when people argue about nanometers during an age when even low-end desktop CPUs offer acceptable gaming performance.

DavenThe EXACT same thing could be accomplished if Intel just lowered 13th gen prices and made the 13900KS more widely available. But nope they want yearly model number changes to push/trick people into upgrading.

They likely can't, the binning required for a CPU of the 13900KS's quality is severe and exceptionally few chips make the cut. It's actually quite difficult to run a 13900K at 13900KS settings with anywhere even close to reasonable voltages.

The 14900K may very well be the most underwhelming of all in this refresh, at best equal to the 13900KS but I'd argue it's probably still going to be a small step down

Higher cache, more efficienty cores. Sadly efficiency cores for me are meeeeh. Real men game and they need Pī Pī cores. Intel, when will you learn.

DavenTechnically, the number of E cores are staying the same. Just the number of locked ones at a certain price and the model numbers are changing.

So how many "locked E-Cores" has an i5 12600?..
And how many "locked E-cores" has an i5 12600K?.....
Better yet, how many "locked or unlocked" E-Cores does intel stick on one CPU these days?..

:laugh:

Minus InfinityLast I checked the world doesn't revolve around gamers

Source?

(lol)

Nah, i'm just tired of seeing Intel going nuts over core counts and completely destroying the once treasured performance tiers. At the cost of inefficiency and power guzzling, and the core-voluminous tax on top. Obviously for some odd reason some will show signs of resentment, but there is absolutely no harm in suggesting non-E variants at a competitive price alongside the BIG.little subgroup minority feeder.

Unless 14th Gen picks up some solid points in the efficiency/PowC dept and we're not tied into scheduling misadventures, we got something worth shouting about. Otherwise, so far not impressed!

A Computer GuySo much complaints about e-cores I don't get why there aren't more complaints about duel chiplet Ryzens having the 2nd gimped chiplet instead of a separate sku that features two perfect chiplets.

Oooh can't be bothered with doubled up CCDs either. Heat hoggers!

TBF, for me the preferred CPU must check all the following boxes: competitive perf with the top dogs (doesn't have to be the best), courteous efficiency/low power power consumption, easy to cool and reasonably priced. For me thats normally the i5/r5 or i7/r7 segment. I'm a simple man with simple desires and when things get out of shape it doesn't wash well with me.

AMDs not in the clear either... the slow boots, SOC hi's, XMP/EXPO playing up, user-input in some cases being a requirement to touch on advanced configs (although i dont mind) and on top the slow take off thanks to AMDs silly higher AM5 premium.

I was meaning to swap from intel to AM5 and sadly even the slow boots was enough to steer me away (for now). I'm open to either camp if they get the full package on point.