Alder Lake CPUs common discussion

[Deleted member 24505]

Yes I agree but why do you think this is a good approach for a PC? Just because phones are using it and as a battery powered devices need this solution? No matter how you slice it, it all comes down to power consumption balance with performance and that is why Intel used this approach. Not to mention, change the core count to tackle AMD's products. It still doesn't explain any other benefit that would this approach give to a PC market. How I see it, It is better to use little core for Intel and AMD because they don't need to advance their technology that much. They just use slower, less power hungry cores show some sort of improvement and still advertise a CPU as 16c despite half of them is small cores. Don't you see that this is some sort of marketing scheme here? Now you say it would have been nice to have this approach in a PC. I understand the smartphone market but PC?
When you say high power apps? Meaning more demanding apps which will use the processors high performance cores all the time. These cores can do 'lower power apps' (you would say it that way) as well and faster than any smaller core. The fact is it is not necessary and thus smaller cores are fast enough to keep things going. Use less power and have more cores since the smaller cores are smaller than bigger obviously and you can pack more. Either way, I dont think this approach is a good idea for a PC, just because phones are using it and nobody complains.

Well don't people whine when a CPU uses "too" much power. Imo big.little is a good way to change it. No point using high power cores for small tasks.

 

[ratirt]

Well don't people whine when a CPU uses "too" much power. Imo big.little is a good way to change it. No point using high power cores for small tasks.

Yes but it doesn't matter. You have to use shortcuts to bring it lower don't you?
There is a point here. Big cores can do both small cores are for small tasks because with big they would have been inefficient.

 

[hat]

Well don't people whine when a CPU uses "too" much power. Imo big.little is a good way to change it. No point using high power cores for small tasks.

And yet ADL still sucks down hundreds of watts. Not that I'm complaining about that. I just don't think this design has much place in the desktop PC space. Maybe laptops, but I thought all the existing tech we had already worked well enough. Now we have funky, weird silicon that requires a bunch of work on the software side to get it to work correctly. Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something?

 

[GerKNG]

complaints about pulling more power is only a thing of people from the other "tribe" to have something after losing in everything else.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

As far as Big.little is concerned, like it or not, all CPU's will be this way soon.

 

[lexluthermiester]

And yet ADL still sucks down hundreds of watts.

Only under max load. Most loads, even heavy gaming, do not force AlderLake to max power draw. W1zzard's testing clearly showed this and his testing is echoed by many other sites reviewers as well. It is a point we really shouldn't be harping on..

As far as Big.little is concerned, like it or not, all CPU's will be this way soon.

Not all. For example, the i5-12400 has no Ecores at all. Not everything needs that balance of power/economy.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Only under max load. Most loads, even heavy gaming, do not force AlderLake to max power draw. W1zzard's testing clearly showed this and his testing is echoed by many other sites reviewers as well. It is a point we really shouldn't be harping on..


Not all. For example, the i5-12400 has no Ecores at all. Not everything needs that balance of power/economy.

Maybe they will just use it for the higher end ones. Is there gonna be a 4P 2E chip for 10 core i wonder

 

[phanbuey]

And yet ADL still sucks down hundreds of watts. Not that I'm complaining about that. I just don't think this design has much place in the desktop PC space. Maybe laptops, but I thought all the existing tech we had already worked well enough. Now we have funky, weird silicon that requires a bunch of work on the software side to get it to work correctly. Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something?

You have silicon that can now run threads on different core types depending on <whatever> and that enables a performance advantage even on worse performing silicon.

Instead of having just inefficient cores and pumping 400W through them to get close to multi performance of Zen 3, you now can pump a max of 241W through your super fat, power hungry cores, smash single cores and all lightly-threaded/latency sensitive workloads for the first 16 threads, and then match on MT performance even though your real core design had no chance in hell to do that by itself.

More importantly you can now run threads on different types of cores ... in the future even different ISA's - maybe ARM cores? maybe GPU / GPGPU instructions? and route all of them in real time to the correct piece of silicon. Seems like it could be a big deal. On one hand you can squeeze out performance and on the other you can add accelerators/different core types/ architectures to tailor the chip to whatever it's supposed to be good at.

I'm inclined to agree with Tigger, all future chips will use this sooner or later.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Imo with few bios updates and some scheduler tweaks from Microsoft, ADL could get a whole lot better. Seems to me, the motherboard manufacturers and Microsoft are still working out the nitty gritty. Laugh and call us bios testers if you like, but i really believe these will get better once they have.

 

[vMax65]

My current score on CBR23 and HWinfo screen shot...Still not happy as vcore seems a tad high though temps are no issues..

 

[fevgatos]

And yet ADL still sucks down hundreds of watts. Not that I'm complaining about that. I just don't think this design has much place in the desktop PC space. Maybe laptops, but I thought all the existing tech we had already worked well enough. Now we have funky, weird silicon that requires a bunch of work on the software side to get it to work correctly. Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something?

Yes you are. ADL sucks down hundreds of watts running ALL CORE WORKLOADS AT 5ghz. Try doing that with a Ryzen CPU. You know what you'd need? Yeah, a bunch of LN2 canisters. So with that in mind, ALD is extremely efficient. Saying "it sucks down hundreds of watts" is just dumb. Every CPU can suck down hundreds of watts if you push it. So the 12900k was pushed from the factory. You don't like it, lower the limits, problem solved.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Yes you are. ADL sucks down hundreds of watts running ALL CORE WORKLOADS AT 5ghz. Try doing that with a Ryzen CPU. You know what you'd need? Yeah, a bunch of LN2 canisters. So with that in mind, ALD is extremely efficient. Saying "it sucks down hundreds of watts" is just dumb. Every CPU can suck down hundreds of watts if you push it. So the 12900k was pushed from the factory. You don't like it, lower the limits, problem solved.

It's the same and only argument of all ryzen fans against ADL, i'm over it, they can say what they like. My chip is fast and runs cool.

 

[fevgatos]

It's the same and only argument of all ryzen fans against ADL, i'm over it, they can say what they like. My chip is fast and runs cool.

It would be absolutely fine complaining about power consumption if it was actually power hungry. It is not, it's just pushed out of the factory, something you can fix in literally 5-10 seconds, by lowering the power limit.

Anyone with a brain would realize that being able to hit 5.3 + ghz all core is an achievement on it's own. Instead we have people complaining. Does anyone think for a second what youd actually need to push a ryzen CPU to those clockspeeds at blender? Subzero, dry ice and l2 canisters.

Sadly im stuck out of ddr5 ram, supposedly it's coming on the 29th, so I can do some testing on a U12A and see how far that can get me. I have the cpu and mobo for a month now :/

 

[Zubasa]

Yes you are. ADL sucks down hundreds of watts running ALL CORE WORKLOADS AT 5ghz. Try doing that with a Ryzen CPU. You know what you'd need? Yeah, a bunch of LN2 canisters. So with that in mind, ALD is extremely efficient. Saying "it sucks down hundreds of watts" is just dumb. Every CPU can suck down hundreds of watts if you push it. So the 12900k was pushed from the factory. You don't like it, lower the limits, problem solved.

So since all core work loads don't matter, whats the point of the i9 over the i7?
The same argument have been going on and on, the fact is the i9 is not as efficient as its competition no matter how you spin it.
Not that I care about efficiency much on Desktop. But there is nothing wrong with calling a duck a duck.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Some people build a desktop system with high power components, then under volt and or down clock every thing as it's using "too" much power. what is the point in that.

Zubasa "Not that I care about efficiency much on Desktop", neither do I.

 

[Zubasa]

Some people build a desktop system with high power components, then under volt and or down clock every thing as it's using "too" much power. what is the point in that.

Not that I care about efficiency much on Desktop, neither do I.

Agree.
I just can't wrap my head around people getting an i9 and not having enough cooling for it.
Then they just insist the reviews are all wrong because only gaming loads matter.
IMO in that case they should have gotten the i7 or i5 and save themselves the trouble.
The i5 being more efficient than the 5800X is cheaper and performs better most of the time.
Its the same BS round and round again that Ryzen fans insist that ADL isn't better in games and i9 fans insisting that their CPU is actually more efficient.

 

[fevgatos]

So since all core work loads don't matter, whats the point of the i9 over the i7?
The same argument have been going on and on, the fact is the i9 is not as efficient as its competition no matter how you spin it.
Not that I care about efficiency much on Desktop. But there is nothing wrong with calling a duck a duck.

Ι did not say that all core workloads don't matter. I'm saying you are not supposed to run those workloads at 5ghz all core frequencies. If blender is your game power limit it to a reasonable consumption that your cooler can handle. As you would do with every other CPU, right?

Agree.
I just can't wrap my head around people getting an i9 and not having enough cooling for it.
Then they just insist the reviews are all wrong because only gaming loads matter.
IMO in that case they should have gotten the i7 or i5 and save themselves the trouble.
The i5 being more efficient than the 5800X is cheaper and performs better most of the time.
Its the same BS round and round again that Ryzen fans insist that ADL isn't better in games and i9 fans insisting that their CPU is actually more efficient.

You are missing the point again. Yes, 12900k on stock power limit is inefficient on all core workloads. That's because of the insane all core frequency it is running at. Try running an all core workload with that frequency on a 5950x. Tell me the results.

If you actually do a test with lower power limits, 12900k is extremely efficient. It's not as good as a 5950x in all core workloads, but it beats everything else and it stomps the 5950x in lightly threaded tasks and games, both in performance and efficiency. Derbauer run a test and he found that 12900k is up to 50% more efficient than the 5950x in gaming.

 

[Zubasa]

Ι did not say that all core workloads don't matter. I'm saying you are not supposed to run those workloads at 5ghz all core frequencies. If blender is your game power limit it to a reasonable consumption that your cooler can handle. As you would do with every other CPU, right?


You are missing the point again. Yes, 12900k on stock power limit is inefficient on all core workloads. That's because of the insane all core frequency it is running at. Try running an all core workload with that frequency on a 5950x. Tell me the results.

If you actually do a test with lower power limits, 12900k is extremely efficient. It's not as good as a 5950x in all core workloads, but it beats everything else and it stomps the 5950x in lightly threaded tasks and games, both in performance and efficiency. Derbauer run a test and he found that 12900k is up to 50% more efficient than the 5950x in gaming.

Comparing frequencies on different architectures is pointless. Also i9 does not sustain 5Ghz on P-cores under its stock 241W PL, it hovers around 4.9Ghz.
And yes Intel did stated to reviwers that it is how the 12900K is intended to be used.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ts-between-50-w-and-241-w.289572/post-4663182

Also there is a fatal flaw to a lot of arguments presented out there. That is assuming AMD is in capable of reducing power limit as well.
Fact is reducing the power limit on Zen3 also barely impacts gaming performance. The OEM 5800 non-X runs at a PL of less than 65Ws and has almost identical gaming performance.
Also unlike manually tweaking the PL on Intel, Eco Mode (running at 65W) is a standard option on AMD 105W TDP cpus. The 5800 non-X is basically doing that out of the box.

As for the i9, it is not even capable of scaling under 75W, at 50W it actually slows down enough that is uses more energy in the end.
Not that it matters, becuase the i9 is NOT a laptop CPU and doesn't need to be capable of scaling all the way down to laptop power levels.

 

[fevgatos]

Comparing frequencies on different architectures is point less. Also i9 does not sustain 5Ghz on P-cores under its stock 241W PL, it hovers around 4.9Ghz.

Yes and no. All CPU's are running under the same laws of physics. Forcing a transistor to work at 5ghz consumes a lot of power, no matter the architecture. 5ghz is way outside the efficiency curve. So the fact that Intel CPU's can do it on normal cooling you can buy off of a shelve is impressive to me. Ryzen needs exotic cooling, ln2 canisters and the likes.

The point is, if you don't push the 12900k to insane frequencies on all core workloads, it is actually a really really efficient CPU. Now whether it's more efficient than a 5950x (the smaller ryzens like the 5800x / 5600x can't really compete here) depends on the workload, and it doesn't frankly matter. They are both efficient, there isn't that huge gap everyone on the internet is talking about where the 12900k consumes double. As you can see from your graph, even at stock 4.9 ghz 240w pl (which is extremely bad in terms of efficiency) it is more efficient than a 3900x. Is suddenly 3900x bad at efficiency??? If I go back to the comment section of that CPU will I see people complaining about how inefficient that CPU is? I don't think so..

Obviously if you want to be running blender and cinebench all day long, and efficiency is of the utmost importance to you, the 5950x is the better CPU. If you want to do anything else, the 12900k is just unbeatable. Lightly threaded tasks, single thread performance, gaming performance, it's just a beast

 

[vMax65]

This whole efficiency argument on desktop between Ryzen and ALder Lake is pointless especially for gaming and pro workloads. The actual power usage over time will balance itself and is miniscule over the life time of parts usage, especially as we are never running CPU's at max core and power levels 24/7 unless we are semi / professionals and then you tend to buy Threadripper or higher. For gaming and workloads like rendering, encoding etc. both CPU's architectures find a happy balance with one providing a bit more performance at the cost of energy and the other being just a tad more efficient vs performance (core for core), and lets be honest, Intel have made huge strides getting to a point where they can match or even exceed Ryzen with a big/small design which is innovative and will only get better as they optimise going forward and when running under 'normal' conditions it is highly efficient especially the 12600K and 12700K whilst the 12900K is a halo product along with the 5900 and 5950 just based on pricing and if you really are all into efficiency and worried about your power bills buy sub 65w parts and be done with, we are after all talking about being enthusiasts....

AMD on the other hand are just as creative (if not more as they were the under dog!) and will no doubt hit back with more efficiency and performance so we all win as Intel and AMD go at each other and I like the fact they they have taken different routes to achieve performance and efficiency.

I have never worried about my power bill due to my PC running games, streaming and encoding....I mean we are not even talking about GPU power usage which is going up and up...

Is one better than the other, no, they just do things differently in getting to the same result, which in my world is great as we actually have a choice...I have to admit, this whole AMD vs Intel thing just does my head in....just buy what suit your budget for your use case and be it AMD or Intel it is the right decision for you...there is no wrong decision not at the current place we are in CPU maturity..We are in fact lucky that AMD provided competition and Intel responded...

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Good video by Der8auer. Love the way he says E cores are not crap cores, like some Fidiots think. "makes no sense having discord running on a P core" so true

 

[gerardfraser]

Only under max load. Most loads, even heavy gaming, do not force AlderLake to max power draw. W1zzard's testing clearly showed this and his testing is echoed by many other sites reviewers as well. It is a point we really shouldn't be harping on..


Not all. For example, the i5-12400 has no Ecores at all. Not everything needs that balance of power/economy.

Hmmm a PC game doing 186W on one of my 12900K CPU's .I love it but the truth is 12900 is hot and eats watts more than any Intel/AMD CPU I owned over the last couple years.
2600X/3600X/3600XT/3800X/3800XT/5600X/5800X/10850K although the 10850K could hit 300+watts.

Blows my mind with some comments from a few people in the comments.

Video where the screen shot is from

 

[Outback Bronze]

Hmmm a PC game doing 186W on one of my 12900K CPU's

Is it me or is that running @ 5.6ghz? Not bad for 186w if I say so myself.

 

[gerardfraser]

Is it me or is that running @ 5.6ghz? Not bad for 186w if I say so myself.

Yeah it was 5600Mhz, but I owned two 12900K and only run them at 5400Mhz for PC Gaming and highest I tried was 5700Mhz. To be clear though at 4900Mhz I still got the same FPS on 12900K,just bigger numbers bigger ego e-peen.

 

[Zubasa]

Yeah it was 5600Mhz, but I owned two 12900K and only run them at 5400Mhz for PC Gaming and highest I tried was 5700Mhz. To be clear though at 4900Mhz I still got the same FPS on 12900K,just bigger numbers bigger ego e-peen.

I wonder if there is clock stretching invloved since you are getting the same performance.