Intel's new 8th-gen Core chips now include six cores on the high end, attacking one of AMD's Ryzen advantages.
[...] Orders for the Intel's new Core desktop chips will begin on Oct. 5, Anand Srivatsa, general manager of the desktop platform group at Intel, said. They will begin shipping later in the fourth quarter. Though Intel executives didn't use the term, the new chips have been referred to as part of the "Coffee Lake" family.
Of the six new desktop chips that Intel announced, the flagship offering is clearly the Core i7-8700K, which Srivatsa touted as its best gaming processor ever. The new Core i7-8700K will offer an additional 25 percent in frames per second running Microsoft's Gears of War 4, versus its 7th-gen Core i7-7700K—a 4-core, 8-thread part. Multitasking, though—such as gaming, streaming, and recording using the popular Player Unknown: Battlegrounds—will be a whopping 45 percent faster than a 7th-gen part, executives said.
Intel indicated that this 8th-generation part is built on what it calls a 14nm++ process. The company would not comment on the die size or transistor count at this time…
The company has added a few more knobs for the overclocking crowd to turn, as well. Turbo Boost 2.0 is still supported, but you now get per-core overclocking, a maximum memory ratio up to 8,400 MT/s, memory latency control, and PLM Trim controls. We've included a slide from Intel's press deck below. It lists some of the key specs and pricing. Notably, the high-end Core i7 part is $20 higher than initial Kaby Lake pricing; the Core i5 sits $15 higher. This move is likely designed to cover the additional costs of the silicon along with avoiding cannibalizing the existing Kaby Lake models. Cache sizes are higher and base clocks are lower, comparatively, but the single-core max frequencies are higher. TDP is also higher, presumably to support the higher core count.
Related Stories
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11859/the-anandtech-coffee-lake-review-8700k-and-8400-initial-numbers
At the top of the stack are two Core i7 Coffee Lake processors. In previous generations 'Core i7' meant that we were discussing quad-core parts with hyperthreading, but for this generation it moves up to a six-core part with hyperthreading. The Core i7-8700K starts at a 3.7 GHz base frequency and is designed to turbo to 4.7 GHz in single threaded workloads, with a thermal design power (TDP) of 95W.
[...] In the middle of the stack are the Core i5 processors, with the new generation matching the 'same configuration without hyperthreading' philosophy that followed in the previous generation. The two Core i5 parts operate at lower clockspeeds compared to the Core i7, and perhaps more so than we are previously used to, especially with the Core i5-8400 having a base frequency of 2.8 GHz. Intel sampled us the Core i5-8400 for our review, because it hits an important metric: six cores for under $200.
[...] It is interesting to note that in the last generation, Intel had processors with two cores and two threads (2C/2T), two cores with hyperthreading (2C/4T), quad cores with four threads (4C/4T) and quad cores with hyperthreading (4C/8T). This layout had staggered, regular steps. With the move to 6C/12T on the high-end Core i7, and 6C/6T on the mid-range Core i5, Intel completely skips the 4C/8T parts and moves straight to 4C/4T on the Core i3. This is likely because a 4C/8T processor might overtake a 6C/6T part in some multi-threaded tests (it would also explain why moving from a previous 4C/8T Core i7 processor to a 6C/6T Core i5 8th generation is not always an increase in performance).
However at the bottom of the stack are the 4C/4T Core i3 processors, where Intel is pushing out an overclockable Core i3 processor again. This is a little bit of a surprise: in our testing of the previous generation overclockable Core i3, the fact that it was dual core was a setback in a lot of testing. With the Core i3-K now being quad-core, and overclocking it to try and beat a six-core chip for less money, for certain things like gaming we might see less of a difference between the two.
Also at Ars Technica. Intel press release.
Previously: AMD's Ryzen Could be Forcing Intel to Release "Coffee Lake" CPUs Sooner
Intel's First 8th Generation Processors Are Just Updated 7th Generation Chips
Intel Launches 8th-Gen Core Desktop Chips; Claims New Core i7-8700K is its Best Gaming Chip Ever
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:49AM (6 children)
If only good games were still being made...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:14AM (4 children)
...for Linux.
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:39AM (3 children)
I said still. I can't remember a golden age of gaming for Linux. Just saying.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:15AM (1 child)
The SteamOS push seemed to have helped improve Linux gaming performance and get more Linux-compatible titles out, but the OS seems to have run out of... steam.
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-gaming-exploding-steam [linuxjournal.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/6j6yos/does_valve_still_aim_to_actively_support_linux/ [reddit.com]
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/editorial-valve-have-not-abandoned-steamos-or-linux-things-are-looking-pretty-good.7309 [gamingonlinux.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:27PM
Linux ran out of steam... on the desktop. Without a consistent desktop, development tools, or stable kernel internal abi/api for drivers, Linux will always be in a position of playing catch up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:21AM
We got Descent ]I[ one time. And Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:26PM
http://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/ [steampowered.com]
Enjoy : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:47AM (1 child)
Shouldn't this story be about the Core i9
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3199955/components-processors/intel-core-i9-prices-specs-release-date-features-faqs.html [pcworld.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:04AM
The Core i9 lineup is Skylake based (Skylake-X, the X refers to enthusiast chips). Intel typically releases expensive high-core-count enthusiast chips on an older architecture than what is available for normal desktops and laptops. The normal/mainstream segments make more revenue and the architecture has matured by the time enthusiast chips are made with it. After Skylake came Kaby Lake and now Coffee Lake, specifically Coffee Lake-S.
Although Intel has made 6-core chips before, these are the first "mainstream" 6-cores from the company. $182 for 6 cores, 6 threads, $303 for 6 core, 12 threads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake [wikipedia.org]
We have already talked plenty about Skylake-X/Core i9:
CPU Rumor Mill: Intel Core i9, AMD Ryzen 9, and AMD "Starship" [soylentnews.org]
Intel Announces 4 to 18-Core Skylake-X CPUs [soylentnews.org]
Intel Core i9-7900X Reviewed: Hotter and More Expensive than AMD Ryzen 1800X for Small Gains [soylentnews.org]
Intel's Skylake-X Line-up Finalized: 18-Core i9-7980XE Poised to Sell Well? [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:06AM (1 child)
You can't just drop in a Coffee Lake 6-core on any LGA 1151 motherboard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151 [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:56PM
Surely, it could have been engineered such that a 6-core chip in an "old" LGA 1151 socket would at least work as a 4-core chip, etc. Surely, it could have also been engineered to work in some kind of degraded mode, whereby the 2 "extra" cores can still be passed tasks by one of the other cores.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:36AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)
Can we please get some more data when statements like this are made? Power consumption? Clock speed? Price?!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:54PM
I think the idea here is that for many users, Intel's lead in single-threaded performance makes it a better choice than AMD's high core multithreaded approach. So a gentle increase from 4 cores to 6 cores is more useful than AMD's 8 cores.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:06PM
If people really have too much money on their hands, a Xeon W-2125 will handle more GPUs and won't throttle-down the rest of your cores while one is under heavy loads.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday September 26 2017, @05:36PM
Which NSA Backdoor chipset is this CPU compatible with? Can I still use it with the undocumented, unpatched backdoor chipset that allows remote hardware access?