Intel has announced new developments at its Architecture Day 2018:
Sunny Cove, built on 10nm, will come to market in 2019 and offer increased single-threaded performance, new instructions, and 'improved scalability'. Intel went into more detail about the Sunny Cove microarchitecture, which is in the next part of this article. To avoid doubt, Sunny Cove will have AVX-512. We believe that these cores, when paired with Gen11 graphics, will be called Ice Lake.
Willow Cove looks like it will be a 2020 core design, most likely also on 10nm. Intel lists the highlights here as a cache redesign (which might mean L1/L2 adjustments), new transistor optimizations (manufacturing based), and additional security features, likely referring to further enhancements from new classes of side-channel attacks. Golden Cove rounds out the trio, and is firmly in that 2021 segment in the graph. Process node here is a question mark, but we're likely to see it on 10nm and or 7nm. Golden Cove is where Intel adds another slice of the serious pie onto its plate, with an increase in single threaded performance, a focus on AI performance, and potential networking and AI additions to the core design. Security features also look like they get a boost.
Intel says that GT2 Gen11 integrated graphics with 64 execution units will reach 1 teraflops of performance. It compared the graphics solution to previous-generation GT2 graphics with 24 execution units, but did not mention Iris Plus Graphics GT3e, which already reached around 800-900 gigaflops with 48 execution units. The GPU will support Adaptive Sync, which is the standardized version of AMD's FreeSync, enabling variable refresh rates over DisplayPort and reducing screen tearing.
Intel's upcoming discrete graphics cards, planned for release around 2020, will be branded Xe. Xe will cover configurations from integrated and entry-level cards all the way up to datacenter-oriented products.
Like AMD, Intel will also organize cores into "chiplets". But it also announced FOVEROS, a 3D packaging technology that will allow it to mix chips from different process nodes, stack DRAM on top of components, etc. A related development is Intel's demonstration of "hybrid x86" CPUs. Like ARM's big.LITTLE and DynamIQ heterogeneous computing architectures, Intel can combine its large "Core" with smaller Atom cores. In fact, it created a 12mm×12mm×1mm SoC (compare to a dime coin which has a radius of 17.91mm and thickness of 1.35mm) with a single "Sunny Cove" core, four Atom cores, Gen11 graphics, and just 2 mW of standby power draw.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 14 2018, @04:00AM (8 children)
It seems more likely to me than slapping the old "Black Edition" label on it from the Bulldozer days. It's also similar to how Intel recently released an i7-8086K commemorative chip. AMD could be copying that idea and the timing is just right.
The YouTuber went into greater detail about why he thought his leak was accurate. You can watch it yourself if you want. Or just wait until CES in January.
The most important point, that the top Ryzen chips will have 12 and 16 cores, has been floating around for a long time now. That was reinforced when AMD raised Threadripper 2 up to 16-32 cores despite not increasing cores per CCX on the "12nm" node. And now we know that the Epyc chips will have 64 cores using 8 chiplets. The 16-core Ryzen is a done deal.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 14 2018, @06:22PM (7 children)
> The 16-core Ryzen is a done deal.
Sadly for their profits, what most of the market needs is covered by a quad-A73.
I'm very glad for the progress (Go AMD!), by my current quad i5 is about 5 years old, and unless it kicks the bucket, it looks like it should be enough until Ryzen 4.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 14 2018, @07:07PM (3 children)
Chicken, meet egg. Or vice versa. With core counts reaching 16 for mainstream CPUs, someone will come up with software that can take advantage of it. And don't say "bloat will do it!" because you actually have to try to waste those resources.
I wish you luck on stretching to Ryzen 4 or 5. Maybe you can hold out until the "5nm" node for some extra gains. If you get an APU or GPU, make sure it comes with AV1 hardware decoding.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday December 14 2018, @11:41PM (2 children)
This reminds me of the hardware h.264 in my GPU. I don't know if there are any programs that support it even now. I wouldn't be surprised if it took years before any software supports the AV1 hardware decoding.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:49AM (1 child)
I'd say first in line is your web browser.
https://helgeklein.com/blog/2017/12/browser-video-codecs-formats-hardware-acceleration/ [helgeklein.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:47AM
This might be the most informative response I've received. I bookmarked that!
Thank you.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @10:06PM (2 children)
I think you've got it in reverse. Intel's monopoly stagnated the PC market, so people stopped coming up with cool new stuff to do with them.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 14 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)
Most of the market needs a computer to check email/facebook/twitter, order on Amazon, make/watch youtube/porn, and do some basic office stuff.
A quad A73 is plenty for all of the above. Intel delivering more power would not have changed that much, just enabled faster spying.
I got a free Titan card for my PC, yet without playing the latest AAA games, I don't seem to be hurting the processor, yet I am pretty satisfied with the scene complexity compared to ten years ago.
I'm sure my future Ryzen 3 oe 4 will blow my socks off.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @11:01PM
It isn't just delivering more power, it is also doing the same while consuming less power, or much cheaper.
But in general, the high core count is a qualitative difference from the gradually increasing single thread speed on 2-6 cores intel has been offering. We don't know yet who will be able to take advantage of this.