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Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs Will Launch in March, Gigabyte Confirms - ExtremeTech:
Gigabyte has confirmed that Intel will launch its Rocket Lake CPU refresh in March, as part of an announcement touting its own PCIe 4.0 support. Gigabyte announced today that if you own a Z490 motherboard, you'll be getting a UEFI update to support Rocket Lake CPUs with full PCIe 4.0 support.
The rest of the PR goes into detail on how Gigabyte engineered their motherboards to handle the higher heat output of PCIe 4.0, and the fact that addressable BAR support is coming to the company's motherboards as well. Addressable BAR is the same feature AMD debuted as Smart Access Memory earlier this year.
The March 2021 date confirms what we've heard previously — late March is more likely than early March. It's going to be genuinely interesting to see how Cypress Cove performs against AMD's Zen 3. Generally speaking, based on leaked benchmarks and early data, we're looking at impressive gains for Intel in single-thread performance. Multi-thread performance estimates for the Core i9-11900K have varied. In some cases, the 11900K is almost a match for the 10-core Core i9-10900K. In a few leaked results, it's actually been faster on eight cores than Comet Lake was on 10.
Are any of my fellow Soylentils doing PC builds right now, and if so what are you building? Let us know in the comments!
takyon writes: Intel announced more details about Rocket Lake at CES 2021. While dropping the top core count from 10 to 8, Intel estimates a 19% IPC increase for Rocket Lake-S. It also adds AVX-512 and "Deep Learning Boost" support. The integrated graphics should be about 50% faster, and can be used for stream encoding while discrete graphics is being used for gaming. AV1 video decode is supported. New Z590, B560, and H510 motherboards will support both Rocket Lake and Comet Lake. Intel's comparison of the 8-core i9-11900K to AMD's 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X shows the former performing 2-8% faster at several games at 1080p.
Also at Tom's Hardware and Wccftech.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:34PM (4 children)
At this point, I'd build something you could upgrade to the 5XXX series later. Actually, at this point, I'd try to hang on to my old junk as long as possible. At least until prices have started to swing back in the consumer's favor.
5XXX CPUs, 5XXX GPUs, and 6XXX GPUs, can't be had except via scalper prices. Even decent GPUs have skyrocketed in price since I built my machine last August. The GTX1650 GPU I bought at $159.99 is now going for over $440 via a 3rd party, apparently due to Newegg being out of stock.
Now is not the time to buy. Now is the time use duct tape to make it hold together, until you can get reasonably priced parts to build a new machine.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zoward on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:45PM
That pretty much describes my 6th gen i3 desktop at this point. Duct tape, bailing wire, Devuan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:18PM (1 child)
Consider just getting a high end Westmere/Phenom II or other early generation cpu/motherboard. As long as you're running dual/triple channel memory and a modern high end GPU, most of them work pretty well for the majority of games, and the few games that have 'missing instruction' bullshit, you can usually run with Intel's cpu instruction emulator, and maybe an overclock if you have a well binned chip.
As an added bonus you will have fewer serial numbers for your favorite operating system manufacturer, steam, or your gaming company to steal from you, and make it harder for them to spy on you and exploit your system. Many modern multiplayer games even have RAT capabilities built in so they can view your screen remotely. (Notably anything from what used to be Cryptic/Arcgames.)
It's a Brave New World comrade. One that would quickly end any of the old Science Fiction Dystopian stories we read, because much like 1984, they knew what you were doing all along.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:14PM
I'm currently running a Phenom/Athlon II x4 640 (I think, something very close to it anyway.) and I'm running into CPU performance issues. Avorion is making my CPU hit that 100% wall and just keep going. I tried tweaking a few things in the BIOS and it seems to have helped slightly, but I'm likely just reducing the life of the CPU at this point. Looking at better FM2+ socket CPUs, there's a negligible difference in performance according to userbenchmark.com. So, I was like, how cheap could I get a used AM3 MB+CPU+RAM and I'm thinking, yeah, that's dumb. Especially since this thing isn't my main computer and apparently my fixed ASUS motherboard should be arriving today.
Still, a Phenom II or even better yet, a FX6300/8300 would definitely get someone by for a few more years.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday January 15 2021, @01:18AM
I can confirm that. The 1650 Super [amazon.com] I bought from Amazon for $164.99 is now going for $388.99!
Listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about. Now is the worst time to build a new computer, or even upgrade your GPU. Wait until you can get parts at MSRP and let the scalpers sit on a pile of outdated parts.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223