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posted by takyon on Wednesday September 02 2015, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the month-long-news dept.

Intel's first two 14nm Skylake desktop chips, the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K, were launched at Gamescom in Germany and reviewed back on Aug. 5. When the processors are set at 3 GHz, Anandtech benchmarking showed 2-3% instructions per clock (IPC) improvement over Broadwell, and over 5% IPC improvement from Haswell to Skylake. Skylake's overclocking potential seems better than both Haswell and Broadwell. One explanation is that the fully integrated voltage regulator (FIVR), which had caused heating issues in Haswell and Broadwell chips, has been removed. FIVR is expected to be reintroduced in 2017 in the generation of chips following "Kaby Lake". Skylake processors will support both DDR3L and DDR4 memory, but the performance benefits of DDR4-2133 over DDR3-1866 are minor and inconsistent.

Anandtech testing found that discrete gaming performance decreased slightly (1.3%) versus Haswell when both CPUs were limited to 3 GHz. The issue might be cleared up with firmware updates and further benchmarking, but the finding sets the tone for Skylake: Not much new for desktop users, but potentially important improvements for mobile users. Skylake on the desktop does look better when compared to older CPUs, with Skylake beating Sandy Bridge by 25-37%, and Skylake should consistently reach higher clock rates than Haswell and Broadwell.

i7-6700K/i5-6600K Review at Tom's Hardware

Following a leak of embargoed Skylake "full" lineup details, Intel pushed out its fact sheet early. Anandtech has its coverage and analysis of the full launch. You may also be interested in media improvements.

Skylake "Iris Pro Graphics 580" (GT4e) will see the introduction of a fourth "slice" of execution units (EUs), bringing the high-end from Broadwell's 48 EUs to a total of 72 EUs. However, none of the chips announced today have a fourth slice. Some of the U-series (Ultrabook) chips come with "Iris Graphics 550", with three slices and 48 EUs (GT3e). Even if a GT4e part was available, a 50% increase in EUs would not mean a 50% increase in graphics performance.

Skylake GT3 and GT4 chips will come with 64 and 128 MB of eDRAM respectively (hence GT3e and GT4e). Integrated graphics and "specific workloads" are improved by the presence of eDRAM.

Skylake chips operate across a wide range of power envelopes, from 4.5 Watts on Core M (Skylake-Y) to 91 Watts on Skylake-K. Battery life on mobile platforms will be improved, particularly when watching video due to better hardware decoding.


German IT media house Heise reports weird benchmark results [in German] for the new "Skylake" generation of Intel Core CPUs. The tested CPU exhibited more than a factor-two speedup over the previous Broadwell generation for single-thread tasks in a specific benchmark, but the performance did not scale with more cores; it even dropped below single core performance.

With somewhat stagnating clock rates in the past few years, the path to optimization has recently been to improve the Instructions-Per-Clock rate, through widening of the execution path, and, more importantly, through improved branch predition. But with major improvements in the Sandy Bridge and Broadwell generation branch predictors, Intel had reached a point of diminishing return in this area.

Do they have an unexpected ace up their sleeves, or what explains this mystery?


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:38AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:38AM (#231545) Journal

    I would wait for Skylake over Broadwell since systems will be out in the coming weeks and months. Or take advantage of Broadwell inventory clearance by keeping an eye on a deal site [slickdeals.net].

    Skylake's improvements on mobile should be real enough. Here is some of what they are advertising over Broadwell in terms of performance:
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v1iygrGjgY0/VbEqn427U7I/AAAAAAAAJhk/FqzRiymwfos/s1600/1.png [blogspot.com]
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K8WfgTYCZ0w/VbEqrdQhZPI/AAAAAAAAJh0/Z-jU3eMlvq0/s1600/3.png [blogspot.com]

    30% better battery life? 10-30% better graphics performance? I didn't put too much of this info in the summary because it is still really uncertain. There were a flurry of Skylake laptop product announcements yesterday so we should see benchmarks for mobile soon.

    Intel has supposedly gotten manufacturers on board to add more wireless capabilities - meaning wireless charging and maybe something like WiGig for peripherals. That might factor into your decision.

    If you're unsure about going with Intel and are willing to wait a year, AMD's Zen is due for 2016. They are promising 40% improved instructions per clock by fixing the bad threading scheme they had before. I haven't seen any Intel Skylake vs. AMD Carrizo comparisons (on integrated graphics), but AMD will not want to lose the integrated graphics race to Intel. Intel should be releasing "Kaby Lake" next year, and nobody knows what that will look like. It could end up like "Devil's Canyon" - essentially a rebrand with 100-200 MHz higher clock rates.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:50AM (#231548)

    Thanks - 30 pct better battery life alone is prolly worth the wait. IF they can deliver that.

    • (Score: 2) by mtrycz on Thursday September 03 2015, @08:37AM

      by mtrycz (60) on Thursday September 03 2015, @08:37AM (#231630)

      I'd argue that *most* of the battery is drained by the led screen, and it's drawing continously. So 30% on a component that is already drawing a small amount and stays idle most of the time, probably shouldn't be a big deal.

      It's a great feat in and of itself, but not that important in a practical/consumer point of view. I personally always went with previous generation clearances (getting actually better performance for the price), but as GP suggested, wait for the benchmarks reviews and comparisons.

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