Intel roadmap update: Skylake alongside Broadwell, Broadwell -E Q1 2016

Perfect_Chaos · 30 Jan 2015 at 04:37

Anyone else get the feeling we are only going to see incremental upgrades for a long time? I'm thinking Skylake is going to bring another 10% ipc increase again.. could be wrong, but i would be so disappointed waiting all that time to upgrade and it turns out to be true.

Hmm wait the K chips are coming this year afterall? Thought they were delayed until next year.. interesting.

spot35 · 30 Jan 2015 at 08:24

Boomstick777 said:
I want to see X99 Mini iTX !!

Join the club! However, some board manufacturers have stated that, given the sheer size of the die, it's impossible to fit everything onto a mini ITX board. I hope they're proven wrong and some bright soul manages it as that will be an immediate purchase for me and probably the whole development team I work with.

Perfect_Chaos · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:48

The Skylake-k chips definitely coming this year or does it mean could be between July and early next year? It's not very clear.

Boomstick777 · 30 Jan 2015 at 17:07

Perfect_Chaos said:
The Skylake-k chips definitely coming this year or does it mean could be between July and early next year? It's not very clear.

Broadwell -K (S1150) and Skylake -K (S1151) this year, what month exactly is anybody's guess.

Broadwell -E next year..

Perfect_Chaos · 30 Jan 2015 at 17:46

Boomstick777 said:
Broadwell -K (S1150) and Skylake -K (S1151) this year, what month exactly is anybody's guess.

Broadwell -E next year..

May as well wait and see what performance is like then, at least x99 will be cheaper to upgrade to by then if Skylake aint up to much.

Deus Ex · 30 Jan 2015 at 18:58

I assume I'll still be happy with my 4670k.

pastymuncher · 30 Jan 2015 at 19:00

I dread to think what the prices of these new cpu's will be. The 4690k has now shot up to £200 which is obscene for a i5 so god knows how much the next gen will be.

David Bisset · 30 Jan 2015 at 19:15

Yeah, price for performance has been unimpressive - my 1st gen i5 was £124+VAT when I bought it in 2009 and while no match for a 4690k the difference isn't staggering once clocked up

I'd have hoped that you'd be able to get a significantly faster chip for the same money, not a moderately faster chip for significantly more!

PhilGQ · 30 Jan 2015 at 20:28

I am on AM2+ motherboard and AM3 CPU (I think its that way around), either way I am still on DDR2. Skylake will makes sense for me assuming the DDR4 is cheap enough. I expect it will be nice speed boost too, having not been spoilt by Sandybridge goodness.

Boomstick777 · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:00

Perfect_Chaos said:
May as well wait and see what performance is like then, at least x99 will be cheaper to upgrade to by then if Skylake aint up to much.

I think Skylake is more about bringing igpu up to par, and way more energy efficient, rather than raw CPU performance. X99 is imho the best option for CPU power. It's a real powerhouse, 14nm Broadwell -E will hopefully bring the temps down and allow for better overclocking although it's a long ways off yet.

5820K + X99 is the best value VS performance around imho.

In my case I'm stuck with mini itx due to lack of space in bedroom lol. I just want a cool running CPU that won't hold back GPU performance (This 4770K runs hot). Likely gonna grab Broadwell Xeon (No igpu) and call it a day until later in 2016.

Sayso · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:19

hopefully skylake will give another 10-15% increase over current gen..which means if i upgrade will get 25% increase which i see as worth it...also a 6 core would be ideal. The timing of these will fit in perfect for me as the new round of GPUs will be out (and hopefully be coming down in price) im due a big upgrade and nothing apart from the X chips are tempting me at all and for me ddr4 is overpriced for the advantages it would bring me in 8 months time it should have dropped to a reasonable level.

Quixote · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:25

5820K + X99 is the best value VS performance around imho.

In my case I'm stuck with mini itx due to lack of space in bedroom lol. I just want a cool running CPU that won't hold back GPU performance (This 4770K runs hot). Likely gonna grab Broadwell Xeon (No igpu) and call it a day until later in 2016.

I agree 5820k + X99 (entry-level board & RAM) is the sweet spot for anyone who really needs threaded CPU performance (I'm not sure gamers need 6 cores + HT really, but I do 3D rendering so that stuff is great and the bonus is
you're good for gaming too).

Can I ask what case and fan you're using for your 4770K ? I've got a SUGO SG05 + Zalman CNPS8900. Overclocked to 4GHZ it hits upper 70s on 3D rendering over extended periods & isn't very loud. At stock, its obviously cooler. I'm using the onboard graphics for now though, maybe that makes a difference.

Dave2150 · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:48

Sayso said:
hopefully skylake will give another 10-15% increase over current gen..which means if i upgrade will get 25% increase which i see as worth it...also a 6 core would be ideal. The timing of these will fit in perfect for me as the new round of GPUs will be out (and hopefully be coming down in price) im due a big upgrade and nothing apart from the X chips are tempting me at all and for me ddr4 is overpriced for the advantages it would bring me in 8 months time it should have dropped to a reasonable level.

You'll have to wait for 2016 for a 6 or 8 core Skylake-E.

Skylake-K will be the usual i7 4 core, 8 threads with hyperthreading.

Perfect_Chaos · 30 Jan 2015 at 23:53

Boomstick777 said:
I think Skylake is more about bringing igpu up to par, and way more energy efficient, rather than raw CPU performance. X99 is imho the best option for CPU power. It's a real powerhouse, 14nm Broadwell -E will hopefully bring the temps down and allow for better overclocking although it's a long ways off yet.

5820K + X99 is the best value VS performance around imho.

In my case I'm stuck with mini itx due to lack of space in bedroom lol. I just want a cool running CPU that won't hold back GPU performance (This 4770K runs hot). Likely gonna grab Broadwell Xeon (No igpu) and call it a day until later in 2016.

So you're basically saying Skylake won't bring any decent IPC increases and x99 will still be better overall, not including the extra cores?

Dave2150 · 31 Jan 2015 at 00:01

Perfect_Chaos said:
So you're basically saying Skylake won't bring any decent IPC increases and x99 will still be better overall, not including the extra cores?

No-one knows what IPC increases Skylake will bring. All we can do is wildly guess. It could be a huge IPC increase, it could be the usual 5% that we've seen in the last few generations.

We'll simply have to wait for the release date, assuming there are no leaked benchmarks from a reputable source before then.

Boomstick777 · 31 Jan 2015 at 00:06

Perfect_Chaos said:
So you're basically saying Skylake won't bring any decent IPC increases and x99 will still be better overall, not including the extra cores?

It may do but I wouldn't expect it to be massive, prob 5% IPC as usual, but big jump in integrated graphics 50%+ over current Intel igpu. For gamers this is just wasted die space as we use DGPU.

For CPU performance X99 is def where's at, you're getting pure CPU no igpu taking up space, a soldered die and quad channel DDR4.

You can't go wrong with X99 + 5820K tbh, the mobo's and even DDR4 prices are good. The extra cores / threads are excellent for video encoding, workstation type stuff. It is also fast in gaming, and with DX12 ushering in more core usage it may even be faster in the future.

The only way Skylake would compare is if there was a 6 core / 12 thread on the mainstream, but it's very doubtful.

If I was looking now it would def be for X99 + 5820, price VS performance best atm

Boomstick777 · 31 Jan 2015 at 00:08

Quixote said:
I agree 5820k + X99 (entry-level board & RAM) is the sweet spot for anyone who really needs threaded CPU performance (I'm not sure gamers need 6 cores + HT really, but I do 3D rendering so that stuff is great and the bonus is
you're good for gaming too).

Can I ask what case and fan you're using for your 4770K ? I've got a SUGO SG05 + Zalman CNPS8900. Overclocked to 4GHZ it hits upper 70s on 3D rendering over extended periods & isn't very loud. At stock, its obviously cooler. I'm using the onboard graphics for now though, maybe that makes a difference.

I'm using Zalman CNPS2X cooler and 4770K at stock. It will hit 80c during Cinebench etc. Def runs hot, gaming is mid 60c's. I like the cooler as it's whisper quiet but just want lower temps, I'll keep this chip until Broadwell and throw in something 14nm.

Perfect_Chaos · 31 Jan 2015 at 00:12

Boomstick777 said:
If I was looking now it would def be for X99 + 5820, price VS performance best atm

I still think the price of ram could come down a bit though, it has already dropped a little bit but it's also still not cheap enough imo.

Dave2150 · 31 Jan 2015 at 00:16

Boomstick777 said:
It may do but I wouldn't expect it to be massive, prob 5% IPC as usual, but big jump in integrated graphics 50%+ over current Intel igpu. For gamers this is just wasted die space as we use DGPU.

For CPU performance X99 is def where's at, you're getting pure CPU no igpu taking up space, a soldered die and quad channel DDR4.

You can't go wrong with X99 + 5820K tbh, the mobo's and even DDR4 prices are good. The extra cores / threads are excellent for video encoding, workstation type stuff. It is also fast in gaming, and with DX12 ushering in more core usage it may even be faster in the future.

The only way Skylake would compare is if there was a 6 core / 12 thread on the mainstream, but it's very doubtful.

If I was looking now it would def be for X99 + 5820, price VS performance best atm

DX12/Mantle reduces core usage.

Boomstick777 · 31 Jan 2015 at 01:34

Dave2150 said:
DX12/Mantle reduces core usage.

DX12/Mantle spread load across more cores. So having more cores could be beneficial in the future. I.e 6/12 core/thread CPU might have long legs VS similarly priced 4/8 core/thread CPU.

DirectX 12.

[Direct3D 12] provides a lower level of hardware abstraction than ever before, allowing games to significantly improve multithread scaling and CPU utilisation

a demonstration of 3DMark running on Direct3D 11 compared to Direct3D 12 which halved the CPU time required to render a scene while also helping to spread the load more evenly across multiple processor cores -

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2014/03/21/microsoft-dx12/1

DirectX 12 features improved CPU utilisation with the workload able to be spread across multiple cores - effectively halving the load of DirectX 11.

http://www.developer-tech.com/news/...w-level-gaming-api-market-getting-bit-mental/

Mantle.

Mantle allows us to spread the load across multiple cores and finish it that much faster

http://www.firaxis.com/?/blog/single/why-we-went-with-mantle