Intel to launch 6 core Coffee Lake-S CPUs & Z370 chipset 5 October 2017

Supernaut91 · 26 Sep 2017 at 15:20

Depending on how these 8700k's perform it may be time for me to throw in the towel on my sandybridge setup.

It's crazy to think how well this i7 2600k @ 4.8Ghz has performed. Especially bundled with my EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 it still runs great at 2560x1600 on a u3011.

Surely it's only refinements that have been made on recent chips and not raw power improvements through new architecture.

I have a lot of factors to consider though with my aging P67 chipset.

- Lack of PCIe-3.0 support.
- limited DDR3 Memory at 1866mhz
- No NVME / m.2 support

Annoyingly I will be losing the benefits of the 2600ks amazing ability to stay cool at higher volts due to the soldering.

I will be looking at getting a binned chip at least capable of hitting 5Ghz a I’d like to visually see a higher frequency than something I purchased in 2011.

Thoughts? I have to say that the 2600k still performs admirably so once again, I’m in the position of should I just wait for 10nm. Ultimately though do you just wait forever?

Prozn · 26 Sep 2017 at 15:24

jigger said:
Sure.
The Intel ring bus isn't that efficie...

Thanks - so assuming 8700K is using mesh instead of ring bus then higher speed memory pays off. If we assume the 8700K is a 7700K with two more cores bolted on - all other architecture the same - then similar ring bus bottlenecks negate the benefit of super fast ram?

Given that at this point an 8700K should keep going until DDR5 is released, "future proofing" DDR4 ram for mesh based non-HEDT Intel processors may be a waste of money?

NinjaCool · 26 Sep 2017 at 15:57

Supernaut91 said:
Thoughts? I have to say that the 2600k still performs admirably so once again, I’m in the position of should I just wait for 10nm. Ultimately though do you just wait forever?

I still think my system (3570K/GTX 1070) plays new games just fine and looking at your specs, you have an even faster system then me.
I think upgrading in 2018 when Icelake, Ryzen 2 (likely 2019) and stuff like PCIe 4.0, USB 3.2 is out makes it the perfect time for people like us to upgrade.

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 16:12

Intel made a trade off to some extent with the bus when thet went eco mental and dropped the desktop idea. From now on the desktop parts are mobile CPU's so I'd hazard a guess and say we get whatever is the more power efficient. Thanks tree huggers!

MESH brings more bandwidth but at the cost of adding latency. Its kind of what part of the system becomes the bottleneck first but the MESH system is deffinalty the lessor of two evils for the majority of tasks once you pass a certain level of workload.

I'd expect a CPU with 6 cores, ring bus, dual channel memory plus hyperthreading will need really fast RAM. Just dont expect the gains to huge when scaling with clock speed and under load.

AthlonXP1800 · 26 Sep 2017 at 16:24

MyBrains said:
x264 on the CPU for best quality stream, tried all other methods in endless hours of testing, Twitch 6000kbps bitrate limit and x264 wins every time.

No argument really, only at higher bitrates is where the gap closes

I don't know why people stuck with x264, not x265/H.265/HEVC on either CPU or GPU for superior quality stream. I did endless hours, days, weeks of tests with all methods and settings found Nvidia NVENC H.265 has same image quality as CPU H.265 on slower setting at same bitrate. Encoded Star Wars: The Force Awaken Blu-ray on NVENC H.265 at 6000kps bitrate took about 16 mins but encode on CPU H.265 never get done because it estimated to complete in 10 hours then it increased to 15 hours, 24 hours etc so I dont bothered encode it on CPU as it take forever no matter how many cores. I tried encoded 117MB Star Wars: The Last Jedi MPEG4 trailer on NVENC H.265 took amazing 6 secs to compacted 22MB at 1500kbps bitrate, CPU H.265 encoded took about 16 mins both GPU and CPU encoded had same image quality of original trailer which used higher 7308kbps bitrate. I read lots of interesting things about next generation AOMedia AV1 codec and tried encoded x264 and H.265 at 300-500kbps for fun but image quality was horrible blurred with artifacts. Encoded it with AV1 at 300kbps would see very clean image quality at tiny 7MB file size that will put x264, x265 and HEVC codec to shame.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic...ard-Joins-Alliance-for-Open-Media-117634.aspx
https://www.elecard.com/news/results-of-elecards-latest-benchmarks-of-av1-compared-to-hevc
https://www.elecard.com/videos

Twitch 6000kbps bitrate on x264 is tiny compare to Crowd 1080p AV1 stream at 93962kbps around the quality of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray bitrate.

Been watched AV1 test samples on Elecard Player blew me away with amazing image quality at very low and high bitrates, it is the only player at the moment capable to decode AV1 playback.

Compare Sintel trailer encoded in AV1, H.265 and H.264 at 300kbps bitrate:

Cant wait to use AV1 when software and browsers will have it enabled around Jan 2018 when AOMedia freeze AV1 codec experiment and release final version by 31 Dec 2017.

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 16:42

Supernaut91 said:
Depending on how these 8700k's perform it may be time for me to throw in the towel on my sandybridge setup.

It's crazy to think how well this i7 2600k @ 4.8Ghz has performed. Especially bundled with my EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 it still runs great at 2560x1600 on a u3011.

Surely it's only refinements that have been made on recent chips and not raw power improvements through new architecture.

I have a lot of factors to consider though with my aging P67 chipset.

- Lack of PCIe-3.0 support.
- limited DDR3 Memory at 1866mhz
- No NVME / m.2 support

Annoyingly I will be losing the benefits of the 2600ks amazing ability to stay cool at higher volts due to the soldering.

I will be looking at getting a binned chip at least capable of hitting 5Ghz a I’d like to visually see a higher frequency than something I purchased in 2011.

Thoughts? I have to say that the 2600k still performs admirably so once again, I’m in the position of should I just wait for 10nm. Ultimately though do you just wait forever?

If you're happy with the performance then sit tight. The next big jump from Intel should come in 2020. Between now and then its more, more of the same.

Westie · 26 Sep 2017 at 18:45

my 2600k at 4.5 is still rocking fine with a 1080 at 3440x1440p but i will be defo getting a 8700k as sometimes my minimum FPS could do with being a bit higher!

what voltage you running your 2600k at to get 4.8ghz supernaut?

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 18:55

Westie said:
my 2600k at 4.5 is still rocking fine with a 1080 at 3440x1440p but i will be defo getting a 8700k as sometimes my minimum FPS could do with being a bit higher!

what voltage you running your 2600k at to get 4.8ghz supernaut?

You might be better off with Ryzen TBH. I haven't gamed much at all with Ryzen, but from what a lot of people are saying it seems minimum frame rates improve a lot. I'm not sure if thats £500 better.

AndreiD · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:03

TJM said:
I'd also appreciate some advice on the memory speed to go for in a gaming machine. Paying just to marginally increase performance in benchmarks or heavy duty work is something I want to avoid.

3200Mhz seems to be the sweet spot price wise, it's only a little bit on top what basic 2133~2666Mhz RAM costs and even the cheaper 3200 kits shouldn't have any issues running on Intel's platform at rated speeds.

@Supernaut91 I'd say upgrade only if you want the platform benefits, you'd probably see more of a jump from Sandy if you waited for 10nm desktop parts. No point in upgrading if you're happy with your current rig's performance.

BriT · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:13

Yeah same, my 4770K runs fine so might hold off..but new shiny...

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:13

Prerry much all the crucail 2133/2400Mhz stuff will hit 3200Mhz. Well It would with a quad core i7. But I think for Coffee lake you will want top end Hynix.

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:26

AndreiD said:
3200Mhz seems to be the sweet spot price wise, it's only a little bit on top what basic 2133~2666Mhz RAM costs and even the cheaper 3200 kits shouldn't have any issues running on Intel's platform at rated speeds.

@Supernaut91 I'd say upgrade only if you want the platform benefits, you'd probably see more of a jump from Sandy if you waited for 10nm desktop parts. No point in upgrading if you're happy with your current rig's performance.

What is another respin to 10nm realistically going to bring to Intel?

We went from 32 to 14nm and seen 15% ish gains. Unless Intel move to 10nm with a new architecture I can't see 10nm improving performance much at all.

AndreiD · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:30

It would be a big enough IPC jump over Sandy to justify an upgrade.

Doobedoo · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:40

AndreiD said:
It would be a big enough IPC jump over Sandy to justify an upgrade.

How long has that taken? Sandy was released in 2011.

jigger · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:45

AndreiD said:
It would be a big enough IPC jump over Sandy to justify an upgrade.

It would be a big jump in core count sure,but like I said we seen 15% from sandy so far, so what difference will another couple of percent in performance per core make.

AndreiD · 26 Sep 2017 at 19:58

It's up to them to discern based on reviews if the performance jump is adequate for an upgrade, not sure why the Knights of AMD came trumpeting Intel's IPC jumps when AMD still hasn't caught up to them and has had inferior IPC for 11 years now. Maybe Zen 2 will make a difference, but until then Intel's 10nm SKUs are the best bet for i7 K Sandy owners.

Doobedoo · 26 Sep 2017 at 20:03

AndreiD said:
It's up to them to discern based on reviews if the performance jump is adequate for an upgrade, not sure why the Knights of AMD came trumpeting Intel's IPC jumps when AMD still hasn't caught up to them and has had inferior IPC for 11 years now. Maybe Zen 2 will make a difference, but until then Intel's 10nm SKUs are the best bet for i7 K Sandy owners.

Lol. That's the problem Intel has lolled people into a apathetic acceptance for minor and mediocre gains, for more money.

You said it yourself Amd is limited in resources so.... Imagine what Amd could do with Intel's money instead of Amd money?

Anyway regardless we have a wealth of choice now so anyone upgrading will have many options to choose from, depending on their personal criteria.

AndreiD · 26 Sep 2017 at 20:08

AMD would do the same if they were in Intel's position, they're both corporations, neither is your friend.

Choice is great and AMD finally being able to be competitive after 6 years of a dreadful architecture and minor IPC jumps we finally have some good products.

But going back on topic, wait for benches, if the performance difference is good enough, upgrade.

Doobedoo · 26 Sep 2017 at 20:12

Amd would do what exactly?

Yep things are very good in the present market .

Yes I agree we should defiantly wait for benches. Coffee Lake is a step in the right direction, following up from ryzen that's been out for 6 months now.

Rainmaker · 26 Sep 2017 at 20:24

AndreiD said:
It's up to them to discern based on reviews if the performance jump is adequate for an upgrade, not sure why the Knights of AMD came trumpeting Intel's IPC jumps when AMD still hasn't caught up to them and has had inferior IPC for 11 years now. Maybe Zen 2 will make a difference, but until then Intel's 10nm SKUs are the best bet for i7 K Sandy owners.

Genuine question/point here, as I'm platform agnostic. Didn't Intel's roadmap slide show they expected 10mm/Cannonlake to have an IPC decrease over the preceding gens, until 10+/++ catches back up again?