Is the CPU landscape going to change much in 2016?

[faceman123]

I sense that whatever amd release wont beat a 5820k/5960x and shortly intelligence will release Broadwell. It's the image problem with AMD, even if it does by some miracle out perform Intel Haswell, people will still avoid it due to uncertainty of upgrade paths. Intel hold their value better use less power and Overclock like mad. This is yet another more cores quick fix by amd. Hope they release something crazy 16 cores @ £299 only then would I switch

 

[Caracus2k]

I don't think we will see a jump like the core2's for some time especially whilst cpu's are still made as they currently are on silicon. I also don't think Intel are deliberately sandbagging when it comes to performance. True there focus is on low power consumption and integrated graphics because that's where the volume and growth is. The high power desktop cpu market is really a fairly niche market compared to the bulk of sales. We have been stuck with cpu's which per core were clocked around 4ghz at stock for many years now... There was an ancient p4 clocked at 3.8ghz! Sure ipc has improved massively since then as has the amount of cores on a desktop cpu but the returns on these look to be increasingly diminishing with each advance. Netburst was originally intended to scale past 10ghz! Intel just realised that it was not technically feasible hence the switch back to a modified version of the even more ancient Pentium pro for the core cpu's We are at a point now where smaller manufacturing processes may not actually assist in allowing for higher per core clocks. The overall heat generated and power used may be down but the heat generated by unit area may actually go up! The skylake 6700k is similar in size to some recent gen i3 cpu's. Overclock it to 4.8ghz and your having to cool an awful lot of heat from such a small die

 

[Combat Fighter]

Short answer = NO.

 

[pete910]

Zen hasn't even taped out yet. It's going to be a 2017 product, that's assuming it doesn't get delayed.

Thought they'd taped out in july.

 

[Perfect_Chaos]

I suppose the big gains won't be coming till we move from silicone now then? That's some years away, if Cannonlake isn't going to bring anything performance wise then what's the point of even releasing it? Kaby Lake seems almost pointless as well because it's just a IGPU boost.

 

[Hedge]

The way I see it is that there is nothing that would benefit from a big cpu jump any more. Gaming seems to rest 95 % on gpu capability and anything above a 2500k at 4.5ghz isn't really proving a bottleneck.

For demanding cpu tasks then yeah things will improve. But the average user doesn't care about any of that.

Right now advancements will be in power consumption and temperatures.

I personally see the need to upgrade cpu as being small for a while.

 

[Troezar]

The way I see it is that there is nothing that would benefit from a big cpu jump any more. Gaming seems to rest 95 % on gpu capability and anything above a 2500k at 4.5ghz isn't really proving a bottleneck.
/QUOTE]

Does that mean there are some extra resources available that are being underutilised by developers?

 

[zola25]

Does that mean there are some extra resources available that are being underutilised by developers?

I think it's more a case of most game genres not being particularly computationally expensive, whereas increasing expectations of graphical quality drive GPU utilisation. That's not to say more CPU cycles couldn't be dedicated to enhancing AI or more complex game mechanics.

However, don't forget devs target the lowest common denominator in order to boost sales, and only a small fraction of PCs can be considered high end. Whilst GPU requirements can be dialled up or down by in game graphics options, that's not something that's easy to achieve on the CPU side. E.g. if an AI quality slider was introduced that allowed for more advanced AI on high end CPUs this would fundamentally alter the game by comparison to someone playing on a lower spec CPU.

 

[UTmaniac]

Depends if you call ~5% "much."

 

[Orangey]

They are going to start throwing other metals into the mix instead of using just silicon, "Icelake" could be the first to see this in 2019 or so.

 

[Hedge]

I think we just need to look at our own personal usage. Do you actually think you would achieve anything by having a faster cpu? I certainly don't.

Although I have a 5820k at 4.5. But to be honest my 2500k was barely different