Raptor Lake Leaks + Intel 4 developments

[g67575]

Yes that's why it's called tick-tock

It's still worth pointing out, many people tend to think there will probably be a large improvement in per core performance, with each Intel or AMD CPU generation.

Also, many generations are now just 'optimizations' rather than 'ticks' or 'tocks', as with the 7th to 10th generations, Willow Cove (11th gen), and now Raptor Lake:

Tick–tock model - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I assume it's mostly due to Moore's Law slowing down, that we keeping getting optimizations instead of something new.

Optimization is what always seems to proceed a new architecture generation, when a process fabrication shrink is not possible.

It's interesting looking ahead, some of Intel's future processor generations look like they could be both a tick and a tock in effect, e.g. Meteor Lake.

 

[g67575]

Unfortunately, looks like the 13th gen will be seeing a bump up in prices:

Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S Processors are Likely to Cost More than 12th Gen Alder Lake | Hardware Times

Over the past half-decade, Intel has had to cut chip prices several times in order to stay competitive against AMD. It looks like that trend will finally reverse soon. During Intel’s Q2 2022 earnings call, company CFO David Zinsner stated that he’s confident about the chipmaker’s upcoming...

www.hardwaretimes.com

I suppose they will want to counter the effects of inflation to some extent...

 

[g67575]

New B660 boards like the mortar max and B660M PG riptide are coming which use cheap DDR4 and allow bclk overclocking on non K CPUs.

Der8auer found that a 12400F could even beat a 12900k in some games when clocked to 5.2 so should be an interesting combo especially with boards like this paired with cheap RPL locked CPUs.

AMD has a better policy here, much easier for newcomers to understand.

The problem with these few special boards that allow BCLK configuration, is that they will be too expensive to be worth it. Might as well just buy an unlocked board and CPU, if building an Intel system. The performance will be better.

2nd hand 12600K /KF CPUs for ~£210-£230 will hit the market when the 13th gen is released. I think Intel should consider releasing some cheaper unlocked boards to stay competitive, like a tier inbetween the 'B' and 'Z' series chipsets.

 

[g67575]

The 12900KS can do 5.4ghz on stock voltage apparently, so I think they've got their work cut out to show improvements vs the 12th gen.

 

[g67575]

You have a point there, more cache and around 200mhz higher clocks (approx. 3.7% increase). I think 97 Celsius for the CPU package would limit the 13700K to high end water cooling only, at this clockspeed? At least, to avoid thermal throttling. Maybe worth running it at stock speeds, especially with air cooling (same will also be true for the 13900K).

I think the total L3 cache amount is the same (30MB) for the 13700K and 12900K /KS. But the L2 cache has been increased from 1.25MB per core, to 2MB per core.

It's a good CPU in the sense that the spec appears to be superior to the 12900KS.

It seems like the 900s in each series always have extreme cooling requirements, probably the same for the 13900K.

Looking at the cooling requirements, it does seem as though lots of people (e.g those using air coolers) might as well just buy a 13700 or 13900 (rather than the unlocked variants), as the all core speeds should still be 5.0ghz or higher.

 

[g67575]

Depends on the workloads you're running but those who just game could probably just stick a hyper evo 212 on it and be fine.

Well the hyper evo 212 struggled with my 10700KF, reaching the thermal limits in Prime95. It's not really fit to be used for many modern 8 core CPUs, in my opinion. Might've just needed new thermal paste though?

Works perfectly fine installed in my brother's PC, which has a 6 core i5 8400.

 

[g67575]

i9s always the idgaf edition, taking the chips to the maximum the silicon can handle (within thermal limits), regardless of efficiency. Tbf, at least the 10th gen i9s had 2 extra cores.

 

[g67575]

Well, the most power I've seen it consume was 140-145w in Prime95, so the EVO 212 was pretty marginal (it was enough for gaming though). This was with the clocks at 4.6ghz. With a better motherboard though, I'm sure it would draw more power than that.

No matter now though, you can get decent air coolers now for around £50, that work on AM4/AM5 and LGA1700. Probably only need something higher end if you buy a 12900K or 13900K.

 

[g67575]

I bought a Deepcool AK620 for £48, it's handling my current CPU nicely. Noctua seems a bit expensive, so it's good to see some competition.

There's also the higher end Assassin 3, but that tends to be priced at £60-£80

 

[g67575]

An interesting summary of 13th gen K CPU performance:

Intel i9-13900K Tested in Ashes Of The Singularity, Offers Neglible Increments in Performance

Many leaks have come up regarding Raptor Lake's performance in the past few weeks. We made a really comprehensive article showing the performance in

appuals.com

It looks like the 13th gen i9 chips are a bit faster in games, in theory. Maybe there will be a boost in less graphically intensive games, or running at lower resolutions?

I suspect it will come down to power limits and total power consumption.

I wonder if Intel is going to be more overt with their marketing for the 13th gen, soon?

Perhaps they will focus on minimum framerate improvements, which appear quite large in a few titles:

https://cdn.appuals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-07-17_17-55-40-1480x880-1.png.webp

EDIT - these are some weird results at 1080p, you'd expect the minimum FPS to be higher at a lower resolution. Probably an anomaly.

Some of the performance difference may just be related to the increase in clock frequency (although I don't think this would account fully for the difference seen at 1080p and 1440p).

If the performance benefit is mostly related to an increase in L3 cache, the 13900 (non K - Which will have same cache config as the unlocked chip) could be a worthwhile upgrade for some gamers (assuming good DDR5 RAM is used). Maybe the increase in L2 cache might give a boost to the rest of the series too?

EDIT#2 - It doesn't look like the L2 cache increase makes much difference to min. framerate, based on this 12600K /13600K comparison (RDR2):

https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc3/Intel_core_i5_13600k_gaming_test_RDR2.png

But, if it's anything like the 12th gen launch, we won't see the locked CPUs and motherboards until a few months after the main launch, so probably January 2023.

 

[g67575]

The 13900k is 40 fps ahead in ashes according to that link. Ashes measures CPU performance separately so it doesn't matter what resolution it is running at

That is a theoretical performance figure.

This is what the article says about that "The CPU Frametime is the theoretical maximum number of frames a second that your CPU produces without being GPU-bound".

Perhaps there could be this kind of improvement for games that effectively utilize all CPU cores efficiently.

 

[g67575]

I like how people are still hoping the 13th gen will be a large upgrade vs the 12th, despite the fact that in most cases, you will need the technical equivalent of a magnifying glass, to spot the difference in most real world tasks and games.

The only thing I'd say is notable, is the increase in L3 cache for the i9s, which seems to help with framerate stability in some games like RDR2.

 

[g67575]

I'm not sure tbh. Looking at this diagram, it looks like the L3 cache per P-core will be 3MB. On Alder Lake, Anandtech's analysis said that there is 2.5MB L3 cache per P-core on the 12th gen. Link here:

Intel "Raptor Lake" Rumored to Feature Massive Cache Size Increases

Large on-die caches are expected to be a major contributor to IPC and gaming performance. The upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor triples its on-die last-level cache using the 3D Vertical Cache technology, to level up to Intel's "Alder Lake-S" processors in gaming, while using the existing...

www.techpowerup.com

So, I don't know if the 3MB per core would apply to the 13700K / i7s. It's not a large improvement if it does though.

EDIT - So, apparently the 13700K has the same amount of L3 cache (30MB) for the P-cores and E-cores as the 12900K:

https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-07-28_19-19-56-740x412.png

Total L3 cache for the 12900K mentioned here:

Intel 12th Gen Core Alder Lake for Desktops: Top SKUs Only, Coming November 4th

www.anandtech.com

This might be wrong though, so feel free to correct me.

 

[g67575]

We need to see the final specs really, clearly Intel just isn't ready to talk about the 13th gen yet, they need to be gently persuaded into it. Lets face it, 'leaks' are usually based on guesswork, exaggeration or poorly interpreted information.

What kind of strategy is it, where a company confirms no specifics about their product, not even the launch date? Intel still has the edge for now with the 12th gen, so they don't have to change anything.

 

[g67575]

Yes, IPC +8%, upto 16 cores, an increase in cache. 1:1 infinity fabric also confirmed (exact supported frequencies not).

 

[g67575]

Intel said that they were gonna be in for a tough time vs AMD, due to the delays to their 7nm process (under the last CEO). They were originally planning for 7nm chips to be released in 2022, so the generation Intel is releasing in 2022 is the last gasp of their 10nm chips, and not a position they wanted to find themselves in.

 

[g67575]

Raptorlake's leaks suggest it'll beat Zen4 across the board as well, while being a few nodes behind AMD.

Where'd you get that from? You must know by now that the 13th gen is just using an optimization of Goldencove, right?

Probably wasting my breath.

 

[g67575]

That's irrelevant, it's the same process technology as was used for the 12th generation. No new architecture, or fabrication process, so the 13th gen is an optimization.

Intel's upcoming 7nm EUV process is targeted to have around twice the transistor density of their 10nm process (which they call 'Intel 7').

 

[g67575]

According to Anandtech, Intel 7 used to be known as 10nm Enhanced Super Fin (e.g. 10ESF). So, it was an optimization of their previous 10nm fabrication technologies. Link here:

Intel's Process Roadmap to 2025: with 4nm, 3nm, 20A and 18A?!

www.anandtech.com

The main thing to pay attention to, is transistor density (maybe power /voltage optimizations too), the names aren't really important.

 

[g67575]

There is a limit though. 400w cpus just shouldn't be a thing imo. I thought my 3960x at 280w is silly...

It's not desirable for gamers, especially if it means they have to upgrade their power supply (which is perhaps £100-£160 for a good one). I've got a Seasonic Prime 650w, enough for a RTX 3080 + 8 core CPU it seems, total system power draw is probably 500w or more.