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Raptor Lake Leaks + Intel 4 developments

Just saw this. No increase in P-Cores, don't see the point. They are pushing the multitasking hard. RIP the 12900KS I suppose.

They didn't even detail clock speed improvements or IPC, or confirm L3 cache amounts.

First time they've even officially mentioned Raptor Lake on a roadmap, I think:

https://www.techspot.com/images2/news/bigimage/2022/02/2022-02-19-image-6.jpg

My impression is that they are trying to win the core war (multithreaded tasks) against Zen 4 in Q3-Q4 2022. They already know that Zen 4's performance per core will be significantly ahead though... And therefore, offer better value.

I'm guessing it will only offer L3 cache and clock speed improvements. 'Enhanced Overclocking features' seems to hint at higher turbo boost speeds.

One positive thing to say, is that it looks like Raptor Lake / 13th gen CPUs will work nicely in pretty much all existing LGA1700 boards.

Raptor Lake should do well in laptops in 2022, probably beating AMD as Zen 4 mobile appears to be coming in 2023. This makes sense as both laptop and tablet sales are way ahead of desktop PC sales
https://www.statista.com/statistics...forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/
 
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I think it will be a good upgrade for ppl on lower end 12th gen CPUs, but I think even the mid/low end Zen 4 CPUs will give Raptor Lake CPUs a run for their money.

The 6 core Zen 4 CPUs should offer some great bang for buck, just like the 5600X.
 
I think it's probably logical to assume that Zen 4 will be faster over 8 cores (in multithreading tasks), vs Raptor Lake (because apparently Intel are not increasing the P-Core Count above 8).

The fact that they aren't increasing the P-Core count seems significant, as it suggests that the design is still geared towards laptops (not desktops so much), where E-Cores are often favoured.

Single threaded performance is what we need to know for Zen 4. I've heard rumours like 20-25% IPC increase vs Zen 3, but that's all they are for now, just rumours.
 
Minstadave said:
It really suggests they can't sort their power issues out so have to bodge on E cores.
Click to expand...

Only solution would be moving over to 7nm EUV, Intel has known this for years now (last CEO commented on the problems with 10nm a while ago).

Intel doesn't really discuss the problems with 10nm now, but it's quite a mature process at this point. I think they've already squeezed all the efficiency they can out of it.

Meteor Lake is Zen 4's competitor, not Raptor Lake. Intel has every chance to do well with Meteor Lake, given that it's a new design, with a fabrication technology that is estimated to overtake 5nm EUV in terms of transistor density (hence Intel's insistence on calling it 'Intel 4').
 
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They're not though are they? Intel confirmed similar performance per clock to Comet Lake cores, but at a lower clock frequency.

Maybe they will be redesigned, for Raptor Lake, though?
 
Nah, the 12900KS will be very short lived (it's really scraping the barrel). Intel has every reason to rush out their 13th generation before Zen 4 is released.

Intel will need CPUs (unlocked or not) with 4.9/5ghz turbo speeds on all cores to stand a chance of coming close in performance.

The most positive thing I've heard about Raptor Lake so far, is that Intel are making the transition to (only) DDR5 with the 700 series chipset motherboards:
https://www.techpowerup.com/292535/intel-wants-700-series-chipset-motherboards-without-ddr4

Hopefully, that will mean higher frequency RAM support, with the ability to run DDR5 memory with a memory controller gear of 1:1. Not adding this to Alder Lake DDR5 boards was a significant drawback (as DDR4 at gear 1 is often faster in tasks like games).

Intel is probably feeling pressured by AM5 / Zen 4's support for DDR5, which probably won't have any limitations on the memory controller speed (AMD has never had an option to lower the memory controller speed with Ryzen CPUs).
 
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It's just logic... Zen 3 is only a bit behind Alder Lake. Clocked at 5ghz on all cores, it wouldn't be far off (maybe 5% difference).

This is what AMD says Zen 4 will be clocked at (believable considering they are using 5nm EUV). I'm unsure if this will apply to 12/16 core versions.

But there's other factors too, like significantly higher L3 cache amounts (just like with 5800X3D).

There's improved ram support for DDR5 also, very likely not going to run with a memory controller gear like Alder Lake.

Finally, an ipc improvement of between 10-20% is typical for each Zen generation (arguably AMD's main focus with Ryzen).
 
You say it's just an opinion, doesn't change the fact that Zen 4 is (obviously) a new processor architecture with a substantially improved manufacturing process with around 70% increased transistor density compared to TSMC's 7nm, used for Zen 3.

Additionally, AMD confirmed that 5ghz is the target for Zen 4 CPUs... Fairly clear cut.

It's true that AMD hasn't confirmed yet if V-Cache will be integrated into the Zen 4 CPUs available in 2022.
 
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Joxeon said:
Double digets could imply anywhere between 10 and 99%.
Click to expand...

The problem I have with this is that it doesn't say single threaded / single core performance. So, they can just get additional multithreaded performance by adding more E-Cores. Multithreaded performance is not the problem with today's CPUs, Zen 3 consumer CPUs already have upto 16 cores and upto 64 is possible with thread ripper / workstation CPUs. It also doesn't specifically mention IPC.

It does say 'enhanced overclocking features' though, so a push for 5ghz even on non K CPUs wouldn't surprise me.
 
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It all comes down to price. Hopefully, they will release a 5ghz 8 core CPU for around £300-£350. Maybe a 12 Core for £400.

It's true that people might need to wait 3-6 months for the prices to fall to a reasonable level though.

I don't think the E-Cores are really much of a factor (except on laptops), but it really depends how successful Intel is in marketing them.
 
AMD is already getting ~4.7ghz on 8 threads with the 5800X (I know some can do more than this also), so they might even be able to go higher than 5ghz with the 7800X / whatever it's called.

5800X Boost clock analysis:
https://tpucdn.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-5800x/images/boost-clock-analysis.png

Looks like they need to improve AVX frequencies still though, hopefully the higher power limits on AM5 will be useful there.

EDIT - Looks like the L2 cache per core is double the amount of Zen 3, at least for Zen 4 server CPUs:
https://www.techpowerup.com/293340/...cpus-confirmed-to-have-1-mb-l2-cache-per-core

No evidence of V-Cache usage, however.
 
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Intel's 13th gen could have the best multithreaded performance then. The hybrid design certainly seems suited for that.

The thing is though, if people need more MT performance, they can always buy a 12/16 core CPU instead.
 
It's quite possible, the 5900X would've been around £500 on launch in the UK. So, a similar price on launch for a 12 core Zen 4 CPU wouldn't shock me.

They probably won't be cheaper than Zen 3 on launch, as TSMC reportedly increased their 5nm EUV price. And L2 cache is quite expensive (which appears to be increased with Zen 4). There's a bit of inflation to take into account also (around 9.1% from today's date, since the 5900x launched).

So, presumably, lots of people will opt for cheaper 8 core CPUs instead, or they will have to wait for the 12 core price to reach a more affordable amount. By which point, Intel's Meteor Lake 7nm EUV CPUs won't be far off (the likelihood of this seems very high as they completed prototypes around October 2021).

I suppose the consolation, is that the AM5 platform will probably be upgradable for many years.
 
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Zen 3 wasn't price competitive on launch even for 8 core CPUs, otherwise I would have built a 5800X / AM4 system (although I was a bit put off by the high temperatures).
 
Do we really want CPUs that draw more power than the 12900K / KS though?

From what I've heard, the Deepcool Assassin 3 air cooler can handle the 12900K at stock, so probably is suitable for the 12900KS also. But there's probably less than 10 degrees of margin before hitting 80 Celsius, under full load.

Also, the 12900KS can reach 5.5ghz on some of the P-cores, the rumours for the 13900K point towards clock speeds of upto 5.8ghz, presumably on some P-Cores only. So, that should be less than a 10% increase in clock speed.

Maybe if Intel include the rumoured voltage regulator in the new LGA1700 motherboards, this will offset some of the increased power consumption, but this would be less of an issue perhaps for the i7 and i5 13th gen models.

One positive thing to say though, is that if the above rumour is correct, it's likely that most of Intel's 13th generation will be able to handle clock speeds of 5ghz or above.

Anyway, it seems likely that any boost in performance would mostly be coming from the increased L2 and L3 cache amounts. Cache increases are something that mostly boosts gaming performance, as we saw in the 5800X3D reviews, when comparing it to the 5800X.
 
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Hmm... Hadn't considered that. I would've thought they'd have sorted out the brackets by now, but I suppose this doesn't account for people using pre-existing coolers.

It's quite a big problem for Intel I think, it's bound to have a negative effect on sales of their i9 CPUs.
 
It's looking to me like the successor to Cascade Lake X (enthusiast grade CPUs) will be a much bigger upgrade than Raptor Lake CPUs.

Wouldn't surprise me if any enhancements to Golden Cove that Raptor Lake gets will also be present in Alder Lake X / whatever it's called. Although, I haven't seen any evidence of single threaded IPC improvements so far for Raptor Lake.

Intel had enthusiast CPUs with upto 18 CPU cores (10980XE) in November 2019:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Lake_(microprocessor)

The all core boost clocks on these were pretty poor, at just 3.8 GHz, so Intel could easily improve on that.

Before that, the Skylake X based 7980XE also had 18 cores.

I think it will probably just be called Raptor Lake X, and launch at about the same time, with at least 18 CPU cores for the top model, presumably P cores only.

If they do offer Golden Cove enthusiast CPUs, these boards would likely support DDR5 with Quad channel memory support.
 
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