4 ms·

Weird they wouldn't put their high performance chips on 5nm first. Surely those have the most to gain? No-one's looking that carefully at Core i3 performance ri

Weird they wouldn't put their high performance chips on 5nm first. Surely those have the most to gain? No-one's looking that carefully at Core i3 performance right? And if it does make a big difference, couldn't they and up with i3s being faster than their own i5s? Which would be a bit embarrassing.

codercotton 6y ago
Perhaps they're going for efficiency.
skohan 6y ago
Could it be partially motivated by competition? Maybe they are less concerned with performance, and just want to eat up TSMC capacity which would be used by competitors
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cheph 6y ago
As far as I understand, the 5nm process will yield lower power consumption[1]. As the i3 is on the lower end of power consumption this may be enough to make it viable for applications that it would not be viable for otherwise. While their powerful CPUs are fast enough (if you look at competitors) and the power requirements there is already so high that the reduced power consumption from the 5nm process won't make them that much more attractive. Not sure though, just guessing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization EDIT: Actually there are i9 chips with same TDP as i3 [2]. I would think that the i3 still sells more units and is lower cost, so maybe a lower power i3 will be more attractive to OEMs than a lower power i7 or i9. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor)
cactus2093 6y ago
Well the Apple m1 machines are fast and have incredibly low power consumption so maybe they’re trying to make their i3 compete with that? Going to be interesting though, the higher tier Apple silicon machines will probably be shipping before any of these i3 chips so intel will likely be playing catch-up for years at least.
- mtsr 6y ago
  Except Apple purposefully chooses to stay within a niche (of expensive laptops). So the vast majority of laptops will still ship with intel.
  - LarvaFX 6y ago
    For now. Apple will transition all processors over to M-Series in the coming 2 years; probably finished earlier.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      The cheapest M1 laptop is still almost £1000 with a definitely not future-proof amount of RAM and Storage. I'm guessing M1 ain't cheap
      - ex3ndr 6y ago
        Isn't latest generation is $100 cheaper and apple usually cheaper than windows-based.
        vel0city 6y ago
        At least in the US market (I don't have experience in other markets), Apple is definitely not the cheaper laptop company. The average laptop sold in 2019 sold for ~$700.[0] The cheapest laptop Apple currently sells is $1,000. Apple only sells high-end luxury laptops. Most laptops sold are cheaper than even the cheapest Mac. When you compare similarly spec'd machines from other manufacturers then yeah they're usually in the same ballpark numbers. I don't know I'd say Apple is always more expensive or always cheaper when looking at only the high-end price range. [0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-fiv...
wongarsu 6y ago
I guess they want to gather experience with TSMC's processes with a product nobody cares about, and then use that experience for the product that actually matter.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  But their GPUs and SSDs ate already TSMC fabbed.
  - DudeInBasement 6y ago
    CPUs are insanely complex. GPUs are simplier CPUs just more of them. SSD is anyone who has a fab can make them.
    - waynecochran 6y ago
      It may be the other way around... An Intel Core i7-6700K has almost two billion transistors while a GTX 1080 has 7.2 billion transistors. Of course you may be referring to Intel's integrated GPU's, but they are still very complex. They are not merely number CPU's -- their design is very different.
      - kllrnohj 6y ago
        Transistor count != complexity. A GPU is hundreds of simple ALUs stacked together. Minimal branch handling, no real speculative execution, no reordering buffers, etc... Very simple, very slow "cores", and just a whole shitload of them "copy/pasted" together. Some moderately complex management blocks then distribute work to all those ALUs, sure, but still nothing close to the complexity of a modern CPU core. Which is also why GPUs can be built so large. It's much easier for them to handle defects than for CPUs. The loss of a single core cluster on a GPU isn't nearly as significant to the product's overall performance as the loss of a single core on a CPU, and the amount of transistors you need to turn off to handle that defect is much less.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rtuulik 6y ago
Core i3 is fanless. Moving to 5nm should help to give them a decent boost.
trhway 6y ago
my thinking that this "i3 on 5nm at TSMC" is just to show that nothing good comes out of it. Basically faction fight inside Intel - fabless vs. owning fabs. The owning fabs faction is much more politically stronger inside Intel and they ultimately are forced to let that experiment, and they will make sure that it will have all the obstacles. Basically it like GM's EV1 or like Sun in the 200x when Linux/x86 was basically a guerilla effort oppressed by Sparc/Solaris, and the Sparc/Solaris faction allowed Linux/x86 only into a low end Sun's market.

codercotton 6y ago

Perhaps they're going for efficiency.

skohan 6y ago

Could it be partially motivated by competition? Maybe they are less concerned with performance, and just want to eat up TSMC capacity which would be used by competitors

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cheph 6y ago

As far as I understand, the 5nm process will yield lower power consumption[1]. As the i3 is on the lower end of power consumption this may be enough to make it viable for applications that it would not be viable for otherwise. While their powerful CPUs are fast enough (if you look at competitors) and the power requirements there is already so high that the reduced power consumption from the 5nm process won't make them that much more attractive. Not sure though, just guessing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization EDIT: Actually there are i9 chips with same TDP as i3 [2]. I would think that the i3 still sells more units and is lower cost, so maybe a lower power i3 will be more attractive to OEMs than a lower power i7 or i9. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor)

cactus2093 6y ago

Well the Apple m1 machines are fast and have incredibly low power consumption so maybe they’re trying to make their i3 compete with that? Going to be interesting though, the higher tier Apple silicon machines will probably be shipping before any of these i3 chips so intel will likely be playing catch-up for years at least.

mtsr 6y ago
Except Apple purposefully chooses to stay within a niche (of expensive laptops). So the vast majority of laptops will still ship with intel.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  For now. Apple will transition all processors over to M-Series in the coming 2 years; probably finished earlier.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    The cheapest M1 laptop is still almost £1000 with a definitely not future-proof amount of RAM and Storage. I'm guessing M1 ain't cheap
    - ex3ndr 6y ago
      Isn't latest generation is $100 cheaper and apple usually cheaper than windows-based.
      - vel0city 6y ago
        At least in the US market (I don't have experience in other markets), Apple is definitely not the cheaper laptop company. The average laptop sold in 2019 sold for ~$700.[0] The cheapest laptop Apple currently sells is $1,000. Apple only sells high-end luxury laptops. Most laptops sold are cheaper than even the cheapest Mac. When you compare similarly spec'd machines from other manufacturers then yeah they're usually in the same ballpark numbers. I don't know I'd say Apple is always more expensive or always cheaper when looking at only the high-end price range. [0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-fiv...

wongarsu 6y ago

I guess they want to gather experience with TSMC's processes with a product nobody cares about, and then use that experience for the product that actually matter.

andromeduck 6y ago
But their GPUs and SSDs ate already TSMC fabbed.
- DudeInBasement 6y ago
  CPUs are insanely complex. GPUs are simplier CPUs just more of them. SSD is anyone who has a fab can make them.
  - waynecochran 6y ago
    It may be the other way around... An Intel Core i7-6700K has almost two billion transistors while a GTX 1080 has 7.2 billion transistors. Of course you may be referring to Intel's integrated GPU's, but they are still very complex. They are not merely number CPU's -- their design is very different.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      Transistor count != complexity. A GPU is hundreds of simple ALUs stacked together. Minimal branch handling, no real speculative execution, no reordering buffers, etc... Very simple, very slow "cores", and just a whole shitload of them "copy/pasted" together. Some moderately complex management blocks then distribute work to all those ALUs, sure, but still nothing close to the complexity of a modern CPU core. Which is also why GPUs can be built so large. It's much easier for them to handle defects than for CPUs. The loss of a single core cluster on a GPU isn't nearly as significant to the product's overall performance as the loss of a single core on a CPU, and the amount of transistors you need to turn off to handle that defect is much less.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rtuulik 6y ago

Core i3 is fanless. Moving to 5nm should help to give them a decent boost.

trhway 6y ago

my thinking that this "i3 on 5nm at TSMC" is just to show that nothing good comes out of it. Basically faction fight inside Intel - fabless vs. owning fabs. The owning fabs faction is much more politically stronger inside Intel and they ultimately are forced to let that experiment, and they will make sure that it will have all the obstacles. Basically it like GM's EV1 or like Sun in the 200x when Linux/x86 was basically a guerilla effort oppressed by Sparc/Solaris, and the Sparc/Solaris faction allowed Linux/x86 only into a low end Sun's market.