5 ms·

I feel like Intel marketing is leaning heavily on products that are multiple years out because their current line of products is so noncompetitive.

by kfprt 5y ago

Aromasin 5y ago
I agree that their current products aren't competitive, but I'd disagree with your multiple years out remark. The Alder Lake platform is out Q1 next year. PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, hybrid cores, the new Xe graphics architecture, and the first new node process in over 6 years (Intel 7). From what I've seen from early leaks, it looks like it has the potential to be a flagship CPU for the first time in a long time.
- kfprt 5y ago
  Xe launched with tiger lake summer 2020. Sapphire Rapids (discussed here) is at least a year or two out. As for intels new node they could always pull a cannon lake.
- DebtDeflation 5y ago
  >hybrid cores What is the benefit of this for a desktop processor? I understand for mobile devices that have to conserve battery, but Intel is also making a desktop version with 8 of each core type. Most modern CPUs have the ability to turn off all but one core and throttle clock speeds way down when idle already.
  - rincebrain 5y ago
    I would presume because it turns out, in many cases, you have some tasks continuously running that don't require that much CPU, but a nonzero amount, and this way you can shove them on the LITTLE cores while the big core(s) go to town on single big tasks.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    According to Intel's claims, the Gracemont cores have more than a half of the throughput for multi-threaded tasks of a big core in about a quarter of the area and a quarter of the power consumption. That means that a Gracemont thread is supposed to have about the same throughput as a SMT thread on a big core. Therefore an 8+8 cores Alder Lake with 24 hybrid threads should have about the same MT performance with a CPU having 12 big cores with 24 SMT threads, while having the area and the power consumption of only 10 big cores. So Alder Lake is expected to have a similar MT performance with the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X, while having a much better ST performance. Of course that remains to be seen. Early next year AMD should counter with Zen 3+ CPUs having a much larger cache memory and probably a little higher clock frequency. Those will probably have much better MT performance than Alder Lake, but Alder Lake should retain the best ST performance until Zen 4, late next year.
  - aseipp 5y ago
    It's not a matter of absolute numbers, but a question of die area, to some degree. You can either spend X amount of area on a "big core" that can clock all the way down to idle (where it will spend most time) and all the way up to its max perf, or you can spend a fraction of X on a smaller core with a much, much smaller relative surface area, and get the same performance at idle or near-idle tasks. It just won't be able to scale "up" to max perf. But the net gain is you've saved a significant amount of area, and that translates to better TDP and thermals. The goal is to reap this benefit while also having "big cores" for the throttle-up phase, so you need both. There's a lot of talk about "background tasks" that do light, but necessary processing in asymmetric multicore setups like this; for example on macOS Spotlight performs background indexing continuously, this is a great fit for a "small core" like in the M1. There's no amount of idle clocking you can do to match the perf-per-watt here. Similarly, there is also talk of "dark silicon" and "increasing heterogenous systems", like hybrid designs. But these are all the same problem, really: modern designs are not about having the most powerful components, but the correct blend of components to maximize the work-per-watt you can achieve. You can't just throw "more transistors" at every single design anymore and get free wins on all fronts 1 year later when transistors shrink.
- websg-x 5y ago
  Alder Lake-s is already in distributors warehouse. It will go on sale Nov 4th.
- sneak 5y ago
  Doesn't Apple license Thunderbolt from Intel, even on Apple Silicon? I thought Thunderbolt was mostly an Intel thing.
  - Aromasin 5y ago
    Yes Thunderbolt is an Intel IP. You don't pay for a license fee, although I think they still need to buy the controllers from Intel if I recall correctly.
gumby 5y ago
Intel’s hope for recovery reminds me of Apple’s back in 97. They have one asset which is (greatly diminished but nonzero) momentum. An absolutely enormous number (though slowly diminishing) number of people can’t switch away from their product. So they have time to try and do something new. Apple’s had a much shorter fuse. They really needed that $150MM from MS (who needed Apple to fend off antitrust). Talking to ppl in Intel that sense of urgency hasn’t made it through the organization (and why should it? There are tons of other jobs around). But they could pull it off. The momentum is what allows you to avoid the (mythical?) “Osborne effect”: the only thing Intel can brag about is the future; today’s products will still be bought by a lot of people and so hopefully that will stem some of the design losses. MS was able to do the same thing (though their situation was far from dire). Motorola and HP couldn’t.
- grishka 5y ago
  > An absolutely enormous number (though slowly diminishing) number of people can’t switch away from their product Aren't AMD CPUs more or less drop-in replacements for Intel though, as far as software compatibility goes? Yes, you need a new motherboard. But you probably need one even if you stay on Intel.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    Disclaimer: I f***ing love AMD. But... between mindshare, supply constraints, and OEMs being slow to make compelling products with AMD, it takes a long time to switch large numbers from Intel to AMD. With AMD laptops, you'll struggle to find the ideal combination of display (resolution, quality, brightness), ports (Thunderbolt) and other attributes. They only got high-end discrete GPUs and 4K screens this year. And often not in the same machine. Thunderbolt is technically available for AMD platforms now, but still exceedingly rare. For desktop, yes... I switched to AMD fifteen years ago and I haven't looked back. That's as someone who builds their own. In the consumer space (outside DIY), desktops are like laptops. You need to find OEMs putting things together in the right configuration. Not to mention selling them at your local Best Buy for a mainstream consumer to come across it and pick it up. And not turn away because it's missing the "Intel Inside" sticker seared into their brain from decades of marketing.
ksec 5y ago
That is partly true and they have been doing this for two years now. Regular readers would have notice a lot more leaks coming out from website and tweets than usual. And I think their sales and marketing department did an exceptional job during Intel's darkest hour. Not that is matter much because both Intel and AMD was constrained by capacity.

I feel like Intel marketing is leaning heavily on products that are multiple years out because their current line of products is so noncompetitive.

by kfprt 5y ago

I feel like Intel marketing is leaning heavily on products that are multiple years out because their current line of products is so noncompetitive.

Aromasin 5y ago

I agree that their current products aren't competitive, but I'd disagree with your multiple years out remark. The Alder Lake platform is out Q1 next year. PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, hybrid cores, the new Xe graphics architecture, and the first new node process in over 6 years (Intel 7). From what I've seen from early leaks, it looks like it has the potential to be a flagship CPU for the first time in a long time.

kfprt 5y ago
Xe launched with tiger lake summer 2020. Sapphire Rapids (discussed here) is at least a year or two out. As for intels new node they could always pull a cannon lake.
DebtDeflation 5y ago
>hybrid cores What is the benefit of this for a desktop processor? I understand for mobile devices that have to conserve battery, but Intel is also making a desktop version with 8 of each core type. Most modern CPUs have the ability to turn off all but one core and throttle clock speeds way down when idle already.
- rincebrain 5y ago
  I would presume because it turns out, in many cases, you have some tasks continuously running that don't require that much CPU, but a nonzero amount, and this way you can shove them on the LITTLE cores while the big core(s) go to town on single big tasks.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  According to Intel's claims, the Gracemont cores have more than a half of the throughput for multi-threaded tasks of a big core in about a quarter of the area and a quarter of the power consumption. That means that a Gracemont thread is supposed to have about the same throughput as a SMT thread on a big core. Therefore an 8+8 cores Alder Lake with 24 hybrid threads should have about the same MT performance with a CPU having 12 big cores with 24 SMT threads, while having the area and the power consumption of only 10 big cores. So Alder Lake is expected to have a similar MT performance with the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X, while having a much better ST performance. Of course that remains to be seen. Early next year AMD should counter with Zen 3+ CPUs having a much larger cache memory and probably a little higher clock frequency. Those will probably have much better MT performance than Alder Lake, but Alder Lake should retain the best ST performance until Zen 4, late next year.
- aseipp 5y ago
  It's not a matter of absolute numbers, but a question of die area, to some degree. You can either spend X amount of area on a "big core" that can clock all the way down to idle (where it will spend most time) and all the way up to its max perf, or you can spend a fraction of X on a smaller core with a much, much smaller relative surface area, and get the same performance at idle or near-idle tasks. It just won't be able to scale "up" to max perf. But the net gain is you've saved a significant amount of area, and that translates to better TDP and thermals. The goal is to reap this benefit while also having "big cores" for the throttle-up phase, so you need both. There's a lot of talk about "background tasks" that do light, but necessary processing in asymmetric multicore setups like this; for example on macOS Spotlight performs background indexing continuously, this is a great fit for a "small core" like in the M1. There's no amount of idle clocking you can do to match the perf-per-watt here. Similarly, there is also talk of "dark silicon" and "increasing heterogenous systems", like hybrid designs. But these are all the same problem, really: modern designs are not about having the most powerful components, but the correct blend of components to maximize the work-per-watt you can achieve. You can't just throw "more transistors" at every single design anymore and get free wins on all fronts 1 year later when transistors shrink.
websg-x 5y ago
Alder Lake-s is already in distributors warehouse. It will go on sale Nov 4th.
sneak 5y ago
Doesn't Apple license Thunderbolt from Intel, even on Apple Silicon? I thought Thunderbolt was mostly an Intel thing.
- Aromasin 5y ago
  Yes Thunderbolt is an Intel IP. You don't pay for a license fee, although I think they still need to buy the controllers from Intel if I recall correctly.

gumby 5y ago

Intel’s hope for recovery reminds me of Apple’s back in 97. They have one asset which is (greatly diminished but nonzero) momentum. An absolutely enormous number (though slowly diminishing) number of people can’t switch away from their product. So they have time to try and do something new. Apple’s had a much shorter fuse. They really needed that $150MM from MS (who needed Apple to fend off antitrust). Talking to ppl in Intel that sense of urgency hasn’t made it through the organization (and why should it? There are tons of other jobs around). But they could pull it off. The momentum is what allows you to avoid the (mythical?) “Osborne effect”: the only thing Intel can brag about is the future; today’s products will still be bought by a lot of people and so hopefully that will stem some of the design losses. MS was able to do the same thing (though their situation was far from dire). Motorola and HP couldn’t.

grishka 5y ago
> An absolutely enormous number (though slowly diminishing) number of people can’t switch away from their product Aren't AMD CPUs more or less drop-in replacements for Intel though, as far as software compatibility goes? Yes, you need a new motherboard. But you probably need one even if you stay on Intel.
- neogodless 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I f***ing love AMD. But... between mindshare, supply constraints, and OEMs being slow to make compelling products with AMD, it takes a long time to switch large numbers from Intel to AMD. With AMD laptops, you'll struggle to find the ideal combination of display (resolution, quality, brightness), ports (Thunderbolt) and other attributes. They only got high-end discrete GPUs and 4K screens this year. And often not in the same machine. Thunderbolt is technically available for AMD platforms now, but still exceedingly rare. For desktop, yes... I switched to AMD fifteen years ago and I haven't looked back. That's as someone who builds their own. In the consumer space (outside DIY), desktops are like laptops. You need to find OEMs putting things together in the right configuration. Not to mention selling them at your local Best Buy for a mainstream consumer to come across it and pick it up. And not turn away because it's missing the "Intel Inside" sticker seared into their brain from decades of marketing.

ksec 5y ago

That is partly true and they have been doing this for two years now. Regular readers would have notice a lot more leaks coming out from website and tweets than usual. And I think their sales and marketing department did an exceptional job during Intel's darkest hour. Not that is matter much because both Intel and AMD was constrained by capacity.