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Intel’s Alder Lake big.little CPU design, tested: it’s a barn burner

216 points by neogodless 5y ago

rodrigorras 5y ago
Intel is leeting the CPU stay on turbo boost forever, AMD seems to be more focused on Efficiency. But, if you only enable PBO curve optmizer, so AMD Ryzen 5950x can stay more time in hgher clocks, ADL 12900K is spanked in multi-thread. People achieves 11500 in CB20 and 31000 in CB23 consuming 235W. So no, ADL may great for Gaming but not for heavily mutli-thread apps. For me ADL is Intel's desperation in become the better CPU Maker. They are not anymore I guess.
neogodless 5y ago
Disappointingly, despite the big.little design adding efficiency cores, this release focuses on performance, and is still far behind AMD (and of course Apple) on efficiency.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Yeah, but this is also about "enthusiast" CPUs, which is very much about eye popping top perf numbers, independent of efficiency, etc. We're talking sports cars, not commuter options.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    It is. Depending on the consumer, these are just what the doctor ordered. Get a high quality motherboard, massive cooling solution, and eke out the maximum performance. But this won't translate well into excellent laptop chips, so we'll continue to wait and see if Intel has something ready in time for their next mobile release. And personally, I don't get enough benefit from the last few percentage points of performance to give up a quiet, cool-running, relatively power-sipping desktop system. That's just me, but that means I prefer to see advances in efficiency regardless of the market segment!
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      Lol how was a top-of-the-top end desktop release supposed to translate well into excellent laptop chips? Something about your wording here seems to imply that it's not practically guaranteed that these don't translate into laptop results - I honestly never get why the whole "quiet and cool" thing comes up for these top of the line CPUs. My current personal system is near-silent and already drawing something like 450W peaks for GPU usage alone, which translates to a lot more than "a few percentage points of performance" If you can pay, you can make just about anything short of server parts quiet and cool, and the power difference won't affect your CO2 footprint in any meaningful way. And when you're looking at $600 CPUs, generally speaking you can pay...
      - neogodless 5y ago
        > Lol how was a top-of-the-top end desktop release supposed to translate well into excellent laptop chips? See Zen 2. Zen 3. The desktop chips are very efficient. When you throw 105W at them, they compete at the very top of the desktop performance market. Previous to this Alder Lake release, they were beating much more power hungry Intel chips. Now they remain competitive at half the power. Cut them down to 15W-45W chips, and they work great in laptops, with ample performance and excellent battery life. If Intel has massively more efficient chip designs that they plan to use in mobile, why aren't they making use of them? They could have competitive performance without doubling the power consumption. It's a similar story with Apple Silicon. They have chips that can do amazing things at 10W. Crank 60W through them and they are excellent performers. If you have no choice but to consume massive amounts of power to get top performance, so be it. But given the choice...
        BoorishBears 5y ago
        Trying to draw conclusions about mobile parts from desktop parts is what people magazine racing CPUs do. It's silly. And it's doubly silly when you're talking about heterogeneous computing. > If you have no choice but to consume massive amounts of power to get top performance, so be it. But given the choice... I mean you have the choice? Don't get the top of the line halo part meant to break records at all costs? The i5 is almost as fast as the i9, faster than the previous i5 and the 5800X, while using considerably less power than the i9. - Top performance always equals "massive power draw" A 5950X will draw over 300W if you OC, which, surprise surprise, a lot of people who are spending $800 on a CPU end up doing. I guess I just figured by now people would understand that and focus on performance for the halo SKUs
  - notTheAuth 5y ago
    “Enthusiast” CPUs seem pointless. My CPU is never above 20% in AAA games as it’s all on the GFX card now. Good to see CPUs going through the great decoupling that software did. IMO Steamdeck is the future of home desktops. Both my kids are into science; I’m excited to have a drone remote, sensor base station, generic pc, etc, in a high quality package versus something like Pine phone. Valve and Apple are pushing hardware forward. Hopefully they can obsolete needing data centers of generic CPUs and tons of Byzantine software by making hardware with the best logic for a task built in, available to home users.
    - jbboehr 5y ago
      Basically all of my favorite games get worse simulation performance (FPS or UPS) the longer you play as the simulation becomes more complex (Factorio, RimWorld, Oxygen Not Included, Kerbal Space Program, Stellaris) so the performance is absolutely desired.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - omni 5y ago
      There are plenty of games that actually use CPU: Microsoft Flight Simulator, Factorio, Stellaris, Total War, pretty much any city simulator game, etc. Sure, your average dumb AAA action game won't, but that doesn't mean a good CPU is worthless.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        Factorio isn't stressing 8 core CPUs. Stellaris can be played on a laptop. You are confirming his conclusion that they don't need a strong CPU to play.
        omni 5y ago
        > Stellaris can be played on a laptop. You are confirming his conclusion that they don't need a strong CPU to play. Movies can be watched on phones. Does that mean theater screens are pointless?
cestith 5y ago
Ars Technica, where 2.4% in the Cinebench R20 is "beats the pants off". $ perl -E 'say ( ( ( 10323 - 10085 ) / 10085 ) * 100 )' 2.35994050570154
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nomel 5y ago
  > crushes AMD's Ryzen 9 5950x—even multithreaded. > they're faster than AMD's latest Ryzens on both single-threaded and most multithreaded benchmarks They prove how silly their headline is in the second sentence. This is screaming "biased".
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    That has been the case with every site I looked at, its full of Intel shilling, they compare a CPU that is many times as expensive as AMD, see its got a slight edge with way higher power usage and declare the Intel processor the winner.
    - Androider 5y ago
      The 12900K MSRP is $589, the AMD 5950X MSRP is $799.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        Is MSRP relevant? Does the Nvidia 3080 Ti MSRP matter in the real world? Where is it $589? Its sold for $1,426.45 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FXDLX95 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FXDLX95 and the 5950X is $749 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0815Y8J9N/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0815Y8J9N/ so the Intel is much more expensive in the real word than MSRP and the AMD is slightly cheaper.
        Androider 5y ago
37ef_ced3 5y ago
Please measure the AVX-512 ResNet50 inference performance (e.g., https://NN-512.com https://NN-512.com). Does Alder Lake AVX-512 finally provide an advantage over AVX2 (the way it should)? Is Intel serious about making AVX-512 worthwhile? Will AMD provide efficient AVX-512 hardware?
- ksec 5y ago
  AVX 512 is "fused off" to quote Intel. Although Anandtech discovered it is actually disabled.
  - 37ef_ced3 5y ago
    You're right: "In order to get to this point, Intel had to cut down some of the features of its P-core, and improve some features on the E-core. The biggest thing that gets the cut is that Intel is losing AVX-512 support inside Alder Lake. When we say losing support, we mean that the AVX-512 is going to be physically fused off, so even if you ran the processor with the E-cores disabled at boot time, AVX-512 is still disabled." "But it does mean that AVX-512 is probably dead for consumers." "Intel isn’t even supporting AVX-512 with a dual-issue AVX2 mode over multiple operations - it simply won’t work on Alder Lake. If AMD’s Zen 4 processors plan to support some form of AVX-512 as has been theorized, even as dual-issue AVX2 operations, we might be in some dystopian processor environment where AMD is the only consumer processor on the market to support AVX-512." https://www.anandtech.com/show/16881/a-deep-dive-into-intels-alder-lake-microarchitectures/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16881/a-deep-dive-into-intels... It's shocking how Intel has failed with AVX-512, and unfortunate for those who embraced the technology.
    - neogodless 5y ago
      It's odd, because in today's review, they have this to say: > I have to say a side word about AVX-512 support, because we found it. If you’re prepared to disable the E-cores, and use specific motherboards, it works. After Intel spent time saying it was fused off, we dug into the story and found it still works for those that need it. It’s going to be interesting to hear how this feature will be discussed by Intel in future. There's a whole page on it: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core...
postalrat 5y ago
I already have an i9 and the i5 is old. These CPUs aren't an upgrade.
prirun 5y ago
I think the heat given off by that CPU is what burnt down the barn.
- ant6n 5y ago
  Isn't that what the title means?
  - neogodless 5y ago
    barn burner: "an event, typically a sports contest, that is very exciting or intense." Though one would hope the title was selected for the double meaning.
neogodless 5y ago
Anandtech Review: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core...
- caycep 5y ago
  I feel like this review is more even headed...but they don't seem overly concerned by the close-to-300W elephant in the room...
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    I mean, arguably if you’re buying a desktop processor that costs $700 just for the chip, you probably don’t care THAT much? This is very much a niche product.
    - dijit 5y ago
      Still. Your VRMs pulling 90A and your cooling solution are going to care. So will your ears when that cooling solution needs to try spreading the thermal load
chmod775 5y ago
Intel's processor is drawing 307W to slightly edge past the 5950X in Cinebench, which only draws around 214W. It's hard to cool 307W over extended periods without your computer becoming really loud, even with a water cooling setup. Now, if they had that kind of cooling available, they could have easily gotten a lot more performance out of the Ryzen, while the i9 is already operating at the limits of what consumer grade cooling can sustain. There's no way that Intel processor is beating a 5950X that is also drawing 300W. At that point some Ryzen's will be operating at close to 6GHz per core. The most interesting takeaway is that Intel apparently has no qualms selling a processor with a stock configuration that draws 300W. Also their Ryzen numbers are beyond suspicious. On a silent configuration (peak power draw ~209W, 175W sustained, some undervolting) my Ryzen 5900X hits a Cinebench R20 score of 8835 vs their 8390. I suspect my rig is worse since I cheaped out on the RAM, but I wouldn't know because they omit information about the Ryzen test rig. Their Ryzen numbers don't add up with other benchmarks around the internet either: The 5950X should hit around 10400, and the 5900X should hit 8600 in their stock configurations with mid-to-high-grade RAM[1]. Their scores are 400 points and 200 points lower respectively. To get numbers as bad as theirs, I have to mismatch my FCLK and RAM intentionally. But again, we don't know what their setup is because they didn't tell us. We however do know that they used DDR5 RAM for the Intel processor, which the current gen Ryzen don't support. Likely some performance was gained there as well, but obviously they didn't test the Intel processor with DDR4 RAM to get an idea of how much comes down to faster RAM. It's still fair to use DDR5, since the Intel processor supports it, but it's hard to say much about the Intel processor performance (development) itself without some additional information. Without this information we don't know whether we can expect the next generation of Ryzen processors with DDR5 support to immediately leave Intel in the dust again, or whether DDR4/DDR5 doesn't really matter. [1]: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_5950x_review,10.html https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_...
- walrus01 5y ago
  If I had to guess the TDP of the new Intel CPU when maxed out is actually around 270-280W. Not all of that 307W is the CPU, there's power used by the motherboard itself, a mostly idle GPU, fans, NVME SSD, etc. Still a very serious heat producing thing in one socket compared to the AMD. This also means it's going to require some rather expensive motherboards since reliably delivering 280W to one socket is no simple task.
ksec 5y ago
At roughly 25W per Performance Core running at 5.2GHz on Intel 7nm High Performance Node, with a ST Geekbench score of ~1900. Compared to The Apple M1 Max running at 3.2GHz on a TSMC 5nm Low Power node, at roughly 5W per core, with Geekbench score of ~1750. The is 5x the power for a 8.5% of performance increase. But I know there are many who just want to get the best ST performance regardless or power usage. And considering someone Overclock the thing past 8Ghz barrier. It is still pretty damn impressive.
- liuliu 5y ago
  Sorry about my impulsive correction: It is Intel 7 (formerly known as Intel's 10nm process). There is also Intel 4 (formerly known as Intel's 7nm process).
  - ksec 5y ago
    Yes except I got asked again and again what is "Intel 7". So I am going to stick with a simple naming scheme that right now happens to be about the same across all three foundry working on leading node, Samsung, Intel and TSMC. And everyone can relate or understand.
    - SahAssar 5y ago
      If that is the case shouldn't you call it "Intel 10nm" since that is what it was called when Intel was still using the same units as everyone else (even if those units are becoming meaningless)? Not even Intel itself says that "Intel 7" means "7nm", right?
      - SirMittens 5y ago
        Even if Intel was using "nm" like everyone else, Intel's naming was closer to reality then the rest of the industry. TSMC and Samsung's "nm" is more of a marketing term. Intel's 10nm is relatively close to TSMC's 7nm in term of density. That's why Intel renamed it to "Intel 7". Technically, even TSMC calls it N7, and not 7nm. But as you said, those units are more or less meaningless. Its just marketing.
mhh__ 5y ago
Also, the 12900k is trading blows with the 5950x but I think the mid range CPUs are actually the draw here.
paulpan 5y ago
Looks like the i5-12600K is the real value play for Intel's 12th gen. It essentially beats Ryzen 5600X at similar power consumption. LTT review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EogHCFd7w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EogHCFd7w0 That said, the cost of ownership is likely much higher for Intel vs. AMD - due to requiring DDR5 RAM and new motherboard.
- zucker42 5y ago
  You don't need DDR5 RAM. DDR5 is a halo feature at this point, only for the people for whom money is no issue. There's zero reason to use DDR5 RAM with the 12600k (considering you could be served better by spending the extra money on a better CPU or more capacity). The performance benefit is varied and probably not more than 5% at best. The increased price of Z690 vs B550 and even X570 is significant though.
  - Osiris 5y ago
    If that's true, what advantage is there to DDR5 besides lower stock voltage?
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      I asked myself the same thing when DDR4 came out. I was looking forward to skipping it, but Ryzen was able to unofficially use ECC ram so that intrigued me. DDR5 will be able to have larger sizes for ram as well if I remember correctly.
      - sliken 5y ago
        DDR4 didn't have much over DDR3, just a bit of bandwidth, and most apps weren't that sensitive. However DDR5 doubles the number of channels vs DDR4, while also having a higher clock rate (more bandwidth), so it's a bigger difference.
    - toast0 5y ago
      DDR5 has more future promise, whether that's lower power, higher bandwidth, higher capacity, maybe lower latency too. There's something about DDR5 requiring ECC, but it's not clear if that includes actual CPU/OS reporting or if it's internally using ECC but with no error reporting. But, I'm not sure how much of that shines through in the first DDR5 product vs mature DDR4 products. Now is the part of the cycle where the old memory is still high volume and the new memory is starting to ramp up; in not too long, we'll have the part of the cycle where they made too much of the old memory and prices drop and it's time to scoop up all the old memory you'll ever need.
KuiN 5y ago
This might be completely irrational, but it really annoys me when the press use 'big.little' for all heterogeneous CPUs. big.LITTLE is an ARM trademark for ARM's implementation of heterogenous designs. Intel have clearly decided heterogeneous is a marketing no-go and have gone with 'hybrid' architecture, which is fair enough. But these are absolutely not big.LITTLE CPUs.
- dlp211 5y ago
  "big.little" is like "kleenex" or "ziploc". Yes, technically they refer to a specific implementation of a thing, heterogenous CPU core size, tissues, plastic storage bags, but in reality, they were so perfectly branded that they just replaced the item name. It's not a big deal.
  - seabrookmx 5y ago
    +1 It's exactly the same thing when people say an AMD Ryzen CPU has "Hyperthreading." This is Intel's trademark for Simultaneous multithreading (or SMT). We all know what someone means when they say this. There's no use being so pedantic.
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    And I'm sure that people are going to call the Google Tensor "big.little" when it is really "big.medium.little" (it has 3 different types of ARM cores)!
    - kasabali 5y ago
      No need to look that far. Mainstream mobile processors in everyone's pocket have already been using 3 types of cores for the last few years (cortex A55, A7* and X1).
      - OldHand2018 5y ago
        Good call - I haven't paid enough attention to the Android ecosystem :)
InTheArena 5y ago
Its very good to see three viable, great emerging CPU architectures. Intel is important, and them getting their CPU node up is critical. AMD has saved x86 from irrelevency and stagnation, and has been sitting on their next node while Intel caught up, but now has to release it to keep their spot on top. Apple is remaking the game with the M1 / Pro and Max variants - and we still have Jade 2c and Jade 4c coming. Competition is great.
- dlp211 5y ago
  Jade 2/4c are additional processors being developed by Apple for their <strike>Macbook Air line of notebooks</strike> Mac Pro line for anyone who is like me and didn't know. Edit: first thing I read was wrong, turns out that these are Mac Pro level processors, see below comments for more details. Thanks everyone for the clarification.
  - InTheArena 5y ago
    No, the 2c/4c are the MacPro / iMacPro CPUs. Think big-boy versions of the Max / Pro (which are insane already). Jade C "Chop" is the Pro, Jade C Die is the Max. jade 2c is two Maxes. Jade 4c is 4 maxes. https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang=en https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang...
    - kube-system 5y ago
      That Jade 4c might be pretty sweet in an Xserve.
    - SavantIdiot 5y ago
      All this die chopping really sounds like the consequence of the Intel architects Apple hired away. Over the years lots of Intel products segmented SKUs by laying them out in a way that facilitated simple chops post wafersort.
    - kergonath 5y ago
      That is...properly exciting. Really looking forward to whatever prosumer desktop Apple will come up with. I'm even ok with an iMac at this point.
bastardoperator 5y ago
What's the price point though?
- neogodless 5y ago
  Officially? https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/intel-core-i912900k-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/... > $589.00 - $599.00 Retail will vary. Currently $649 at NewEgg.com, but sold out. https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i9-12th-gen/p/N82E16819118339 https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i9-12th-gen...
  - bastardoperator 5y ago
    not bad, ty for sharing.
  - snuxoll 5y ago
    It's always important to note that pricing on ark is bulk pricing (1K unit order), retail will always be higher.
acomjean 5y ago
I think this is great improvement. (I own machines with intel and AMD processors). It feels like AMDs progress has lit a fire under intel to innovate. Competition seems to be back and I look forward to the progress next few years. I think the i5 not the i9 is the chip of note. I'm using linux more and more and like open architecture PCs, so optimistic they can stay competitive with those SOC. Should be interesting how the linux scheduler deals with the different core types. The architecture bumps to DDR5.0, and PCIe5.0 hopefully will help performance in the future too.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I predict it will be many years before linux works in a satisfactory way out of the box on these machines. The existing kernel model of task priority is not rich enough. Perhaps this will accelerate the adoption of user-space task scheduling.
rektide 5y ago
Overall fabulous news, but I am weirded out that mobile is now the connected, featureful, good core, and desktop gets a bunch of last gen bad tech: * an UHD 770 gpu rather than a Xe (understandable-ish as many want dedicated GPUs anyhow) * no Thunderbolt 4, only USB4. way way less connected & capable.
- neogodless 5y ago
  Z690 supports Thunderbolt 4. See, for example, https://wccftech.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i5-12600k-alder-lake-cpu-review-ft-z690-aorus-master-msi-mpg-z690-carbon-wifi-g-skill-trident-z5-ddr5-6000-memory/5/ https://wccftech.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i5-126...
  - rektide 5y ago
    my understanding is that a number of (already deluxe expensive fancy) motherboards have add-on chips to further jack up the cost i mean add thunderbolt4 support. i haven't seen any indicators that the kick ass readily available on chip 4x 40 Gbps of connectivity that intel mobile chips offer on integrated tb4 is available on desktop. this, to me, constrains the desktop from being a good movipe partner to the great laptops available. at least usb4 mandates host-to-host networking, but all these great laptops with desktops lagging so far behind, having such lower standards, is excessively sad, to me. atm phones are way far behind. no usb4 (with host-to-host networkingl nor tb4 are avialbable. i have a hard time imagining phones remaining market segmented out, not participating, in the good, not meeting the new bar.
- junar 5y ago
  The UHD 770 is in fact current-gen integrated graphics. It has the same modern features like DP 1.4a, HDMI 2.1, etc., which allow higher resolutions/refresh rates compared to older products like UHD 630. The main difference is fewer execution units compared to the Iris Xe-branded graphics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology#Twelfth_generation_(Gen12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology#Twel... Also, so far they've only put Iris Xe on 4-core/8-thread laptop CPUs; all their high-core-count laptop CPUs have the same reduced-execution-unit pattern as the desktop ones. To me, there seems to be some tradeoff between integrated graphics and CPU performance.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Where are the days when a decent CPU was $100 and it draw no more than 100W?
- theevilsharpie 5y ago
  Inflation is a thing that exists, so decent $100 CPUs are going to be hard to come by if you expect to run modern applications in 2021. However, there's plenty of competitive CPUs that can operate below 100W. CPU reviews tend to focus on the top-end products which throw efficiency out the window for higher clock speeds, but lower tier SKUs target 95W, 65W, and 35W power points, while still maintaining quite reasonable performance. While I'm not as familiar with the power management capabilities of modern Intel CPUs, AMD Ryzen CPUs can operate in an "Eco mode" where the power target is lowered, so you can optimize for power efficiency without having to go out of your way to buy a special "low-power" SKU.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  If you're willing to accept inflation since the early 90s check out something like the 5600G instead of the top end models like the 5950X, or wait for the low end SKUs of Alder lake to come out too. The 5600G is a fantastic new 6 core CPU that will handle all but the most extreme multithreaded workloads with ease while staying under 100 Watts.
  - kasabali 5y ago
    What early 90s? Ryzen 5 1600AF was going for $85 just 2 years ago.
- toast0 5y ago
  Right now, AMD is selling every chip they make, so they're not making much for the low end. Intel's got quad core comet lake chips around that price, but they've also not been selling low end versions of their newer stuff either. If Alder Lake's release signals Intel 10nm (aka Intel 7) finally working for desktop chips, then we may see products addressing the low end market again. You should probably be able to limit power to 100W though; power targeting is definitely a firmware feature on AMD, and I'd be surprised if it's not available on Intel as well. If nothing else, you can just provide 100W worth of cooling, and thermal management should throttle back the power.
tus89 5y ago
> symmetric multithreading (SMT, also known as "hyperthreading"). Say what now?
freemint 5y ago
*in synthetic benchmarks or multicore alu-constrained workloads
flakiness 5y ago
I wonder what's the story for Linux here. I don't think it is possible for OSS projects to utilize this big.little system: I tried to look at the instruction level details of the thread director but could find very little. If that's the case, the future of linux desktop/laptop is even dimmer than before. Android has downstream (partially upstream?) EAS scheduler to handle this kind of architecture [1], but I'm not sure there is any move to take this up to the intel platform. As a linux laptop user, I hope someone does something. [1] https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/linux-kernel/energy-aware-scheduling
- neogodless 5y ago
  Phoronix does a suite of benchmarks on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-12600k-12900k https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-12...
- usr1106 5y ago
  As a Linux desktop user I am still a bit disappointed about AMD. My Ryzen 7 does not run 100% reliably (freezes many times a year, althoug typically not more than once a month. The net is full of similar stories, but nothing seems to help). Independently but equally annoying the temperature sensors are not well supported, obviously AMD does not share documentation or contribute to the kernel. Don't remember the details now. Gave up frustrated 2 years ago or so.
  - bavell 5y ago
    YMMV... I bought a 5950X in late January for my main workstation (Arch) and haven't had any problems with it at all. FWIW my last Intel CPU (2700k IIRC) crashed my machine regularly whenever the iGPU fired up for some tasks (e.g. I could crash Blender in < 10 seconds...)
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Sounds like a motherboard issue. Never had that happen.
franciscop 5y ago
> "Intel beats the pants off the Ryzen 9 line in both Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20 multithreaded tests" Am I reading the graph wrong or Intel is barely a 3% faster than Ryzen in that Cinebench i9/9 graph?
- mey 5y ago
  Watching several detailed YouTube reviews (Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed), the performance difference is 0-20% above a 5950x. Long duration (above 8 min) render workloads seem to push AMD back to break even, but memory dependant mutlithreaded bursty workloads heavily favor 12900k. Of course halo products are going to halo. The interesting story may be the 12600k, for it's price to performance considerations. Cooling the chips is not simple, air cooling is not enough, one reviewer recommending 360mm AIO as a requirement. Edit: Gaming benchmarks are all over the place reviewer to reviewer. Some showing huge jumps, others not, game to game.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Yeah, Geekbench is the only one where Intel chip really meaningfully ahead. I guess you gotta talk up the parts a bit to get the free test samples.
oblio 5y ago
I really wish they wouldn't use obscure American expressions for these article titles.
- bagels 5y ago
  I'm American and I don't know what it means either. I assume burning a barn is bad? I expect not a lot of overlap between the audience of the article and people knowledgeable about agriculture idioms.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Apparently it's good (at least in the sense they're using here). Which is extremely counterintuitive.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It's a sports colloquialism. It means 'exciting'. Someone may say "the game was a real barn burner", meaning that it was exciting and competitive. Ars is saying that Alder Lake is an excitingly competitive CPU.
- ant6n 5y ago
  I guess these chips run really hot.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    It does, Intel is better because you can use it to heat your house like AMD bulldozer.
Symmetry 5y ago
The prices do look very compelling, though Intel motherboards do tend to be more expensive than AMD so spec out the whole system before deciding which is the better deal. It's great to have competition, even if it's comping out a year behind the equivalent AMD systems.
schmorptron 5y ago
While this is exciting, the thing I'm most looking forward to is intel entering the dedicated GPU market next year. Arc is looking really promising and god knows nVidia and AMD need some disrupting.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Intel's Linux drivers for their integrated graphics chipsets are pretty good, at least compared to Nvidia's, so hopefully the same effort will be spent on Linux support for Arc. It would be nice to have another option than AMD on the table for Linux-compatible GPUs.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    Yeah, that'd be really nice. I've been enjoying tear free Wayland too much to go back :)
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  They didn’t announce prices, and is estimated they’re shooting for it being $200. What do you expect them to shake up?
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    The $200 to $300 GPU market! That market segment has been disappointing since 2018 or so, the last truly good card in that segment was the RX 480.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Is isn’t going to get better with Intel. The XE is worst than an integrated Vega 8 and 1030 both of which are way cheaper. https://www.tomshardware.com/features/intel-xe-dg1-benchmarked https://www.tomshardware.com/features/intel-xe-dg1-benchmark...
      - 5y ago
roody15 5y ago
“ Jim Salter We typically consider Cinebench to be the gold standard for general-purpose CPU tests—and for the first time in years, Intel trounces AMD's best offerings here.” What nonsense look at the graph this comment is referencing. The new i9 barely edges ahead of Ryzen and they use the term trounces. Give me a break … price per performance still clearly in AMD’s favor.
- 1024core 5y ago
  Also, this: "Passmark is the only benchmark we ran that still gave the nod to AMD's Ryzen 9 CPUs—and even there, AMD won only by a narrow margin." The "narrow margin" being > 20% better ... :roll eyes:
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mensetmanusman 5y ago
A 300 Watt room air heater that also ray traces in real time

216 points by neogodless 5y ago

Intel is leeting the CPU stay on turbo boost forever, AMD seems to be more focused on Efficiency. But, if you only enable PBO curve optmizer, so AMD Ryzen 5950x can stay more time in hgher clocks, ADL 12900K is spanked in multi-thread. People achieves 11500 in CB20 and 31000 in CB23 consuming 235W. So no, ADL may great for Gaming but not for heavily mutli-thread apps. For me ADL is Intel's desperation in become the better CPU Maker. They are not anymore I guess.

neogodless 5y ago

Disappointingly, despite the big.little design adding efficiency cores, this release focuses on performance, and is still far behind AMD (and of course Apple) on efficiency.

meepmorp 5y ago
Yeah, but this is also about "enthusiast" CPUs, which is very much about eye popping top perf numbers, independent of efficiency, etc. We're talking sports cars, not commuter options.
- neogodless 5y ago
  It is. Depending on the consumer, these are just what the doctor ordered. Get a high quality motherboard, massive cooling solution, and eke out the maximum performance. But this won't translate well into excellent laptop chips, so we'll continue to wait and see if Intel has something ready in time for their next mobile release. And personally, I don't get enough benefit from the last few percentage points of performance to give up a quiet, cool-running, relatively power-sipping desktop system. That's just me, but that means I prefer to see advances in efficiency regardless of the market segment!
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    Lol how was a top-of-the-top end desktop release supposed to translate well into excellent laptop chips? Something about your wording here seems to imply that it's not practically guaranteed that these don't translate into laptop results - I honestly never get why the whole "quiet and cool" thing comes up for these top of the line CPUs. My current personal system is near-silent and already drawing something like 450W peaks for GPU usage alone, which translates to a lot more than "a few percentage points of performance" If you can pay, you can make just about anything short of server parts quiet and cool, and the power difference won't affect your CO2 footprint in any meaningful way. And when you're looking at $600 CPUs, generally speaking you can pay...
    - neogodless 5y ago
      > Lol how was a top-of-the-top end desktop release supposed to translate well into excellent laptop chips? See Zen 2. Zen 3. The desktop chips are very efficient. When you throw 105W at them, they compete at the very top of the desktop performance market. Previous to this Alder Lake release, they were beating much more power hungry Intel chips. Now they remain competitive at half the power. Cut them down to 15W-45W chips, and they work great in laptops, with ample performance and excellent battery life. If Intel has massively more efficient chip designs that they plan to use in mobile, why aren't they making use of them? They could have competitive performance without doubling the power consumption. It's a similar story with Apple Silicon. They have chips that can do amazing things at 10W. Crank 60W through them and they are excellent performers. If you have no choice but to consume massive amounts of power to get top performance, so be it. But given the choice...
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        Trying to draw conclusions about mobile parts from desktop parts is what people magazine racing CPUs do. It's silly. And it's doubly silly when you're talking about heterogeneous computing. > If you have no choice but to consume massive amounts of power to get top performance, so be it. But given the choice... I mean you have the choice? Don't get the top of the line halo part meant to break records at all costs? The i5 is almost as fast as the i9, faster than the previous i5 and the 5800X, while using considerably less power than the i9. - Top performance always equals "massive power draw" A 5950X will draw over 300W if you OC, which, surprise surprise, a lot of people who are spending $800 on a CPU end up doing. I guess I just figured by now people would understand that and focus on performance for the halo SKUs
- notTheAuth 5y ago
  “Enthusiast” CPUs seem pointless. My CPU is never above 20% in AAA games as it’s all on the GFX card now. Good to see CPUs going through the great decoupling that software did. IMO Steamdeck is the future of home desktops. Both my kids are into science; I’m excited to have a drone remote, sensor base station, generic pc, etc, in a high quality package versus something like Pine phone. Valve and Apple are pushing hardware forward. Hopefully they can obsolete needing data centers of generic CPUs and tons of Byzantine software by making hardware with the best logic for a task built in, available to home users.
  - jbboehr 5y ago
    Basically all of my favorite games get worse simulation performance (FPS or UPS) the longer you play as the simulation becomes more complex (Factorio, RimWorld, Oxygen Not Included, Kerbal Space Program, Stellaris) so the performance is absolutely desired.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - omni 5y ago
    There are plenty of games that actually use CPU: Microsoft Flight Simulator, Factorio, Stellaris, Total War, pretty much any city simulator game, etc. Sure, your average dumb AAA action game won't, but that doesn't mean a good CPU is worthless.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Factorio isn't stressing 8 core CPUs. Stellaris can be played on a laptop. You are confirming his conclusion that they don't need a strong CPU to play.
      - omni 5y ago
        > Stellaris can be played on a laptop. You are confirming his conclusion that they don't need a strong CPU to play. Movies can be watched on phones. Does that mean theater screens are pointless?

cestith 5y ago

Ars Technica, where 2.4% in the Cinebench R20 is "beats the pants off". $ perl -E 'say ( ( ( 10323 - 10085 ) / 10085 ) * 100 )' 2.35994050570154

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nomel 5y ago
> crushes AMD's Ryzen 9 5950x—even multithreaded. > they're faster than AMD's latest Ryzens on both single-threaded and most multithreaded benchmarks They prove how silly their headline is in the second sentence. This is screaming "biased".
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  That has been the case with every site I looked at, its full of Intel shilling, they compare a CPU that is many times as expensive as AMD, see its got a slight edge with way higher power usage and declare the Intel processor the winner.
  - Androider 5y ago
    The 12900K MSRP is $589, the AMD 5950X MSRP is $799.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Is MSRP relevant? Does the Nvidia 3080 Ti MSRP matter in the real world? Where is it $589? Its sold for $1,426.45 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FXDLX95 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FXDLX95 and the 5950X is $749 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0815Y8J9N/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0815Y8J9N/ so the Intel is much more expensive in the real word than MSRP and the AMD is slightly cheaper.
      - Androider 5y ago

37ef_ced3 5y ago

Please measure the AVX-512 ResNet50 inference performance (e.g., https://NN-512.com https://NN-512.com). Does Alder Lake AVX-512 finally provide an advantage over AVX2 (the way it should)? Is Intel serious about making AVX-512 worthwhile? Will AMD provide efficient AVX-512 hardware?

ksec 5y ago
AVX 512 is "fused off" to quote Intel. Although Anandtech discovered it is actually disabled.
- 37ef_ced3 5y ago
  You're right: "In order to get to this point, Intel had to cut down some of the features of its P-core, and improve some features on the E-core. The biggest thing that gets the cut is that Intel is losing AVX-512 support inside Alder Lake. When we say losing support, we mean that the AVX-512 is going to be physically fused off, so even if you ran the processor with the E-cores disabled at boot time, AVX-512 is still disabled." "But it does mean that AVX-512 is probably dead for consumers." "Intel isn’t even supporting AVX-512 with a dual-issue AVX2 mode over multiple operations - it simply won’t work on Alder Lake. If AMD’s Zen 4 processors plan to support some form of AVX-512 as has been theorized, even as dual-issue AVX2 operations, we might be in some dystopian processor environment where AMD is the only consumer processor on the market to support AVX-512." https://www.anandtech.com/show/16881/a-deep-dive-into-intels-alder-lake-microarchitectures/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16881/a-deep-dive-into-intels... It's shocking how Intel has failed with AVX-512, and unfortunate for those who embraced the technology.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    It's odd, because in today's review, they have this to say: > I have to say a side word about AVX-512 support, because we found it. If you’re prepared to disable the E-cores, and use specific motherboards, it works. After Intel spent time saying it was fused off, we dug into the story and found it still works for those that need it. It’s going to be interesting to hear how this feature will be discussed by Intel in future. There's a whole page on it: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core...

postalrat 5y ago

I already have an i9 and the i5 is old. These CPUs aren't an upgrade.

prirun 5y ago

I think the heat given off by that CPU is what burnt down the barn.

ant6n 5y ago
Isn't that what the title means?
- neogodless 5y ago
  barn burner: "an event, typically a sports contest, that is very exciting or intense." Though one would hope the title was selected for the double meaning.

neogodless 5y ago

Anandtech Review: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core...

caycep 5y ago
I feel like this review is more even headed...but they don't seem overly concerned by the close-to-300W elephant in the room...
- rsynnott 5y ago
  I mean, arguably if you’re buying a desktop processor that costs $700 just for the chip, you probably don’t care THAT much? This is very much a niche product.
  - dijit 5y ago
    Still. Your VRMs pulling 90A and your cooling solution are going to care. So will your ears when that cooling solution needs to try spreading the thermal load

chmod775 5y ago

Intel's processor is drawing 307W to slightly edge past the 5950X in Cinebench, which only draws around 214W. It's hard to cool 307W over extended periods without your computer becoming really loud, even with a water cooling setup. Now, if they had that kind of cooling available, they could have easily gotten a lot more performance out of the Ryzen, while the i9 is already operating at the limits of what consumer grade cooling can sustain. There's no way that Intel processor is beating a 5950X that is also drawing 300W. At that point some Ryzen's will be operating at close to 6GHz per core. The most interesting takeaway is that Intel apparently has no qualms selling a processor with a stock configuration that draws 300W. Also their Ryzen numbers are beyond suspicious. On a silent configuration (peak power draw ~209W, 175W sustained, some undervolting) my Ryzen 5900X hits a Cinebench R20 score of 8835 vs their 8390. I suspect my rig is worse since I cheaped out on the RAM, but I wouldn't know because they omit information about the Ryzen test rig. Their Ryzen numbers don't add up with other benchmarks around the internet either: The 5950X should hit around 10400, and the 5900X should hit 8600 in their stock configurations with mid-to-high-grade RAM[1]. Their scores are 400 points and 200 points lower respectively. To get numbers as bad as theirs, I have to mismatch my FCLK and RAM intentionally. But again, we don't know what their setup is because they didn't tell us. We however do know that they used DDR5 RAM for the Intel processor, which the current gen Ryzen don't support. Likely some performance was gained there as well, but obviously they didn't test the Intel processor with DDR4 RAM to get an idea of how much comes down to faster RAM. It's still fair to use DDR5, since the Intel processor supports it, but it's hard to say much about the Intel processor performance (development) itself without some additional information. Without this information we don't know whether we can expect the next generation of Ryzen processors with DDR5 support to immediately leave Intel in the dust again, or whether DDR4/DDR5 doesn't really matter. [1]: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_5950x_review,10.html https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_...

walrus01 5y ago
If I had to guess the TDP of the new Intel CPU when maxed out is actually around 270-280W. Not all of that 307W is the CPU, there's power used by the motherboard itself, a mostly idle GPU, fans, NVME SSD, etc. Still a very serious heat producing thing in one socket compared to the AMD. This also means it's going to require some rather expensive motherboards since reliably delivering 280W to one socket is no simple task.

ksec 5y ago

At roughly 25W per Performance Core running at 5.2GHz on Intel 7nm High Performance Node, with a ST Geekbench score of ~1900. Compared to The Apple M1 Max running at 3.2GHz on a TSMC 5nm Low Power node, at roughly 5W per core, with Geekbench score of ~1750. The is 5x the power for a 8.5% of performance increase. But I know there are many who just want to get the best ST performance regardless or power usage. And considering someone Overclock the thing past 8Ghz barrier. It is still pretty damn impressive.

liuliu 5y ago
Sorry about my impulsive correction: It is Intel 7 (formerly known as Intel's 10nm process). There is also Intel 4 (formerly known as Intel's 7nm process).
- ksec 5y ago
  Yes except I got asked again and again what is "Intel 7". So I am going to stick with a simple naming scheme that right now happens to be about the same across all three foundry working on leading node, Samsung, Intel and TSMC. And everyone can relate or understand.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    If that is the case shouldn't you call it "Intel 10nm" since that is what it was called when Intel was still using the same units as everyone else (even if those units are becoming meaningless)? Not even Intel itself says that "Intel 7" means "7nm", right?
    - SirMittens 5y ago
      Even if Intel was using "nm" like everyone else, Intel's naming was closer to reality then the rest of the industry. TSMC and Samsung's "nm" is more of a marketing term. Intel's 10nm is relatively close to TSMC's 7nm in term of density. That's why Intel renamed it to "Intel 7". Technically, even TSMC calls it N7, and not 7nm. But as you said, those units are more or less meaningless. Its just marketing.

mhh__ 5y ago

Also, the 12900k is trading blows with the 5950x but I think the mid range CPUs are actually the draw here.

paulpan 5y ago

Looks like the i5-12600K is the real value play for Intel's 12th gen. It essentially beats Ryzen 5600X at similar power consumption. LTT review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EogHCFd7w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EogHCFd7w0 That said, the cost of ownership is likely much higher for Intel vs. AMD - due to requiring DDR5 RAM and new motherboard.

zucker42 5y ago
You don't need DDR5 RAM. DDR5 is a halo feature at this point, only for the people for whom money is no issue. There's zero reason to use DDR5 RAM with the 12600k (considering you could be served better by spending the extra money on a better CPU or more capacity). The performance benefit is varied and probably not more than 5% at best. The increased price of Z690 vs B550 and even X570 is significant though.
- Osiris 5y ago
  If that's true, what advantage is there to DDR5 besides lower stock voltage?
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I asked myself the same thing when DDR4 came out. I was looking forward to skipping it, but Ryzen was able to unofficially use ECC ram so that intrigued me. DDR5 will be able to have larger sizes for ram as well if I remember correctly.
    - sliken 5y ago
      DDR4 didn't have much over DDR3, just a bit of bandwidth, and most apps weren't that sensitive. However DDR5 doubles the number of channels vs DDR4, while also having a higher clock rate (more bandwidth), so it's a bigger difference.
  - toast0 5y ago
    DDR5 has more future promise, whether that's lower power, higher bandwidth, higher capacity, maybe lower latency too. There's something about DDR5 requiring ECC, but it's not clear if that includes actual CPU/OS reporting or if it's internally using ECC but with no error reporting. But, I'm not sure how much of that shines through in the first DDR5 product vs mature DDR4 products. Now is the part of the cycle where the old memory is still high volume and the new memory is starting to ramp up; in not too long, we'll have the part of the cycle where they made too much of the old memory and prices drop and it's time to scoop up all the old memory you'll ever need.

KuiN 5y ago

This might be completely irrational, but it really annoys me when the press use 'big.little' for all heterogeneous CPUs. big.LITTLE is an ARM trademark for ARM's implementation of heterogenous designs. Intel have clearly decided heterogeneous is a marketing no-go and have gone with 'hybrid' architecture, which is fair enough. But these are absolutely not big.LITTLE CPUs.

dlp211 5y ago
"big.little" is like "kleenex" or "ziploc". Yes, technically they refer to a specific implementation of a thing, heterogenous CPU core size, tissues, plastic storage bags, but in reality, they were so perfectly branded that they just replaced the item name. It's not a big deal.
- seabrookmx 5y ago
  +1 It's exactly the same thing when people say an AMD Ryzen CPU has "Hyperthreading." This is Intel's trademark for Simultaneous multithreading (or SMT). We all know what someone means when they say this. There's no use being so pedantic.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  And I'm sure that people are going to call the Google Tensor "big.little" when it is really "big.medium.little" (it has 3 different types of ARM cores)!
  - kasabali 5y ago
    No need to look that far. Mainstream mobile processors in everyone's pocket have already been using 3 types of cores for the last few years (cortex A55, A7* and X1).
    - OldHand2018 5y ago
      Good call - I haven't paid enough attention to the Android ecosystem :)

InTheArena 5y ago

Its very good to see three viable, great emerging CPU architectures. Intel is important, and them getting their CPU node up is critical. AMD has saved x86 from irrelevency and stagnation, and has been sitting on their next node while Intel caught up, but now has to release it to keep their spot on top. Apple is remaking the game with the M1 / Pro and Max variants - and we still have Jade 2c and Jade 4c coming. Competition is great.

dlp211 5y ago
Jade 2/4c are additional processors being developed by Apple for their <strike>Macbook Air line of notebooks</strike> Mac Pro line for anyone who is like me and didn't know. Edit: first thing I read was wrong, turns out that these are Mac Pro level processors, see below comments for more details. Thanks everyone for the clarification.
- InTheArena 5y ago
  No, the 2c/4c are the MacPro / iMacPro CPUs. Think big-boy versions of the Max / Pro (which are insane already). Jade C "Chop" is the Pro, Jade C Die is the Max. jade 2c is two Maxes. Jade 4c is 4 maxes. https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang=en https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang...
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That Jade 4c might be pretty sweet in an Xserve.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    All this die chopping really sounds like the consequence of the Intel architects Apple hired away. Over the years lots of Intel products segmented SKUs by laying them out in a way that facilitated simple chops post wafersort.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    That is...properly exciting. Really looking forward to whatever prosumer desktop Apple will come up with. I'm even ok with an iMac at this point.

bastardoperator 5y ago

What's the price point though?

neogodless 5y ago
Officially? https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/intel-core-i912900k-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/... > $589.00 - $599.00 Retail will vary. Currently $649 at NewEgg.com, but sold out. https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i9-12th-gen/p/N82E16819118339 https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i9-12th-gen...
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  not bad, ty for sharing.
- snuxoll 5y ago
  It's always important to note that pricing on ark is bulk pricing (1K unit order), retail will always be higher.

acomjean 5y ago

I think this is great improvement. (I own machines with intel and AMD processors). It feels like AMDs progress has lit a fire under intel to innovate. Competition seems to be back and I look forward to the progress next few years. I think the i5 not the i9 is the chip of note. I'm using linux more and more and like open architecture PCs, so optimistic they can stay competitive with those SOC. Should be interesting how the linux scheduler deals with the different core types. The architecture bumps to DDR5.0, and PCIe5.0 hopefully will help performance in the future too.

jeffbee 5y ago
I predict it will be many years before linux works in a satisfactory way out of the box on these machines. The existing kernel model of task priority is not rich enough. Perhaps this will accelerate the adoption of user-space task scheduling.

rektide 5y ago

Overall fabulous news, but I am weirded out that mobile is now the connected, featureful, good core, and desktop gets a bunch of last gen bad tech: * an UHD 770 gpu rather than a Xe (understandable-ish as many want dedicated GPUs anyhow) * no Thunderbolt 4, only USB4. way way less connected & capable.

neogodless 5y ago
Z690 supports Thunderbolt 4. See, for example, https://wccftech.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i5-12600k-alder-lake-cpu-review-ft-z690-aorus-master-msi-mpg-z690-carbon-wifi-g-skill-trident-z5-ddr5-6000-memory/5/ https://wccftech.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-core-i5-126...
- rektide 5y ago
  my understanding is that a number of (already deluxe expensive fancy) motherboards have add-on chips to further jack up the cost i mean add thunderbolt4 support. i haven't seen any indicators that the kick ass readily available on chip 4x 40 Gbps of connectivity that intel mobile chips offer on integrated tb4 is available on desktop. this, to me, constrains the desktop from being a good movipe partner to the great laptops available. at least usb4 mandates host-to-host networking, but all these great laptops with desktops lagging so far behind, having such lower standards, is excessively sad, to me. atm phones are way far behind. no usb4 (with host-to-host networkingl nor tb4 are avialbable. i have a hard time imagining phones remaining market segmented out, not participating, in the good, not meeting the new bar.
junar 5y ago
The UHD 770 is in fact current-gen integrated graphics. It has the same modern features like DP 1.4a, HDMI 2.1, etc., which allow higher resolutions/refresh rates compared to older products like UHD 630. The main difference is fewer execution units compared to the Iris Xe-branded graphics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology#Twelfth_generation_(Gen12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology#Twel... Also, so far they've only put Iris Xe on 4-core/8-thread laptop CPUs; all their high-core-count laptop CPUs have the same reduced-execution-unit pattern as the desktop ones. To me, there seems to be some tradeoff between integrated graphics and CPU performance.

DeathArrow 5y ago

Where are the days when a decent CPU was $100 and it draw no more than 100W?

theevilsharpie 5y ago
Inflation is a thing that exists, so decent $100 CPUs are going to be hard to come by if you expect to run modern applications in 2021. However, there's plenty of competitive CPUs that can operate below 100W. CPU reviews tend to focus on the top-end products which throw efficiency out the window for higher clock speeds, but lower tier SKUs target 95W, 65W, and 35W power points, while still maintaining quite reasonable performance. While I'm not as familiar with the power management capabilities of modern Intel CPUs, AMD Ryzen CPUs can operate in an "Eco mode" where the power target is lowered, so you can optimize for power efficiency without having to go out of your way to buy a special "low-power" SKU.
zamadatix 5y ago
If you're willing to accept inflation since the early 90s check out something like the 5600G instead of the top end models like the 5950X, or wait for the low end SKUs of Alder lake to come out too. The 5600G is a fantastic new 6 core CPU that will handle all but the most extreme multithreaded workloads with ease while staying under 100 Watts.
- kasabali 5y ago
  What early 90s? Ryzen 5 1600AF was going for $85 just 2 years ago.
toast0 5y ago
Right now, AMD is selling every chip they make, so they're not making much for the low end. Intel's got quad core comet lake chips around that price, but they've also not been selling low end versions of their newer stuff either. If Alder Lake's release signals Intel 10nm (aka Intel 7) finally working for desktop chips, then we may see products addressing the low end market again. You should probably be able to limit power to 100W though; power targeting is definitely a firmware feature on AMD, and I'd be surprised if it's not available on Intel as well. If nothing else, you can just provide 100W worth of cooling, and thermal management should throttle back the power.

tus89 5y ago

> symmetric multithreading (SMT, also known as "hyperthreading"). Say what now?

freemint 5y ago

*in synthetic benchmarks or multicore alu-constrained workloads

flakiness 5y ago

I wonder what's the story for Linux here. I don't think it is possible for OSS projects to utilize this big.little system: I tried to look at the instruction level details of the thread director but could find very little. If that's the case, the future of linux desktop/laptop is even dimmer than before. Android has downstream (partially upstream?) EAS scheduler to handle this kind of architecture [1], but I'm not sure there is any move to take this up to the intel platform. As a linux laptop user, I hope someone does something. [1] https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/linux-kernel/energy-aware-scheduling

neogodless 5y ago
Phoronix does a suite of benchmarks on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-12600k-12900k https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-12...
usr1106 5y ago
As a Linux desktop user I am still a bit disappointed about AMD. My Ryzen 7 does not run 100% reliably (freezes many times a year, althoug typically not more than once a month. The net is full of similar stories, but nothing seems to help). Independently but equally annoying the temperature sensors are not well supported, obviously AMD does not share documentation or contribute to the kernel. Don't remember the details now. Gave up frustrated 2 years ago or so.
- bavell 5y ago
  YMMV... I bought a 5950X in late January for my main workstation (Arch) and haven't had any problems with it at all. FWIW my last Intel CPU (2700k IIRC) crashed my machine regularly whenever the iGPU fired up for some tasks (e.g. I could crash Blender in < 10 seconds...)
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Sounds like a motherboard issue. Never had that happen.

franciscop 5y ago

> "Intel beats the pants off the Ryzen 9 line in both Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20 multithreaded tests" Am I reading the graph wrong or Intel is barely a 3% faster than Ryzen in that Cinebench i9/9 graph?

mey 5y ago
Watching several detailed YouTube reviews (Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed), the performance difference is 0-20% above a 5950x. Long duration (above 8 min) render workloads seem to push AMD back to break even, but memory dependant mutlithreaded bursty workloads heavily favor 12900k. Of course halo products are going to halo. The interesting story may be the 12600k, for it's price to performance considerations. Cooling the chips is not simple, air cooling is not enough, one reviewer recommending 360mm AIO as a requirement. Edit: Gaming benchmarks are all over the place reviewer to reviewer. Some showing huge jumps, others not, game to game.
meepmorp 5y ago
Yeah, Geekbench is the only one where Intel chip really meaningfully ahead. I guess you gotta talk up the parts a bit to get the free test samples.

oblio 5y ago

I really wish they wouldn't use obscure American expressions for these article titles.

bagels 5y ago
I'm American and I don't know what it means either. I assume burning a barn is bad? I expect not a lot of overlap between the audience of the article and people knowledgeable about agriculture idioms.
- oblio 5y ago
  Apparently it's good (at least in the sense they're using here). Which is extremely counterintuitive.
- kube-system 5y ago
  It's a sports colloquialism. It means 'exciting'. Someone may say "the game was a real barn burner", meaning that it was exciting and competitive. Ars is saying that Alder Lake is an excitingly competitive CPU.
ant6n 5y ago
I guess these chips run really hot.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  It does, Intel is better because you can use it to heat your house like AMD bulldozer.

Symmetry 5y ago

The prices do look very compelling, though Intel motherboards do tend to be more expensive than AMD so spec out the whole system before deciding which is the better deal. It's great to have competition, even if it's comping out a year behind the equivalent AMD systems.

schmorptron 5y ago

While this is exciting, the thing I'm most looking forward to is intel entering the dedicated GPU market next year. Arc is looking really promising and god knows nVidia and AMD need some disrupting.

heavyset_go 5y ago
Intel's Linux drivers for their integrated graphics chipsets are pretty good, at least compared to Nvidia's, so hopefully the same effort will be spent on Linux support for Arc. It would be nice to have another option than AMD on the table for Linux-compatible GPUs.
- schmorptron 5y ago
  Yeah, that'd be really nice. I've been enjoying tear free Wayland too much to go back :)
GhettoComputers 5y ago
They didn’t announce prices, and is estimated they’re shooting for it being $200. What do you expect them to shake up?
- schmorptron 5y ago
  The $200 to $300 GPU market! That market segment has been disappointing since 2018 or so, the last truly good card in that segment was the RX 480.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Is isn’t going to get better with Intel. The XE is worst than an integrated Vega 8 and 1030 both of which are way cheaper. https://www.tomshardware.com/features/intel-xe-dg1-benchmarked https://www.tomshardware.com/features/intel-xe-dg1-benchmark...
    - 5y ago

roody15 5y ago

“ Jim Salter We typically consider Cinebench to be the gold standard for general-purpose CPU tests—and for the first time in years, Intel trounces AMD's best offerings here.” What nonsense look at the graph this comment is referencing. The new i9 barely edges ahead of Ryzen and they use the term trounces. Give me a break … price per performance still clearly in AMD’s favor.

1024core 5y ago
Also, this: "Passmark is the only benchmark we ran that still gave the nod to AMD's Ryzen 9 CPUs—and even there, AMD won only by a narrow margin." The "narrow margin" being > 20% better ... :roll eyes:
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mensetmanusman 5y ago

A 300 Watt room air heater that also ray traces in real time