Intel Alder Lake S-CPU with 16 cores, 24 threads to launch in November? (updated)
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Richard Nutman
This big and little core configuration is going to make things a lot more complicated. For optimisation in games and applications, for the OS to schedule stuff efficiently.
I don't really see the point in 8 little cores with no HT. Why not just do 4 extra big cores with HT to get 24 threads? At least with homogeneous cores, there's no questions need answering about which cores certain workloads work best on. There's no mechanism in the OS to tell it your thread needs to a certain core type for best performance.
Silva
Its Intel, they'll push for OS optimizations don't you worry. Also, let them experiment: if they fail they learn and evolve; if they succeed, we win.
cucaulay malkin
this is very interesting even for someone who has no intention to purchase it.
how is big+little going to perform ?
what is the biggest advantage ? - imo it's prolly overall power efficiency
what is the biggest drawback ? - i think you'll be paying for all those arm cores that will make NO difference in games,i think they'll proritize best cores.zen2 is doing it already.
will the whole chip be manufactured in one fab ? on same process ? or split between intel and tsmc and 14/10/6 nm for different parts (big cores on 10nm intel,arm cores on other intel node,xe igpu on tsmc 6nm)
not gonna purchase it,but I'm intigued. this may pack a lot of compute power in a small power envelope.and if they utilize Xe igpu for workload acceleration it might be a real performance jump,at least for intel buyers who are waiting for a response to 3950X for 1.5 year already.
EspHack
woah thats some next level gluing going on here, next thing we know these CPUs will be needing drivers to work "correctly"
H83
I really don´t understand the use of a Little/Big config on a desktop systems.
-Tj-
Whats rocketlake single core score there?
Seeing 5800x doing 7500, I guess there abouts?
Noisiv
Can't see clocks...
https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/5580579.gb5
schmidtbag
I do. Remember, the purpose of many-core CPUs in a desktop is for multitasking. I assume Intel will be making "only big core" CPUs for workstations and servers. The little cores could be configured in 2 different ways:
1. Efficiency. They handle background processes while sipping watts. Having a big complex core handle simple tasks wastes power and potential.
2. Speed. The less complex a CPU core is, generally speaking, the faster you can push it. As long as you don't depend on advanced instructions, I could see these small cores being overclocked to some pretty crazy speeds.
Also, this can help lower the price of a CPU. The smaller cores are less complex and therefore will have higher yields. Less wasted product means cheaper products. Most people aren't going to max out all of their cores at the same time. Nowadays, highly parallel workloads have been steadily moving toward GPUs.
The groundwork for big.LITTLE on ARM has already been decently well-established. For OSes like Linux, Intel should have very little work cut out for them. On Windows, they should have a pretty good idea how to configure the scheduler. Thanks to AMD, MS is already used to mucking with the scheduler, so I'm sure they'll get to it quicker.
nosirrahx
This feels like jamming 2 ideas into one package when it might be better to just go dual socket with dual purpose.
Imagine being able to choose CPU A that is 4, 6 or 8 cores with HT that clock to 5.2ghz and then a 2nd socket specifically designed for "little" cores in 16, 32 and 64 core configuration.
The user could pick and then change how much "big" core and "little" core power they actually need. You wouldn't even need CPU 2 at all if you were running a dedicated gaming system. 8 cores and 16 threads at 5.2ghz will be more than enough for gaming for the foreseeable future, especially if stacked with architecture improvements.
Trihy
8 alder cores with ht + 8 atom cores without ht.
It cant defeat a 5900x. Wonder what are they thinking.
H83
The first point is interesting, the second seems unlikely. I still think that for desktop this approach doesn´t make a lot of sense and a "classical" CPU design is better but i´m not the expert, of course.
Let´s see how this goes.
Kool64
27.2 ghz....yes please.
Trihy
Gamers will love the 8 extra atom cores.
kapu
they will be GAME changer 😀
Trihy
lol. I bet most googled alder lake thing will be how to disable little cores.
I see the point using maybe two little core for idle purposes. But for apps or games on desktop is useless. Nobody will want their desktop pc using cores with lower ipc than amd am3 cpus.
Richard Nutman
I can see maybe using the low power little cores for background tasks/threads/services. Leaving the big cores free to play games for example.
But how much work is that really? You don't need 8 little cores to do background tasks while gaming...
If you wanna stream and game, wouldn't you just be better off with a more big cores?
Until I see benchmarks and price comparisons to bigger chips I still think this is going to be DOA.
What problem does 8 little cores solve, that 2 or 4 bigger cores wouldn't, and ultimately give you more flexibility?
ViperAnaf
Such high scores for such low base freq and dram freq...
nosirrahx
Not only that but what tasks that would be delegated to 'little' cores cannot be exported to GPU? Aren't we kind of heading towards GPUs accelerating tasks other than 3D rendering like AI?
Why not look into leveraging IGPU to take on 'little' tasks while the main GPU handles the heavy lifting in games?
Everyone needs 'big' cores but who actually needs a mountain of 'little' ones? If they legitimately want to take on the likes of Threadripper why not 8 'big' cores and then a 2nd CPU with like 128 'little' cores? IMO that kind of sounds like a better idea. Let the user buy the main CPU they want and if they actually need it, add a 2nd 'little' core CPU to aid in tasks that are more predictable and highly parallel.
waltc3
Intel is just making noise...these days that's about all Intel can "launch"--along with silly "productivity" benchmarks that prove absolutely nothing but show Intel as king of the "productivity" hill, etc. It couldn't be more obvious that Intel is floundering as a CPU designer and innovator. Not surprising from the company that thought it could push Itanium into the markets for 64-bit computing, because "You don't need 64-bits on the desktop," according to Intel---yeah, and we didn't need RDRAM, either. It was AMD that pushed DDR SDRAM and x86-64 into a receptive market, into which Intel was dragged kicking and screaming all the way--and that's what Intel has been working with post Opteron. When the Emperor is revealed to have no clothes, it is always rather shocking.
tsunami231
27.2 ghz, built in liquid nitrogen cooling?
