Nothing new. Every two product iterations they change the socket, even if the change is mostly nominal (as in the difference between Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake).
Sounds like a surprisingly nice release despite still being on 14 nm. Actually a decent potential option if you don't need a lot of cores, and don't mind higher power usage compared to Zen 3. Although feels like Rocket lake will be pretty short lived, considering that 10 nm Alder Lake with PCI-E 5, and DDR 5 is supposed to come out this year as well, no?
Why do you think Alder Lake will have PCIe 5? Considering the added costs and how nothing is even maxing out PCIe 4.0 yet, it makes no sense. And Rocket Lake doesn't even extend PCIe 4.0 to its chipset link (DMI), instead doubling the PCIe 3.0 lanes to 8x.
Not only that, but Comet Lake was teased to have PCIe 4.0 and then they had to walk it back. Hardly setting the stage for a successful PCIe 5.0 rollout, don't you think?
And the fact that Intel is being vague about Alder Lake's launch pretty much guarantees November/December, if it doesn't slip into 2022. Even if it launches this year, it'll probably be almost impossible to find in stock.
My i7 6700K is still ticking along nicely, even with newest games and odd work I give it. I do what to upgrade soon, but AMD really is enticing me more now than ever. Especially on content creation. THAT's the biggest hurdle I'd like to jump in my next PC build.
Said system would be outframed in gaming by anything as fast as the 10100F....; if not doing gaming, at 6th gen levels of IPC ,then 10c/20t (the equivalent of a lower clocked 10 core 6700) should still hold you over, but, it depends on the use/goals of your upgrade. If you purchased the 6950X when it was $1799, missing the release of the $999 and faster 7900X, I could see you'd want to maximize your money's worth on the 6950X...
"Perhaps one of the biggest updates will be the connection to the chipset, with Intel doubling the DMI link from x4 to x8, doubling the bandwidth from devices connected to the chipset"
In case you are new here, literally no one on this site ever proofreads their article. They just type it out and hit publish. Almost all their posts are like this. The reviews are even worse. It's just become part of the experience of reading this site now.
This article pretty much confirmed all of the information which was leaked. The BIG question is what the price structure will be like for the RL stack.
"For performance, Intel is claiming a +2% to +9% gain in average frame rates in a variety of modern games (Gears of War 5, Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legion, Far Cry New Dawn) at 1080p in either High or Ultra settings."
You should maybe consider mentioning this improvement is over the Ryzen 9 5900X.
The lack of Rocket lake support on B460 is a bizzare limitation. H series I could understand, but supporting the H series and not the B series? Seems like an intentional spit in the face of budget DIYers.
How many budget users, I wonder, are no longer considering their less than 1 year old 10th gen stuff adequate, and perhaps desperately pondering an upgrade to Rocket Lake-S, but, are now stifled to remain on 'only' 10th gen on their sub-$150 mainboards? :)
Being able to upgrade is especially nice if you have a low budget system. And with upgrade I mean getting a noticeable performance boost.
Can upgrade eventually (once prices come down) to a Ryzen 59xx on my €100 B450 Max board just fine from my current 2700X. That‘ll give me nice boost at the same power consumption.
Intel finally off of the Skylake architecture and for some reason, still using LAKE as the terrain feature, instead of finally breaking the Skylake refresh cycle
Stop. Pick a new one. Like fjord or gully or lagoon or anything!
Yeah, their names have become meaningless. I guess they just decided there were a lot of lakes in the world and maybe the marketing department likes the sound.
Anyway, they have been using Lake for other uarch for a long time. For example: Apollo Lake uses the Goldmont cores and launched in like 2016 and Ice Lake uses Sunny Cove cores and launched in 2018.
I'm wondering if IPC gains are the only way forward, going past 5ghz seems like an invisible wall for every architecture & every process. Obviously they keep adding to the core count so maybe that's the new way forward.
FUGGER did his famous single core run on prescott what 15 years ago? Same max speeds we are dealing with today. It's obvious 10nm works but can't hit the clocks of 14nm.
"It's obvious 10nm works but can't hit the clocks of 14nm." The 11900k and the 10900k have the same single core/all core boosts. What are you talking about?
Ah I thought you were making a gen on gen comparision. Regardless, their 10nm parts are already hitting 5ghz as well and it's going to improve as the node matures.
The other thing they're doing is wider vectors (AVX-512). And now matrix-extensions (AMX).
I think there's still more that can be done to improve single-thread performance and efficiency, but the big wins probably require making CPUs more GPU-like by doing things like moving the instruction decode stage out of the critical path.
"For performance, Intel is claiming a +2% to +9% gain in average frame rates in a variety of modern games" I think those graphs were a comparison between frame rates *with a 5900X*, and not 'FPS gains since 10900K'....
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shabby - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
Backward compatibility... never thought i'd see this coming from intel. Is this a trend they will try to continue?mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Nothing new. Every two product iterations they change the socket, even if the change is mostly nominal (as in the difference between Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake).DabuXian - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
Sounds like a surprisingly nice release despite still being on 14 nm. Actually a decent potential option if you don't need a lot of cores, and don't mind higher power usage compared to Zen 3. Although feels like Rocket lake will be pretty short lived, considering that 10 nm Alder Lake with PCI-E 5, and DDR 5 is supposed to come out this year as well, no?mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Why do you think Alder Lake will have PCIe 5? Considering the added costs and how nothing is even maxing out PCIe 4.0 yet, it makes no sense. And Rocket Lake doesn't even extend PCIe 4.0 to its chipset link (DMI), instead doubling the PCIe 3.0 lanes to 8x.Not only that, but Comet Lake was teased to have PCIe 4.0 and then they had to walk it back. Hardly setting the stage for a successful PCIe 5.0 rollout, don't you think?
And the fact that Intel is being vague about Alder Lake's launch pretty much guarantees November/December, if it doesn't slip into 2022. Even if it launches this year, it'll probably be almost impossible to find in stock.
Adm_SkyWalker - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
Once again, I must decide to upgrade or not. My i7-6950x has held up well but it is getting long in the tooth.ct909 - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
My i7-3770K Z77 system is still doing the job for me.Narg - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
My i7 6700K is still ticking along nicely, even with newest games and odd work I give it. I do what to upgrade soon, but AMD really is enticing me more now than ever. Especially on content creation. THAT's the biggest hurdle I'd like to jump in my next PC build.MDD1963 - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - link
Said system would be outframed in gaming by anything as fast as the 10100F....; if not doing gaming, at 6th gen levels of IPC ,then 10c/20t (the equivalent of a lower clocked 10 core 6700) should still hold you over, but, it depends on the use/goals of your upgrade. If you purchased the 6950X when it was $1799, missing the release of the $999 and faster 7900X, I could see you'd want to maximize your money's worth on the 6950X...Xanavi - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
Both are Skylake arch. His is identical clock for clock as the 4 core 10th gen.supdawgwtfd - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
"We already know that Rocket Lake is processor that is plugging the gap while Intel continues to enable 10nm for high-performance desktop use."How does this get into a final article?
Does no one read it beforehand?
supdawgwtfd - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
"Perhaps one of the biggest updates will be the connection to the chipset, with Intel doubling the DMI link from x4 to x8, doubling the bandwidth from devices connected to the chipset"This is on "certain motherboards and chipsets".
It's not a blanket "all get this".
supdawgwtfd - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
"Core i9-11900K is set to have a TDP/PL1 of 125 W"Others are reporting that it is 150W TDP/PL1?
lmcd - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
Lol ok were you complaining that articles about Zen 2 didn't mention its PCIe 4 support wasn't backward compatible? Dumb nitpick.krazyfrog - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
In case you are new here, literally no one on this site ever proofreads their article. They just type it out and hit publish. Almost all their posts are like this. The reviews are even worse. It's just become part of the experience of reading this site now.lmcd - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
If 10nm for high-performance desktop has not arrived, Intel is continuing to enable 10nm. If it has arrived, it has been enabled. Done.This is clunky but not wrong. Grats on nitpicking an hour turnaround on a call transcript.
bolkhov - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
Ian, any news on W580 chipset and E2300 Xeons?Hulk - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
This article pretty much confirmed all of the information which was leaked. The BIG question is what the price structure will be like for the RL stack.Bik - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link
I hope the 19% ipc improvement is not versus their ancient Skylake. Looking at the gaming fps increase, im seeing 10% vs Commet lake at best.mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Aren't they basically the same, though: Comet Lake and Skylake IPC?TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Yep, and Skylake was a whole 2% faster then haswell, which was a whole 3% faster then ivy bridge.The last truly notable IPC jump for intel was sandy bridge in 2011. zen2 -> zen 3 was a larger IPC jump then sandy -> comet lake
krazyfrog - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
"For performance, Intel is claiming a +2% to +9% gain in average frame rates in a variety of modern games (Gears of War 5, Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legion, Far Cry New Dawn) at 1080p in either High or Ultra settings."You should maybe consider mentioning this improvement is over the Ryzen 9 5900X.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
It isnt though, its against a "ryzen 7 12 core" whcih doesnt exist. Also Intel allowed up to a 15% margin of error LMFAO.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
The lack of Rocket lake support on B460 is a bizzare limitation. H series I could understand, but supporting the H series and not the B series? Seems like an intentional spit in the face of budget DIYers.MDD1963 - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - link
How many budget users, I wonder, are no longer considering their less than 1 year old 10th gen stuff adequate, and perhaps desperately pondering an upgrade to Rocket Lake-S, but, are now stifled to remain on 'only' 10th gen on their sub-$150 mainboards? :)Irata - Friday, January 15, 2021 - link
Being able to upgrade is especially nice if you have a low budget system. And with upgrade I mean getting a noticeable performance boost.Can upgrade eventually (once prices come down) to a Ryzen 59xx on my €100 B450 Max board just fine from my current 2700X. That‘ll give me nice boost at the same power consumption.
drexnx - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Intel finally off of the Skylake architecture and for some reason, still using LAKE as the terrain feature, instead of finally breaking the Skylake refresh cycleStop. Pick a new one. Like fjord or gully or lagoon or anything!
mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Yeah, their names have become meaningless. I guess they just decided there were a lot of lakes in the world and maybe the marketing department likes the sound.Anyway, they have been using Lake for other uarch for a long time. For example: Apollo Lake uses the Goldmont cores and launched in like 2016 and Ice Lake uses Sunny Cove cores and launched in 2018.
Revv233 - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Wow trying to remember when I got my 4790k...I think Im up to 3 PCs on this arch....
I'm wondering if IPC gains are the only way forward, going past 5ghz seems like an invisible wall for every architecture & every process. Obviously they keep adding to the core count so maybe that's the new way forward.
FUGGER did his famous single core run on prescott what 15 years ago? Same max speeds we are dealing with today. It's obvious 10nm works but can't hit the clocks of 14nm.
badger2k - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
"It's obvious 10nm works but can't hit the clocks of 14nm." The 11900k and the 10900k have the same single core/all core boosts. What are you talking about?mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
11900k is still 14nm. What are *you* talking about?badger2k - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
Ah I thought you were making a gen on gen comparision. Regardless, their 10nm parts are already hitting 5ghz as well and it's going to improve as the node matures.mode_13h - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link
The other thing they're doing is wider vectors (AVX-512). And now matrix-extensions (AMX).I think there's still more that can be done to improve single-thread performance and efficiency, but the big wins probably require making CPUs more GPU-like by doing things like moving the instruction decode stage out of the critical path.
MDD1963 - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
"For performance, Intel is claiming a +2% to +9% gain in average frame rates in a variety of modern games" I think those graphs were a comparison between frame rates *with a 5900X*, and not 'FPS gains since 10900K'....