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Intel Skylake Gen9 Series Graphics Architecture Unveiled

MojoKid writes: Intel's Skylake is here and the new architecture comprises Intel's 6th generation Core line of CPUs. In recent testing it was confirmed that Intel's Skylake-based Core i7-6700K is the company's fastest quad-core desktop processor to date. However, one thing Intel kept a tight lid on was the underlying technology of the Gen9 Intel HD Graphics engine on board Skylake, that is until now. An overview of the changes Intel made specific to Intel Gen9 graphics, notes the following among other tweaks: Available L3 cache capacity has been increased to 768 Kbytes per slice (512 Kbytes for application data). Sizes of both L3 and LLC request queues have been increased. This improves latency hiding to achieve better effective bandwidth against the architecture peak theoretical. Gen9 EDRAM now acts as a memory-side cache between LLC and DRAM. Also, the EDRAM memory controller has moved into the system agent, adjacent to the display controller, to support power efficient and low latency display refresh. Gen9 has also been designed to enable products with 1, 2, or 3 slices, each with 24 EUs per slice and 8 EUs per subslice. Finally, Gen9 adds new power gating and clock domains for more efficient dynamic power management. This can particularly improve low power media playback modes.

29 comments

  1. Not truly the fastest desktop processors released by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 1

    The Skylake processors might be the fastest "stock" processors released, but the "k" series processors are made for overclocking. It still turns out that the 2xxxK and the 3xxxK chips still overclock as fast or faster than the broadwell and skylake counterparts/replacements to the point that even though the skylake processors are more efficient clock for clock, the older ones overclocked to such a higher clock speed to more than makeup for those efficiency improvements.

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    We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  2. So many slices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With so many slices, what have they made, a cake???

    1. Re: So many slices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cake is a lie. It is a pie.

  3. Re:Not truly the fastest desktop processors releas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    And I've still not been had reason to overclock my 2700K. The only time I've been anywhere close to 100% CPU utilization was after installing a Java update that somehow allowed some applets to claim all system resources for their idle loops (still makes no sense).

    I like these advancements, and the next time I have some major overhaul that needs to be done I may skip ahead to a 6700K (or 9700K, whatever it is then), but there isn't anything resembling a compelling argument to ditch a working system for something new.

  4. Re:Not truly the fastest desktop processors releas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Man buys processor based on his personal needs, film at eleven.

  5. power? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you need a "low power media playback mode" then you're not buying the latest quadcore Intel shiny.

    1. Re:power? by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      Because nobody who has a quad-core processor in their notebook would ever want to watch a movie anywhere they might not have power... Obviously anybody who wants to do more than one thing with their notebook should carry around multiple notebooks so that they can have a dedicated one for each task.

  6. Re:Slashdot is for trolls. YOU TROLLS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clearly he's trying to milk this meme as much as possible.

  7. Drivers?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No matter how good blue's hardware gets, they'll never be able to to compete with green/red cuz their drivers SUCK!!!! DRIVERS! Drivers, I tell you....DRIVERS!

    Any company that loses by 2-3 fps to another on ANY game metric is a TOTAL LUUZER! 3dfx Interactive rocks balls! Suckit fanbois.

    1. Re:Drivers?!? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      3DFX sucks! Voodoo rulez!

  8. biggest innovation is the driver by citizenr · · Score: 2

    closed source driver ....

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    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  9. Waiting for a MacBook Pro update by cerberusss · · Score: 2

    Although I've got Linux on my servers, I'm using Apple on the desktop (app development). The last MacBook Pro update was... lackluster, without a CPU update. I'm really hoping for Skylake and its integrated graphics, because I want the fastest laptop but without discrete graphics. The repeated disasters in the past with the discrete graphics basically melting off the motherboards, left me waiting for something like this.

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    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    1. Re:Waiting for a MacBook Pro update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seems like having one 3k defective laptop would be enough deterrent. Gotta love Mac users.

    2. Re:Waiting for a MacBook Pro update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep - melting GPU off the motherboard doesn't deter a mac user as long as it's "pretty" when it does it.

  10. X86 dying w digital restrictions & closed driv by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I once was relatively content with Intel. They supported there wifi chips on Linux, they're graphics drivers were free, and then hell broke loose. They've added the Intel Management Firmware Engine which is a proprietary component that we don't have the sources for so we can't free the BIOS. They've added support to enable digital restrictions. Now they're closing the free software driver... but it's really quite a bit worse. We also don't have the sources for the firmware on the wifi chip. A company that was once a leader in the open source community had gone tragically downhill. AMD's not much different either.

    While ARM has its issues there is at least a little bit of hope. I can't wait to see a true Linux ARM laptop. Not a chromebook, not a netbook, but a real Linux laptop. It's coming. At least once project is fully funded by a small time, but major Linux hardware company, and provided the community backs it should succeed further out. Unfortunately some of the other projects are more or less a joke which can be attributed to inexpedience.

  11. Better DMI link is the big part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Better DMI link is the big part The old limits network / pci-e storage / usb / TB.

  12. Looking forward to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's a nice update and good progress on the GPU architecture.
    However not very interesting considering DirectX12 support isn't very far/complete.
    And no DirectX12 features such as Conservative Rasterization are supported in the hardware.
    Looking forward for the next Intel GPU architecture that does support Conservative Rasterization.

  13. Re:X86 dying w digital restrictions & closed d by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yep, ALL OPENSOURCE PEOPLE BSD, LINUX whatever should be up in arms and at their doorstep over this.

  14. Re:Not truly the fastest desktop processors releas by sdguero · · Score: 1

    At a higher frequency, every computation occurs faster. CPU utilization has no bearing on how fast the processor is performing operations until you get to 100% and the queueing starts. What I'm getting at is that a overclock would make your computer faster (likely not percievably however) even if you aren't seeing 100% CPU utilization.

  15. Re:Slashdot is for trolls. YOU TROLLS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly you've missed all of APK's posts.

  16. Re:X86 dying w digital restrictions & closed d by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

    They supported there wifi chips on Linux, they're graphics drivers were free, and then hell broke loose.

    I can see that already in your post, it's playing havoc with your grammar. God think I'm not poesting on in Intel....ahh, dammit!

  17. Re:Slashdot is for trolls. YOU TROLLS! by SeaFox · · Score: 1

    It's still high time "MOOOOOOO!" post was put to pasture.