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Intel Discloses Detailed Skylake Architecture Enhancements
MojoKid writes: Intel is still keeping a number of details regarding its complete Skylake microarchitecture and product line-up under wraps for a few more weeks, but at a public session at IDF, some of the design updates introduced with Skylake were detailed. Virtually every aspect of Skylake has been improved versus the previous-gen Haswell microarchitecture. I/O, Ring Bus, and LLC throughput has been increased, the graphics architecture has been updated to support DX12 and new eDRAM configurations, it has an integrated camera ISP, support for faster DDR4 memory, and more flexible overclocking features. All of these things culminate in a processor that offers higher IPC performance and improved power efficiency. There are also new security technologies dubbed Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) onboard Skylake, which support new instructions to create and isolate enclaves from malware and privileged software attack, along with Memory Protection Extensions (Intel MPX) to help protect stack and heap buffer boundaries as well. A new technology, dubbed Intel Speed Shift, also allows Skylake to switch power states faster than previous-gen products, controlling P states fully in hardware, whereas previous-gen products required OS control. The end result is that Skylake can switch P states in 1ms, whereas it takes roughly 30ms with older processors.
Sure looks like it
From the errata:
Executing CPUID with EAX = 7 and ECX = 0 may return EBX with bits [3] and [8] set, incorrectly indicating the presence of BMI1 and BMI2 instruction set extensions.
Attempting to use instructions from the BMI1 or BMI2 instruction set extensions will result in a #UD exception.
and in the errata summary, its currently labeled NO FIX so they dont even have a fix that will trap the exception and emulate the instructions (which would perform terribly anyways... but hey, working is better than not working.)
"His name was James Damore."
If you forget the PAID Intel puff piece, the reality is that Skylake is a MAJOR step backwards over Broadwell (the Intel CPU arch between Haswell and Skylake) in certain applications, especially gaming. Meanwhile Skylake significantly beefed up its vector processing performance (and GPU).
I a way, the major loss of performance in certain games proves Skylake is quite a modified CORE architecture. But given the massive number of punters who buy high-priced i5 and i7 CPUs for PC gaming, this design choice by Intel is puzzling. DDR4 brings NOTHING but higher memory prices per GB. Luckily for Intel, Broadwell never got much traction on the desktop, and Skylake looks better against Haswell.
HOWEVER, what gamers want is a decent priced (sub 200 dollar) mainstream i5 with SIX true cores. Since the i5 was first introduced, ARM based SoC parts have gone from ONE CORE to TWELVE CORES (and much faster cores) for the SAME chip price. Intel, meanwhile, has barely improved the core performance since Sandybridge, has shrunk the CPU core to a fraction of its original die size, and charges MORE per core than when it first introduced the architecture.
Intel's pricing (and refusal to offer 6-core mainstream parts) is a consequence of Intel's effective MONOPOLY in the x86 space. AMD's current CPU offerings are a BAD JOKE, offering around 50% per core of Intel's core performance. No serious PC gamer would opt for anything less than a true 4-core i5. AMD isn't even in the picture.