Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Intel's Just Launched 8th Gen 'Coffee Lake' Processors Bring the Heat To AMD's Ryzen

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

bigwophh writes: The upheaval of the high-end desktop processor segment continues today with the official release of Intel's latest Coffee Lake-based 8th Generation Core processors. The flagship in the new lineup is the Core i7-8700K. It is a 6C/12T beast, with a base clock of 3.7GHz, a boost clock of 4.7GHz, and 12MB of Intel Smart Cache. The Core i5-8400 features the same physical die, but has only 9MB of Smart Cache, no Hyper-Threading, and base and boost clocks of 2.8GHz and 4GHz, respectively. The entire line-up features more cores, support for faster memory speeds, and leverages a fresh platform that's been tweaked for more robust power delivery and, ultimately, more performance. The Core i7-8700K proved to be an excellent performer, besting every other processor in single-threaded workloads and competing favorably with 8C/16T Ryzen 7 processors. The affordably-priced 6-core Core i5-8400 even managed to pull ahead of the quad-core Core i7-7700K in some tests. Overall, performance is strong, especially for games, and the processors seem to be solid values in their segment.

21 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. More more more! by ckatko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    More cores! More RAM! More performance! ... and more cost.

    Oh, and less PCI-e lanes while we're at it. And let me guess, no NVMe because us plebeians don't deserve it.

    1. Re:More more more! by thegreatbob · · Score: 3, Informative

      Currently running crusty old X79 stuff, a PCIe -> M.2 adapter, running a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB. Pretty sure NVMe just implies a standardized controller interface stitched to PCIe; I've been under the impression that software support is the main issue with it, as it's basically just another PCIe card as far as the hardware is concerned. I see it suggested on the internet (probably old forum posts) that X79 stuff should not be able to use it as a boot device, but my system begs to differ.

      The piddly PCIe provisions are a shame though... no improvement (in lane count) whatsoever since they pulled the controllers onto the CPU die (LGA1156, Nehlaem). Note that the addition of each lane requires no less than two additional pins on the socket, so they'd have to re-purpose some pins to do it, and there aren't really a lot to spare. I know there were a fair number (20+) on the 1155 that weren't marked RSVD or anything else, but I'm having some difficult finding data on 1151. From the images I have found, it appears that practically every pin is connected to something, and fewer than 20 RSVD pins remain at all.

      Site I'm referencing

      It looks like they ate about a dozen RSVD pins for more power...

      Perhaps the bigger nuisance is that Coffee Lake breaks compatibility with the 100/200 series chipset motherboards.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    2. Re:More more more! by David_Hart · · Score: 2

      Currently running crusty old X79 stuff, a PCIe -> M.2 adapter, running a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB. Pretty sure NVMe just implies a standardized controller interface stitched to PCIe; I've been under the impression that software support is the main issue with it, as it's basically just another PCIe card as far as the hardware is concerned. I see it suggested on the internet (probably old forum posts) that X79 stuff should not be able to use it as a boot device, but my system begs to differ.

      The piddly PCIe provisions are a shame though... no improvement (in lane count) whatsoever since they pulled the controllers onto the CPU die (LGA1156, Nehlaem)..

      Prove that the PCIe lanes are being maxed out for gaming, daily computing, video editing, etc. and then I'll care. Yes, PCIe lanes matter for specific applications but the vast majority of gaming and higher end enthusiast systems are not maxing out the existing PCIe 3.0 lanes and DMI 3.0 bandwidth.

      Current benchmarks show very little difference between SSD and NVMe in boot times and gaming performance. The main difference is transferring large files and loading large files into memory (i.e. video editing). NVMe M.2 drives are also somewhat expensive in comparison to SSD.

      I upgraded the NVMe M.2 drive on my Surface Pro 4 to a Samsung 960 Pro while fixing the cracked screen. I bought a PCIe NVMe adapter card to copy the OS from the original NVMe drive to the new one. Windows 10 had no problems accessing it with no third party drivers required. I'm pretty sure that NVMe support will be integrated into Intel motherboard designs through third party controllers.

      Basically, it's great that AMD CPUs have higher end features that Intel as it gives us choice and drives competition. But how useful those features are will depend on you use case.

  2. I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by shellster_dude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I openly admit that I'm a fan of AMD. However, I think it's reasonable to ask why Intel CPU's have not seen any large jump in performance or features until they had to, due to AMD competition, again. The R&D time and cost on these new chips is multiple years. That means, that Intel can't just roll out a chip in response to AMD, unless they either have good corporate intellignence and knew one to two years ago that AMD was coming back in a big way, or the much more likely answer that they've been sitting on new features and performance because they wanted to milk the previous generation for all it was worth. I find the later to be reprehensible, which is why I will be building an new AMD system, even if it doesn't give me quite the top performance I might get from an Intel chip, because I appreciate them driving competition again (P.S. my last system was Intel because AMD wasn't really competing when I built it).

    1. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by oic0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but we are under no obligation to buy from a company that behaves in a manner we don't agree with. I'll always buy AMD when its a valid option because of all of intels past behavior. Sand bagging is just a drop in the bucket.

    2. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by aliquis · · Score: 2

      I think it's reasonable to ask why Intel CPU's have not seen any large jump in performance or features until they had to, due to AMD competition, again.

      You've answered that yourself.
      Because of lacking AMD competition they didn't had too.

      The R&D time and cost on these new chips is multiple years. That means, that Intel can't just roll out a chip in response to AMD, unless they either have good corporate intellignence and knew one to two years ago that AMD was coming back in a big way

      No problem.
      Intel have improved their cores and production the whole time and have had quad core desktop chips since Core 2. They launched six core Sandy-Bridge-E processors back in 2011 and have had Xeons with many cores too for a very long time.
      So it's been around. Intel just haven't put it into the main-stream market. The six-core i7 5820 from 2014 didn't really cost more than the i7 4790K though ($10-$20?) so even back then you could get a six-core CPU for the price of a quad-core one. The motherboards and RAM for the HEDT platform (DDR4 in this case) was more expensive though.

      With quad-core on core quad, core i, on Sandy-bridge (2xxx), Ivy-bridge (3xxx), Haswell (4xxx), Broadwell (5xxx), Skylake (6xxx), Kaby lake (7xxx) I've been waiting to get it hopefully I think even with Broadwell and over and over again it didn't happened even though they have shrunk the manufacturing process and the HEDT chips went from 6 to 8 to 10 cores and even more now (18?), it was bound to happen eventually and hopefully it would have happened now anyway. As in the lower end though whatever that would get this sort of upgrade or not and as for whatever the HEDT line would get as high core counts as they ended up getting that could be questioned. But something like the i7 8700K I've waited on and expect for a long time. It was obvious it would happen eventually.

      or the much more likely answer that they've been sitting on new features and performance because they wanted to milk the previous generation for all it was worth.

      Of course. Why would they do something else unless needed?

      which is why I will be building an new AMD system, even if it doesn't give me quite the top performance I might get from an Intel chip

      I've had a shitty processor for a long time and waited and waited on Ryzen even at this time the last year for instance and then it was supposed to come maybe end of year, then Q1, then March, then weak supplies, and then the performance wasn't really up there in gaming (it has improved since, as has memory support), but then the Coffee lake become closer and closer and knowing i7 7700K was better for games before and assuming 8700K would keep up in single thread performance but get 50% boost from two more cores in multi-threaded (6 cores faster than Ryzen cores vs 8 Ryzen cores) it seemed to be the best trade-off. And now it's launched and for multi-threaded at stock it doesn't really live up to over-clocked 1700 or stock 1800X performance at all tasks but with both OC it likely is very close on both. At single-core performance it's better of course. Still for streaming it seem like Ryzen 7 may still have a small advantage. I wonder if that could be compensated for by running OBS on 2 cores and the game on 4? Some people use a secondary PC for streaming,

      I would to be fine supporting AMD and these last months it's been a wise decision and even now it's a decent choice. However since I've sat here and waited with my complete garbage processor (AMD Phenom X4 9850) it feel a bit easier to buy the Intel chip because that I couldn't buy before whereas I could had gotten my lovely Ryzen 7 1700X a long time ago (I actually have had at-least two at home and even pre-ordered it but I've returned them because I have been undecided even though I would unlikely had been unhappy with it and this PC is such a fucking pain plus just think of all the electricity I've wasted and all

    3. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by epine · · Score: 2

      It's Intel's R&D investment; they can sell it or sit on it as they see fit. They are a for-profit corporation, not a public service, and are under no obligation to anyone to sell their technology on any set schedule.

      If we replace "Intel R&D" with "Mylan", does your comment still stand? If not, why not?

      I'm almost libertarian enough to agree with you if the company in question operates on trade secrets and claims no patent protection.

      Patent protection, however, is a two-way street: you're granted a right to call upon the government's power of coercion to prevent other people from pursuing ideas—ideas they might very well have come up with independently—with the purpose of fostering competition for the public good.

      At that point, being an ass with your business methods intersects with the public interest, too, because you swallowed the patent pill and traded your pure and independent "for profit" status in exchange for public-interest coercive power-ups.

    4. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by flatulus · · Score: 4, Informative
      Intel's schedule for Coffee Lake may have been moved up a bit due to Ryzen, but this is not a "rabbit out of a hat" move for Intel.

      See here http://marketrealist.com/2017/... which says "There are rumors that Intel may launch its HEDT (high-end desktop) processors and chipsets and its Coffee Lake microarchitecture a few months earlier than anticipated in response to AMD’s Ryzen 5 and 7 processors. "

      That web page is dated April 28, 2017.
      Here's another article: https://www.pcworld.com/articl... which shows Coffee Lake in 2H17. This article is dated Feb 13, 2017.

      So Intel is executing according to plan since first of this calendar year.

    5. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by gweihir · · Score: 2

      You do not need to ask. Intel had this design basically ready, except for the optimization of the last production steps. This means for years, Intel has screwed over its customers with a sub-standard design at vastly inflated prices. The funny thing is that many of these screwed over customers think Intel can do no wrong.

      Sadly, customers that buy from the largest vendor only and do not even consider the competition are the death of competition and quality.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unless you are concerned about data security...
      In which case both Intel and AMD should be viewed with some level of suspicion (as well as AMD/Nvidia videocards) as all of the above hardware is using signed firmware and user inaccessable DRM/NSA processors that could be spying on you, either now or in the near future when they finally feel penetration is deep enough to turn them on.

      Most people scoff at these concerns, but an example that hasn't been brought up often enough: Tor and other privacy networks are only as secure as the software. But often forgotten in discussing that is that also the hardware they run on must be trustworthy. Windows 10 is already pretty well known to be untrustworthy, but when you add in the suspicious change of *ALL* processor manufacturers moving to signed firmware, without the end user having either software or hardware switches to either disable the signing so they as power users can use the hardware as they need/want to, or documentation to prove that this change in control over their hardware is in fact no more dangerous than unreviewable microcode updates to the processor microarchitecture itself, should be viewed with suspicion.

      Intel has had ME since 2010 or so, on post LGA1366 cpu+motherboards. AMD pushed it with FM2+ and Ryzen, in fact with a worse implementation, since the PSP, containing a full fledged Arm TrustZone core, has a single image, so unlike the Intel design, you can't even strip certain modules in the hope of crippling its capabilities. Furthermore both of these designs are now used for Software TPM support, meaning that even if you assume the original TPM modules were trustworthy, the new software designs running inside the management engines could be hacked to exfiltrate keys in a manner with far less complications, since they are using a general purpose cpu to retain their security.

    7. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

      This is how smart businesses operate.

      I remember years ago when the Geforce was brand new. As in; the original was fresh to market by 1 or so years. Those were the days of the Coppermine 333 which you could clock to 500 without breaking a sweat. Quack 3 Arena absolutely *flew*. It was glorious.

      Anyway, the geforce. Another company, I believe it was voodoo at the time, came out with their response to the geforce which ran a tad faster...lo and behold, Nvidia released a driver update which significantly boosted the performance of the cards already out there, taking the speed crown back definitively.

      The point is this has been common practice since forever. It's not anything to get riled about, it just is.

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    8. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Funny

      Quack 3 Arena absolutely *flew*.

      Was that a reboot of Duck Hunt that I missed?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    9. Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but... by spire3661 · · Score: 2

      At least they expire relatively quickly. MP3 is already Public Domain, as is most of MPEG2

      --
      Good-bye
  3. Meh by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't think "bringing the heat" is going to scare the competition very much in this market. ;)

    1. Re:Meh by Z80a · · Score: 2

      Of course it will scare AMD, you know, when they put a machine running the new chip overclocked next to the AMD's headquarters.

  4. AMD v Intel by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Intel the dairy farmer, milking the world.

    One wonders whether we would still be running 286s if there were no AMD. It has been AMD that has made Intel actually compete in x86 space for 35+ yrs.

    1. Re:AMD v Intel by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is a reason the current instruction set is called AMD64 and not Intel64. Intel actually licenses it from AMD, because they failed to come up with anything competitive. AMD cares more about engineering and Intel more about profits. Now, if only MS would get a credible competitor, maybe this atrocity going on with Windows would finally stop.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re: AMD v Intel by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

      I remember swapping out an Evergreen AMD K6-2 400 (Spectra) into an Intel P133 socket 7 board, the thing came with the BIOS upgrade and poof I was seriously upgraded. I have been value shopping ever since.

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    3. Re:AMD v Intel by gweihir · · Score: 2

      And yet, AMD drives x86 CPU technology forward and not Intel. Apparently you missed that little detail, probably because you mistake money for skill.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  5. Re:Forget Ryzen by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    It's about 50% faster in both single and multi-threaded benchmarks with only 20% higher clock speed.
    It's 95W instead of 130W TDP. That 95W TDP includes a GPU as well, the 3960X doesn't have one.
    And it's being released at less than half the price the 3960x was. (3960k was RRP of $1059, 8700k is RRP of $359)

    50% faster, 60% cheaper with 30% less power isn't single-digit. But then that is 6 years.
    You're also comparing an "extreme" edition with k-series CPU. Even though the 3960X had quad channel memory (so despite memory speed doubling, it has similar bandwidth) and more cache, it still got pantsed.

  6. Re:Forget Ryzen by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    More instructions per cycle?
    Through the different Core generations they've been refining/tweaking the number of ports and the execution units behind them.

    don't know what they've done with Coffee lake by skylake/kaby lake is here:
    https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/i...