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

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.

Comments

More more more!

[ckatko]

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.

Re:More more more!

[thegreatbob]

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.

I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but...

[shellster_dude]

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).

Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but...

[oic0]

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.

Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but...

[flatulus]

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.

Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I'm a bit of an AMD Fanboi, but...

[serviscope_minor]

Quack 3 Arena absolutely *flew*.

Was that a reboot of Duck Hunt that I missed?

Meh

[Aighearach]

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

AMD v Intel

[harvey the nerd]

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.

Re:AMD v Intel

[gweihir]

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.