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Intel's First 10nm Cannon Lake CPU Sees the Light of Day (anandtech.com)
Artem Tashkinov writes: A Chinese retailer has started selling a laptop featuring Intel's first 10nm CPU the Intel Core i3 8121U. Intel promised to start producing 10nm CPUs in 2016 but the rollout has been postponed almost until the second half of 2018. It's worth noting that this CPU does not have integrated graphics enabled and features only two cores.
AnandTech opines: "This machine listed online means that we can confirm that Intel is indeed shipping 10nm components into the consumer market. Shipping a low-end dual core processor with disabled graphics doesn't inspire confidence, especially as it is labelled under the 8th gen designation, and not something new and shiny under the 9th gen -- although Intel did state in a recent earnings call that serious 10nm volume and revenue is now a 2019 target. These parts are, for better or worse, helping Intel generate some systems with the new technology. We've never before seen Intel commercially use low-end processors to introduce a new manufacturing process, although this might be the norm from now on."
AnandTech opines: "This machine listed online means that we can confirm that Intel is indeed shipping 10nm components into the consumer market. Shipping a low-end dual core processor with disabled graphics doesn't inspire confidence, especially as it is labelled under the 8th gen designation, and not something new and shiny under the 9th gen -- although Intel did state in a recent earnings call that serious 10nm volume and revenue is now a 2019 target. These parts are, for better or worse, helping Intel generate some systems with the new technology. We've never before seen Intel commercially use low-end processors to introduce a new manufacturing process, although this might be the norm from now on."
Not everyone needs to cough up $1900 for a CPU to have a computer that is usable to them.
I absolutely hate this notion today that only the most expensive modern things are usable, and that anything else will not work properly.
The free ride is over, software retards. You may actually have to start programming again, instead of creating multi-gigabyte copy-and-paste monsters that can't even keep up with typing at the keyboard, yet use 100% CPU on quad core machines.
In 2 years a $400 computer will be better than yours.
Just sayin'.
No sig today...
One thing producing performance-impacting patches for existing processor, another thing trying to sell and manufacture defective processor with known before launch vulnerability.
This CPU is nearly 3 years late.
Intel are having immense difficulty with the 10nm move. Down from 14nm (which was 'refreshed' twice)
What this means is that other manufactuers are now genuinely catching up to Intel, as much as I didn't believe it, it does seem that (I think TMSC?) is now just about ready to start putting out 7nm products.
(Note, they all bloody lie about the figures, TMSC 7nm is basically about Intels 10nm)
That does mean that AMD may be producing CPUs with a similar transistor density and voltage requirements to Intel soon, meaning the only advantage available is processor design, not manufacturing process.
Regardless of AMDs improved competition potential here though, is the concern that the move from 22nm to 14nm to 10nm has been AWFULLY slow and it's one of the driving factors in why computer processing hasn't really improved hugely in the past 4 to 10 years. It's improved but nothing at all like the previous decade.
If you're an enthusiast dying for top of the line performance with a deep budget, this has been painful, as you upgrade every 18 months to 20% faster, instead of 70+% faster. If you're a homelab server nerd who wants to run a great little VM cluster, on some mid range, low power chips, the chips you could've bought 3 years ago, are probably fairly viable, still, to todays options.
Intel has delayed the rest of their 10nm processors I think until next year. Means the Intel 8700k 6core and the rumoured 8750 / 8900 (?) 8 core model (soonish) will be the best you can probably buy, for the next 18 months. If you've been holding off upgrading, may be worth considering.
It kind of sucks, I'm in the 'want a nice, low power server, but still kinda powerful' camp and I don't want 85w of CPU in my cupboard, but I would like at least 6, half decent threads. It's possible, but would've been much more likely with the shrinks being on time.
In 2 years a $400 computer will be better than yours.
Just sayin'.
Well... we are at a point where physical limitations have already killed Moore's Law... The reason we see little to no improvements from one CPU generation to the next, is that intel, AMD and others are trying to strech the last possible speed increases as long as possible to ensure income untill something is ready to take over from silicon. My computer is 2 years old, it is not a particular expensive computer but still a top of the line gamer computer for its time... it packs 32 GB of memory, GTX1080 and an i6700K... it is still among the best gaming rigs and any game I throw at it works perfectly. I suspect this computer will serve me well enough for gaming untill something truly amazing can take over from silicon based computers..
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Most likely by mistake last Sunday Intel released Z390 chipset information. The page has since been pulled down because this chipset was rumored to be accompanied with octa-core Coffee Lake CPUs which are yet to be announced.
Next time I'm gonna web-archive their mistakes ;-)
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
That Intel invented all these different xx-nanometer manufacturing processes back in the 70's and 80's and has been steadily drip-feeding them to us in order to make the most profit. When the pace of their "progress" is so steady, they simply have to be drip-feeding. They could have released this processor back in the 386 days if they wanted. Imagine all the e-waste that would have been saved if they didn't bother with this tactic
This Core i3 8121U chip has a TDP of 15Watts. Don't know if it can be fanless, or not
But if Intel can come up with a fanless version (preferably with GPU), with even lower TDP I will be willing to design a mini-itx mobo for it
We have a Chinese retailer claiming to sell a 10nm CPU that has the features (and probably speed) of a 5 year old low budget processor. And since Chinese companies have a spotless track record of never trying to sell counterfeited products, we should readily believe that this seemingly ancient CPU is bleeding edge.
I ... erh... well... how do you put it nicely...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because we are talking about computers, while you are talking about jewlery.
Given the recent rash of Intel architecture bugs and that this is not a new architecture, what bugs that we already know about are in this "new" CPU?
This hasn't been the case for years as processor development has slowed. My desktop is coming up on two years, and it would still crush a new $400 computer Heck, a 5 year old high end computer would still be competitive with a $400 computer in most tasks.
...yields in the 10nm fabrication are apparently too sketchy for a high-end/up-market release. Solution: disable the cores and features of the chip that don't work, and sell it cheap.
My computer is 2 years old, it is not a particular expensive computer... it packs 32 GB of memory, GTX1080 and an i6700K
If your computer is 2 years old and packs a GTX 1080, you must have bought the card practically on launch day (May 27th 2016), which must have cost a small fortune.
I use a VIA C3, you insensitive clod!
#DeleteFacebook
This hasn't been the case for years as processor development has slowed. My desktop is coming up on two years, and it would still crush a new $400 computer Heck, a 5 year old high end computer would still be competitive with a $400 computer in most tasks.
My PC will be three years old this summer... I looked at replacing it, and had a very hard time building something that would have a noticeable performance gain at ANY price (at least given that I need single-core performance for gaming). The only reason I was looking at all was because I need the hardware to replace my old Linux server (which is a 6-7 year old i5/16GB box that's also still perfectly fine, but I need to do a complete OS refresh/rebuild, so I might as well update the hardware at the same time).
A Chinese retailer is selling 10nm Intel processors cheap.
A Chinese retailer is also selling OtterBox cases for $1.50, and Genuine Applà McBook chargers for $12.
If your computer is 2 years old and packs a GTX 1080, you must have bought the card practically on launch day (May 27th 2016), which must have cost a small fortune.
Well I guess it's what a fortune is to you. I bought a 1080Ti at launch, sure it was $700 but it's well over a year later and apart from a few ridiculously overpriced Titan cards it's head and shoulders above the pack. I expect it'll be faster than a 1170 but slightly slower than a 1180, that's usually been the case. Two years after that'll it'll probably be behind, but not so terribly far behind the 1270 that I'll replace it. So I'm thinking the 13xx generation would be a likely replacement time. That's over a year already + two full generations = 5-6 years = <$150/year. Divided by hours played, <$1/hour of gametime. As hobbies go - considering the GPU is the single biggest expense of being a gamer - I consider it a bargain. Sure it's not WoW addict & Ramen noodles cheap and I don't really need it, but you can certainly find much more expensive interests...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
>We've never before seen Intel commercially use low-end processors to introduce a new manufacturing process.
Yes we have. However, if you're only paying attention to the desktop CPUs, you might get that impression.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Slightly off topic: IMO smartphones have also reached this point and the only thing that's preventing me from keeping the same phone for a long time is planned obsolescence (for example non-replaceable batteries) and hardware that fails pretty soon (2-3 years for every smartphone I've owned. And I haven't gone for the cheapest crap, all of them have been between 300 and 500 €)
Well I guess it's what a fortune is to you.
It's a fortune compared to most video cards.
In 2 years a $400 computer will be better than yours.
Just sayin'.
Doesn't happen quite that fast these days, which has the side effect of making it actually worth the effort to build a performance machine, hence the rise of the enthusiast sector.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Most on-board graphics suck and you have disabled it away and buy a good graphics card to play modern games.
AMD's integrated Vega doesn't suck and will be the right solution for many laptops and midrange desktops. It so doesn't suck that Intel is licensing it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Sounds like the desktop I'm running right now. I was briefly fishing around to replace it but the performance way outclasses what I need. I imagine that I will be keeping this desktop for another 2 years, at least.
Sitting behind me is my linux server. It's running a FX-8350 from 2012. Every year for the past 3 years I've been thinking about replacing it. The only excuse I have to replace it is because its over six years old. Other than that I don't have any. In it's role its performance also exceeds what I need it to do. So I have put off replacing it for another year.
Well actually with the linux server I compromised this year. I'm going to move it to a better case with more disk slots. This case only has 10 and they are filled up.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Thanks!
However could you maybe delve a little bit more into that please? Other fabs have seemingly had very few problems transitioning from 12nm (which is close to Intel's 14nm) to 7nm (which basically matches your 10nm). And unlike other fabs you started working on the 10nm node several years earlier, so you had quite an advantage.
Also, this particular CPU has its iGPU disabled completely which is actually quite weird - I don't remember the last time your released an i3 U part without an integrated GPU.
Hah, sure, Intel doesn’t care about Bitcoin and mining difficulty. They just want get some money from all those insane miners. Look, Intel offers a new wonderful hardware with correctly planned name – for mining. These words raise the cost of processor automatically. Then miners all over the world buy novelty raising its cost again. It’s clear profit for Intel. But I think that physical mining now is ineffective, we can’t get enough power to compete with other players. Cloud mining such as Hashflare looks like an interesting alternative when they offer bonus programs http://hashflarecode.com/
In some ways, a self-built machine isn't as good of a deal as it used to be. 15+ years ago, it was often possible to buy low-speed binned chips and overclock them beyond the top binned chips. Since the only difference between the cheap processor and the expensive one was clockspeed (and maybe a small amount of cache), you ended up with a processor faster than the fastest one available OEM (and OEM motherboards typically did not allow overclocking) for a fraction of the cost. Today, there are important physical differences between low-end and high-end processors (more cores, etc.). You aren't going to get an i3 to perform like an i9.
Also, back when a 2 year old computer was obsolete, the enthusiast could stay on top of things buy upgrading piecemeal. Things like power supplies, hard drives, cases, and optical drives didn't go obsolete nearly as quickly, so you could have latest and greatest hardware only upgrading core components. Motherboards usually allowed a processor upgrade or two before becoming obsolete. Obviously, piecemeal upgrades are still possible, but the last two iterations of hardware have gone 5 years for me (except video cards). After 5 years, I find even things like power supplies often need to be replaced and end up buying pretty much an entire system.
On the other hand, things are also WAY easier than they used to be (especially 20+ years ago). Today, everything pretty much plays nice together. You don't have to search high and low for drivers and troubleshoot compatibility. You don't have to make floppy boot disks or sift through dozens of configuration options to get an OS installed. Formerly exotic things like watercooling (which used to require designing a system from scratch), are now available in a variety of easy kits and price points. Everything just works today.
Your comments on processor upgrades make sense if you only thing about Intel. The enthusiast sector has massively shifted towards AMD recently, with good reason. Unlike Intel, AMD designed their high end desktop socket to be stable for several generations and they have already delivered on that with the 12nm Ryzen refresh. Re binned chips: they are binned for a reason, usually because they failed tests at high clocks, unless the manufacturer is running into price resistance at the higher price points, then Intel has been known to push higher-binned chips into the low end market, hence the Celery phenomenon. But this is a crapshoot: there is a very real likelihood you will end up with a real binned chip, and you will waste your time trying to make it do something it isn't physically capable of it. How much is your time worth? If you hit this once, it wipes out your savings and way more.
In the AMD world this is way better. First, the processors are a lot cheaper, so you hardly gain anything by lowballing. Second, AMD expects their fanbase to overclock and they support it. A lot. Just go wandering through the overclocking support options in a recent AM4 motherboard, they are endless. There is a big, supportive community behind it.
As far as power supplies goes, the big paradigm ships already happened: modular cables, high efficiency, low noise. I had no problems migrating power supplies from the Piledriver/i5 over to Ryzen. I will be keeping these power supplies for a while, I think. They are designed to support ridiculously power hungry GPUs, and I will be moving to lower power components if anything. I expect my next GPU to be way more power efficient than the current one. At least a year out by the way, because AMD already earmarked their next gen Navi parts for the GPGPU market, and NVidia can fuck themselves. Doesn't bother me, my primary interest is processor throughput anyway.
In the Ryzen/AM4 world you can build a highly respectable machine for $1k if you are cheaping out, or you can live in the lap of luxury for $1500. Or you can build a really cheap machine, but what enthusiast ever does that?
Now, if you are a serious enthusiast, you are just going to whet your appetite on a Ryzen box, and you will be soon thinking about Threadripper. Socket stability? Who cares. Your are going to drop $2k on a build that HP would happily sell you for $10k, if built with Intel. Your are definitely going to be the coolest kid on the block with your 16 cores, 32 threads, 64MB overclocked beast.
The only way to beat that as of today is an EATX server motherboard with a 32 core Epyc. Don't hold back, get a two socket board for 64 cores. But be warned: AMD was apparently just testing the market, and the market wants way more than they produced. The price shot up to $4500 a chip. Now eased off a bit to $3600. When it goes below $1500 you will see a large influx of enthusiasts, I will be one of them. Want to get an idea what this scene is like? No audio output, how about that. When you start to see audio chips on these EATX motherboards, you will know that the enthusiasts have arrived in force. To take the sting off, you tend to have a stupidly large number of slots and lanes. And you get dual 10 Gige, that might liven up your lan party.
Your post made it clear that you have been out of the enthusiast loop for a while, if you were ever in it. Because you did not mention the word "gaming". The gaming sector is why we have such a great selection of inexpensive but high specced motherboards, why we have beautiful, practical boxes to put them in, and why high end coolers are so cheap. Because of this, I can build myself a high end development workstation that also looks great and is nearly silent, for what I used to pay for a brand X white box for grandma.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's true that I've been out of the loop for a while, but mostly because progress is sufficiently slow that I don't really feel the need to do things like upgrade from Gen 1 Ryzen to Gen 2- the difference just isn't material enough to bother. AAA gaming titles run fine on a couple year old hardware, and I can't tell the difference between 80FPS and 90. My current setup is Intel, but I bought before Ryzen came out and the AMD options weren't really competitive outside the low end at the time. Funny thing is I'm still targeting the same basic price points for hardware as I was almost 20 years ago, even though I can now afford to expand the budget by several times- the super high end stuff is well into diminishing returns.
I've also given up on overclocking for the same reason. Circa 2002, I was running an AMD XP1800 Thoroughbred at ~2.5ghz (benchmark stable at 2.8 as I recall) on a custom chilled water setup. That was significantly more powerful (and noticeable in day to day tasks and gaming) than the tippy top spec 3100+ or Intel Northwood chips. Overclocking motherboard options were plentiful then too so long as you bought a reasonably enthusiast oriented example- the only thing that's really changed is the event of super-high end enthusiast stuff. Today, you can still OC if that's your jam, but the return just isn't worth the trouble. You mostly just see it in synthetic benchmarks.
There isn't a lot of difference between a new computer an a 2-year old computer nowadays. Or even older than that. I built my i7 system in 2012, and the only real reason a new i7 system would beat it is that the newer i7's have more than 4 cores. Put it up against an i5 (or whatever the quad core option is today) and it might be 50% faster than my 6-year old computer.