Leak suggests Intel has an 8+8 core CPU in the pipeline

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The dGPU Vega uArch and thr iGPU Vega uArch seem to operate on wildly different principles, not least of all the heavy and massively wide HBM interfaces. The perf/watt for miniaturised Vega seems to be fantastic and that's why Navi hasn't kicked it out yet and is making its way into Ryzen 4xxx (although i do believe some Navi principles are used).

But the large Vega GPUs are probably on the edge of what is doable on GF 14NM and are pushed to the edge. HBM interfaces on-die are much smaller and efficient compared to GDDR type memory. Look at Polaris or Navi performance/watt when pushed past the optimal voltage-frequency curve?? The APUs are in the ideal parts of the curve,and mobile ones even moreso than the desktop equivalents.

Now think if Intel 10NM cannot clock that high,and Intel to remain competitive is pushing the parts to the edge too?

ATM,GF 14NM and TSMC 7NM are known quantities,but Intel 10NM has had problems for years,and the 10NM we are finally getting is not the original 10NM envisioned,but one with relaxed parameters.

To put this in context,Intel is still only making quad cores on 10NM which all have lower clockspeeds compared to their 14NM equivalents,which clock higher and have double the cores! IMHO,this has all to do with 10NM being a bit crap.

This is why they are using Atom cores for low load functions,as these are a known quantity,will be clocked lower and take up little space compared to the bigger cores. Intel already is making 10NM Atom cores right now. So the larger cores on 10NM have some problems it appears. If they were not why would Intel not be having 16 high performance cores??

AMD currently had 16 high performance cores,and good performance/watt without all this milarky in 2019. Also,what is the likelihood Alder Lake is a monolithic die,which adds to the problems of yields,binning,etc??

[DanceswithUnix]

The big small things makes sense for mobile when power/thermal limits are important but is it really needed for desktop?

Intel's 10nm makes no sense on desktop, the big.little style of multi core makes no sense on desktop, and I'm struggling to see 125W being useful in a laptop.

I'm really hoping someone has missed a decimal point there, at 12.5W that becomes a sane product.

Edit: The other possibility is that on 10nm Intel can cram in a tonne of L3 cache to make up for their poor clock scaling on that process, and given their problems manufacturing enough chips they might just be trying to re-purpose anything they can make at this point.