Intel Alder Lake-S CPU samples appear to be getting faster

[3dcandy]

Yeah, it's similar to Lakefield with the 4 limited Atom cores and 1 fully-featured core. It's at least nice to see Intel trying something different, but I still can't see this having a place on desktop. What's the end-user benefit of a 8+8 setup over a pure 12 or 16 core CPU? Fractional power savings? Wonky or just busted levels of compatibility with OS or software?

Going to be a real fight launching against Zen 4 in any case. That sounds like a fairly straightforward iterative improvement on Zen 3, alongside whatever gains going to TSMC 5nm gets them.

Apple has moved the bar with a decent arm based chip. 18w it's decent. Having this debate loads on various places, there are perfectly decent sbc's with arm cpus that could fight against Apple but nobody's interested, Microsoft, manufacturers or suppliers or even users.
Win 10 on a 15w Ryzen is decent enough so why chase the poor effort that is Win 10 ARM. If you want an sbc then Linux or Android does the job so much better

[cheesemp]

I'm guessing these lower spec cores need less silicone making it cheaper to make a 16 core part. Feels like both an effort on cost reduction plus showing that desktop is just not a market they value anymore - I suspect these are just higher clocked/powered/cooled laptop designs.

[edmundhonda]

It's useful for devices that need an always on low power mode but with full fat power to call on when needed. Future tablets, gaming devices and maybe car processors I guess.

Right, but the -S suffix has (at least recently) been used to specify the desktop range. -U for ~15w parts, -H for ~45w, -S for desktop, -E for Xeon parts, -R for refresh, etc. Barring something unexpected, this is the desktop flagship.

[ik9000]

I'm guessing these lower spec cores need less silicone making it cheaper to make a 16 core part. Feels like both an effort on cost reduction plus showing that desktop is just not a market they value can dominate and exploit anymore - I suspect these are just higher clocked/powered/cooled laptop designs.

fixed that for you.

[JayN]

so it's not a full 16 core CPU then, it's 8(+8). It will be interesting to see how it compares to a 3950x or 5950x given those AMD chips are full 16 core 32 thread CPUs.

when using them are so egregious in the sense you lose features if you have both enabled! (see AVX instruction set loss etc)

So Intel defines full chip with avx2 in the current linux patch. The Gracemont cores only have avx2. The Golden Cove cores have avx512.

Maybe Intel did this just to make Linus happy. He can now have 16 Intel cores without avx512, just like on AMD chips.

[ik9000]

So Intel defines full chip with avx2 in the current linux patch. The Gracemont cores only have avx2. The Golden Cove cores have avx512.

Maybe Intel did this just to make Linus happy. He can now have 16 Intel cores without avx512, just like on AMD chips.

but those AMD chips actually have 16 proper cores with 32 threads, not 8big+8 gimped cores and according to the article 24 threads (which doesn't make sense to me since the small cores (of 1 thread only) lose instruction sets and features in certain configurations so should those threads even be counted in the same way? It's better to say 8/16 normal +8/8 gimped IMO

[Tabbykatze]

So Intel defines full chip with avx2 in the current linux patch. The Gracemont cores only have avx2. The Golden Cove cores have avx512.

Maybe Intel did this just to make Linus happy. He can now have 16 Intel cores without avx512, just like on AMD chips.

Oh look, it's you again.

Got any more gems on this trainwreck of a performance from Intel?

[ohmaheid]

Never seems to be much information on the power draw of Intel chips these days...And I don't mean PL1 and PL2 states that are essentially meaningless.

[Tabbykatze]

Never seems to be much information on the power draw of Intel chips these days...And I don't mean PL1 and PL2 states that are essentially meaningless.

If they were realistic about their power draw in their marketing slides, it would be quite damning

[tygrus]

Adler sounds more like addled ie "unable to think clearly; confused."

[kalniel]

Adler sounds more like addled ie "unable to think clearly; confused."

That's why this is Alder, not Adler (Took me a while to see the difference). It does remind me of Baldur's Gate though.