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

[HEXUS]

Alder Lake-S series could feature Arm-inspired configuration of 8 big + 8 LITTLE cores.

Read more.

[ik9000]

Will it also ship with 8 big + 8 little and 1 whopping security vulnerability?

[Rubarb]

New motherboard , new memory and a huge price tag too!

My next upgrade is Ryzen as I've had enough of Intel.

[3dcandy]

New motherboard , new memory and a huge price tag too!

My next upgrade is Ryzen as I've had enough of Intel.

Same here. Now the main 3 pc's I use are all Ryzen based, and with the budget I had they are now 2 x 2600's and a 2700. All with fast nvme ssd's etc. My main work is with multithreaded applications and the motherboards have all been reasonably (£60-£70) priced as well

[QuorTek]

Dont want to buy a new motherboard all the time just because of the socket....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If Intel are going with such an arrangement,and especially going by the TDPs,I think 10NM desktop CPUs,probably have a very poor voltage-frequency curve.

[LSG501]

Honestly when I first saw the article I thought this was something that was aimed at mobile pc's, maybe even the MS neo, but if this is for a desktop I honestly see no reason for there to be lower power cores when most cpu voltages clock down pretty low these days.

IIRC my i7 4790k rig runs at something like 75 watts at the plug (electric smart meter says around 130w including fridge, freezer, router etc) when it's not doing anything intensive and that's including the gpu and several drives etc, newer stuff can reduce their draw even more in some cases.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the motherboard chipset can actually draw more power than the cpu in some cases when the cpu is idling so I'm really not sure what real world gain a user would have with big.little desktop cpu's.

[Percy1983]

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

I pretty sure my Ryzen shuts cores down when not in use and only boosts when needed, this is more than enough for power saving. To have big and small cores would just feel like good and gimped cores rather than just all good.

I can't see the appeal, since I now have Ryzen and the socket/board won't be useless for a while I predict AMD will keep me happy for quite some time.

[Tabbykatze]

Intel 8+8+1 big.LITTLE gives 125w then a 2900X gives 16 full fat cores at 105w TDP.

Erm...can someone help me here...?

(i know Intel and AMD measure TDP wildly differently but still)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It makes sense if Intel 10nm needs excessive voltage due to a poor voltage-frequency curve. Desktop CPUs will need to be overvolted to hit suitable frequencies,hence pushing them past their optimal performance per watt,hence the small cores will be able to at least dial down power consumption during lower and less demanding loads.

[ohmaheid]

Intel has got me confused. (not for the first time).
Which market are these chips meant to address? It can't be desktop - they've got new chips for that.
It can't be tablet/Laptop...not with that TDP.
Can't be server...Woefully underpowered.
Maybe to fight the upcoming AMD 4000 series APU's??

[ohmaheid]

Could be because it has an integrated iGPU? (This was meant as a response to TabbyKatz comment)

[Tabbykatze]

Could be because it has an integrated iGPU? (This was meant as a response to TabbyKatz comment)

Mmm, the iGPU eould have to be horrendously huge to get that wattage. I mean look at the iris graphics and AMDs vega, heavy performance in a very thin TDP envelope. And for desktop, why would you have such a phenomenal iGPU, it makes little sense

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Mmm, the iGPU eould have to be horrendously huge to get that wattage. I mean look at the iris graphics and AMDs vega, heavy performance in a very thin TDP envelope. And for desktop, why would you have such a phenomenal iGPU, it makes little sense

The same Vega uarch in dGPU form has horrible performance/watt in its Vega64 form though.

10NM is supposed to not clock as high as 14nm which is far more mature. Unless Intel can make its core IPC better than AMD,they will need to have high boost clocks to compensate,as these will be fighting Zen3 or Zen4.

You only look at what pushing a GPU past its optimal voltage-frequency curve looks like - virtually almost all of the AMD GPU range.

Edit!!

The likelihood is these smaller cores are clocked significantly lowe.

[philehidiot]

electric smart meter says

How's the smartmeter-5G-chemtrail-AIDS going for you?

I hear they also give fairies herpes.

[Tabbykatze]

The same Vega uarch in dGPU form has horrible performance/watt in its Vega64 form though.

10NM is supposed to not clock as high as 14nm which is far more mature. Unless Intel can make its core IPC better than AMD,they will need to have high boost clocks to compensate,as these will be fighting Zen3 or Zen4.

You only look at what pushing a GPU past its optimal voltage-frequency curve looks like - virtually almost all of the AMD GPU range.

Edit!!

The likelihood is these smaller cores are clocked significantly lowe.

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).