More Broadwell Mobile details revealed

[Fjodor2001]

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013121101_Intel_Broadwell_lineup_features.html

http://wccftech.com/intels-14nm-process-broadwell-lineup-details-leaked-glimpse-minimum-tdp-35w/

In essence, more or less nothing has happened since SB on the CPU performance front for Intel desktop CPUs. 3.5 years and counting.

For mobile it's a different story though.

 

[Homeles]

Nevermind.

 

[Arkaign]

Yay, more "i7" models with 2 cores and 4 threads at stupidly low speeds FTL. At this rate, a desktop 2600K will still be outperforming the fastest ultrabooks for another 6 years.

 

[TuxDave]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. Is this a picture of Skylake?

Doesn't look like it to me.

Edit: And btw, it's not really a story about knowing what Skylake look like. It's knowing the die photos of things already shown and whether or not it matches one of those first.

And here's my guess.
http://www.gadgetfreak.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Ivy-Bridge_Die_Flat-HR.jpg

 

[Stone Rain]

The Broadwell stuff looks like crap; its' just lower and lower energy usage without any real performance gains.

The Haswell-E sheet on the other hand looks nice; if its' true, this will be the first consumer Intel CPU with 8 cores and 20MB L3 cache. I see a lot of workstation type rigs appreciating that.

 

[Saylick]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. Is this a picture of Skylake?

Looks like a flipped version of this, so I'm sticking with Tux and saying that it isn't.

 

[mikk]

I see 16 EUs, this is 4 core Ivy Bridge.

 

[Homeles]

Doesn't look like it to me.

Edit: And btw, it's not really a story about knowing what Skylake look like. It's knowing the die photos of things already shown and whether or not it matches one of those first.

And here's my guess.
http://www.gadgetfreak.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Ivy-Bridge_Die_Flat-HR.jpg

Good catch. Stupid aspect ratio...

 

[Fjodor2001]

Just wondering, is the Desktop CPU Finished now? 10 year upgrade cycles ahead? Or do we have any hope of some disruptive technology advances? Sorry for being so pessimistic, but I just don't see anything really exciting on the horizon right now...

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just wondering, is the Desktop CPU Finished now? 10 year upgrade cycles ahead? Or do we have any hope of some disruptive technology advances? Sorry for being so pessimistic, but I just don't see anything really exciting on the horizon right now...

The last Intel "Desktop CPU" was the P4. I am sure you upgraded at least twice since.

 

[Fjodor2001]

The last Intel "Desktop CPU" was the P4. I am sure you upgraded at least twice since.

In my world the 3570K/4670K and similar are Desktop CPUs too. At least that's what I was referring to.

 

[mikk]

6/8 core Haswell-E is coming. If we have luck the 8 core replaces 6 core Ivy-E and the 6 core Haswell replaces 4 core Ivy-E for a comparable price. Personally I'm more interested in the mainstream models though.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, AMD is committed to APUs and intel wants to force you into the enthusiast platform if you want more than 4 cores.

OTOH, my SB i5 does everything I want it to, and I cant really see any reason to upgrade in the foreseeable future except maybe a gpu upgrade.

 

[Homeles]

In essence, more or less nothing has happened since SB on the CPU performance front for Intel desktop CPUs. 3.5 years and counting.

For mobile it's a different story though.

Why are you even bringing up the desktop? It wasn't even mentioned in the articles you linked, nor in the original source.

As far as the desktop goes, Broadwell should be considerably better than Ivy Bridge was. The FinFET penalty (poorer performance at high voltage) is only applied once. With 14nm, we'll get a serious boost to overclocking.

 

[sm625]

So even though intel could quadruple the number of execution units, and quadruple the cache, and quadruple the number of stream processors compared to sandy bridge, they choose to do none of that. Except for the stream processors. Talk about retarded. I dont want their stupid stream processors. I'd rather they have 0 stream processors and 16 INT units and 8 256 bit FPUs per core and 32MB of cache!

 

[Techhog]

Yay, more "i7" models with 2 cores and 4 threads at stupidly low speeds FTL. At this rate, a desktop 2600K will still be outperforming the fastest ultrabooks for another 6 years.

"Fast" and "ultrabook" should not be used in the same sentence unless you're looking at the SSD. You're missing the point of them entirely. It's like complaining that the most powerful GPU on the market consumes more than 100W.

 

[Maximilian]

"Fast" and "ultrabook" should not be used in the same sentence unless you're looking at the SSD. You're missing the point of them entirely. It's like complaining that the most powerful GPU on the market consumes more than 100W.

Well that's the whole thing about ultrabooks, they're meant to be a fast netbook of sorts.

 

[Techhog]

Well that's the whole thing about ultrabooks, they're meant to be a fast netbook of sorts.

And these CPUs mop the floor with any netbook, so I don't see what's going wrong. they still have to be low-power. Expecting 3.0GHz quad-cores with HT and turbo with a sub 20W TDP? Does that really seem reasonable, even without the GPU?

 

[NTMBK]

Well that's the whole thing about ultrabooks, they're meant to be a fast netbook of sorts.

More precisely, they're meant to be a netbook that doesn't destroy Intel's profit margin.

 

[Arkaign]

And these CPUs mop the floor with any netbook, so I don't see what's going wrong. they still have to be low-power. Expecting 3.0GHz quad-cores with HT and turbo with a sub 20W TDP? Does that really seem reasonable, even without the GPU?

No, it doesn't, but they're marketed as being powerful, when they're anything but. I would have significantly less problem if they labeled them as what they are : modestly clocked i3s, with good battery life and a mediocre SSD most of the time.

It's not like Intel is alone in this regard, long ago mobile GPUs got a different naming scheme that makes them sound close to desktop GPU models, when they're drastically slower. Eg : 765M is way way way WAY slower than a desktop 760. It's closer to a desktop 650 at best. Same deal with AMD.

 

[Qwertilot]

True about the profit margin To be fair they do, now they're sorting the screens etc out, have a solid right to exist as a small premium bracket of thin laptops.

Meanwhile, I really don't get whats wrong with more IGP/less power even for a desktop chip. There's just very little that needs more raw CPU power for normal users. Less power draw is always nice on principle and might be slightly quieter/smaller etc.

Even the IGP could get significant relatively soon. They've certainly got lots of silicon/power budget for it. The most significant target isn't even a moving one, that's matching the IGP in the consoles.

 

[mrmt]

No, it doesn't, but they're marketed as being powerful, when they're anything but. I would have significantly less problem if they labeled them as what they are : modestly clocked i3s, with good battery life and a mediocre SSD most of the time.

The ultra on the ultrabooks refers to it's portability, it's better build quality and better battery life, all that in a small and light chassis. And comparing to the mainstream notebooks, 3-4kg monsters with 500GB HDDs, ultrabooks are really ultra.

They are *not* netbooks. Anyone comparing them never used the two. In fact, my work ultrabook is thinner and lighter than my wife's old HP mini 2011. Sabe with my MBA.

 

[Arkaign]

You don't have to get something 3-4kg to get good performance.

I agree about the build quality. They're definitely marketed as high performance though, and calling dual cores "i7" is very dubious.

A good example of something bigger/thicker, but not gigantic is the Lenovo T440p. We just got one of these for one of our attorneys to replace a Kira.

Quad Core i7 4700Q 3.4Ghz (8 threads, 6MB Cache)
IPS 1080p
256GB SSD
GT730M
16GB DDR3-1866
Wireless AC, 720p Webcam, BT, Gbit LAN port
5.5 hour battery
4.2lbs (1.9kg)

And all for less $ than the ultrabook it replaced.

 

[mrmt]

You don't have to get something 3-4kg to get good performance.

Maybe today, but just look back 2 years ago. It was either ultrabooks or 3-4kg. Now the entire supply chain is moving towards lighter chassis.

I agree about the build quality. They're definitely marketed as high performance though, and calling dual cores "i7" is very dubious.

I agree with you, but it's not today that Intel marketing has started to screw us with that number soup that has become their line up. We could say that there isn't much sense in the 4770K 4C Haswell share the same moniker of the IVB 6C 4960X.

A good example of something bigger/thicker, but not gigantic is the Lenovo T440p. We just got one of these for one of our attorneys to replace a Kira.

That config is around $2.000, far more expensive than some smaller/thiner touch screen ultrabooks like the Acer S7, which goes for $1.400. A fair trade off for most cases, but I can't fathom an attorney making use of such high amount of compute power.

 

[Khato]

I agree about the build quality. They're definitely marketed as high performance though, and calling dual cores "i7" is very dubious.

Dual core i7 processors are par for the course in mobile - such has been the case since the line was introduced with Arrandale back in 2010. So why exactly is that dubious?

As for performance, sure, load them up with any heavy multi-threaded workload and the results will pale in comparison to the *Q mobile processors... But that doesn't change the fact that they most definitely are 'high performance' for the target market which likely has what, less than 1% of workloads actually having a use for more than two cores? And in those cases the only difference between an i7-4650U and the i7-4930MX is a DC turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz vs 3.8 GHz and SC turbo frequency of 3.3 GHz vs 3.9 GHz. So sure it's slower, but hardly by an amount for it to suddenly no longer be 'high performance'.

Now talking about i3 based ultrabooks, yeah, those don't really qualify as 'high performance', merely 'good performance'.