Desktop CPU Thread

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Problem is that the FX8000 6 and 8 core CPUs are getting smoked by i7 quads. At least, the last reports I read were putting them about equal or the quads higher. AMD is losing ground in the CPU market and their only selling point is the price, but the FX8000s... they don't seem to be hitting that sweet spot they did before. The power is severely lacking for the price they are.

 

Put simply, Intel doesn't need an 8 core CPU. Their quads are rocking your **** just fine.

[Malevolence 6]

True enough, AMD is the first to release their 8-core processors for desktops... but here's the catch. These brand new architecture, the FX processors (codenamed "Bulldozer"), performed BADLY against current Intel's lineup. Prior release, AMD made a huge hype that how great and fantastic their new FX processors are, they even had some crazy overclockers to hype the scores real big on 8.429GHz.

. Upon analysis, it ain't really a big deal when you disable so many cores to hit that frequency (only 2 cores are active in this extreme overclock). Their sales are so bad and the reviews are so poor to the point that AMD pwned themselves so much that they announced that they will not be able to be fighting for the high-end enthusiast segment, leaving Intel to dominate.

So there you get it... although I'm an Intel fanboy, I hope it didn't end up like this. With Intel monopolising the high-end enthusiast segment, expect prices for future extreme processors to skyrocket real mad. Yup.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

AMD might bow out for now, but I'm sure they'll be back. There's no way they would stay out of that market for very long. Even if they do, AMD makes bank on their middle of the road processors moreso anyway. I have to admit... AMD does make great business class and general consumer-based processors.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

At this point of time, the lack of recent multi-core CPUs (6-cores and up) from Intel has taken to a crawl with the Ivy Bridge architecture (using 22nm) while AMD begins to speed up with their latest 8-core, 10-core, 12-core and 16-core technology (32 nm). According to Wikipedia, the fastest Core i7 processor under the Ivy Bridge architecture is the Core i3770K (3.5 ghz, 4-core, 8 MB cache, PCI-Express 3.0 compliant and integrated GPU) which was released in April 2012. The fastest Core i7 mobile processor under the Ivy Bridge architecture now is the Core i7 3920XM (2.9 Ghz, 4 core).

 

Intel Xeon can now go up to 10-cores and AMD Opteron is already onto 16-cores. By now there should have been 10-core and/or 12-core PCs available for home users.

 

It appears when PC computing seems to be dying and the mobile devices are rising, where's the faster speed in PC computing as well as mobile computing lately? What I am seeing now is very slow progressing development by Intel, and not AMD.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Now we're falling back to more means better. What good are all those extra cores if you can't utilize them? Servers and high end workstations can use those cores properly but home users? Nah, you don't need that much for a general PC user. Not even gamers are going to need that much power. I have a quad and it can do anything so I don't see what benefit adding two, four or six additional cores is going to give. When home use applications are that demanding, the world will be in nuclear winter. In short, I don't see consumer needs reaching that peak for a long time to come. Hell, quad core PCs are still high end as it is in that market. Most commonly you're seeing dual cores being sold.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Intel's new Haswell CPU vs AMD's new Trinity APU:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/262241/inside_intels_haswell_cpu_better_performance_all_day_battery.html

and

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010666/amd-announces-trinity-apus-superb-graphics-improved-cpu.html

[PurpleGaga27 39]

As CPU chips continue to drip in sales, I wonder if Intel could be making their last stand with their fourth-generation Intel Core Processors (codenamed Hassell):

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3121_7-57587411-220/intels-new-fourth-gen-haswell-processors-what-you-need-to-know-faq/

 

I wished the fourth-generation Intel Core Processors should have included eight-core CPUs with lower power and higher performance efficiency but Intel never developed 8-core CPUs for consumers other than Intel Xeon CPUs. An Intel Core i7 with an 8-core CPU with at least a 3.2 ghz clock speed should be way more than enough to counter AMD's 8-core CPU at 5-ghz.

 

As for a previous article about AMD' 5-ghz on a 8-core CPU:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/11/amd-5gz-fx-chips/

and

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2041341/amd-announces-a-5ghz-microprocessor-but-few-will-care.html

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Intel is over 3 years behind on 8-core CPUs for consumers and finally there has been some news that the first of the 8-core CPUs (codenamed Hassell-E and hopefully will be called Intel Core i9) will be released on the second half of 2014:

 

Source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-haswell-e-processor-reportedly-coming-next-year-q3/

Source 2: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/17/intel-leak-haswell-e-2014/

Source 3: http://www.techpowerup.com/185719/haswell-e-intels-first-8-core-desktop-processor-exposed.html

Source 4: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/31076/intel-s-haswell-e-to-kick-some-serious-ass-features-8-cores-ddr4-support-x99-pch-and-more/index.html

 

That's just too late, Intel..... AMD's already going full steam ahead and may possibly be going for 16-core CPUs for consumers very soon.

 

I am gonna wish to buy and create a custom PC in several years to come.

Edited January 3, 2014 by zocom7

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Wow. It's been over two years without an update to this. So far I know that Intel is now releasing new CPU architecture once every 3 years. The latest ones are meant to run only with Windows 10 and above OSs. Also it's pretty grim there's not much updates with new 8-core and 16-core CPUs lately around Intel and AMD. I doubt Intel and AMD will attempt to make new CPUs even smaller than 10 nm wires.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Already starting to hear that AMD will be releasing 32-core CPUs next year, maybe....

 

Also late to the party that was released in May 2016 are the new 6, 8 and even 10-core CPUs from Intel. They are still pricey at this time, but going for a dream PC is something I wished for a long, long time, if only millionaires and richer would definitely go for something like this.

 

The price tag of a Intel Core i7-6950X (deca-core @ 3 Ghz), over $1700 USD!! Right now the lowest price is around $1500 USD.

Edited November 20, 2016 by PurpleGaga27

[Lauren 78]

32 bit you say? Is it 1990 already?

[PurpleGaga27 39]

It's 32-core, not 32-bit.

[Ravendark 46]

Anything past a 4 or 8 core is like owning a 4wheel drive monster truck while living downtown in a city. Wasted. Hardly any platforms or software is trully designed or optimized for that atm, there are a few proffessions that come to mind were such a multi core could be usefull, but for your typical consumer/amateur such a core setup seems wasted, specialy at that price tag.

[TaxOwlbear 20]

What's a "Smart Cache", anyway?

[jeffnz 23]

What's a "Smart Cache", anyway?

 

Indeed! I want to know exactly what the level 1 and level 2 cache is. "Smartcache" doesn't help me.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

It's amazing what you find when you use ****ing google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Cache.

[jeffnz 23]

I had searched but I skipped Wikipedia, I was looking at the Intel website and Tom's Hardware, I only found references to smart cache. Your link is bad (you added a dot on the end) but Wikipedia does have a summary description:

 

"Smart Cache is a level 2 or level 3 caching method for multiple execution cores, developed by Intel. Smart Cache shares the actual cache memory between the cores of a multi-core processor"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Cache

 

There's nothing smart about it, it just shares the cache between each core. Oddly, they muddle level 2 and level 3 cache together now, which I don't like one bit! It's as if they want to obscure the specs so you have less knowledge of what you're buying.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

It's Level 2 or Level 3. It doesn't say "and."

[jeffnz 23]

Right you are, sir! So when we see it advertised we'll cross our fingers and hope that it's level 2 smartcache and not level 3. I'm using an HP notebook that has 3MB of level 3 cache and it's horribly slow. I don't care much for level 3 cache. I suppose most people buy based upon whether a product is an i7 desktop CPU or not ... I always look at the caches and clock speed. Intel doesn't appear to specify on their website

 

http://ark.intel.com/products/95443/Intel-Core-i5-7200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz?_ga=1.67418001.1638255294.1479945856

 

Basically, the more money you have, the better the CPU I guess.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Intel has released the 7th generation of laptop/desktop CPUs. However, it's not recommended to buy any one of them since there isn't much change in speed performance. Even the Core i7-6700K (quad-core @ 4 ghz) is faster than Core i7-7700K (quad-core @ 4.2 ghz) on some programs. The price for each of those two chips are the same.

 

Articles:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3152701/hardware/official-intel-7th-gen-kaby-lake-review-one-big-change-makes-up-for-smaller-ones.html

https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-kaby-lake-7th-gen-7700-7600-7350

http://www.techspot.com/review/1299-intel-core-kaby-lake-desktop

http://www.digitaltrends.com/processor-reviews/intel-core-i7-7700k-review

[Traymen 6]

It's not like noone gives a damn about new Intel processor generation. Most people are just waiting for AMD's Ryzen CPU and how it will handle in official comparission tests to Broadwells line. If AMD CPU will be as good as French IT magazine shows, Intel will have a worthy rival just like back in the days between Pentium IV and Athlon XP.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

I still rock a 4790K. No upgrades needed.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Early results are in for AMD's new Ryzen processor: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3171161/components-processors/amds-ryzen-launches-march-2-outperforming-intels-core-i7-at-a-fraction-of-the-price.html

 

For the first time in a long time, all AMD's recent 8-core chips outperformed Intel's latest CPUs. Even low-powered AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700 (8-core @ 3 ghz) 65-watt chip is even faster than Intel Core i7 7700K (4-core @ 4.2 ghz)! The price tag for the AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700 is $329 USD while the higher end AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X (8-core @ 3.6 ghz) is $499 USD. All of these chips are available for purchase next week.

 

This is a must have for gamer enthusiasts and people in need of better multiple virtual OSs.

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Rumors of Intel's Core i9 as well as AMD's Ryzen 9 surfaced:

http://www.pcgamer.com/amds-ryzen-9-threadripper-cpu-lineup-leaked/
http://www.pcgamer.com/intel-core-i9-leak-points-to-intels-first-new-processor-line-in-years/
http://www.pcgamer.com/intel-and-amd-are-about-to-clash-with-new-high-end-gaming-cpus/

Get ready for a 16-core CPU next month because AMD's Ryzen 9 will be released by then.

[Nmenth 290]

Computer hardware is not my area of expertise, so I'll acknowledge my mistake if anything I say is misinformed. But this is how I understand it.

Multi-cores are just a bandage for the rapidly approaching limit on how small they can make transistors before electron tunneling becomes too large of an issue for error correction to compensate against. Multi-cores aren't very useful in gaming, as games aren't really made to make use of parallel computing - the one thing multiple cores are good at. But you kind of have to ask, what else can they do? They are trying to buy more time until a valid replacement for current technology, like quantum computers, becomes feasible. Still, for gamers, fewer cores is better unless future games are specifically designed to make full use of parallel computing.