Intel X299: What is it good for?

[sechs]

I've now seen three videos and read at least as many articles on the clusterfuck that is Intel's x299 platform. Even investors are talking about this:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4078745-amds-threadripper-will-crush-intels-latest-offering

There seems to be a lot of head scratching on the i5 and i7 chips on the socket and the lack of info on chips more than 10 cores, as well as a lot of questioning on the imaginary 18 core i9-7980XE.

What is Intel thinking on this?

 

[Handruin]

Intel was thinking with a knee-jerk reaction to AMD for some reason. I'm in agreement with the various Youtube and blog posts that are calling Intel out on this crap. It's a mixed bag because it's nice to finally see them pushing a little more now that we have a bit more competition but even then, their pricing is full on retard for some of these chips. The X299 motherboards are likely to be a shit-show with all the permutations that need supporting for the various PCIe lane support and chips.

 

[Howell]

Are these products expected to be OEM or retail?

 

[Handruin]

Good question. I assumed retail but maybe not.

 

[LunarMist]

It seems like an advert for the AMD. Is there a reason to believe that the new Intel products are defective?

 

[Handruin]

Not that I'm aware of. Just expensive.

 

[LunarMist]

Are the prices announced? I was thinking about 10 cores.

 

[Stereodude]

Linus has an interesting rant on it.

Expensive HW keys for RAID, and vendor locks... Genius!

 

[Handruin]

Are the prices announced? I was thinking about 10 cores.

There are prices listed for the various new CPUs.

 

[LunarMist]

I will check it in the US. Androids suck for the webs.

 

[ddrueding]

I need to look into what a "maximum overkill" spec even looks like.

First assumption is that the CPU will be the one with the highest frequency; if there is a tie for highest frequency, more cores will be preferred.

On the motherboard side, I hear talk of 4x M.2 NVMe RAID0 native to the CPU that sounds awesome, though RAID10 is the more sane choice. Though waiting until boards with ThunderBolt3 come out seems prudent (how long?)

 

[LunarMist]

I need to look into what a "maximum overkill" spec even looks like.

First assumption is that the CPU will be the one with the highest frequency; if there is a tie for highest frequency, more cores will be preferred.

On the motherboard side, I hear talk of 4x M.2 NVMe RAID0 native to the CPU that sounds awesome, though RAID10 is the more sane choice. Though waiting until boards with ThunderBolt3 come out seems prudent (how long?)

I can hardly find anything useful on the interwebs anymore.
I suppose in a few months there will enough user experience to figure out what to buy.
I would start with assuming that 10 cores is about right and the mainboard drivers would eventually mature.

 

[Handruin]

There is a bunch of info available already but they aren't released yet that I know of. You will have to see if the 10 core i9-7900X at $1000 is worth it for you when it's released this month. For the money you may be better off going AMD with a threadripper if you can wait but we'll have to see the performance reviews.

 

[sechs]

Though waiting until boards with ThunderBolt3 come out seems prudent (how long?)

I can't figure out why none of the boards are coming out with ThunderBolt. They should have all of the wiz-bang doodads.

Also, it seems like none of the motherboard manufacturers were aware of the 18-core chip before Computex.

 

[sechs]

There is a bunch of info available already but they aren't released yet that I know of. You will have to see if the 10 core i9-7900X at $1000 is worth it for you when it's released this month. For the money you may be better off going AMD with a threadripper if you can wait but we'll have to see the performance reviews.

The current rumor is that the 16-core Threadripper will be less that $1000. Even if it's hundreds more than that, it'll be beating the pants off of Intel in price/performance.

 

[Stereodude]

I'll just get my pair of used E5-2690 V2 CPUs and go on my merry way. You guys can enjoy the very bloody bleeding edge.

 

[sechs]

[video=youtube_share;QJNRtGo5IMc]https://youtu.be/QJNRtGo5IMc[/video]

Intel's pants are on fire, and this is a good thing.

 

[sechs]

Intel Coffee Lake Delayed to February 2018; 8th Gen with Kaby Lake Coming This Year

Intel Coffee Lake CPUs Delayed to 2018, 8th Gen Gets Kaby Lake Refresh This Year

 

[Handruin]

I watched Jay's video last night and noticed he tossed out the rumor on Coffee Lake coming this year but it had no creditable weight to it so who knows what Intel is really doing. Between Jay, Linus, Paul, and some others, they all seem down on Intel's current strategy but praise having competition once again.

 

[LunarMist]

I've almost entirely bad experiences with AMD. $5000 down the toilet in a matter of days. The only reason I'd even consider it would be if drivers were available for older OS.
Per core performance is more important than number of cores after a point.
If nothing else all these cores may press the sofware devs to improve the multithreaded performance.

 

[Handruin]

What did AMD do to you that you lost $5000? Did you invest in their stock at a bad time? I wouldn't expect modern CPUs and motherboards to support older OSes. You may need to change your OS to get the support you want.

 

[LunarMist]

One AMD board destroyed a $3K scanner and another had a hardware issue due to a crappy chipset.
Of course that was years ago, but it is not to be forgotten.
At the very least I think it is best to wait 3-6 months for the bugs to be worked out.

 

[ddrueding]

AMD may have a better value proposition, but I don't think there is any chance of them having the absolute fastest solution. If they got within 30% of that I'd be impressed.

 

[sechs]

AMD may have a better value proposition, but I don't think there is any chance of them having the absolute fastest solution. If they got within 30% of that I'd be impressed.

Aren't they already there now?

If I recall correctly, Zen's IPC is within 10% of Kaby Lake.

 

[sedrosken]

Aren't they already there now?

If I recall correctly, Zen's IPC is within 10% of Kaby Lake.

It was my understanding that it was about on par with Haswell in terms of IPC, which is concerning as far as Intel is concerned because this means AMD is going to eat their lunch in a bad way.

 

[Stereodude]

I guess Intel's spoonfeeding us 5-10% improvements with each generation for 6 generations since Sandy Bridge eventually gave AMD enough time to pretty much get caught up to them.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

AMD may have a better value proposition, but I don't think there is any chance of them having the absolute fastest solution. If they got within 30% of that I'd be impressed.

With 60 PCI Express lanes on every sledgehammer, it will prob have the performance advantage with heavy I/O.

 

[LunarMist]

The lack of PCIe lanes on the lesser i9 CPUs is a bit ridiculous. The 4x M.2 board alone is a big lanesuck. If the AMD is so good there should be reduced Intel prices eventually.

 

[sechs]

It sounds like you're saying everyone should wait to buy....

 

[ddrueding]

I'm still waiting. Haven't even looked to check on availability yet. I'm thinking the boards released after the launch set will be worth waiting for (these certainly seemed rushed). Not necessarily second gen, but I won't be surprised if more boards from the majors show up in a month or two.

 

[Handruin]

I would wait a bit also. When the X99 came out there was all different kinds of instability in the motherboards. Not that a second gen is needed but a more-stable BIOS/firmware would be desirable.

 

[sechs]

Maybe Intel will figure out what their theory is on the platform?

I expect that AMD will beat them with Threadripper. We'll see if they execute.

 

[Stereodude]

I expect that AMD will beat them with Threadripper. We'll see if they execute.

Intel needs a swift kick in the pants every so often. The last time AMD was competitive we got the Core/Core 2 architecture.

 

[sechs]

One thing that I've found confusing is that Intel appears to have stuck with large, monolithic dies for high core count processors. This makes them expensive.

With Epyc (and Threadripper, which is really just half of an Epyc processor), AMD is gluing pieces of silicon together with their Infinity Fabric. While, clearly, having all of the cores together on one die is superior, based on first looks, Infinity Fabric seems to scale. So, AMD just has to put four eight-core dies together to make a 32-core processor. This is going to greatly increase their yields and lower their costs.

 

[sechs]

Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X

 

[ddrueding]

Good thing I built that absurdly-overkill WC loop. Might be time to implement the below-ambient elements to it. Still not time to buy, though.

 

[Stereodude]

Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X

Seems like de-lidding with be back.

 

[ddrueding]

Seems like de-lidding with be back.

I was thinking exactly that.

 

[sechs]

The announced pricing on the yet-to-be-released Intel i9s looks kind of stupid now.

Again, we'll have to see how AMD executes, but X299 is starting to look like a great way for people with more money than sense to show off their wealth.

 

[LunarMist]

The announced pricing on the yet-to-be-released Intel i9s looks kind of stupid now.

Again, we'll have to see how AMD executes, but X299 is starting to look like a great way for people with more money than sense to show off their wealth.

So the X299 is now even more costly?