the meaning of Core i[3579] (was: NUC NUC NUC)
TL;DR: Intel uses brands. We care about technology. Sometimes brands map cleanly onto technology, but sometimes they don't. You cannot trust that mapping. | From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | Yeah the i7 is becoming very inconsistent in gen 9. A few high end | ones have kept SMT, while the lower end ones don't have it, but the core | count has gone up instead. I believe all i9 chips have SMT. Here's my inference on the matter (not based on careful research): - these names are brands, not technology - we (techies) want them to represent technologies. For example, we kind of know what "Core i5" means - when times are good, and changes are smooth, intel tries to align its brands with technologies - when Intel is desperate, they muddy the waters of their brands Example trajectory: - Pentium meant one thing. - Then it got extended with the II and III branding AND technologies. Still related, and the branding evolved in a coherent way - Then the Pentium 4 came along and it was something completely different - Pentium M was also technically different, but that was signified by a sufficiently different name (in my perception) - "Pentium" lay dormant for a bit, and then got attached to some Atom-architecture and low-end (crippled) Core chips. Talk about confusing! It became a pricing / value designator and not a technology. Intel is in trouble. It's latest fab processes (10 nanometer) are not coming on stream as quickly as they had planned and promised. Historically they have been significantly ahead of other fabs. Now they are behind and squirming visibly. This has thrown their whole roadmap off. The i9 seems to be a way of showing forward motion without needing the new fab processes. A way to appear to "refresh" their line without stressing their manufacturing capabilities. As far as I recall, they do have one 10nm product that they claim is shipping but it's not very good and so probably nobody is buying it. It is probably so expensive to produce (low yields) that they don't want anyone to buy it. It's a mobile chip without a GPU (probably due to yield issues) that isn't notably better than the normal 14nm versions that are shipping. Since 10nm isn't productive, they are shipping as much 14nm product as they can make. But it's not enough for the market. They didn't build up 14nm capacity because they thought they would be using 10nm fabs. Intel also has AMD as a competitor and threat for CPUs, something they could ignore for a long time. The upcoming "Rome" AMD server chip looks to be particularly scary. AMD is selectively using TSMC's 7nm technology (apparently comparable to Intel's 10nm -- don't get fooled by the number). In the eighth generation of Core, they moved some extra cores and HT down to lower-numbered models, probably to ward off the mild AMD threats. Perhaps to stimulate consumer excitement. In my mind, this happens to make the i5 a "sweet spot". And make the 8th gen fairly attractive (up until now, I've been content sitting at the 4th gen). But maybe the next one will better deal with the speculation problems. Don't count Intel out. Their server chips were inferior to AMD's Opterons for a long period but the server market didn't significantly switch to AMD. Then Intel technology caught up and surpassed AMD. ================ The term "microarchitecure" is used to describe how a chip is organized. The Core "microarchitecture" started with the Core 2 Duo branding. The "Core" branding before that had a different microarchitecture (32-bit). So confusing. Intel's current Core-brand processors (and XEON-brand too) are still based on an evolved Core microarchitecture. AMD's Zen microarchitecture is newish, and it is what has put them back into the game. When I talk about "Atom", I'm refering to microarchitecture. The branding of those products is way too hard to follow.
On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 12:24:33PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
TL;DR: Intel uses brands. We care about technology. Sometimes brands map cleanly onto technology, but sometimes they don't. You cannot trust that mapping.
Here's my inference on the matter (not based on careful research):
- these names are brands, not technology
- we (techies) want them to represent technologies. For example, we kind of know what "Core i5" means
- when times are good, and changes are smooth, intel tries to align its brands with technologies
- when Intel is desperate, they muddy the waters of their brands
Example trajectory:
- Pentium meant one thing.
- Then it got extended with the II and III branding AND technologies. Still related, and the branding evolved in a coherent way
Actually the II and !!! were extensions of the Pentium Pro which was completely different from the Pentium. Why did intel marketing decide on "Pentium !!!"?
- Then the Pentium 4 came along and it was something completely different
Seems that netburst architecture tainted the pentium brand enough that they needed to replace it and hence Core came along. First Core chips were essentially rebranded Pentium M chips as far as I remember. Core 2 were the first new ones.
- Pentium M was also technically different, but that was signified by a sufficiently different name (in my perception)
The Pentium M is as far as I have understood it a power optimized extension of the Pentium !!! The Pentium Pro, II, !!! and M were all P6 architecture. The Pentium was P5.
- "Pentium" lay dormant for a bit, and then got attached to some Atom-architecture and low-end (crippled) Core chips. Talk about confusing! It became a pricing / value designator and not a technology.
Seems Pentium these days has replaced the old Celeron brand.
Intel is in trouble. It's latest fab processes (10 nanometer) are not coming on stream as quickly as they had planned and promised. Historically they have been significantly ahead of other fabs. Now they are behind and squirming visibly. This has thrown their whole roadmap off.
The i9 seems to be a way of showing forward motion without needing the new fab processes. A way to appear to "refresh" their line without stressing their manufacturing capabilities.
Seems like the i9 are essentially Xeon server chips tweaked for high end desktop use.
As far as I recall, they do have one 10nm product that they claim is shipping but it's not very good and so probably nobody is buying it. It is probably so expensive to produce (low yields) that they don't want anyone to buy it. It's a mobile chip without a GPU (probably due to yield issues) that isn't notably better than the normal 14nm versions that are shipping.
Since 10nm isn't productive, they are shipping as much 14nm product as they can make. But it's not enough for the market. They didn't build up 14nm capacity because they thought they would be using 10nm fabs.
Intel also has AMD as a competitor and threat for CPUs, something they could ignore for a long time. The upcoming "Rome" AMD server chip looks to be particularly scary. AMD is selectively using TSMC's 7nm technology (apparently comparable to Intel's 10nm -- don't get fooled by the number).
In the eighth generation of Core, they moved some extra cores and HT down to lower-numbered models, probably to ward off the mild AMD threats. Perhaps to stimulate consumer excitement. In my mind, this happens to make the i5 a "sweet spot". And make the 8th gen fairly attractive (up until now, I've been content sitting at the 4th gen). But maybe the next one will better deal with the speculation problems.
Don't count Intel out. Their server chips were inferior to AMD's Opterons for a long period but the server market didn't significantly switch to AMD. Then Intel technology caught up and surpassed AMD.
Some did though. Intel did eventually design something new and QPI was better than hypertransport when they eventually released it, but for many years they were behind. Intel also seems to have better FPUs in general than AMD, although the next generation AMD chips coming out this year should narrow the gap quite a bit.
================
The term "microarchitecure" is used to describe how a chip is organized. The Core "microarchitecture" started with the Core 2 Duo branding. The "Core" branding before that had a different microarchitecture (32-bit). So confusing.
Intel's current Core-brand processors (and XEON-brand too) are still based on an evolved Core microarchitecture.
That P6 based design just keeps going. Unlike that netburst that followed it. I even remember when netburst was first talked about in magazines thinking "This contradicts a lot of what I have learned about good cpu architecture at university. How can they expect this to ever work well?". Turns out it didn't work well for exactly the expected reasons.
AMD's Zen microarchitecture is newish, and it is what has put them back into the game.
When I talk about "Atom", I'm refering to microarchitecture. The branding of those products is way too hard to follow.
The different generations of atom have also been quite different. Some were in-order designs, later they had out-of-order execution. Some had SMT, some did not. Just another brand for low power/embedded it seems. -- Len Sorensen
On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 02:07:35PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen via talk wrote:
On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 12:24:33PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
TL;DR: Intel uses brands. We care about technology. Sometimes brands [...]
Seems like the i9 are essentially Xeon server chips tweaked for high end desktop use.
The "Intel uses brands" analysis, which is spot-on, applies most directly to the Xeon name, which has been used on a wide range of microarchitectures. If you tell me you have a Xeon, all I know is that it was probably marketed for servers or high-end workstations sometime in the last few decades. It was the worst manifestation of this phenomenon until the Pentium name was revived for the low-end as described upthread, and was thus at the top of my peeve list when someone mentioned in breathless tones only this as the qualifier as to what kind of process was in play. -- Joe On ceding power to tech companies: http://xkcd.com/1118/ man screen | grep -A2 weird A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage of all the features.
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