Intel Introduces New 9th Gen Desktop Processors

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AlphaAtlas

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At their CES news conference, Intel announced several new additions to their 9th Generation Core lineup. Most of the new processors are IGP-less variants of Coffee Lake silicon that are otherwise identical or similar to existing SKUs. The Core i9-9900KF, for example, features the same 3.60Ghz base frequency as the 9900k, and hits the same 5.00Ghz turbo clocks. IGPs aside, the i7-9700KF and i7-9600KF are similar to the existing 9700K and 9600K. While Intel's presentation on the processors wasn't particularly detailed, disabling the IGP in existing silicon will presumably allow Intel to get better yields, which (theoretically) translates to more stock and better prices. The "F" variants could also have slightly more overclocking headroom than their counterparts, but that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Intel also launched some interesting lower-tier SKUs. Both the i5-9400 and i5-9400F feature 6 cores, 6 threads, a 2.9Ghz base frequency, and a max turbo speed of 4.10Ghz. The i3-9350KF features 4 cores and 4 threads that turbo up to 4.6ghz, along with an unlocked multiplier, which could make it a solid choice for budget PCs depending on how Intel prices it. Unfortunately, none of the new chips have recommended customer prices yet, and they aren't even correctly categorized in ARK at the time of this writing, which makes them difficult to find. The entirety of Intel's press release on the new desktop processors is quoted below, including a rather ambiguous release date,

If you missed it, check out the keynote's replay here.

Intel introduced new additions to the 9th Gen Intel Core processors that expand the family for a broader spectrum of desktop products. These processors deliver world-class performance to unlock incredible new capabilities and experiences for content creators and gamers at all levels. The first of the new 9th Gen Intel Core desktop processors is expected to be available starting this month.
 
It's not necessarly true that these "F" variants are defective chips. Intel is having trouble meeting demand, and reducing the die size of the i9-9900K by removing the iGPU to produce the i9-9900KF would allow them to get more die per wafer (and at a lower cost per die). The part has an obvious market: how many people buy an i9-9900K and don't use a discrete GPU with it?

So there's plenty of reason to think the i9-9900KF (and the other parts) could be new smaller die.
They might not be, or some might be and some might not -- that's the way to maximize the yield, but Intel's major customers would probably demand two SKUs (one for removed-iGPU die, another for disabled-iGPU die). Retail, though, might not be given that info.

If Intel hasn't said whether these die have the iGPU removed or just deleted, we'll have to wait for people to de-lid these products to find out.

This is a weird thing about Intel: in some ways, they don't need new products, they are selling all they can make. This -KF series of chips may be so they can make more without having to build new fabs.
 
Vader1975 said:
Ok folks what gen is this really? We all know its not 9. Do they qualify for 5 yet?
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The fundamental CPU architecture of Intel's x86 chips, other than the abortive Pentium 4, is still that of the Pentium Pro.
Adding an on-chip memory controller was the only major change to the core instruction execution architecture, everything else has been making stuff bigger, deeper, and/or wider (or in the case of branch predictors, a little smarter) and adding special purpose accelerators.

The Pentium Pro, which was from some of the same minds that built the i960MX, was brilliant. It doesn't surprise me that it essentially lives on, almost 25 years later.
 
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Disco_Stu_04 said:
Wasn't there some potential for apps to take advantage of unused igpu processing power?
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There was supposed to be, as this was the case with NVIDIA back in 2007 when they said general-purpose application loads like AV scanners could be offloaded to the GPU - that didn't happen.
There are scientific applications that can utilize Intel iGPUs, depending on the generation, but they aren't much better, and in some cases slower, than their respective CPU cores.
 
pcgeekesq said:
... reducing the die size of the i9-9900K by removing the iGPU to produce the i9-9900KF would allow them to get more die per wafer (and at a lower cost per die). ...
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That's a future possibility, if the versions with IGP are to be as good as removed from the market.
As for now I think there's a heap of chips binned as "defective IGP" just waiting to be released for sale.
 
Chimpee said:
Wonder how much better the thermals will be without an iGPU.
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Read any of the reveiws posted for the CPUs with IGP. None of the one's I've seen make use of the IGP so thermals will be as is.
The real question is how much worse the thermals is if you actually do use the IGP...?
 
Chimpee said:
Wonder how much better the thermals will be without an iGPU.
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I expect the thermals to be no different than a regular cpu that is using a dedicated gpu.

Intel isn't exactly going out of their way to make a bunch of special non-iGPU chips. Most likely they are sitting on a huge stock pile of rejected chips from their poor yields in which they can bin out the ones that works just fine with the iGPU disabled. I wouldn't be surprise if there is still some power going to the disabled iGPU in which Intel didn't really cut the traces or such but just insert a simple code to disable the iGPU.
 
DTN107 said:
I expect the thermals to be no different than a regular cpu that is using a dedicated gpu.
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I expect the thermals will be the same if they're just disabling the iGPU, but will be slightly worse if they remove it entirely in order to get more die per wafer.
The extra area of the unused iGPU should be be helping spread the heat and helping to transfer it to the case, too.

People should not presume the i9-9900KF is going to be just a fused-off i9-9900K. It could be, certainly.
But it's also possible that Intel looked at the attach rates of discrete GPUs and i9-series chips, and decided they were wasting a lot of fab capacity on a crap-ton of iGPUs that were neither valued nor used.

Look at this image:
1125px-coffee_lake_die_%28octa_core%29_%28annotated%29.png

That's an annotated die-photo of the i9-9900K, and that light blue block is the iGPU.
It would be easy-peasy to rework the design to remove it. As Andy Grove once said (when AMD introduced a 486 without an FPU), it's "a chip you could make with a text editor." And would yield a lot more good die per wafer.
 
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^ I demand 4 more cores slopped into that vacated IGP space.

And they better do it quick because I'm going to pull the trigger soon on a Ryzen with 12 or 16. You see, a web browser, Spotify and calc.exe all running at the same time are very demanding.
 
Have Intel finally created a new architecture? Nope, misleading title indeed...

The only thing new here, is the addition of a blown fuse to shut off the GPU. Real innovation there.
 
pcgeekesq said:
It's not necessarly true that these "F" variants are defective chips. Intel is having trouble meeting demand, and reducing the die size of the i9-9900K by removing the iGPU to produce the i9-9900KF would allow them to get more die per wafer (and at a lower cost per die). The part has an obvious market: how many people buy an i9-9900K and don't use a discrete GPU with it?

So there's plenty of reason to think the i9-9900KF (and the other parts) could be new smaller die.
They might not be, or some might be and some might not -- that's the way to maximize the yield, but Intel's major customers would probably demand two SKUs (one for removed-iGPU die, another for disabled-iGPU die). Retail, though, might not be given that info.

If Intel hasn't said whether these die have the iGPU removed or just deleted, we'll have to wait for people to de-lid these products to find out.

This is a weird thing about Intel: in some ways, they don't need new products, they are selling all they can make. This -KF series of chips may be so they can make more without having to build new fabs.
Click to expand...

From Anandtech
except for not having integrated graphics. Technically it is there on the silicon, but it has been disabled
Click to expand...
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
Wasn't there some potential for apps to take advantage of unused igpu processing power?
Click to expand...
No

In theory you could let the iGPU render some very basic stuff to help out the main GPU, like a sorta multi GPU setup

But to date I only know of one game that can even make use that ability of Vulkan, and I've only seen between Nvidia and AMD, and that was 2 years ago


However I guess you could make a case for quick sync, or for HTPC's
The decoding of MP4's

But that would be helpful for Pentium class CPU's not really Core
 
Olle P said:
That's a future possibility, if the versions with IGP are to be as good as removed from the market.
As for now I think there's a heap of chips binned as "defective IGP" just waiting to be released for sale.
Click to expand...
As Intel is having difficulties to meet demand, it's a best guess to just use bad chips
 
Stimpy88 said:
Have Intel finally created a new architecture? Nope, misleading title indeed...

The only thing new here, is the addition of a blown fuse to shut off the GPU. Real innovation there.
Click to expand...

No, no, no! Why stop at a hardware disable of the IGP? They can solder on an extra dummy pin and sell a new socket too!
 
Peter2k said:
As Intel is having difficulties to meet demand, it's a best guess to just use bad chips
Click to expand...

Hopefully they don't price it as being a "feature" and upcharging us (the exclusive "us"...no chance I'm buying one of these).
 
Getting real creative finding a way to give the integrators a new SKU for the next season of PC models...
 
Stimpy88 said:
Have Intel finally created a new architecture? Nope, misleading title indeed...

The only thing new here, is the addition of a blown fuse to shut off the GPU. Real innovation there.
Click to expand...
"Intel Introduces New 9th Gen Desktop Processors." Nothing misleading about that since we're still in the 9th gen of Intel Core processors.

I guess this one was misleading, as well:
New 8th Gen Chips from Intel
 
Mega6 said:
No.
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Yes.

Check out LucidLogix Virtu MVP. Used it until it was patched out of Windows.
It actually worked very well when I used it on supported games.

Additionally you can still use the iGPU for encoding.

I'm not sure I'd get one w/o an iGPU. I'd really have to think about it.
 
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Let's put IGP silicone on all our CPU's then disable some of them to increase yields...go Intel! So much using that silicone space for something more beneficial to mid range/high end desktop users like eDRAM.
 
pcgeekesq said:
... the iGPU. It would be easy-peasy to rework the design to remove it. ... would yield a lot more good die per wafer.
Click to expand...
Depends on your definition of "good die".
With the IGP you get a relatively large portion of dies with eight working cores and damaged IGP.
Without the IGP more dies will turn out with a damaged core.
 
Vader1975 said:
Ok folks what gen is this really? We all know its not 9. Do they qualify for 5 yet?
Click to expand...

1st Gen - Nehalem/LynnField/Westmere/Clarksdale
2nd Gen - SandyBridge/IvyBridge
3rd Gen - Haswell/Devils Canyon/Broadwell
4th Gen - Skylake/KabyLake/Coffeelake/Coffeelake-refresh

well, unless it's yet another offshoot of Skylake, I say a definite maybe?
 
quicksync was nice if you had no desire to control the actual conversion settings for handbrake or similar.
 
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