Intel Preps Dual-Core i3-7360X for X299, but Why?

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Intel is not done with Kabylake-X yet: a prototype i3 dual-core processor has been spotted in China. Some, however, are calling it bizarre, being that a platform designed for high-performance computing is getting a CPU with just two cores.

The i3-7360X is a HEDT alternative to i3-7350K, which, by the way, will soon be succeeded by 8350K. The specs of this new processor are not overwhelming. It’s only 100 MHz faster than 7350K. The turbo clock is 4.3 GHz. The TDP though, skyrockets to 112W. According to the leaker, the i3-7360X is 1.25% faster than 7350K. The price of 7360X is expected around 1699 Yuans (220 USD), so it’s not cheap.
 
wonder if it's a china only thing, because there's some weird shit that gets released there that never see's the light of day anywhere else..
 
all of the X series kaby lake cpus were released pretty much as niche cpus for extreme overclockers, they have better power input capability compared to the 1151 versions which on LN2 is what enabled the crazy high world records these cpus hold now, XOC'ers will buy a dual core version so they can try to set records on dual core performance for sure.
 
Last edited:
Ugh....Kaby Lake-X offends me. I get that it clocks better on LGA 2066 than it does on LGA 1151 but you end up paying quite a bit more for a couple hundred MHz on a platform you can't fully utilize by going that route.
 
penn919 said:
It makes them appear strong. In the face of widespread criticism, don't capitulate; double down.
Click to expand...

To be perfectly honest, I think Intel panicked when AMD put out Ryzen and Threadripper. Sure, Intel still has a performance and a technological lead over AMD but any percentage of the market lost to AMD weakens it's position and that's something Intel will not abide by. Intel's not exactly sure what to do so it's throwing everything at the market they can to see what sticks. Kaby Lake-X is a great example of this. Ordinarily, HEDT processors are last generations mainstream architecture scaled up to greater core counts and with changes and tweaks to suit that platform. Yet Kaby Lake-X coexists with Skylake-X but exists in the same form already found on LGA 1151. Kaby Lake-X is nothing more than a iGPU-less version of Kaby Lake shoved into a larger package for LGA 2066 compatibility. It was something Intel could put out quickly and easily. Intel wanted to know if a quad core that can achieve super high clock speeds would appeal to enthusiasts or not. Again, I think Intel has realized they aren't the only game in town and they've been shaken from it's long apathetic slumber.
 
Emission said:
Feels like it's been a long time since dual cores ran in excess of $200.
Click to expand...

For good reason. Dual core CPUs are the stuff of office PC's and budget oriented builds usually constructed for novice users or as appliances for various applications in the home or office. They are not something an enthusiast generally buys. Time and time again it always seems as though the $250-$350 range is the CPU sweet spot for most people.

As much as I truly hate the Core i7 7740X, it serves as a bridge between the two segments in the way the 5820K sort of did back in the day. You can get a leaner X299 motherboard and Core i7 7740X for a little more than you'd pay for a Z270 motherboard and overclock it further. If you are using a single, or even dual GPU's with an otherwise lean configuration it has some value as a pure gaming rig. We know that clock speed still rules over cores in most games. I don't like that CPU, despite the clock speeds I've personally achieved with my test chip. I can still see a niche for them, but dual core on X299 fucking baffles me. The stupid thing will probably clock like a beast though. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they could hit 5.4GHz or something stupid like that. With only two cores and the headroom that would leave in the package, I can see it happening.

I still wouldn't buy one and I'm not sure why anyone would.
 
Dan_D said:
For good reason. Dual core CPUs are the stuff of office PC's and budget oriented builds usually constructed for novice users or as appliances for various applications in the home or office. They are not something an enthusiast generally buys. Time and time again it always seems as though the $250-$350 range is the CPU sweet spot for most people.

As much as I truly hate the Core i7 7740X, it serves as a bridge between the two segments in the way the 5820K sort of did back in the day. You can get a leaner X299 motherboard and Core i7 7740X for a little more than you'd pay for a Z270 motherboard and overclock it further. If you are using a single, or even dual GPU's with an otherwise lean configuration it has some value as a pure gaming rig. We know that clock speed still rules over cores in most games. I don't like that CPU, despite the clock speeds I've personally achieved with my test chip. I can still see a niche for them, but dual core on X299 fucking baffles me. The stupid thing will probably clock like a beast though. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they could hit 5.4GHz or something stupid like that. With only two cores and the headroom that would leave in the package, I can see it happening.

I still wouldn't buy one and I'm not sure why anyone would.
Click to expand...

As dumb as it might appear for Intel to do this, I think it offers a lower total cost of entry into X299 and gives the enthusiasts something extra to play with. Who else needs or wants a dual core that can do 5.4 GHz? Physical cores are still king for anyone running MT workloads, which we're seeing more and more of as time goes on.
 
Dan_D said:
I still wouldn't buy one and I'm not sure why anyone would.
Click to expand...

As long as there is a dual core option from a major chip manufacturer, game developers have to create their titles to work on the lowest common denominator. Since this dual core will be available on an enthusiast's platform; they can't ignore it. Thus newer games will still be designed around a 2 core world as the publishers dictate a game developer's budget. This will allow Intel to maintain their "single core is better than X cores for gaming" dominance for at least 5 more years as that seems to be the new upgrade cycle for a CPU platform.
 
I don't know, I think I been confused with Intel's lineup for a while.. for that alone I would buy AMD.
 
I still have a feeling they're going to drop the K series and overclocking in anything but the HEDT platform in the future.
 
cageymaru said:
*Grabs popcorn and waits for the usual suspects to explain why this is the best thing ever for the PC platform*
Click to expand...
Damn, I came in late and you ran out of popcorn!

The reality is, we live in a weird period, where people must be absolutely loyal to corporations, even though most are not interested in providing your with the best possible product or service.

Intel is guilty of that.

They had no competition, so they robbed us. Now there is an alternative and instead of cleaning up their act, they have gone completely off their rocker and are throwing CPUS left and right, to see how many more their loyal fans would buy regardless of better options.
 
Turbo on an i3 is mildly interesting, but overall this chip sounds like a dumb idea.
 
I guess there could be some corner case where you don't really care about many CPU threads, but want all the PCIe lanes and other amenities x299 brings, but still this seems kind of odd.

Some sort of massive I/O, low CPU machine.

Maybe for all GPU mining?
 
but does it have RGB around the IHS? b/c I'm not sure which market segment this chip targets, but I'm sure they NEED it
 
Wouldn't some high OC duallie be perfect for all the dota fags?
 
I believe my son would say "WUTFACE" or something like that.

Me, I'd say "What?" and make a face.
 
Cool. I actually like the idea.

I'll never get one, but another option is always fun.

It's like mounting a giant turbo on a little 4 cylinder.
 
dual core x299?

and here I am still getting over the quad core x299 with cut down pci-e lanes and ram channels.

A dual core option literally makes no sense.
 
craigdt said:
Cool. I actually like the idea.

I'll never get one, but another option is always fun.

It's like mounting a giant turbo on a little 4 cylinder.
Click to expand...

I don't think that analogy actually works in this case. I'd say it's more like putting a 1.3l 4 cylinder engine, into a Bugatti Chiron.

Here's this car, design for a 1500 hp W16 engine. Made to be nice and stable at high speeds. Then instead of putting the W16 in there, to stick in that little 4 banger. Sure you could turbo that 4 banger, but you'd probably only make like 250 hp reliably with it.
 
I never saw the point of Kaby Lake X on the X299 platform. Why limit these CPU's to dual channel and 16 PCI-E lanes while the X299 chipset is capable of supporting quad channel and 48 PCI-E lanes is a mystery to me. It is a waste to buy a X299 board and you can only use half of the features on it is a pretty stupid move of Intel.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I guess there could be some corner case where you don't really care about many CPU threads, but want all the PCIe lanes and other amenities x299 brings, but still this seems kind of odd.

Some sort of massive I/O, low CPU machine.

Maybe for all GPU mining?
Click to expand...

What massive I/O? Kaby Lake-X does nothing of the sort. It gimps the X299 platform to being no more useful than a Z270 motherboard. Let's look at the differences more carefully.

Z270
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 16 PCIe lanes (CPU)
  • Dual-Channel Memory Architecture
  • DMI 3.0
  • 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel RST
X299
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 44 PCIe lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • DMI 3.0
  • 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel VROC Technology
  • Intel RSTe
If you use a Kaby Lake-X CPU on X299, you lose quad-channel memory support. You lose 28 PCIe lanes, leaving you with 16 via the CPU. You lose Intel VROC support as Kaby Lake-X lacks the integrated VDM or volume management device required for it. The only thing you might gain over Z270 platform wise is two SATA 6Gb/s ports. You lose all the other I/O provided by the higher end platform. The only other thing you do gain with Kaby Lake-X over Kaby Lake on Z270 is about 200MHz of overclocking headroom. That's it. You probably pay about $100 more for that on the motherboard.
 
Dan_D said:
What massive I/O? Kaby Lake-X does nothing of the sort. It gimps the X299 platform to being no more useful than a Z270 motherboard. Let's look at the differences more carefully.

Z270
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 16 PCIe lanes (CPU)
  • Dual-Channel Memory Architecture
  • DMI 3.0
  • 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel RST
X299
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 44 PCIe lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • DMI 3.0
  • 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel VROC Technology
  • Intel RSTe
If you use a Kaby Lake-X CPU on X299, you lose quad-channel memory support. You lose 28 PCIe lanes, leaving you with 16 via the CPU. You lose Intel VROC support as Kaby Lake-X lacks the integrated VDM or volume management device required for it. The only thing you might gain over Z270 platform wise is two SATA 6Gb/s ports. You lose all the other I/O provided by the higher end platform. The only other thing you do gain with Kaby Lake-X over Kaby Lake on Z270 is about 200MHz of overclocking headroom. That's it. You probably pay about $100 more for that on the motherboard.
Click to expand...

Ah, my bad. I hadn't read up enough on x299 apparently. I figured it was the next gen x99 with -E style chips.

In that case this CPU makes absolutely no sense at all. It's just a very expensive way to get a dual core you could get in regular many lake package and put on the cheaper motherboard.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Ah, my bad. I hadn't read up enough on x299 apparently. I figured it was the next gen x99 with -E style chips.

In that case this CPU makes absolutely no sense at all. It's just a very expensive way to get a dual core you could get in regular many lake package and put on the cheaper motherboard.
Click to expand...

It is X99's successor. In fact, the feature sets aren't that far apart. However, on the back end things are different. X299 uses an HSIO architecture like Z270 does. What's odd is that it supports Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. We are used to seeing the previous generation's architecture as an "E" series CPU like you mentioned before. In this case that would be Skylake-E. In this case, it's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. Kaby Lake is current and Intel hasn't had the time to fully modify Kaby Lake-X for HEDT like they have with Skylake. So what we have is Kaby Lake with no iGPU and nothing extra to make it mesh with X299 properly. That is, we don't get the extra memory channels, extra cores or PCIe lanes. We also don't get the VDM required for VROC.

Intel literally disabled the iGPU and threw Kaby Lake into a package for LGA 2066 compatibility and that's it. This is the first time we've seen the previous and current architectures coexist for the HEDT platform. That's what's different.

X299 compares to X99 like so:

X299 Express
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • PCI-Express 3.0 (from the PCH)
  • DMI 3.0
  • 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE PCIe 3.0 NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel VROC Technology
  • Intel RSTe
X99 Express
  • 8x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • PCI-Express 3.0 (from the PCH)
  • DMI 2.0
  • 10x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i218v GbE PCIe 2.0 NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel RSTe
X299 is an improvement over X99, but not the way people usually think it is. The improvement's mainly come from HSIO which allows the motherboard manufacturers to allocate PCIe lanes in blocks of 4 rather than having to use a bunch of extra PCIe switch chips. Due to the way PCIe lanes are allocated in blocks of 4, we lost two SATA ports on X299 vs. X99. Also, you get 24 PCIe lanes from the PCH instead of 8. DMI 3.0 is another nice addition but that's not nearly as exciting as VROC which allows mapping of up to 20 NVMe drives to the CPU PCIe lanes and bypassing DMI 3.0 entirely. Due to more fuckery from Intel, you need a license key and a Skylake-X processor to use VROC, which is something you totally lose out on with this dual core throwback to 2008.

 
Dan_D said:
It is X99's successor. In fact, the feature sets aren't that far apart. However, on the back end things are different. X299 uses an HSIO architecture like Z270 does. What's odd is that it supports Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. We are used to seeing the previous generation's architecture as an "E" series CPU like you mentioned before. In this case that would be Skylake-E. In this case, it's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. Kaby Lake is current and Intel hasn't had the time to fully modify Kaby Lake-X for HEDT like they have with Skylake. So what we have is Kaby Lake with no iGPU and nothing extra to make it mesh with X299 properly. That is, we don't get the extra memory channels, extra cores or PCIe lanes. We also don't get the VDM required for VROC.

Intel literally disabled the iGPU and threw Kaby Lake into a package for LGA 2066 compatibility and that's it. This is the first time we've seen the previous and current architectures coexist for the HEDT platform. That's what's different.

X299 compares to X99 like so:

X299 Express
  • 24x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • PCI-Express 3.0 (from the PCH)
  • DMI 3.0
  • 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i219v GbE PCIe 3.0 NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel VROC Technology
  • Intel RSTe
X99 Express
  • 8x PCIe lanes (PCH)
  • 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes (Depending on the installed CPU)
  • Quad-Channel Memory Architecture
  • PCI-Express 3.0 (from the PCH)
  • DMI 2.0
  • 10x SATA 6Gb/s ports
  • i218v GbE PCIe 2.0 NIC (Via Intel PHY)
  • 14x USB (mix of USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 2.0 ports)
  • Thunderbolt 3 (w/Alpine Ridge)
  • Intel RSTe
X299 is an improvement over X99, but not the way people usually think it is. The improvement's mainly come from HSIO which allows the motherboard manufacturers to allocate PCIe lanes in blocks of 4 rather than having to use a bunch of extra PCIe switch chips. Due to the way PCIe lanes are allocated in blocks of 4, we lost two SATA ports on X299 vs. X99. Also, you get 24 PCIe lanes from the PCH instead of 8. DMI 3.0 is another nice addition but that's not nearly as exciting as VROC which allows mapping of up to 20 NVMe drives to the CPU PCIe lanes and bypassing DMI 3.0 entirely. Due to more fuckery from Intel, you need a license key and a Skylake-X processor to use VROC, which is something you totally lose out on with this dual core throwback to 2008.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the recap!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top