Intel Rocket Lake-S Platform Detailed, Features PCIe 4.0 and Xe Graphics

erek

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"The main improvement is the CPU core itself, which is supposedly a 14 nm adaptation of Tiger Lake-U based on Willow Cove core. This design is representing a backport of IP to an older manufacturing node, which results in bigger die space due to larger node used. When it comes to the platform improvements, it will support the long-awaited PCIe 4.0 connection already present on competing platforms from AMD. It will enable much faster SSD speeds as there are already PCIe 4.0 NVMe devices that run at 7 GB/s speeds. With RKL-S, there will be 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes present, where four would go to the NVMe SSD and 16 would go to the PCIe slots from GPUs. Another interesting feature of the RKL-S is the addition of Xe graphics found on the CPU die, meant as iGPU. Supposedly based on Gen12 graphics, it will bring support for HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a connectors."

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https://www.techpowerup.com/264985/...ed-features-pcie-4-0-and-xe-graphics#comments
 
It would be nice if all of the PCIe 4 lanes could be dedicated to storage and the PCIe 3 lanes used for GPUs. I'd be annoyed if I had to give up storage performance so that the rest of the bus can sit just as idle as always.
 
It would be nice if all of the PCIe 4 lanes could be dedicated to storage and the PCIe 3 lanes used for GPUs. I'd be annoyed if I had to give up storage performance so that the rest of the bus can sit just as idle as always.
It wouldn't make a difference either way, unless your primary use case is CrystalBenchMark....
 
It wouldn't make a difference either way, unless your primary use case is CrystalBenchMark....

It might not make a difference in gaming, but it makes a small difference for my usage. But that's also the difference today and this isn't available today. What's the SSD landscape going to look like when this launches in Q1 2021 or when most people start buying it in Q2/Q3 2021?
 
It might not make a difference in gaming, but it makes a small difference for my usage.
So stick with HEDT?
What's the SSD landscape going to look like when this launches in Q1 2021 or when most people start buying it in Q2/Q3 2021?
It's going to look like it still doesn't matter for end users.
 
So in other words, Comet Lake is dead in the water before it's even released?

And here I thought the Z270 chipsets had a short shelf life... It's nothing compared to the Z4XX.

Comet lake really doesn't make much sense with Rocket Lake on it's heels (if it ever did). Comet lake most likely only has ONE actual new part. The 10 core part. Everything else is almost certainly Coffee Lake dies with HT re-enabled.

They created a new orphan board just for for that?? They should have just released it for 300 series boards. They might have had to limit the 10 core power a bit, but so what?

Intel is showing they still floundering in more ways than just their process woes. Comet lake is just a baffling aggravation for consumers and board partners. One that could have been easily a nice upgrade path for consumers and a break for board partners.
 
It's going to look like it still doesn't matter for end users.

The same could be said for almost any upgrade on launch day, especially for gamers. That's just the nature of doing new things.

That said, I was really hoping Intel would skip PCIe 4 in favor of PCIe 5, since that's where the real benefits seem to be. It would also be a pretty big smack to AMD if they could pull it off.
 
Why is that 2020/2021 board/chipsets have no real world improvement over my 2017 x99 HEDT board?

Yawn...

I see a couple new standards on there. PCI-E 4x. - largely unused by anything. I see Thunderbolt 4. (never used anything Thunderbolt - except on my work macbook pro). I see HDMI 2.0b on onboard video (don't care). I see too few PCI-E lanes in the world of new nvme storage devices. I'm better off with my 2017 44 PCI-E lanes for PCI-E based enterprise storage. (like the Fusion Scale I/O PCI-E cards that are now dirt cheap on ebay and plenty fast. (6.4TB on ebay used out of enterprise datacenters for $400)). Last for network - 2.5Gbps is a lesser used half step standard and not yet used or recognized by home/consumer gear. Much more common to have teamed 1Gb NICs, or even jump to 10Gb NICs for full industry support (still not very relevant for consumer space/needs).

That's about it. Nothing real world advantage... Except clockspeed. My 6950X is only at 4.2GHz. It's fine, but new chip clockspeeds are a nice gain - with the small iterative generation IPC jumps to boot. I'll pass again on this next generation. I think I'll wait and see what Ryzen 4xxx brings to the table - and probably just hold off even there. My 2017 machine does everything still with ease - and mostly near idle.
 
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So in other words, Comet Lake is dead in the water before it's even released?

And here I thought the Z270 chipsets had a short shelf life... It's nothing compared to the Z4XX.

If they are bothering with Comet Lake, God knows how long RKL will take - 2021 for sure excluding an earlier paper launch.
 
2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T

They're basically the same technology applied to 100mbs and 1gbs connections respectively. If it's got 2.5 why wouldn't it be 5?
 
2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T

They're basically the same technology applied to 100mbs and 1gbs connections respectively. If it's got 2.5 why wouldn't it be 5?
Frequency considerations, mostly. 2.5GbE has the same requirements as regular GbE (100MHz). 5GbE requires 250MHz. 10GbE requires 500MHz.

I suppose the thought is 2.5GbE can be a more direct drop in for GbE in most ways, whereas 5GbE and above may push some limits too far.
 
Frequency considerations, mostly. 2.5GbE has the same requirements as regular GbE (100MHz). 5GbE requires 250MHz. 10GbE requires 500MHz.

I suppose the thought is 2.5GbE can be a more direct drop in for GbE in most ways, whereas 5GbE and above may push some limits too far.


Right, You can run 2.5Gigabit on Cat 5e, up to 100 meters. You need Cat 6 to do 5Gbps. You still need Cat 6a to got 10gbps/100 meters.

2.5 is the most interesting spec, while 5.0 was added for corner cases (those who have installed Cat 6, but it's too far to run 10G). You get 2.5 times the speed, and all you have to do is upgrade the cards/switch. Some 2.5g chips are starting to come preinstalled in systems. in another few years, you'll only have to upgrade the switch.

Hopefully, PCIE 4 will lower the cost of 10Gbit eithernet cards. Then you'd only need a 1x port to install the things.
 
Yeah, I'm kind of done with Intel and their new sockets every month.

I still have a 8700K in my main machine because it's working but definitely going Ryzen next time.

Most of the other machines I've built have been full AMD, but I stuck with Intel/Nvidia on my main machine for the longest.

If Ryzen 4000 is really good, I would consider doing a new build, but it would mostly be for fun, there is no problem with the performance.
 
Yeah, I'm kind of done with Intel and their new sockets every month.

I still have a 8700K in my main machine because it's working but definitely going Ryzen next time.

Most of the other machines I've built have been full AMD, but I stuck with Intel/Nvidia on my main machine for the longest.

If Ryzen 4000 is really good, I would consider doing a new build, but it would mostly be for fun, there is no problem with the performance.


Yeah, meanwhile, Intel is barely dog paddling, with the incremental Comet Lake next month, and then moving back to 8 cores wit Rocket Lake.

Intel just seems to be addicted to 14nm, so it's going to be a few years before we get 10nm in more than 4 cores. And by that time, AM5 will be out, with 16 native cores per-chip!
 
Only interesting thing to me is the increased ddr4 speed. I have some 4700mhz ram that has been running around 4100 mhz due to imc limitations on my 9900k.
If rocket lake comes out at the end of the year I think it will be enough to stave off amd zen 3.
 
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