Why does Intel not have latest generation CPUs with more than 8 strong cores

Joined
May 30, 2016
Messages
62
I mean their Alder Lake CPUs still top out at 8 P cores. Rest of cores are efficiency cores? Is this a design choice or a technical limitation?



I mean would they have been able to make a 10 core CPU with just 10 P cores as 4 e cores take space of 1 P core I heard.



The Intel Alder Lake P cores are so fast and have like 10-15% better IPC at same clock speed as Zen 3 cores and they can clock much higher beyond 5GHz easily where as with Zen 3 you top out at 48GHz if lucky and usually closer to 4.6 or 4.7GHz all core overclock.



And sadly even Raptor Lake still going to have only 8 p cores but even more e cores.



Not that e cores are terrible like past atom cores, but they are still far inferior to P cores and only have Skylake IPC in best case scenarios and often far worse depending on type of code.



Such a shame as the P cores clock so high and well with top notch IPC that they cannot make a CPU with more than 8 of them. Is it a technical problem with their process node, or a design choice or both?? I mean could they have made a 10 core Alder Lake and if so I am sure it would sell like hot cakes to gamers who do not want hybrid arch, but wants lots of power cores and fast ones. As games do not need 16 cores yet and not even 12 or even 10, but 10 gives extra cushion and will age better than 8 cores for future video cards.



I would have stuck with Intel if they had more than 8 p cores on Alder Lake. Instead they topped out at 10 on Comet Lake which was limited to Gen 3 PCIe hardly future proof for video cards. And Zen 3 IPC hammered Comet Lake anyways even if clock speeds were not quite as high all core.



Such a shame there is no Intel 12th gen part with more than 8 P cores available for Alder Lake nor upcoming 13th gen Raptor Lake unless Intel changes things. They lost a customer as the e cores they have are so far inferior to AMD Zen 3 cores even if the P cores are superior, but less of a gap, but they stop at 8.



I am sure a 10 p core Alder Lake would compete and even beat a 5900X with 2 less cores maybe even at pure parallelism workloads as only 2 less cores, but 10-15% better IPC and much faster clocks. And games are becoming more parallelism with CPU cores, but only up to certain amount as they will not use as many cores as you can throw at them for a long long time. But 8 cores topping out is long in the tooth maybe soon and 10 to 12 would be perfect for gaming for years and years especially if you like high clock speeds and SMT/HT off for all core overclock.
 
I mean their Alder Lake CPUs still top out at 8 P cores. Rest of cores are efficiency cores? Is this a design choice or a technical limitation?
Yes.
I mean would they have been able to make a 10 core CPU with just 10 P cores as 4 e cores take space of 1 P core I heard.
The problem is, that in order for the CPU to be competitive it has to have a certain core count and achieve certain clock speeds within a specific thermal / power envelope. Yes, Intel could have given it 10 cores but it would have increased the power consumption and likely would have reduced the clock speeds.
The Intel Alder Lake P cores are so fast and have like 10-15% better IPC at same clock speed as Zen 3 cores and they can clock much higher beyond 5GHz easily where as with Zen 3 you top out at 48GHz if lucky and usually closer to 4.6 or 4.7GHz all core overclock.
Much higher? Ummm....no. Not really. Yes, the CPU's clock to 5.2GHz and can be clocked a little higher but doing so on all cores is quite difficult. Yes, Zen3 tops out at lower clocks, but so what? They are vastly different designs.
And sadly even Raptor Lake still going to have only 8 p cores but even more e cores.



Not that e cores are terrible like past atom cores, but they are still far inferior to P cores and only have Skylake IPC in best case scenarios and often far worse depending on type of code.



Such a shame as the P cores clock so high and well with top notch IPC that they cannot make a CPU with more than 8 of them. Is it a technical problem with their process node, or a design choice or both?? I mean could they have made a 10 core Alder Lake and if so I am sure it would sell like hot cakes to gamers who do not want hybrid arch, but wants lots of power cores and fast ones. As games do not need 16 cores yet and not even 12 or even 10, but 10 gives extra cushion and will age better than 8 cores for future video cards.
It's not that Intel couldn't create a larger die with more cores. As you'll see, they will with various Xeons. The problem is that the design architecture is only so efficient. You will end up with excessive TDP's running a ton of cores at competitive clocks. The 10 versus 8 argument really doesn't fly. The 11900K was just as fast or faster in games than the 10900K was. (8 versus 10.)
I would have stuck with Intel if they had more than 8 p cores on Alder Lake. Instead they topped out at 10 on Comet Lake which was limited to Gen 3 PCIe hardly future proof for video cards. And Zen 3 IPC hammered Comet Lake anyways even if clock speeds were not quite as high all core.
Gen 3 will be plenty for video cards for some time. Gen 4.0 doesn't make much if any difference thus far.
Such a shame there is no Intel 12th gen part with more than 8 P cores available for Alder Lake nor upcoming 13th gen Raptor Lake unless Intel changes things. They lost a customer as the e cores they have are so far inferior to AMD Zen 3 cores even if the P cores are superior, but less of a gap, but they stop at 8.
This is a weird way of looking at it. Processor selection should generally be made based on what's best given the workloads. AMD has some advantages in certain workloads. But if you are a gamer, 8 P cores is more than sufficient. Hell 6 would likely be fine.
I am sure a 10 p core Alder Lake would compete and even beat a 5900X with 2 less cores maybe even at pure parallelism workloads as only 2 less cores, but 10-15% better IPC and much faster clocks. And games are becoming more parallelism with CPU cores, but only up to certain amount as they will not use as many cores as you can throw at them for a long long time. But 8 cores topping out is long in the tooth maybe soon and 10 to 12 would be perfect for gaming for years and years especially if you like high clock speeds and SMT/HT off for all core overclock.
Entirely speculative and I think you are hung up on theoretical numbers. The fact is, at 1920x1080 or even 2560x1440, there is a difference between AMD and Intel, but it's academic as both can provide enough performance in games. At 4K, it's all GPU bound so it doesn't really matter much.
 
Interesting. I always though that Turbo Boost was meant for lower power draw while doing small tasks and full load with single threaded E cores when needed. Hence Raptor Lake won't use more than 8 P cores. and 12, 14, 16 E cores.
 
Such a shame there is no Intel 12th gen part with more than 8 P cores available for Alder Lake nor upcoming 13th gen Raptor Lake unless Intel changes things. They lost a customer as the e cores they have are so far inferior to AMD Zen 3 cores even if the P cores are superior, but less of a gap, but they stop at 8.
Maybe they are keeping their higher core count CPU's for the HEDT segment which is supposed to make a comeback later this year.
 
From what I see, Intel made a rather smart choice, for applications that use few cores, Intel has better IPC, while applications that can take advantage of multiple threads Intel 12900K for example keeps up with AMDs 16 big core design rather well in multithreaded loads while beating it in limited threaded applications. This is on an inferior process tech, so I say a good job by Intel. While not earth shattering at the same time, more power in general for like performance. AMD did not reduce pricing because they had no competition, they had to themselves in order to compete performance/$.

Another good thing this brings is the urgency for AMD to bring out Zen 4 sooner then later while Intel keeps an impressive update pace. While last couple Intel generations where not spectacular it did get Intel ready to pump out new designs from what I see quicker than AMD. While AMD X3D (VCache) single mainstream CPU is impressive, it is also not earth shattering either.

I don't see what applications would benefit more with 10P cores compared to 8P cores with a number of E cores. Games wouldn't, so what would? It would hurt the multithreaded applications performance in the end making it an inferior choice.
 
I don't see what applications would benefit more with 10P cores compared to 8P cores with a number of E cores. Games wouldn't, so what would? It would hurt the multithreaded applications performance in the end making it an inferior choice.
Cinema4d, Blender, Houdini, Unreal and Unity baking lightmaps on CPU. Basically the more the merrier. Hitting 240+ W is inconvenience for Alder lake.
 
Cinema4d, Blender, Houdini, Unreal and Unity baking lightmaps on CPU. Basically the more the merrier. Hitting 240+ W is inconvenience for Alder lake.
I am thinking you are saying the more e-cores the merrier. In anycase, in everyone of these test, the e-cores on the 12900K has significantly more performance than adding 2 more P cores (if one takes an average for the 8 Pcores 2T and adding an additional 2 Pcores and removing the Ecores)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1704...hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity/9

As in Cinebench R23, the 12900K shows better performance over the 16 big AMD Zen 3 cores using 8P and 8E, trading 8E for 10P I would conclude would hurt overall performance in Cinebench R23 and a number of other applications that use multithreading well.
https://www.techspot.com/review/2351-intel-core-i9-12900k/
 
If you look at the power draw under load of a 12900K, I think you will have answered your own question.

power-of-the-sun-in-my-computer.png
 
As in Cinebench R23, the 12900K shows better performance over the 16 big AMD Zen 3 cores using 8P and 8E, trading 8E for 10P I would conclude would hurt overall performance in Cinebench R23 and a number of other applications that use multithreading well.
I'm wondering if overall performance is consequence how software applications is written. There could be that software can be written wiser to get better performance on the same CPU. Is there any development in that direction and not just the more E cores or regular cores on AMD?
 
Intel traditionally bifurcates their lineup with two dies, the 'laptop' dies (efficiency-optimized SoCs with GPUs) and 'server' dies (performance-optimized, requires an external chipset for connectivity, no GPU). AMD does it too - the APUs are laptop parts with a traditional design, the rest are MCMs with separate IO dies. The current ADL products are all laptop dies and it just doesn't make sense to have 8+ P-cores in a laptop - the P-cores' strength are they can clock to 5+ GHz but at the expense of huge power and you'll never have the power budget for 8 30W P-cores in a laptop.

What you're waiting for is Sapphire rapids, which is an all-P design for servers that should filter down to HEDT as well. SPR will give you 18+ P-cores on desktop (maybe 56 if we get lucky) but the thermals quickly get unmanageable, 18 5GHz P-cores is 540W which is on the lunatic fringe of what you want to deal with in a home system.
 
Intel traditionally bifurcates their lineup with two dies, the 'laptop' dies (efficiency-optimized SoCs with GPUs) and 'server' dies (performance-optimized, requires an external chipset for connectivity, no GPU).
If wikipedia is to be believed, Intel has four different dies for Alder Lake so far, so I don't think they're following the same script as before. There's two desktop (8P+8E, 6P+0E) with weak GPUs and two mobile (6P + 8E, 2P + 8E). The desktop chips are different than the laptop chips, but yes, it looks like we'll get this architecture (or something close) in server chips and I'd expect some bigger dies with more P cores and all that.
 
I am sure a 10 p core Alder Lake would compete and even beat a 5900X with 2 less cores maybe even at pure parallelism workloads as only 2 less cores, but 10-15% better IPC and much faster clocks. And games are becoming more parallelism with CPU cores, but only up to certain amount as they will not use as many cores as you can throw at them for a long long time. But 8 cores topping out is long in the tooth maybe soon and 10 to 12 would be perfect for gaming for years and years especially if you like high clock speeds and SMT/HT off for all core overclock.
8 of Intel's P cores beat a 3900x in multicore workloads and Cinibench R23 multicore benchmark score.
They beat 5900x in single and lightly threaded applications and in gaming.

Add the E-cores and you beat 5900x and match or beat 5950x in multicore.

Intel is already there.
 
8 of Intel's P cores beat a 3900x in multicore workloads and Cinibench R23 multicore benchmark score.
They beat 5900x in single and lightly threaded applications and in gaming.

Add the E-cores and you beat 5900x and match or beat 5950x in multicore.

Intel is already there.


Yeah you are right. And the e cores though not as good as p cores are actually pretty decent and pack a powerful punch.

The P cores obviously have best IPC in the world of any CPU core clock for clock of currently on market CPUs. How would you rate e cores IPC. I have heard it is like Sylake or Zen 2 which is actually pretty darn good? Are they that good even better or not quite that fast clock for clock IPC compared to Zen 2, Skylake, Comet Lake, Rocket Lake, Haswell, Zen+ etc...
 
Yeah you are right. And the e cores though not as good as p cores are actually pretty decent and pack a powerful punch.

The P cores obviously have best IPC in the world of any CPU core clock for clock of currently on market CPUs. How would you rate e cores IPC. I have heard it is like Sylake or Zen 2 which is actually pretty darn good? Are they that good even better or not quite that fast clock for clock IPC compared to Zen 2, Skylake, Comet Lake, Rocket Lake, Haswell, Zen+ etc...
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-e-cores-only-performance/
 


That certainly put the e cores in a much more positive light than the Techspot article here: https://www.techspot.com/review/2374-intel-alder-lake-architecture/

The TechSpot article says their IPC is more like Sandy Bridge. Where as Tech Power up say they are more like Skylake IPC.

Well to be fair, it was 8 tested 8 cores against lower core counts that won. But I think they have much better than Sandy Bridge IPC per core. I think it is closer to Haswell or Broadwell E IPC and can sometimes match or exceed Skylake IPC.
 
isnt intel copying amd soon with chiplets swear i saw they completely ripped off Zen 3 design and published as there own.
 
That certainly put the e cores in a much more positive light than the Techspot article here: https://www.techspot.com/review/2374-intel-alder-lake-architecture/

The TechSpot article says their IPC is more like Sandy Bridge. Where as Tech Power up say they are more like Skylake IPC.

Well to be fair, it was 8 tested 8 cores against lower core counts that won. But I think they have much better than Sandy Bridge IPC per core. I think it is closer to Haswell or Broadwell E IPC and can sometimes match or exceed Skylake IPC.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that the E cores do not have hyperthreading. Usually, the situations where older 4 core intels do a lot better than only using the E cores, are situations where hyperthreading helps. But, that also isn't the entire picture. The E cores are limited in some other aspects and also use a lot less power. That said, they do a pretty good job of filling the need for extra cores/threads.
 
Wasn't there some sort of mandated eternal cross-sharing as a part avoiding anti-trust? (some of that is very old, and I have no idea of the current state)
 
pretty sure intel still has to pay amd for the x64 license if thats still in effect not 100% sure.
 
One thing you have to keep in mind is that the E cores do not have hyperthreading. Usually, the situations where older 4 core intels do a lot better than only using the E cores, are situations where hyperthreading helps. But, that also isn't the entire picture. The E cores are limited in some other aspects and also use a lot less power. That said, they do a pretty good job of filling the need for extra cores/threads.


Yes you are right. They should have done the test with Skylake and Haswell and Zen CPUs with same core counts and SMT/HT disabled on all for fair comparison. The e cores are good and I really believe I am going to like 16 real cores with HT shut off on my 12900KS once system is completed. 8 of the fastest cores in the market clocked high and 8 other good cores still. And future proof for gaming 16 real cores and real threads unlike PS5 and XBOX Series X 8/16 Zen where I have as many threads but all backed by real cores as well.
 
Back
Top