Hexa-core Coffee Lake CPU specifications leak

[Shawn Knight]

Intel’s upcoming Coffee Lake lineup has been the subject of multiple leaks over the past several months with the latest being the most revealing yet.

The crew over at eTeknix recently shared details on a trio of purported Coffee Lake CPUs. As you can see below, all three chips are six-core parts with 12MB of L3 cache that utilize the LGA 1151 socket.

The fastest of the three checks in with a base core frequency of 3.7GHz and can boost up to 4.3 GHz on a single core (4.2GHz on two cores and 4.0GHz across four and six cores). The next fastest chip offers a base core frequency of just 3.2GHz with a max single-core turbo frequency of 3.6GHz followed by the slowest of the pack at 3.1GHz base with a 4.2GHz single-core boost (4.1GHz dual-core boost with 3.9GHz quad- and hexa-core boost).

All of the chips support dual-channel DDR4 memory at up to 2,400MHz. The two fastest processors boast a TDP of 95 watts and are overclockable with the slowest of the bunch requiring just 65 watts (and offer no overclocking). Interestingly enough, the list makes no mention of Hyper Threading.

Coffee Lake is Intel’s fourth CPU family built on the 14nm manufacturing process and could arrive as early as next month. Intel has previously said that Coffee Lake will offer performance gains of as much as 30 percent compared to comparable Kaby Lake chips (specifically, the 15W U-series part).

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70266-hexa-core-coffee-lake-cpu-specifications-leak.html

 

[OcelotRex]

Interestingly enough, the list makes no mention of Hyper Threading.

6-core with almost be DOA if it were priced between the i5's and i7's. It's curious that was an omission in the "leak."

 

[hahahanoobs]

Interestingly enough, the list makes no mention of Hyper Threading.

wccftech's source claims to confirm one of the three chips is the 8700K and will have HT.

6-core with almost be DOA if it were priced between the i5's and i7's. It's curious that was an omission in the "leak."

These 6-core chips are the current i5 and i7's replacements...

 

[captaincranky]

-@hahahanoobs First you get the AMD fanboys all riled up by "trolling" all their triumph threads, and now you have your response locked inside a quote box. What on earth are we ever going to do with you?

 

[OcelotRex]

I don't think these are the i5 or i7 replacements. The frequency is too slow.

 

[Flebbert]

If they get some IPC increase in these CPUs they will have a new monster to let out. 7700K IPC + 10% on 6 cores with HT without all the X299 rubbish it will be an insane CPU.

That memory will definitely increase from 2400MHz as well.

Know a few people with TI's that would love it.

 

[SamuraiSamson]

If they get some IPC increase in these CPUs they will have a new monster to let out. 7700K IPC + 10% on 6 cores with HT without all the X299 rubbish it will be an insane CPU.

That memory will definitely increase from 2400MHz as well.

Know a few people with TI's that would love it.

X299 was disappointing for gaming while the 7700k held its own or bettered higher core chips in a lot of games. Maybe scaling to 6 might not be as good , but methinks Coffee Lake will be the new sweetspot for gamers if it uses the same cache structure .

 

[pencea]

" As you can see below, all three chips are six-core parts with 12MB of L3 cache that utilize the LGA 1151 socket."

So does that mean Coffee Lake will be compatible with Z100 too or is it only exclusive to Z200?

 

[captaincranky]

...[ ]....So does that mean Coffee Lake will be compatible with Z100 too or is it only exclusive to Z200?

Hey, it might still be up in the air, as to which operating system you'll be allowed to use with it.....

With that said, if we're still on the same socket, shouldn't backwards compatibility be a (mostly) given, predicated on whether or not the makers of our 1xx series boards, deliver updated BIOS in a timely fashion?

Hell, how are we doing so far? Can you stuff Kaby Lake into Skylake boards? Would you want to?

 

[hahahanoobs]

I don't think these are the i5 or i7 replacements. The frequency is too slow.

The leaks and Intel roadmap says 8th Generation in 2H 17, so I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[OcelotRex]

The leaks and Intel roadmap says 8th Generation in 2H 17, so I don't know what else to tell you.

You said replacements I.e. there will be no 4 core i5's and 4/8 i7's but instead these 3 6 core processors. While neither of us has any information to confirm it's more likely these will be in addition to normal i5's and i7's that are offered in Kaby Lake.

I'm not buying the WCCFTech report ATM.

 

[GreenNova343]

Well, I'd say it's going to be a given that Coffee Lake will be designed to work with the 300-series chipsets. I can see Intel going the same route as it did with Kaby Lake & allowing a BIOS update to let 200-series chipsets run Coffee Lake...but whether or not they'll do that for 100-series chipsets is probably up in the air (they'll probably say they're "too old", or some other crazy reason, so that you'll have to buy the new board).

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/05/intel-coffee-lake-performance/

Note that, for the 30% improvement, they compared the i7-7500U (a 2C/4T CPU, 2.7GHz base/3.5GHz boost) against an unspecified 4C/8T Coffee Lake i7 clocked at 4GHz boost, and they only tested them in a single benchmark (SYSmark 2014 version 1.5). If that's a multi-thread benchmark, then it's actually very disappointing, since you had to double the chip's resources to get that 30% improvement. If it's a single-thread benchmark, it's still somewhat deceptive, since a major chunk of the supposed improvement is from the clock speed (~14% clock speed improvement), & only leaves maybe ~13-14% of the improvement is from actual IPC increases.

I don't necessarily see a problem with Wccftech's information (http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-core-i7-8700k-6-core-cpu-specifications-details-leak/), although it disturbs me that so far it's the only source listed on Wikipedia's Core i7 article; nothing from Intel at all. I do find it interesting, though, that if the 3.7Ghz base CPU is, in fact, the i7-8700K, & is in fact a 6C/12T CPU, that it actually shows a drop in performance in order to squeeze those extra cores in:
-- Kaby Lake i7-7700K (4C/8T): 4.2GHz base, 4.4GHz boost with 2/3/4 cores, 4.5Ghz boost with 1 core; L2 is 256KiB/core, L3 is 8MiB (2MiB/Core); 91W TDP
-- assumed Coffee Lake i7-8700K (6C/8T): 3.7GHz base, 4.0GHz boost with 3 or 4 cores, 4.2 GHz boost with 2 cores, 4.3GHz boost with 1 core; L2 is 256KiB/core, L3 is 12MiB (2MiB/core); 95W TDP

Sure, you might say that they do the same thing going from the Core i3 to the Core i5 (i3-7350K is 4.2GHz vs. i5-7600K at 3.8GHz), except that a) the i3-7350K has no boost (& on a single core the i5-7600K can match it), & b) the i7-7700K has the same cores as the i5 but clocks higher (pretty much proving that the core i5 chips are just core i7s that didn't quite make the grade & have HT turned off). And again, I wonder how much of that improvement in the benchmark test Intel provided might be due to the increased L3 cache in the Coffee Lake chips (needed because of the additional cores), combined with the higher clock speeds, vs. actual architecture improvements.

 

[hahahanoobs]

You said replacements I.e. there will be no 4 core i5's and 4/8 i7's but instead these 3 6 core processors. While neither of us has any information to confirm it's more likely these will be in addition to normal i5's and i7's that are offered in Kaby Lake.

I'm not buying the WCCFTech report ATM.

That's up to you, but these leaks have been saying for at least a week one of these chips is the 8700K, so it looks like the these are at least the new K chips. You were the one that was wondering if these were some new category of chips undercutting the i5 and i7's and they are not.

 

[OcelotRex]

That's up to you, but these leaks have been saying for at least a week one of these chips is the 8700K, so it looks like the these are at least the new K chips. You were the one that was wondering if these were some new category of chips undercutting the i5 and i7's and they are not.

I never said anything of the sort. I said a 6-core chip (implied without HT) priced between the 5's and 7's (implied 4 core and 4/8 core/thread) would be DOA. I find the shift to cores over frequency unbelievable this quickly.

 

[GreenNova343]

I've seen rumors that the Core i5 will be released in both 6C/6T & 4C/8T flavors, but that doesn't really make sense to me. Nor does it especially make sense then for the Core i3 to be increased up to a 4C/8T as those rumors implied. Mainly, it doesn't make sense because it kind of breaks Intel's whole sales scheme:
-- Core i3 as a 2C/4T CPU for everyday & light gaming usage
-- Core i5 as a 4C/4T CPU for gaming & light editing/streaming usage
-- Core i7 as a 4C/8T CPU for heavy gaming & editing/streaming usage
-- the new Core i9 as a 6+C/12+T CPU for super-heavy editing/streaming & server usage
As well as giving you the weird choice of picking a 4C/8T i3 or a 6C/6T i5 for your lower-end.

The only way a quad-core Core i3 makes sense, at least IMHO, is if Intel is planning on shifting everything for Coffee Lake:
-- Core i3 now becomes a 4C/4T CPU (still for everyday & light/medium gaming)
-- Core i5 now becomes a 4C/8T CPU (medium/heavy gaming & light/medium editing/streaming), with an option for some 6C/6T versions
-- Core i7 now becomes a 6C/12T CPU (heavy gaming & editing/streaming)
-- That leaves Core i9 out in the cold, unless it switches to an 8+C/16+T platform for server usage

But then, I'm just a computer geek, what do I know?

 

[hahahanoobs]

I never said anything of the sort. I said a 6-core chip (implied without HT) priced between the 5's and 7's (implied 4 core and 4/8 core/thread) would be DOA. I find the shift to cores over frequency unbelievable this quickly.

And I told you these chips aren't in-between chips. These are believed to be 8th gen K chips. Two leaks a week apart have confirmed this. As for the lower clock speed, Intel may have some IPC tricks up their sleeve or they believe 6 cores will naturally be faster overall than 4 cores. Only time will tell.

That's what I get from these leaks. Not surprising really considering AMD fired the first shot with Ryzen.

 

[OcelotRex]

And I told you these chips aren't in-between chips. These are believed to be 8th gen K chips. Two leaks a week apart have confirmed this. As for the lower clock speed, Intel may have some IPC tricks up their sleeve or they believe 6 cores will naturally be faster overall than 4 cores. Only time will tell.

That's what I get from these leaks. Not surprising really considering AMD fired the first shot with Ryzen.

That's incredibly surprising considering how long it takes to bring a processor to market. Ryzen took nearly 5 years; for Intel to be adopting their strategy within a few months of Ryzen's launch would be spectacular. Also with that kind of planning they could have just beaten AMD to the punch and rendered Ryzen obsolete before it hit the market.

And again leaks don't really mean much so like you said time will tell how far off you are.

 

[hahahanoobs]

That's incredibly surprising considering how long it takes to bring a processor to market. Ryzen took nearly 5 years; for Intel to be adopting their strategy within a few months of Ryzen's launch would be spectacular. Also with that kind of planning they could have just beaten AMD to the punch and rendered Ryzen obsolete before it hit the market.

And again leaks don't really mean much so like you said time will tell how far off you are.

Oh wow....

 

[OcelotRex]

Oh wow....

Good contribution.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Good contribution.

I know. That's why I said it.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Oh wow....

And the leaks keep confirming the obvious. 6 core chips (6/6 and 6/12) will be REPLACING the flagship 4/4 i5 and 4/8 i7 chips.
Intel Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8600K Clock Speeds Leaked – 4.7 GHz For The Flagship on a Single Core, 4.3 GHz Across All Six Cores

 

[OcelotRex]

And the leaks keep confirming the obvious. 6 core chips (6/6 and 6/12) will be REPLACING the flagship 4/4 i5 and 4/8 i7 chips.
Intel Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8600K Clock Speeds Leaked – 4.7 GHz For The Flagship on a Single Core, 4.3 GHz Across All Six Cores

You are a bit dense - the "leaks" are still coming from WCCFtech who are sourcing them from Anandtech...but not the main site.

The "leaks" are coming from Anandtech's forums.

It's possible you could end up being right but only through pure, dumb luck. Whether that happens or not the first "leak" was proven to be wrong:

Another leak that was posted last week reported different clock speeds but turns out that was representing early ES chips while the latest leak reports final model specs.

Translation: we were wrong the first time but trust us this time...[/quote]

 

[GreenNova343]

And...wow....apparently Coffee Lake will not be supported on the 100/200-series chipset boards. In other words, Skylake & Kaby Lake users are out of luck in terms of upgrading to Coffee Lake.

http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-cpu-not-compatible-200-series-motherboards/

And for those that, for whatever reason, don't trust Wffctech...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-coffee-lake-cpu-motherboard-asrock,35147.html

Tom's Hardware not only referenced the tweet, they actually confirmed it with official ASRock representatives.

Now, take it how you will -- I'm sure some people will say that this only means that ASRock isn't going to make a BIOS upgrade to allow their older boards to work with Coffee Lake. But...do you honestly think that ASRock's executives are so short-sighted that they would actually choose to not make a BIOS upgrade available to at least their 200-series boards if there was any chance that their competitors (MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc.) would make such a BIOS upgrade available? Especially since Kaby Lake just got released 7 months ago, Skylake 18 months before that, & both are using the same LGA 1151 socket that Coffee Lake is going to use.

Despite a personal preference for AMD products, I usually try to avoid Intel bashing or any other forms of fanboyism. But in this case, I gotta call this an extremely short-sighted decision on the part of Intel.[/QUOTE]

 

[OcelotRex]

And for those that, for whatever reason, don't trust Wffctech...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-coffee-lake-cpu-motherboard-asrock,35147.html

The Tom's article addressed that:

We've filtered through a slew of recent Coffee Lake "leaks," with some specifications being outright fabrications, others unlikely, and still others somewhat questionable. A few, though, have seemed plausible, such as the recent SiSoftware Official Live Ranker submissions. There's also been word recently that Coffee Lake features AMD's iGPU technology, but that's just a basic misunderstanding of what "amd64" means.

As to not being supported on the 100/200 series as long as the new chipset brings meaningful upgrades it won't be an issue. The only other mitigating factor might be in the design; I don't think MSI, ASUS, etc are in cahoots with Intel to sell new Mobos.

 

[GreenNova343]

The Tom's article addressed that:



As to not being supported on the 100/200 series as long as the new chipset brings meaningful upgrades it won't be an issue. The only other mitigating factor might be in the design; I don't think MSI, ASUS, etc are in cahoots with Intel to sell new Mobos.

That's going to be the key factor. Although at first glance, assuming Wccftech has the details right (http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-8th-gen-cpu-300-series-platform-details-leak/), I'm not really impressed. 24 chipset PCIe lanes; Intel Optane support? 10 USB3 ports? 6 SATA III ports? That looks a whole lot like Kaby Lake's Z270 chipset...