Intel Rocket Lake Preview: A New Architecture

Is it worth to upgrade from I7 8700k to Rocket Lake only for gaming?
I play at 1440p
I certainly wouldn't be in a rush, but honestly (and I know you would hate this answer), it depends on what you play, and what your goals are (for instance, if you are happy with 60 FPS, don't bother, but if you want 144+, especially in multi, then maybe, depending on settings and the game engine).

But first and foremost, we need to see if those claimed IPC gains are really there in life too...until then, just enjoy your rig :)
 
"Using the new features will require a new 500-series motherboard."

But of course!!. Just another day at Intel.

Has anyone compared how many new motherboards Intel has required the last 10 years vs AMD??
 
As nice as Ryzen's are, let's not spread FUD. Splitting CPU + iGPU across different dies made on different process nodes but within one CPU package aren't "chiplets", nor is it even new or "invented" by Ryzen. For those who can't remember, here's two 2010-era Clarkdale i3-530 reviews by Anandtech and TechPowerUp illustrating how (32nm CPU + 45nm iGPU on separate die but same package) is exactly how Rocket Lake (14nm CPU + 10nm iGPU graphics on separate die but same package) will work (as well as a photo of one delidded). I'm honesty surprised Techspot had to ask readers "how" it could be done...
Thanks for bringing up those interesting examples, I'd forgotten about those. But don't worry, we're aware that there's a few ways of combining different nodes on one chip, and several of us at TechSpot have written articles mentioning them in the past. But the technology takes a long time to explain, and isn't really relevant to this article, so we didn't cover it.
 
"Because of these similarities, it's likely that Rocket Lake is based on a derivative of Sunny Cove."

Wait, what? "Likely"? Hasn't that been public knowledge ever since Rocket Lake first appeared in Intel's roadmaps?
 
Preview means you have the product in hand. Do you?
Or is this an article to spell a bit of bad words about 11th gen so that people will just buy zen 3? Hmm....
 
As nice as Ryzen's are, let's not spread FUD. Splitting CPU + iGPU across different dies made on different process nodes but within one CPU package aren't "chiplets.
I realize that some sites reported Twitter speculation that Rocket Lake would be a multi-chip module, but based on this interview with Intel's Director of Process and Product Integration, chiplets seem much more likely. And regardless of what the actuality turns out to be, I think the term "FUD" doesn't apply.
 
" Fourth generation of Ryzen, launching next month, will put the final nail in Intel's coffin". I beg to differ, Intel is alive and well and probably immortal anyway (;p). Completely dismissing Intel on some inside AMD benches is just dumb. If, god forbid, they can pull another Core2duo moment with Alder Lake, then you guys better be prepared to nail another coffin.
With Alder Lake being on a smaller node - I think Intel will find it hard to maintain high clock speeds that traditionally gave it the edge in gaming.
But you never know....It MAY be another Core2duo arch improvement. More importantly for Intel - They need a better server arch, as AMD is eating their (high profits) lunch at the moment, and with imminent new server chips just around the corner, it's not looking too good for Intel.
 
Rocket lake feels a lot like media attention launch. They get some press, average Joe hears about new stuff and because Intel is still such big name, might be convinced that this new thing is better than AMDs. Plus it gives OEMs something they can call new. While it buys them time to get Alder Lake out. Since absence on market for half year, if it doesn't get delayed, would be pretty bad. Especially since OEMs and less savvy users have less and less of an excuse to stick with Intel, as AMD is making good name for themselves.

As for Alder Lake, we will have to see. AMD will definitely need competition on top, otherwise they will get into same bad habits Intel did. Price increase with 5000 series isn't unjustified, they are supposed to be on top, but it won't stop with future generations, if Intel doesn't compete. Still with all delays Intel has, I wouldn't put it past them for Alder Lake to be late and Rocket Lake having to carry Intel till they can make Alder Lake a thing, at least beyond paper launch, if not at all.
 
Having a separate CPU and GPU on an MCM (Multi-Chip Module) is not the same thing as splitting the functional units of a single processor into multiple chiplets as AMD has done with Zen 2 and 3. MCMs, specifically for CPUs, have been around for quite a long time now.


Right,, if you want to see this same messy design from Intel, lookup Clarksdale. it mixes a 32nm dual-core Nehalem with a 45nm GPU plus memory controller.

If I had to guess where they get those Xe units from, what about failed Ice Lake CPUs?
 
Is it worth to upgrade from I7 8700k to Rocket Lake only for gaming?
I play at 1440p

I don't think the 8700k needs an upgrade for gaming. 14nm 6/12 unlocked Intel are very close to the max gaming perfomance, to the point where the GPU is almost always the bottleneck, especially in 1440p. If you are at 1440p/60hz, you are definitely fine with the 8700k.

Currently the 10700k or 10850k are upgrade options that should provide a small improvement. Rocket lake will probably be the best for gaming for quite some time but we will have to wait for release/benchmarks to be sure.
 
Wow, Intel's people finally got off of their butts and DID SOMETHING. It only took three years of AMD Zen to do this. However, what they've done is make hypocrites of themselves:

Hypocrisy #1: Now they're using chiplets, a method pioneered by AMD that Intel belittled calling Ryzen CPUs "Glued Together".

Hypocrisy #2: In that recent unveiling of their latest mobile APUs (the one where they talked more about the AMD R7-4800U more than their own offerings), they referred to AMD as "imitators" and now they're not only imitating AMD64 but also AMD's effective chiplet strategy.

Intel's hubris and hypocrisy is so overt that it's almost funny but it ensures that enthusiasts will be all too happy to tell Intel to "stick it".
Nope, the first glued together CPU was from Intel. It was AMD that was making fun of them back then about the glued core 2 quad.
 
Rocket Lake is like an experiment, new architecture but still 14nm. From a gaming perspective, you want to wait for Alder Lake - - the first true challenger to AMD's Ryzen. Right now, Ryzen 4th gen is going to decimate Intel in gaming performance come November 5 once the benchies are out. Intel is still "in the game" but AMD will now lead gaming performance; something Intel has been touting as the only strong selling point of their 10th gen processors.
 
Nope, the first glued together CPU was from Intel. It was AMD that was making fun of them back then about the glued core 2 quad.
You need to read further because I said EXACTLY that to someone else in this thread. I pointed out that the Core2Quad was two Core2Duo dice in the same package.

The difference was that AMD wasn't being hypocritical back then (because they'd never done the same thing). Also, AMD didn't say "glued together", instead, they called the Phenom a "true" quad-core. As irrelevant/stupid as it was, What makes it worse is that in 2007, AMD may have been stupid since the Phenom was slower than the Core2Quad and only the Phenom II achieved parity with it.

Now, as stupid as their marketing team was, they weren't being hypocritical because they'd never done anything similar themselves. They never actually said anything negative about the Core2Quad, they instead called the Phenom a "true" quad-core. Instead of belittling the Core2Quad, AMD used a positive differentiation adjective when describing the Phenom by calling it a "true quad-core". Was AMD trying to imply that the Core2Quad wasn't a "true" quad-core? They probably were and that is very dishonest but they never actually came out and directly said so -> That's a BIG difference. They walked close to the line but they managed to not step over it.

In marketing it's much classier to talk up your product than to directly bad-mouth the competition like Intel does. I certainly hope that you can see the difference between the two approaches because your assertion that AMD was "making fun" of the Core2Quad is completely inaccurate. After all, how could AMD really poke fun of a CPU that was blowing everything that they had out of the water?

You should know that this was going on when I worked at Tiger Direct and I was privy to ALL of the marketing BS from ALL of the companies. This is also when I saw the things that made me never want to buy Intel or nVidia again (or MSi for that matter). It's very apparent that you weren't working in tech at the time but maybe thought that this would be an impressive anecdote, which it is, but context is king and your lack of context kinda killed it. You were trying to make Intel look like the "good guy" but that's a fool's errand because, history.

As for calling anyone "imitators", that's just hypocritical, infantile and desperate all wrapped up and rolled into one. Sure AMD has imitated Intel but both of these companies imitate each other at this point. I guess that it hadn't crossed your mind (or you just plain don't know) but Intel does imitate AMD as well. Here's a couple of examples just to prove the statement true:

  1. Intel adopted the AMD64 instruction set because their attempt to nuke the PC industry with IA-64 (aka Titanium) lost to Jim Keller's AMD64-based Athlon.
  2. After offering pretty much only quad-cores since the Core2Quad, Intel suddenly found a way to increase the core count of their CPUs after Ryzen was released. Coincidence? Not a chance.

I'm afraid that your memory is being selective for some reason or another and I think that I know why. It probably has something to do with your post history never having anything bad to say about Intel and never having anything good to say about AMD.
 
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Well, Rocket Lake in March 2021 will be late... it might have been sense in December, to fight against zen 3 (I’m expecting a 10/15% performance improvement on comet lake), but in March it will be late. Zen 3 will be widely available and prices will start to drop. How can you sell a rocket lake knowing that alder lake will come before the end of the year ? Unless alder lake has been delayed too...
for cheap. if its a drop in for 10700k/10850k/10900k owners than we'll buy it to take back the gaming crown. 5.5ghz all 8 cores with a 15% IPC improvement will be nice. It's the Penultimate 14nm Skylake cpu.
 
It was faster in games, by a measurable margin, then the 9900k. The 7700k was a marketing move. The 10900k was a genuine improvement, even if it came at the cost of rampant power consumption and wasnt all that impressive.
yep. and 10700k is a 9900KS (5.0Ghz all core is super easy. 70% can do 5.1ghz under 1.35v) for $349. Helluva deal since the 9900KS were going for like $700.
 
Like we are going to see Alder-Lake in Q3 or even Q4 of 2021 is a best a joke. This will be a 1H 2022 Launch, otherwise it will be nothing more than a paper launch Q4 2021. Intel's 10nm for the Desktop is just not ready for the scale needed. It will go head to head with Zen 4, and will probably do very little to close the gap.

Rocket Lake is just the 14nm version of Tiger Lake, it isn't impressive. While 14nm will allow it to clock higher, even with high clock speeds it will be behind Zen 3 in single thread performance. Zen 3 is just has that much more IPC compare to the best Intel has ATM. And with Intel's chips requiring a lot of power, you'll need a good cooling solution. Rocket Lake is packing more transistors, so don't expect these to sip power at load.

IMO Skip Rocket Lake, if you're dying for an upgrade Zen3 is here. Otherwise wait for the Zen4 vs Alder-Lake fight.
Rocket lake will win in gaming at 8-cores. Granted, they will get decimated in workloads and games that utilize more than 8-cores, but those are few and far between.
 
I don't buy into the Alder Lake hype for gaming at least, the combo Strong core - efficient core seems interesting for laptops - mobile devices mostly. If rocket lake has both decent IPC and clock improvements, and is priced competitively, it could probably be a better choice for gaming than Alder Lake.

Intel current lineup is fine for gaming (GPU is still the limit) and if the info released so far is true, so will be AMD 5xxx. It will be mostly a question of pricing and availability for the gaming market share.

The real question is when intel is releasing new HEDT and what It would actually be. AMD's 5950x seems to be destroying both Intel HEDT and AMD Threadripper at the same time.
considering it will be cheap, will clock to 5.5Ghz+, and is a drop in on my z490, and im on a 10700k so I dont even "lose" 2-cores like the 10900k guys, its a no-brainer for me.
 
Rocket Lake is like an experiment, new architecture but still 14nm. From a gaming perspective, you want to wait for Alder Lake - - the first true challenger to AMD's Ryzen. Right now, Ryzen 4th gen is going to decimate Intel in gaming performance come November 5 once the benchies are out. Intel is still "in the game" but AMD will now lead gaming performance; something Intel has been touting as the only strong selling point of their 10th gen processors.
that will require a whole new board. If you are on Comet Lake, Rocket Lake is a EZ call to "buy".
 
Kaby Lake-G, Raja Koduri. I don't know, whether there will be any lawsuit soon? Thoughts?
 
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You need to read further because I said EXACTLY that to someone else in this thread. I pointed out that the Core2Quad was two Core2Duo dice in the same package.

The difference was that AMD wasn't being hypocritical back then (because they'd never done the same thing). Also, AMD didn't say "glued together", instead, they called the Phenom a "true" quad-core. As irrelevant/stupid as it was, What makes it worse is that in 2007, AMD may have been stupid since the Phenom was slower than the Core2Quad and only the Phenom II achieved parity with it.

Now, as stupid as their marketing team was, they weren't being hypocritical because they'd never done anything similar themselves. They never actually said anything negative about the Core2Quad, they instead called the Phenom a "true" quad-core. Instead of belittling the Core2Quad, AMD used a positive differentiation adjective when describing the Phenom by calling it a "true quad-core". Was AMD trying to imply that the Core2Quad wasn't a "true" quad-core? They probably were and that is very dishonest but they never actually came out and directly said so -> That's a BIG difference. They walked close to the line but they managed to not step over it.

In marketing it's much classier to talk up your product than to directly bad-mouth the competition like Intel does. I certainly hope that you can see the difference between the two approaches because your assertion that AMD was "making fun" of the Core2Quad is completely inaccurate. After all, how could AMD really poke fun of a CPU that was blowing everything that they had out of the water?

You should know that this was going on when I worked at Tiger Direct and I was privy to ALL of the marketing BS from ALL of the companies. This is also when I saw the things that made me never want to buy Intel or nVidia again (or MSi for that matter). It's very apparent that you weren't working in tech at the time but maybe thought that this would be an impressive anecdote, which it is, but context is king and your lack of context kinda killed it. You were trying to make Intel look like the "good guy" but that's a fool's errand because, history.

As for calling anyone "imitators", that's just hypocritical, infantile and desperate all wrapped up and rolled into one. Sure AMD has imitated Intel but both of these companies imitate each other at this point. I guess that it hadn't crossed your mind (or you just plain don't know) but Intel does imitate AMD as well. Here's a couple of examples just to prove the statement true:

  1. Intel adopted the AMD64 instruction set because their attempt to nuke the PC industry with IA-64 (aka Titanium) lost to Jim Keller's AMD64-based Athlon.
  2. After offering pretty much only quad-cores since the Core2Quad, Intel suddenly found a way to increase the core count of their CPUs after Ryzen was released. Coincidence? Not a chance.

I'm afraid that your memory is being selective for some reason or another and I think that I know why. It probably has something to do with your post history never having anything bad to say about Intel and never having anything good to say about AMD.

There is not much difference between **** talking the opposition and propping up your own product. Saying ''we have the fastest CPU" isn't much different to saying "our opposition has a slower CPU". They mean the exact same thing. To me what matters is whether the actual talking points are true.
 
What's the point of this release if Alder lake is coming 6 months later and blows Rocket lake out the water?! The Ryzen 5000 series is being released next month; those are on 7nm and beat Rocket lake in performance...4 months before Rocket lake is even released!
 
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