Intel Readies New Stepping of 9th Gen Core Processors
by Anton Shilov on March 26, 2019 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Coffee Lake
- Core 9th Gen
ASUS and GIGABYTE have issued BIOS updates for their Intel 300-series chipsets-based motherboards that enable the platforms to work with Intel’s upcoming 9th Gen Core processors featuring a new stepping. The new CPUs will reportedly be available in the coming weeks.
Starting this week, all of ASUS’ 300-series motherboards with the latest BIOS versions will support Intel’s upcoming 9th Generation Core processors based on a new stepping. GIGABYTE has also issued new BIOS versions for its 300-series mainboards to enable support for the aforementioned CPUs.
GIGABYTE reveals that the new stepping will carry the R0 stepping ID. Intel’s existing 9th Gen Core processors carry the P0 stepping ID, whereas the 8th Gen Core processors use the U0 silicon. ASUS says that the new Coffee Lake R0 CPUs will be released in the second quarter. Regrettably, neither of the motherboard makers disclose differences between the current and forthcoming CPUs.
ASRock has also made a similar announcement.
Producers of processors release new product steppings for many reasons. Some new steppings fix certain errata, other enable higher clocks or lower TDP. Without a proper disclosure from Intel it is hard to say what the new stepping will bring. Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that Intel plans to launch a new stepping of its Coffee Lake processors for whatever reason as it gets increasingly hard to make any alterations to modern CPUs.
Intel did not comment on the news story.
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Source: ASUS (via TechPowerUp)
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Jimbo Jones - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
BigMama - someone needs to invent a sarcasm font, lol ...JlHADJOE - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
> When you hold a 9900k to its 95w tdp - it performs worse than a 2700x in multi-threaded loads so you know there's something fishy there ...GamersNexus' test says otherwise:
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3378-intel-9...
" With the ASUS Maximus XI Hero that we used for our 9900K, a stricter adherence to Intel’s stock policies means we see a sharp drop-off in power consumption when testing under full stock conditions. The CPU falls to 100W load and stays there, leaving more performance available if we were to remove power targets and limits. Some of the other motherboards shipping today will exit these Intel power specs and draw more power. The 2700X pushes closer to about 120W-125W draw. Intel manages to achieve better overall combined throughput for the player and viewer while maintaining a lower power consumption, for which the 9900K deserves acclaim. It is, of course, significantly more expensive, and that is a big factor to play into our conclusion."
In their game streaming benchmarks the 9900k consumes less power while delivery better performance for both viewer and streamer compared to the 2700X.
Notmyusualid - Friday, March 29, 2019 - link
Joe - agreed.eddman - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
Going past TDP is not inherently wrong for a desktop processor, if the cooling and power delivery are up to the task.It's not surprising that 9900k draws so much power at such extreme frequencies. Once you pass a certain threshold, efficiency goes right out the window and power goes up exponentially.
It's also not surprising that when limited to 95W, it performs worse than a 2700x. At 95W the 9900k stays at its base 3.6 GHz clock speed when fully loaded, while 2700x is free to draw as much as ~105W and reach a higher frequency. It might not look like much, but that 10W is quite enough to make a difference. Nothing fishy here. A 9900k limited to 105W should at least be able to match its performance.
Same story for 9800k's high power draw.
If ryzen CPUs could reach 5.0 GHz, you'd see just as high, if not higher, power consumption numbers.
To properly test and compare the efficiency of two processors' architecture/node, you should run them at the same clock speeds, under the same conditions, to get the real picture.
As a side example, Ian managed to achieve 4.5 GHz with a 113W power draw.
https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13400/9900K%20OC...
Yes, he did choose the voltages manually (instead of using the Auto mode) which resulted in lower numbers but it does show the CPU is capable of running efficiently. Also, keep in mind that the Auto mode of some motherboards is too aggressive and choose unnecessarily high voltages.
Another interesting thing to note in that table; going from 4.5 to 5.0, an 11% increase, resulted in a 70% increase in power.
eddman - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
It seems 2700x can go well beyond 105W depending on the board; comparing a 95W-locked 9900k against it seems to be even less appropriate than I thought.eek2121 - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
My money is on this being a silent update to compete with zen 2.bobhumplick - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
wow 14++++++++++ i havent heard that a million frickin time. honestly. thats the first time ive heard that jokeIronchef3500 - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
HeheSahrin - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
A stepping is a change in the mask set, not the manufacturing process. (Same process building slightly different design).Santoval - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
A new stepping is not a new node. It is just a slight or (rarely) moderate fix or "clean up" of the exact same node. The size of the transistors, cells and of the BEOL layers are never modified with a new stepping. If you do more than fix or clean up the node, but less than developing a true successor node (in order to increase transistor density and reduce die sizes), that's when you usually add symbols like + to create something halfway between a new stepping and a truly new node. Which is what Intel have been doing since 2014.