Intel Rocket Lake (14nm) Review: Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K, and Core i5-11600K
by Dr. Ian Cutress on March 30, 2021 10:03 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- LGA1200
- 11th Gen
- Rocket Lake
- Z590
- B560
- Core i9-11900K
Intel’s New Adaptive Boost Technology for Core i9-K/KF
Taken from our news item
To say that Intel’s turbo levels are complicated to understand is somewhat of an understatement. Trying to teach the difference between the turbo levels to those new to measuring processor performance is an art form in of itself. But here’s our handy guide, taken from our article on the subject.
Adaptive Boost Technology is now the fifth frequency metric Intel uses on its high-end enthusiast grade processors, and another element in Intel’s ever complex ‘Turbo’ family of features. Here’s the list, in case we forget one:
| Intel Frequency Levels | ||
| Base Frequency | - | The frequency at which the processor is guaranteed to run under warranty conditions with a power consumption no higher than the TDP rating of the processor. |
| Turbo Boost 2.0 | TB2 | When in a turbo mode, this is the defined frequency the cores will run at. TB2 varies with how many cores are being used. |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | TBM3 'Favored Core' |
When in a turbo mode, for the best cores on the processor (usually one or two), these will get extra frequency when they are the only cores in use. |
| Thermally Velocity Boost | TVB | When in a turbo mode, if the peak thermal temperature detected on the processor is below a given value (70ºC on desktops), then the whole processor will get a frequency boost of +100 MHz. This follows the TB2 frequency tables depending on core loading. |
| Adaptive Boost Technology | ABT 'floating turbo' |
When in a turbo mode, if 3 or more cores are active, the processor will attempt to provide the best frequency within the power budget, regardless of the TB2 frequency table. The limit of this frequency is given by TB2 in 2-core mode. ABT overrides TVB when 3 or more cores are active. |
| *Turbo mode is limited by the turbo power level (PL2) and timing (Tau) of the system. Intel offers recommended guidelines for this, but those guidelines can be overridden (and are routinely ignored) by motherboard manufacturers. Most gaming motherboards will implement an effective ‘infinite’ turbo mode. In this mode, the peak power observed will be the PL2 value. It is worth noting that the 70ºC requirement for TVB is also often ignored, and TVB will be applied whatever the temperature. | ||
Intel provided a slide trying to describe the new ABT, however the diagram is a bit of a mess and doesn’t explain it that well. Here’s the handy AnandTech version.
First up is the Core i7-11700K that AnandTech has already reviewed. This processor has TB2, TBM3, but not TVB or ABT.
The official specifications show that when one to four cores are loaded, when in turbo mode, it will boost to 4.9 GHz. If it is under two cores, the OS will shift the threads onto the favored cores and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 will kick in for 5.0 GHz. More than four core loading will be distributed as above.
On the Core i9-11900, the non-overclocking version, we also get Thermal Velocity Boost which adds another +100 MHz onto every core max turbo, but only if the processor is below 70ºC.
We can see here that the first two cores get both TBM3 (favored core) as well as TVB, which makes those two cores give a bigger jump. In this case, if all eight cores are loaded, the turbo is 4.6 GHz, unless the CPU is under 70ºC, then we get an all-core turbo of 4.7 GHz.
Now move up to the Core i9-11900K or Core i9-11900KF, which are the only two processors with the new floating turbo / Adaptive Boost Technology. Everything beyond two cores changes and TVB no longer applies.
Here we see what looks like a 5.1 GHz all-core turbo, from three cores to eight cores loaded. This is +300 MHz above TVB when all eight cores are loaded. But the reason why I’m calling this a floating turbo is because it is opportunistic.
What this means is that, if all 8 cores are loaded, TB2 means that it will run at 4.7 GHz. If there is power budget and thermal budget, it will attempt 4.8 GHz. If there is more power budget and thermal budget available, it will go to 4.9 GHz, then 5.0 GHz, then 5.1 GHz. The frequency will float as long as it has enough of those budgets to play with, and it will increase/decrease as necessary. This is important as different instructions cause different amounts of power draw and such.
If this sounds familiar, you are not wrong. AMD does the same thing, and they call it Precision Boost 2, and it was introduced in April 2018 with Zen+. AMD applies its floating turbo to all of its processors – Intel is currently limiting floating turbo to only the Core i9-K and Core i9-KF in Core 11th Gen Rocket Lake.
One of the things that we noticed with AMD however is that this floating turbo does increase power draw, especially with AVX/AVX2 workloads. Intel is likely going to see similar increases in power draw. What might be a small saving grace here is that Intel’s frequency jumps are still limited to full 100 MHz steps, whereas AMD can do it on the 25 MHz boundary. This means that Intel has to manage larger steps, and will likely only cross that boundary if it knows it can be maintained for a fixed amount of time. It will be interesting to see if Intel gives the user the ability to change those entry/exit points for Adaptive Boost Technology.
There will be some users who are already familiar with Multi-Core Enhancement / Multi-Core Turbo. This is a feature from some motherboard vendors have, and often enable at default, which lets a processor reach an all-core turbo equal to the single core turbo. That is somewhat similar to ABT, but that was more of a fixed frequency, whereas ABT is a floating turbo design. That being said, some motherboard vendors might still have Multi-Core Enhancement as part of their design anyway, bypassing ABT.
Overall, it’s a performance plus. It makes sense for the users that can also manage the thermals. AMD caught a wind with the feature when it moved to TSMC’s 7nm. I have a feeling that Intel will have to shift to a new manufacturing node to get the best out of ABT, and then we might see the feature on the more mainstream CPUs, as well as becoming default as standard.
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ozzuneoj86 - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
"Rocket Lake also gets you PCIe 4.0, however users might feel that is a small add-in when AMD has PCIe 4.0, lower power, and better general performance for the same price."If a time traveling tech journalist would have told us back in the Bulldozer days that Anandtech would be writing this sentence in 2021 in a nonchalant way (because AMD having better CPUs is the new normal), we wouldn't have believed him.
Hrel - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
Just in case anyone able to actually affect change reads these comments, I'm not even interested in these because the computer I built in 2014 has a 14nm processor too... albeit with DDR 3 RAM but come on, DDR4 isn't even much of a real world difference outside ultra specific niche scenarios.Intel, this is ridiculous, you're going to have been on the SAME NODE for a DECADE HERE!!!!
Crying out loud 10nm has been around for longer than Intels 14nm, this is nuts!
James5mith - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
" More and more NAS and routers are coming with one or more 2.5 GbE ports as standard"No, they most definitely are not. lol
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
gotta say, love the arguments on page 9 lolpeevee - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
"the latest microcode from Intel should help increase performance and cache latency"Do we really want the increase in cache latency? ;) :)
8 Cores is Enough - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
I just bought the 11900k with a z590 Gigabyte Aorous Pro Ax mobo and Samsung 980 pro 500GB ssd. This replaced my 9900k in a z390 Gigabyte Aurous Master with a 970 pro 512GB ssd.They're both 14nm node processors with 8c/16t and both overclocked, 5GHz all cores for 9900k and 5.2GHz all cores with up to 5.5GHz on one core via tiurbo modes on the 11900k.
However, the 11900k outperforms the 9900k in every measure. In video encoding, which I do fairly often, it's twice as fast. In fact, the 11900k can comvert 3 videos at the same time each one as fast as my rtx 2070 super can do 1 video af a time.
On UserBenchmark.com, my 11900k is the current record holder for fastest 11900k tested. It beats all the 10900k's even in the 64 thread server workload metric. It loses to the 5900x and 5950x in this one metric but clobbers them botb in the 1, 2, 4 and 8 core metrics.
I wish I had a 5900x to test on Wondershare Uniconverter. I suspect my 11900k would match it given the 2X improvement over the 9900k, which was about 1/2 as fast as the 3950x in video comversion.
I do a lot of video editing as well. Maybe on this workload an AMD 5900x or 5950x would beat the 11900k. It seems plausible so let's presume this and accept Ryzen 9 is most likely still best for video editing.
But the cliam thaf being stuck on 14nm node means Intel RKL CPUs perform the same as Haswell or that they are even close does not make sense to me based on my experiences so far going from coffee lake refresh to RKL.
The Rocket Lake CPUs are like the muscle cars of 1970. They are inefficient beasts that haul buttocks. They exist as a matter of circumstance and we may never see the likes of them again.
Faster more efficient CPUs will be built but the 11th gen Intel CPUs will be remembered for being the back ported abominations they are: thirsty and fast with the software of 2021 which for the time being still favors single thread processing.
If you play Kerbal Space Program then get an 11900k because that game is all about single thread performance and right now the 11900k beats all other CPUs at that.
Germanium - Thursday, September 2, 2021 - link
My experimentation with my Rocket Lake Core I 11700k on my Asus Z590-A motherboard has shown me that it least on some samples AVX512 can be more efficient & cooler running than AVX2 at the same clock speed.I am running my sample at 4.4GHz both AVX512 & AVX2. When running Hand Brake there is nearly a 10 watt savings when running AVX512 as opposed to AVX2.
Before anyone says Hand Brake does not use AVX512 & that is true out of the box but there is a setting script I found online to activate AVX512 on Hand Brake and it does work. It most be manually entered, no copy & paste available.
With stock voltage settings at 4.2GHz using AVX2 at was drawing over 200 watts. With my settings I am able to run AVX512 at 4.4 GHz with peak wattage in Hand Brake of 185 watts. That was absolute peak wattage. It mostly ran between 170 to 180 watts. AVX2 runs about 10 watts more for slightly less performance at same clock speed.
Germanium - Thursday, September 2, 2021 - link
Forgot to mention that on order to make AVX512 so efficient one must set the AVX Guard Band voltage Offset at or near 0 to bring the power to acceptable levels. Both AVX512 & AVX2 must be lowered. If AVX2 is not lowered at least same amount AVX512 setting will have little or no effect.chane - Thursday, January 13, 2022 - link
I hope my post is considered on topicScenario 1: Without discrete graphics 1080p grade card, using on-chip graphics: Given the same core count (but below 10 cores), base and turbo frequencies and loaded with the same Cinebench and/or Handbrake test loads, would a Rocket lake Xeon w series processor run hotter, cooler or about the same as a Rocket Lake i family series processor with the same TDP spec?
Scenario 2: As above but with 1080p grade discrete graphics card.
Note: The Xeon processor pc will be using 16GB of ECC memory, however much that may impact heat and fan noise.
Please advise.
Thanks.