Intel Details 11th Gen Core-S Series Processors (Rocket Lake): Double-Digit IPC Improvement

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Intel has released a slide deck that confirms some of the features for its upcoming lineup of 11th Gen Core processors, otherwise known as “Rocket Lake.”



Available in configurations of up to 8 cores and 16 threads, Rocket Lake processors leverage the all-new Cypress Cove architecture to enable a double-digit percentage improvement in IPC performance. They feature up to 20 CPU PCIe 4.0 lanes and an iGPU based on Intel’s new Xe graphics architecture, as well as other additions such as integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and new overclocking capabilities.



“Intelligently designed for desktop performance, Rocket Lake takes advantage of the microarchitecture changes and instructions per clock (IPC) advancements to deliver improved raw performance, gen over gen,”...
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Double digit IPC increase according to Intel math. I guess that means in the real world it will be 2%-3%?
 
Denpepe said:
Would that make a difference with the last 14nm CPU? or was the first one pre skylake?
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May have been Broadwell, too lazy to look it up, but I recall it not really hitting desktops at all. So Skylake more or less marks Intel's 14nm broad availability entry.
SmokeRngs said:
Double digit IPC increase according to Intel math. I guess that means in the real world it will be 2%-3%?
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Eh, Intel has had higher-IPC designs in the wing for some time. They just haven't been able to make them. I believe Rocket Lake is the result of backporting some of that to 14nm.
 
Yeah it was too long ago. I don't even remember which 14nm node process they are even on right now. Something like 14nm+++++
 
Unlike AMD which has earned our trust over the last three years in regard to the claims it makes, Intel has done quite the opposite. It's promised much over the last 10+ years in terms of IPC and functionally delivered on almost none of those projections. To be clear, it isn't that IPC hasn't actually improved to some extent. Well, up to Skylake anyway. However, Intel's IPC improvements have often come at the cost of clock speed which effectively meant more of the same generation after generation.

SmokeRngs said:
Double digit IPC increase according to Intel math. I guess that means in the real world it will be 2%-3%?
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Well, that's historically been the case. However, Intel probably did hit their 11% numbers in truth. The problem was that all of their larger IPC increases came at the cost of clock speed which meant the net gains were only ever 2-3% and that's generous. Broadwell-E is a great example of this. Intel's Haswell-E based Core i7 5960X could clock as high as 4.5GHz and had 8c/16t. It's immediate Broadwell-E based successor, the Core i7 6950X had 10c/20t, but could generally only clock to 4.3GHz. With the IPC increase being super small, they ended up performing identically unless you could leverage the extra two cores. I mostly used mine for gaming so I couldn't.

It's also why Sandy Bridge CPU's like the Core i7 2600K remained relevant for so long. They could clock anywhere from 4.8-5.1GHz. Clock speeds fell on the 3770K and the 4770K. Hell, the 4790K promised a return to form on the clock speed front and the fastest I've ever gotten one was about 4.7GHz. IPC increases were only ever enough to improve things by 2-3% after clock speed reductions.
 
Armenius said:
SemiAccurate has a hate boner for Intel and NVIDIA.
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It's just what passes for 'news' on these sites...

Here we are, six years after Skylake released, talking about how AMD might have finally surpassed it in single-core performance with their fourth-gen Ryzen!

Dan_D said:
Unlike AMD which has earned our trust over the last three years in regard to the claims it makes, Intel has done quite the opposite. It's promised much over the last 10+ years in terms of IPC and functionally delivered on almost none of those projections. To be clear, it isn't that IPC hasn't actually improved to some extent. Well, up to Skylake anyway.
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That's kind of the problem; everything after Skylake has actually just been... Skylake. There have been tons of enhancements to the platform but IPC hasn't been one of them, quite likely because every release after Skylake on 14nm has been a contingency measure due to not being able to manufacture 10nm.

Rocket Lake looks to be the first 'post-Skylake' core, with architectural enhancements ported to 14nm. It's not at all impossible that there are IPC gains to be had, but obviously with Intel's recent history, much salt is needed :).
 
LazyGamer said:
It's just what passes for 'news' on these sites...

Here we are, six years after Skylake released, talking about how AMD might have finally surpassed it in single-core performance with their fourth-gen Ryzen!


That's kind of the problem; everything after Skylake has actually just been... Skylake. There have been tons of enhancements to the platform but IPC hasn't been one of them, quite likely because every release after Skylake on 14nm has been a contingency measure due to not being able to manufacture 10nm.

Rocket Lake looks to be the first 'post-Skylake' core, with architectural enhancements ported to 14nm. It's not at all impossible that there are IPC gains to be had, but obviously with Intel's recent history, much salt is needed :).
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The only time we see performance increases since Skylake are when clocks or cache sizes increase.
 
Dan_D said:
The only time we see performance increases since Skylake are when clocks or cache sizes increase.
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Agreed, but that's because everything after Skylake on 14nm has been... still Skylake. Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, uh...the 'Comet Lake' eight-core CPU in my new XPS 15, all Skylake.

The point of saying which being to highlight that Rocket Lake is purported to be the first real architectural change for Intel on 14nm. If it results in higher IPC while keeping clockspeeds up Intel could at least continue to be competitive on the performance front.

Maybe ;)

[I'm also looking quite hard at Zen 3, and if the promises etc. pan out, the 'why not' starts to take over for me...]
 
Dan_D said:
The only time we see performance increases since Skylake are when clocks or cache sizes increase.
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My favorite was just raise/change the definition of the power limit....
 
Brian_B said:
My favorite was just raise/change the definition of the power limit....
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Well, considering that doing so allows Intel to clock the CPU higher or use higher boost / base frequencies, that's valid. But, I see your point.
 
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