Core i9 Specs, 5ghz on 8 cores!

Intel 9th Gen Core 9000 Series Coffee Lake Specs Confirmed, 8 Cores With 5GHz Boost

Its the usual good and bad news from Intel. The good news is we will finally have the ability to compare Intel 8 core consumer processors with those of AMD, while the bad news is the usual news that Intel intends to gouge everyone on prices for the indefinite future. However, Intel is facing stiff competition from AMD and their security problems with specter in particular are nothing short of spectacular fuck ups, so I assume we may see more pressure on them to lower their prices over the next year or two.

Eight cores are particularly useful for crunching larger numbers, because they can process a complete matrix, saving up to 25% of the effort required. A normal eight core processor might run around 2.5ghz, AMD's newest Ryzen chips overclock to about 4.7ghz according to rumors, and exactly how much difference their clocks make requires using a variety of different benchmarks to see what they are better and worse at. For video games, six cores are enough, but eight cores will inevitably become the new standard because they can process complete matrices saving up to 25% of the effort. Currently, getting chips to go even 5ghz without resorting to exotic cooling is difficult due to the limits of silicon, but new cooling methods are being developed and we could see cheaper chips with better cooling solutions within a few years.

Simply cooling an older chip better, and for dirt cheap, would dramatically bring down the prices on these kinds of chips, while the industry is focused on squeezing more performance from them by using higher speed ram and bandwidth interconnects. There was a time when selecting the processor was the most important thing, then the graphics card became more important, and now they are all reaching the point where the technology is maturing and the PC as we know it is being totally reconceived.

 

Ooh wet my pants over this

 

The one thing I would warn people about in choosing a processor is that while in principle more cores and higher GHz can produce better performance, when you get into the weeds, it's not necessarily the case.

For example, if the software you're using doesn't support multi-core processing, or the way you're using them tends not to benefit from multi-core processing (e.g., spreadsheets). There are also some crap processors that nonetheless have really high GHz's.

Another issue is that some high performing chips also burn out faster.

The bottom line is that if you want to know how a chip, or more to the point, how a computer itself is going to perform, there's really no replacement for actually trying out the machine you intend to buy, they way you intend to use it. Nice sounding specs don't always translate to the real world performance that you expect.

You can find out how a machine performs through your own experience, you don't need specs to tell you that.

That said, I'm sure these new chips are great for certain uses.

 

I hadn't thought about the node possibly having a short life. Intel has had difficulty and delayed their new 10nm node so long people have started to wonder if the company isn't cursed. Everything that can go wrong for their consumer and business applications is all going wrong at the same time, yet, they made a record profit in HPC high powered computing. Intel is moving into the AI business whole hog, and we'll have to wait and see how well their business and consumer products compete for quality as well as price. They really are no longer in the processor business, and have put all their eggs into high powered computing and AI, making me wonder if their consumer business practices will change significantly.

That might sound strange, but Intel took silicon processors about as far as they could, and their business plan has been to concede the market eventually. Similar to the way IBM became a patent company overnight.

 

I think the skylake chips had a reputation for burning out fast. By fast I mean 2-3 years. I don't know if that has to do with the smaller lithography or running hotter

 

Yeah, they're carving crystals basically and making them resonate above cellphone frequencies like a tuning fork or something. Its as if we never quite got away from the old crystal radio. They need an entirely different technology, but the list of alternatives is endless! DARPA just dedicated one and a half billion dollars to figuring out what will replace silicon, and probably everything else for awhile. A single core chip running 200x faster than today's chips would replace a Star Trek holodeck and, theoretically, could run on as little as .3w, while speeds of over a million times faster are possible without even considering quantum computing.

 

I bet it still won't run Microsoft Word

 

Actually, the newer chips are all coming out with arithmetic accelerators that can be used to completely eliminate bugs and programmed to run any program on your specific hardware. But, this is Microsoft and Intel making claims they have yet to come through with and if I had a nickel for every time Microsoft failed to come through with all their bragging I'd be richer than Bill Gates, while Intel's recent track record with security has been so bad if they were a normal company, instead of practically a monopoly, they'd be bankrupt already.