Annadtech have posted their review of the just released to retail Alder Lake, the first Big.little x86 CPU.

Core i9-12900K review.

They have re-taken the lead for single threaded performance, and the lead in many (but not all) multithreaded workloads.
However due to the complexity involved with the CPU having the 2 different cores (Performance & Efficiency) and how they are implemented depending on the OS used, and the fact it supports both DDR4 & DDR5, and it's massive power consumption when at full load, things aren't at all straight forward.
It depends very much on what your system is used for, and in what way, as to whether Alder Lake is for you, and if it is, what OS is best, and whether or not you need DDR4 or DDR5. And unless there are some changes to the CPU packaging in regards to thermal performance (or Alder Lake specific coolers) it's looking like 360mm water cooling is shaping up as the minimum needed for a high end CPU of this type (at least for now).


Edit- And here is Phoronix look at Alder Lake on Linux.

The Noctua U9S with dual-fan configuration was capable of cooling the i9-12900K sufficiently for a vast majority of the time, but there were rare instances of it approaching 100 degrees.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Yep, Intel is back with dirty tricks?...


See:

Intel was rather misleading in its comparisons between the Core i9-12900K and Ryzen 9 5950X
wrote:

... Intel allowed the Core i9-12900K to consume 2.4x the power of its AMD competitor and benchmarked the Ryzen 9 5950X using an older version of Windows 11 with AMD performance issues...

Are we back to the bad old days of "Naughty Intel"...?


Happy crunchin'!
Martin

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Yep, Intel is back with dirty tricks?...

It would be nice if you took the time to actually read what i posted, and then had something useful to contribute based on facts and not just your own personal biases.
The links i posted & the results i based my comments on are not from Intel but from 3rd party sites.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Yes, thanks for those third party sites showing their own tests and results.


However, unfortunately, those less discerning or with less research time, will be bamboozled by the false results being pushed by the Intel Marketing...

... Including multiple third party sites that will blindly republish Intel's biased and overtly misleading results...


The Intel dirty tricks are baaack...

One to beware of.


Happy crunchin',
Martin

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All companies try and represent their products in their best light. But Intel has always been very egregious in the manner it displays a competitors product to make their product look better. And not at all representative in the real world with real applications.

Some of the better review sites did do their comparisons with up to date Windows 11 that had the AMD fixes. Some even did their reviews with Windows 10 which does not properly support Alder Lake cpus with the most current thread scheduler. Those reviews are probably more accurate since it puts both AMD and Intel on the same footing.

It would be interesting to see some followup reviews comparing both AMD and Intel on a watts per performance spec while holding both cpu types to their default Base Processor wattage of 125W and see who comes out on top. The Alder Lake cpus have a new power algorithm where PL1=PL2=241W. They are definitely barn burners with respect to wattage consumed and heat dissipated. Minimum cooling for the 12900K probably should be a 360 AIO water cooling solution. I wonder how long they will last at 100°C. on sustained 24/7 loads.

And the Phoronix and Level1Linux reviews show that Alder Lake is not a good match to Linux. No sign of the Intel Thread Director code in the upcoming Linux kernel staging branches. Even rumors that the code will never show up for Linux. Seems very short sighted of Intel and not their usual ability to get code needed for new products upstreamed months in advance of a product's launch.

It appears to me that the launch was just a reaction for regaining the Windows gaming performance over AMD in that narrow use case. Not what you expect from a general purpose processor for the market in all normal use cases of gaming, business, enterprise and datacenter.

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It would be interesting to see some followup reviews comparing both AMD and Intel on a watts per performance spec while holding both cpu types to their default Base Processor wattage of 125W and see who comes out on top.

Along with how much power an AMD CPU would consume to provide the same performance (if it can be clocked that high).
A new product on a developing process node- i have no doubt the next iteration will have better still performance, and lower power consumption (as will AMD's next release).
Techspot have posted a review of the Core i7-12700K, some points from that review-

Cinebench R23 multithreaded here the 12700KF is seen delivering almost 50% more performance than the 5800X
Cinebench R23 single thread the 12700KF at a 23% performance advantage when compared to the 5800X.
Adobe Premiere Pro 2021 the 12700KF was 34% faster than the 5800X.
Blender benchmark power consumption- When compared to the 5900X, the 12900K pushed total system power usage 50% higher, for just 11% greater performance. The 12700K, on the other hand, pushed total system usage 24% higher but delivered 31% more performance doing so, and was therefore more efficient than the 5800X. That’s a crazy turnaround given what we saw from the Core i9 model.

The Alder Lake cpus have a new power algorithm where PL1=PL2=241W. They are definitely barn burners with respect to wattage consumed and heat dissipated. Minimum cooling for the 12900K probably should be a 360 AIO water cooling solution. I wonder how long they will last at 100°C. on sustained 24/7 loads.

The Core i7-12700KF does much better than the i9 flagship, but it still isn't good.

For cooling we’ve gone with the MSI CoreLiquid S360 as it’s the only official LGA1700 cooler that we have on hand and here we see that the Core i7 processor peaked at 79 degrees after 30 minutes of looking at the Cinebench R23 multi-core test. That’s quite hot, but it’s also considerably better than the 96C the 12900K ran at under the same conditions.

And these results are just for productivity type benchmarks- i'm waiting to see some compute benchmark results.

And the Phoronix and Level1Linux reviews show that Alder Lake is not a good match to Linux. No sign of the Intel Thread Director code in the upcoming Linux kernel staging branches. Even rumors that the code will never show up for Linux.

I'd suggest they are just that- rumours.
Time and time again when Phoronix does their distribution performance comparisons, which dIstro regularly wins? Clear Linux, Intel's own distro (on both Intel & and AMD hardware).

Windows is the biggest market for x86 hardware, and it provides them with income, so it makes sense that it's the OS they put their greatest effort in to developing support for their Thread Director for it's initial release. I'm quite sure they have been doing some work on improved Linux support, and now with Alder Lake released and a Windows OS with support for the new hardware, they can put more resources in to their Linux development- not to mention take advantage of all the feedback they will now be getting from how the Windows implementation is working.



I can remember all the fuss when Apple released their new custom CPU hardware with it's high performance, low power usage and the hype about the end of x86. While the current hardware is very power hungry in absolute terms, it's actual performance per Watt is well ahead of what went before it, and as AMD has shown huge further improvements are possible (and to be expected).

Not only that, but at the end of last month, AnandTech had an interview with Mike Clark, the man that was the Chief Architect for Zen. The very last question resulted in a very interesting answer.

IC: Finally, what should AMD users look forward to?

MC: It's going be great! I wish I could tell you of all what's coming. I have this annual architecture meeting where we go over everything that's going on, and at one of them (I won't say when) the team and I went through Zen 5. I learned a lot, because of nowadays as running the roadmap, I don't get as close to the design as I wish I could. Coming out of that meeting, I just wanted to close my eyes, go to sleep, and then wake up and buy this thing. I want to be in the future, this thing is awesome and it's going be so great - I can't wait for it. The hard part of this business is knowing how long it takes to get what you have conceived to a point where you can build it to production.

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Grant
Darwin NT

If I was in the market for the most recent Intel cpu, I'd skip the 12900K and go for either the 12700K/KF or the 12600K. 80% of the performance of the 12900K for 50-60% of the cost. Lower system cost because you won't need the uber power capable motherboards and the much less costly traditional cooling options. DDR4 also instead of DDR5 because no real gain from DDR5 yet. And you can just use your existing DDR4 memory from your current kit.

If AMD doesn't want to lose the hard won market share of the past two years, they are going to have to revert to being the price conscious choice for the cpu consumer and drop their prices to be the best bang for the buck choice again.

That has always been their market focus in the past until Zen upset the status quo.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

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Meanwhile, we appear to have a short term quirk for a certain one new Intel processor:


Windows 11 Outperforms Linux With Alder Lake CPUs, Scheduler to Blame
wrote:

A report from Phoronix has revealed that Intel's Alder Lake CPUs perform much better in a Windows 11 environment than with Linux-based operating systems. The problem is related to issues with Linux's cluster scheduler, which isn't optimized for Alder Lake's hybrid architecture ... That's somewhat surprising given that Linux typically outperforms all flavors of Windows...

... the Alder Lake chips consist of two different types of cores: The big and fast Performance cores (P-cores) are paired with a smattering of small and powerful Efficiency cores (E-cores) that chew through background processes with surprising speed.

This Linux scheduler is designed to control multiple core clusters, but it wasn't designed to differentiate between different types of cores, like Alder Lake's P-cores and E-cores. Unfortunately, that means the scheduler is unaware of the performance differences between the cores, much like we see with Windows 10...

... Linux and Windows 10 will have to adopt a means to interact with Intel's Thread Director, which feeds the operating system with real-time telemetry so it can better schedule threads to the correct types of cores, to extract the best performance.

According to Phoronix, there's no current workaround to this problem (except for disabling the E cores entirely) for Linux...

This is most unusual and to my simple mind, suspiciously strange...

For recent years, Intel has been well ahead with Linux for all new hardware. Sometimes years ahead of the actual hardware appearing! For this new Intel CPU, the Windows 11 scheduler has been updated for the new architecture whereas unusually, Linux has not...

Is Intel gaming the Windows 11 gamers to bag early "Market Segmented" sales?...


IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

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As you mention, it is VERY strange that support for the Alder Lake processors hadn't appeared in the Linux hardware code years before market launch.

As Phoronix mentions, there is no sign of any new code to support the Intel Thread Director algorithm in the upstream Linux codebases. But the Thread Director code for Windows was in the Windows 11 code beta releases for months ahead of market launch.

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Intel’s unlocked Core i9-12900KS processor claims to be the ‘world’s fastest desktop processor’ with 5.5GHz speeds.

Intel has officially announced its new Core i9-12900KS processor, an unlocked version of its flagship Core i9-12900K that ups the maximum boosted clock speed even higher to 5.5GHz for what the company claims is “the world’s fastest desktop processor” and “the ultimate gaming experience.”

The Core i9-12900KS has a lot in common with its predecessors’ hardware, including the same 16 cores (split up between eight Performance-cores and eight Efficient-cores) and 24 threads and 30MB of L3 cache memory. But Intel has boosted the base power from 125W to 150W and allowed the Core i9-12900KS to run unlocked, allowing it to hit up to 5.5GHz on up to two cores (compared to the maximum 5.2GHz speed on the regular i9-12900K)....

Let the speed wars begin again.

Cheers.

Ouch for this CPU limbo dance!

Intel Comments On Alder Lake's Warping and Bending Issues, Mods Void Warranty
wrote:

"Nothing to see here, folks"...

... due to the chips' new elongated design and how it is clasped into the socket, they have been known to bend and warp when they are placed in the motherboard's socket. As you can see in the very short video below, this creates a gap that reduces the contact between the cooler and the chip...

... Intel's statement does acknowledge that the condition exists but says it doesn't cause performance issues. However, it's important to take these comments in context: ... displaced under a load (because it deforms)," so this is the technical term for what the enthusiast community refers to as 'bending,' 'warping,' or 'bowing.'...

... Intel does not guarantee that you will hit the rated boost frequencies — it only guarantees that you will reach the base frequency...

... up to 100C in our testing, and that's during normal operation. The chip downclocks itself to stay within the 100C envelope...

... As to the exotic lengths that enthusiasts have undertaken to regain performance, Intel says very clearly that this could void the warranty.

However, many other concerns aren't addressed in Intel's initial statement: As you can see in the image above, our sister site AnandTech noticed that the condition could cause the LGA 1700 socket itself, and thus the motherboard, to bend. This results from the awkward pressure placed on the chip... This mechanism only contacts the chip in a small area in the middle, causing deflection...

... Intel insists the Alder Lake deflection condition isn't a problem, but enthusiasts that want the best performance and cooling possible obviously won't agree that poor contact with a warped processor, and the resultant higher temperatures...

Really?...

A warped core is not a fault condition but instead somehow a desirable Marketing feature?!

How many legs are Intel Marketing pulling?... (Oh wait! 1st April is long gone for this year...)


Happy hot crunchin'?!
Martin

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It seems that Intel is setting expectations low for its Arc GPUs.

Intel’s tempering expectations for its upcoming Arc A750 Limited Edition GPU. In a new video that’s just three minutes long, the chipmaker gives us the briefest of glimpses at the card’s pretty average on-paper performance.

Before we dive in, it’s important to note that the A750 is supposed to be one of Intel’s top-of-the-line GPUs, as indicated by the “7” at the front of its name. Intel’s naming conventions have the Arc 5 and Arc 3 sitting below the Arc 7, which are supposed to offer midrange and entry-level performance, respectively.

During the video, Intel’s Ryan Shrout boots up Cyberpunk 2077 on a PC with the A750 chip installed, and instead of giving us a long look at gameplay, Shrout skips straight to performance. With the game set to the “high-quality” preset and 2560 x 1440 resolution, Shrout says the card gets “just under” 60 frames per second (FPS) on average, which isn’t bad, but not necessarily what you’d expect from a company like Intel’s debut into discrete graphics cards....

Cheers.

Intel shows how chiplets will form Meteor Lake CPUs
Different core counts, different cache sizes, and various cores possible in mix and match design, it says

The SoC tile has functions such as the memory controller and I/O fabric and is designed to focus on low power operation, while the I/O extender tile can be offered in different versions to provide a different mix of I/O for different segments. The base tile provides the power and interconnections between other tiles, rather like a motherboard.

Oooer...

Isn't that copying what AMD has been doing since the introduction of their Zen CPUs long ago?...


Happy crunchin'!
Martin

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Oooer...

Isn't that copying what AMD has been doing since the introduction of their Zen CPUs long ago?...


Happy crunchin'!
Martin

Monkey see. Monkey do ;)

Oooer...

Isn't that copying what AMD has been doing since the introduction of their Zen CPUs long ago?...

And something Intel was already doing before AMD started using it with their Zen products.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Any examples and when?


Happy crunchin',
Martin

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Any examples and when?


Happy crunchin',
Martin

Pentium Pro
1995

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

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Yes, very good.

Which then comes to the question of what gets called what at what scale...

I'm making the distinction that, rather than, as in the Pentium Pro design, splitting up singular functional units on a ceramic substrate (CPU + Cache for the Pentium Pro example), AMD made a leading edge jump of integrating multiple 'chiplets' onto a silicon substrate ("interposer") that allowed them to manufacture a rich mix'n'match of multiple chiplets and integrated interconnect.

Just as for the Pentium Pro example, that allows breaking the design down into smaller units that can be manufactured for better yield or even to exceed present monolithic capability.

Except... AMD has lead the way for how that is now done for silicon chiplets that themselves are integrated onto the very much larger silicon interposers.


All a question of pioneering the scales...

Happy crunchin'!
Martin

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I mean, you can keep moving the goal posts. or accept the truth.

Intel Presler. Pentium D, 2005/2006.



"Presler introduced the 'multi-chip module', or MCM, which consisted of two single-core dies placed next to each other on the same substrate package"

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