AMD’s Ryzen series really posed a challenge for Intel, who I don’t think were expecting such a
formidable and SCALEABLE design as Ryzen proved to be. Zen’s architecture and chiplets were small,
efficient and -using the magic of infinity fabric- could be connected with yet MORE Zen
chiplets! You could have 2 zen chiplets, for double the number of cores. Or 4 chiplets,
for 4 times the number of cores! ...You get the idea.
Intel’s single-die approach wasn’t quite so scaleable. Because there’s kind of limit to
how large a single chip can get. And you really don’t want to get there, since as
these things get bigger, defects become more of a problem, and so it kind of limits how far Intel’s
processors could scale in this direction. Add to that, the problem with inter-core latency:
cores need to communicate with one another, Intel’s using either a ring or mesh design,
but no matter what they did, the more cores they had, the more latency there was between
them, which ultimately presented a trade-off. Intel needed a solution!
I can’t claim to being an expert on processors, but I know they take a LONG time to develop. And
I need to say this, cos judging from some of the comments I’ve read, it looks like some people
think the processors Intel released 6 months after Ryzen was were created with Ryzen in mind,
which really isn’t how things work. The processors released today could have started their lives...
5 years ago. So with Ryzen released in 2017, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has only been with
Intel’s latest generations that they’ve actually released processors designed with Ryzen in mind.
And it looks like they’ve gone down a different approach: being the P
and E core strategy- which is something we’ve seen in phones and Apple products,
but never before in general desktop processors. So while Intel are still
manufacturing their processors on a single die, which could still be a huge disadvantage,
by having different core types, it has helped them to combat AMD’s scaleable, multi-core threat.
So Intel’s new designs have high performance P cores, which are more like the standard
cores we’re used to seeing in previous Intel designs, and are indeed kind of like how AMD’s
Zen cores still are. So these P cores are REALLY fast, have low latency between them,
support multiple threads, and are well suited to things like games where low latency is key.
But then Intel also has the ‘efficient’ E cores. These are slower,
simpler types of cores. And they’re terrible for things like games because they have such
high latency. But it’s easy for Intel to cram a lot more of these onto the processor,
making them ideal for tasks which require lots and lots of cores.
I was REALLY fascinated by this design. To think that it’s a processor of two halves;
you could be gaming on the P cores, while the E cores are in the background,
quietly and efficiently dealing with everything else. They could even render a video back there!
But the reality of Intel’s processors isn’t so convenient: for a start, despite the 13000
series essentially doubling the number of E cores over what the 12000 series had,
it still isn’t enough to pull ahead of AMD’s best, in terms of thread counts or
raw performance. And while it sounds very clean and logical to use the E cores for some tasks,
and P for others, in reality, a clear divide like this is rarely the best approach for any
sort of task on your PC. And no matter how you cut it, there’s nothing stopping AMD’s
multi-chiplet designs from behaving similarly, and with fewer compromises.
And here’s the real kick in the teeth: these ‘efficient’ E cores,
as small as they are, and literally standing for ‘efficiency’... are
not particularly efficient. SO WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
And the answer to that is: die size. Intel can cram 4 E cores into the same space as they can
1 P core. So instead of using a space on the die to get one fast core with hyper-threading,
Intel can instead have 4 whole E cores. So hearing that, it sounds like using
‘E’ cores only really benefits Intel, and not the consumer. But I’m beginning to see
the benefit for us as well. Less so in the high-end, but more-so lower down the tiers.
Take at look at the 13600K, for instance. If it’s true that 4 E cores take up the same space as a
single P core, then using the same die space, the 13600K could have been an 8 P core processor. But
instead, Intel gave up 2 potential P cores in exchange for 8 E cores, making it a 6 P and 8 E
design. And you only have to look at benchmarks of it up against AMD’s similarly priced 7600X
to appreciate how useful these E cores are for boosting multi-core performance. Intel’s 6 P
cores remain relatively competitive against AMD’s 6 cores in gaming, but thanks to Intel’s extra 8 E
cores, it utterly annihilates AMD’s processor in activities which benefit from more cores.
Their strategy has kind of changed how I perceive cores. Until now, an 8 core processor has been
better than a 6 core one. Yet with Intel, a 6 core processor with 8 E cores is significantly better
than having 8 P cores in almost every workload you can throw at it… so long as it’s not an activity
that requires more than 6 fast cores. But it seems like this isn’t too much of a problem, since it
looks like stuff you do on a computer either benefits from there being a few fast cores, or
lots of slower ones. And when you look at it like that, Intel’s strategy makes a heoatogoa of sense.
The tables have turned and it’s now Intel that are combatting AMD with more cores
and more multithreaded performance at a given price-point. All thanks to how
little die-space these E cores occupy. A really interesting situation all-round,
and great for consumers. Especially once those motherboard and memory prices come down a bit!
But what about the future? It looks like Intel could borrow from AMD by GLUING their
processors together from multiple smaller bits. Aside from that, all this information
is just general stuff you’d hope for from a new generation based on an improved node. As usual,
it’s the rumour mill that teases at the most exciting things! I’m beginning to read about
Intel’s next generation of processors actually having FEWER P cores than they do already. I’ll
just ask myself: does it make sense? Well no it doesn’t, does it. Sounds like it’s going
backwards. You’d at least hope that with fewer P cores would come more E cores! But I guess the
question is: do we really need 8 P cores for anything, or has the large number of E cores
alongside it done away with the need for so many fast cores? So IF these rumours are true,
I guess they’d focus on making these P cores faster... and perhaps even more importantly,
to actually make these E cores live up to their name by being more efficient. Because
when you’ve got so many cores, the benefits of efficiency optimisations are greatly multiplied!
Meanwhile, on AMD’s side of things, details about Zen 5 are even more
scarce! Follow the rumours back and they all seem to stem from the same few places,
but I’ll just say: with Intel looking to borrow the best bits from AMD’s strategy,
wouldn’t it now make sense for AMD to borrow the best bits from Intel’s?