Intel 14th Gen Thread

<crickets> .... </crickets>

Total replay of 7th-8th-9th-10th gen. Their most important work is in mobile and servers though, desktop is OK, IMO.

I don't think anyone was surprised that Raptor Lake Refresh is all we're getting for desktop "14th gen" when at Computex the big OEMs were all showing off lineups of "upcoming Z790 boards!" and if you've got any self awareness at all, there's no reason for all of them to come out with a whole lineups of Z790 boards unless 14th gen is coming and it's just Raptor Lake Refresh.

Per Jarred Walton of Tom's Hardware, speaking on the Full Nerd, he reiterated most of the stuff in the article including the leaked MSI slides and the scant 3% performance uplift being rumored. He wouldn't confirm any of the MSI leaks or talk about performance expectations.

He also was willing to go on record saying he's sat in on Gigabyte meetings and that Gigabyte in particular was confident in saying that at least one of their new boards (implied with the new refresh chips) will hit DDR5 8333 speeds. Will that actually be useful? Who knows. They insinuated that was the speed on day one, and if RAM manufacturers get better, with more tuning they might go higher in the future. There's a lot of complicated benchmarking needed to decide if those ultra high RAM clocks are worth it, but it sounds like one of the areas that might be improved is the memory controller.

Most of the rest follows along with the "as expected"-- definitely not a die shrink, Intel "will probably" keep the same naming scheme wink wink nudge nudge which probably means that it'll be similar enough to the old "core i" names that it won't cause any confusion, possibly bridging the naming scheme to the "drop the i and maybe add 'ultra' " names of Meteor Lake.

Both he and the staff of PC World declined to say if they were under specific Intel NDA at the point of recording (8/29/2023) but followed on with the usual "if I were under NDA I couldn't tell you."

I think it's safe to say that Tom's has at least been briefed by Intel on the basics of what to expect for an autumn 2023 launch and they have some expectation of being sampled chips for review if they don't already have them in their hands by now. PC World is likely in a similar position as Tom's is.

Of course Meteor lake is still probably on track for mobile (maybe USFF?) use but not general desktop and may or may not be called 14th gen like the desktop. The expected equivalents are either Broadwell, which launched mobile-only and was only released on mainstream desktop very late in its life cycle, right before Skylake came out, or maybe it's a little more like Tiger Lake or Ice Lake where they were used in Mobile and derivatives used in Xeons, but no mainstream desktop part ever existed for those two architectures. Either way we're 2 generations out at a minimum for a truly new architecture.

Seems to me that after AM4 and Alder Lake, things just died down. Zen 4 is meh, same with Raptor Lake. Things are just good enough perhaps?

Made in Hurry said:

Seems to me that after AM4 and Alder Lake, things just died down. Zen 4 is meh, same with Raptor Lake. Things are just good enough perhaps?

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I guess the old adage "no computer can ever be too fast" still applies. But a large number of people upgraded their personal IT department during the lockdown. We were on Zen3 and 12th gen, so these new machines were already reaping the rewards of fierce competition between AMD and Intel.

Software had targeted quad core CPUs for an eternity; bloat is only slowly catching up to modern 8 core processors, let alone 16+ core beasts. So there is not a whole lot of pressure to upgrade hardware for a newer version of some application.

Sprinkle inflation on top of that, and suddenly there are yet more reasons why the existing computer is still good enough. (Who knows, maybe even climate change starts playing a role in replacing PCs a little more slowly?)

So not truly "good enough" in a fundamentally new way. But many hardware upgrades have been done earlier than usual in the past couple of years. And these relatively new boxes might last a bit longer than usual.

Made in Hurry said:

Zen 4 is meh,

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I am/was actually excited about Zen 4-- the performance uplift and especially performance per watt improvements were both exciting, but actual execution has been very meh so far.

I am hoping that Meteor Lake (Redwood Cove on Intel 4) brings similar benefits for Intel but that always seemed optimistic to me, now it's smelling like might need to wait for Arrow Lake (Lion Cove on Intel 3).....

IMHO, Ryzen 7000 is a significant product. Yes, with significant growing pains, too. But AMD can now offer lots of cores, AVX-512, an iGPU everywhere, and possibly huge L3 cache. Mobile Ryzen is a disruptive change: handheld PCs in a Switch form factor. Ultrabooks with an iGPU strong enough for respectable gaming, at 54W.

The envelope has been pushed by Zen4. Not in revolutionary ways, perhaps, but it is remarkable enough that AMD is beginning to be a technology leader in a few aspects. And Intel isn't even sure if they can follow.

I'm disappointed at how terribly minor the Raptor Lake "Refresh" is. It seems to be Intel pushing out a new product because they have to push out a new product.

I have an i7-9700k right now. Feels like I should have either upgraded last year or at this point I should just wait for the next "major" refresh.

Ulf said:

I'm disappointed at how terribly minor the Raptor Lake "Refresh" is. It seems to be Intel pushing out a new product because they have to push out a new product.

I have an i7-9700k right now. Feels like I should have either upgraded last year or at this point I should just wait for the next "major" refresh.

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And Zen 5 might give us a 30 percent more performance according to rumours which will be outstanding if it's true.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQuzgvJ-dPc

Kinda wish they at least got AVX-512 to work with the refresh, I know the issues re-enabling it with this uArch are deeper than it seems, but that would be the thing that could really differentiate it from last gen.

(and could get me to do an irrational upgrade from my (new) 13600k. Then again it's already blazing fast in emulation tbh.)

A new revision that doesn't really add anything except price is a bit of a headscratcher.

Made in Hurry said:

And Zen 5 might give us a 30 percent more performance according to rumours which will be outstanding if it's true.

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I was waiting for Zen 4 but given the issues people have been having I decided to pass. Hopefully they'll have most of the problems worked out by then.

pauli said:

A new revision that doesn't really add anything except price is a bit of a headscratcher.

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The pricing leaks internationally may or may not be accurate and may or may not translate into US/UK/CAN/EUR pricing but normally I'd say they could have leeway to set prices if the supplies of the older CPUs would get cut off-- but Intel hasn't really been doing that. You can still buy 12th and 13th gen easily, and the 10th and 11th gen parts had a long tail.

Any recommendations for a LGA 1700 chipset comparison? I can find comparisons between Z790 and Z690, but not much of anything else.

I'm assuming that all existing motherboards will be capable of supporting the 14th gen CPU's out of the box.

Wikipedia if nothing else?

Puget Systems used to have this one for the Alder Lake chipsets:

They should really update this one to add the Raptor Lake chipsets.
(bored enough to do this:
View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c_AHPnWfIR1z4PmpZi59CFKXO2gYf1Cy7c2zlrKuOw0/edit?usp=sharing


TL;DR: for 700 series chipsets: One more USB port for Z790, more/shifted chipset PCI-E lanes, wi-fi/BT from suggested to required (supposedly). Also 14th gen might need a bios update even for (early) 700 series chipsets (my B760 board latest bios was needed to support the next gen CPUs).
edit: in short, not a huge amount of difference (lol). Biggest difference is optane support is apparently finally gone with the 700 chipsets.

reckless_sniper said:

TL;DR: for 700 series chipsets: One more USB port for Z790, more/shifted chipset PCI-E lanes, wi-fi/BT from suggested to required (supposedly).

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Thanks! That table is a way easier read than wikipedia's (sorry continuum). Looks like a H770 would be all I need, assuming "no overclocking" means undervolting (or whatever other method can get power consumption under control) is still possible.

Also 14th gen might need a bios update even for (early) 700 series chipsets (my B760 board latest bios was needed to support the next gen CPUs).

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It's been awhile since I ran an Intel board, but weren't they always able to apply a BIOS update even with an unrecognized CPU?

@reckless_sniper did a great job-- gotta love the new forum!

grommit! said:

It's been awhile since I ran an Intel board, but weren't they always able to apply a BIOS update even with an unrecognized CPU?

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Uhhhh maybe, but I wouldn't necessarily want to count on it without explicit confirmation of your exact motherboard?

grommit! said:

Looks like a H770 would be all I need, assuming "no overclocking" means undervolting (or whatever other method can get power consumption under control) is still possible.

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Currently on a MSI MPG B760i and yeah, underclocking/undervoltage is still possible (currently running a 13600k with an -30mv offset and 170/185w limit, kept temps down enough to work well with a paltry AK400 cooler). Wouldnt be surprised if it's the cheaper boards bios options as the problem with missing settings, more than what chipset it has.

reckless_sniper said:

Currently on a MSI MPG B760i and yeah, underclocking/undervoltage is still possible (currently running a 13600k with an -30mv offset and 170/185w limit, kept temps down enough to work well with a paltry AK400 cooler). Wouldnt be surprised if it's the cheaper boards bios options as the problem with missing settings, more than what chipset it has.

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Thanks, any advice beyond avoiding the bottom-tier boards? I know to look for a Realtek part instead of the buggy Intel LAN chip, but am not sure what to look out for in terms of power phases.

On the subject of MSI, their boards have a Wi-Fi module pre-installed in a M.2 slot, but their documentation isn't clear on whether this can be removed to use for something else. It kinda bugs me that Wi-Fi is mandatory, but I hope it's at least possible to disable it in the BIOS.

FWIW, Most B660 reviews kinda apply to B770 since they're so similar, most manufacturers look to have reused them down to the boards themselves.
but would double check with somewhere like reddit or other forums if they did anything (mostly like cost-cutting on parts).

The wifi i'd rather retain? it also has bluetooth so that kinda adds to the usefulness, but if it's the same as the B660 version it should be in something like this under the mosfet heatsink: https://www.gdm.or.jp/magb660_29_1024x768
If you dont want to mess with it, the mortar board has a version without wifi (so that requirement is a little bit looser than it seems).

reckless_sniper said:

The wifi i'd rather retain? it also has bluetooth so that kinda adds to the usefulness, but if it's the same as the B660 version it should be in something like this under the mosfet heatsink: https://www.gdm.or.jp/magb660_29_1024x768

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Well, there goes any idea of freeing up the slot for additional storage. Wi-Fi is irrelevant as my router is right next to the computer, and I don't use BT.

If you dont want to mess with it, the mortar board has a version without wifi (so that requirement is a little bit looser than it seems).

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Unfortunately, that version is not available in Canada. And it doesn't look like MSI has an option to disable Wi-Fi I'll keep looking.

grommit! said:

Thanks, any advice beyond avoiding the bottom-tier boards? I know to look for a Realtek part instead of the buggy Intel LAN chip, but am not sure what to look out for in terms of power phases.

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Hmm can't find a B760 VRM tier list summary anywhere... as a start here's this:


Likes the MSI MAG B760M Mortar Wi-Fi and explicitly has VRM info if that helps any. I'd imagine you can just remove the Wi-Fi if it's a socketed part and you don't physically want it installed.

I thought Techspot or someone had a nice round-up but looks like they don't.

grommit! said:

Well, there goes any idea of freeing up the slot for additional storage. Wi-Fi is irrelevant as my router is right next to the computer, and I don't use BT.

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Most boards should have 2 M.2 slots nowadays (on the latest B-series it's 4.0/x4 direct to CPU and a second 3.0/x4 from the chipset.)
Plus even if you break it out with something like an M.2 extender as far as i know it's now a custom interface, not PCIe (CNVio2, actually more interested if i could upgrade the module to an AX411 because of the higher wifi speed and intel double connect tech.)

FWIW, I've decided to wait this one out. DF's video shows that Starfield does not scale well on Intel CPU's. This image is particularly telling

Hopefully matters will improve after a patch or two.

grommit! said:

FWIW, I've decided to wait this one out. DF's video shows that Starfield does not scale well on Intel CPU's.

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It does not scale past eight threads, no matter what CPU it is on. If there aren't 8 threads available, the game is unplayable.

Hardware Unboxed tested 44 CPUs in Starfield. The 8700K outperformed every Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPU, save the two Zen 3 CPUs with vcache. Raptor Lake K SKUs outperformed every Zen 4 CPU, including the 7800X3D.

DF tested a grand total of two CPUs, a Ryzen 5 3600 and a Core i9 12900K. This is not enough information to make blanket statements like the game runs poorly on Intel CPUs. Comparatively, the game runs best on Intel CPUs, and worst on AMD CPUs. That certain conditions may help Intel CPUs run the game even better doesn't matter when the competition's in the dumpster.

IceStorm said:

DF tested a grand total of two CPUs, a Ryzen 5 3600 and a Core i9 12900K. This is not enough information to make blanket statements like the game runs poorly on Intel CPUs.

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That's not what is being said. DF are pointing out that the E-Cores do nothing for Starfield. And seeing as the biggest change with the 14th gen are more E-Cores, it won't help for this game. In my case, I am just as likely to be GPU limited by a RTX 4070 anyhow, so the cost of a platform upgrade isn't worthwhile.

grommit! said:

That's not what is being said. DF are pointing out that the E-Cores do nothing for Starfield. And seeing as the biggest change with the 14th gen are more E-Cores, it won't help for this game. In my case, I am just as likely to be GPU limited by a RTX 4070 anyhow, so the cost of a platform upgrade isn't worthwhile.

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It doesn't look like they controlled for hyperthreading in their results, so it's not clear if turning off hyperthreading would have improved performance with e-cores on, or if the problem was an issue with thread director running the game threads on the e-cores.

Astrallionheart said:

It doesn't look like they controlled for hyperthreading in their results, so it's not clear if turning off hyperthreading would have improved performance with e-cores on, or if the problem was an issue with thread director running the game threads on the e-cores.

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My bad, I should have posted this image instead:

Source

grommit! said:

That's not what is being said.

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Yes it is. Your picture shows the problem - they're saying Intel has issues because HT being on causes the game to run slower. They even show the E-cores being enabled causes the game to run slower.

Sure, if you want the game to run its best, shut off HT/E-cores. That's all well and good, but what they're not showing is how bad the game runs on Zen 4, or how well Rocket Lake/Comet Lake/Coffee Lake hold up compared to not only Zen 4, but Zen 3 as well. Their only AMD test rig is a Zen 2 piece of junk.

Intel doesn't have problems, the GAME has problems, and the framerate reduction with HT/E-cores is nothing compared to how bad AMD's options fare, stock.

DF are pointing out that the E-Cores do nothing for Starfield. And seeing as the biggest change with the 14th gen are more E-Cores, it won't help for this game.

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E cores do not help traditional games, this isn't revelatory. Without looking at the boost 13th gen provides, you're left with a lot of missing information. Hardware Unboxed showed that the 12900K can't even hang with the 13600K. There were cache changes with 13th gen along with clockspeed increases. 14th gen is going to add even more clockspeed on top of the cache changes that 13th gen brought.

In my case, I am just as likely to be GPU limited by a RTX 4070 anyhow.

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You don't know that. Starfield does not behave like other games, and that's something you should have taken away from the video. The CPU very much matters. Raptor Lake K SKUs are the best at Starfield today. There's no reason to believe Raptor Lake Refresh K SKUs won't extend that lead.

IceStorm said:

Yes it is. Your picture shows the problem - they're saying Intel has issues because HT being on causes the game to run slower. They even show the E-cores being enabled causes the game to run slower.

Sure, if you want the game to run its best, shut off HT/E-cores.

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And that's all they're claiming based on their testing.

IceStorm said:

That's all well and good, but what they're not showing is how bad the game runs on Zen 4, or how well Rocket Lake/Comet Lake/Coffee Lake hold up compared to not only Zen 4, but Zen 3 as well. Their only AMD test rig is a Zen 2 piece of junk.

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And they admit as much, hence this

TL;DW - watch the video before assuming another green vs blue argument.

grommit! said:

TL;DW - watch the video before assuming another green vs blue argument.

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Icestorm wasn't relying solely on the DF video - check out this part of his prior post :

IceStorm said:

Hardware Unboxed tested 44 CPUs in Starfield. The 8700K outperformed every Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPU, save the two Zen 3 CPUs with vcache. Raptor Lake K SKUs outperformed every Zen 4 CPU, including the 7800X3D.

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Some strange Zen3 results from HU, clustered together with basically very little difference. I see patches in the future.

grommit! said:

TL;DW - watch the video before assuming another green vs blue argument.

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I don't particularly enjoy Alex's videos, nor do I find their analysis particularly helpful when they do it using what is now two year old hardware and fail to mention that the latest generation of CPUs run the game better according to other outlets when the context is appropriate. Shoving it at the end of a video I'm not going to watch to the end is poor editing.

Combining the DF and Hardware Unboxed info, it appears Starfield does not run well when its processes land on HT/SMT "cores", but as to whether or not that's a Bethesda issue, a Microsoft issue, or an Intel issue, I've no idea. Not going to blame Bethesda outright for this one, but it should be possible to band-aid the issue in a patch.

There's also the reddit post about how the game is ass at sending instructions to GPU drivers in general. So much for optimization, Todd...

IceStorm said:

There's also the reddit post about how the game is ass at sending instructions to GPU drivers in general. So much for optimization, Todd...

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Because it's been doing the rounds, the developer left this comment on the PR:

To be clear, the gains expected here are very minute. Single percent range to pop some final bubbles that Mesa didn't clean up on its own. The real gains come from recent Mesa patches on main.

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That's for translating from DX12 to Vulkan on Steam Deck. The gains are reduced on Steam Deck because the video driver, Mesa, apparently does a lot of cleanup on its own. It doesn't address how a Windows DX12 driver handles Starfield's inefficient behavior.

Wake me up when Intel or AMD releases a CPU that's both fast AND very efficient. Being fast by drawing a ridiculous amount of power is just lazy IMO. (said the armchair critic)

I will not be leaving my Ryzen 5950X until there's a generation of CPUs that are extremely power efficient while still being incredibly fast. I don't need all that heat in my room.

sakete said:

Wake me up when Intel or AMD releases a CPU that's both fast AND very efficient.

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Anandtech's article on power scaling of Zen 4 and Raptor Lake may have its flaws, but to me (to me!) Zen 4 in the form of a 7950X at 105W PPT or even 125W is pretty decent. I would upgrade to that from my 5950X if it wasn't for the DDR5 controller still being not so great at high frequencies and large memory capacities that require 4 double-sided DIMMs.

ok now this is somewhat interesting for 14th gen: 200mhz more while using ~20w less than the 13600k stock (181w) to get there in stress tests.

Again, seems like not much performance uplift but if the 20w reduction up top is a sign, it should be a little more efficient against 13th gen at less demanding tasks and might be a candidate for even more reductions in power with some undervolting.