Coffeelake and Donutlake

[batboy]

I'm not seeing much discussion about the upcoming August 21 release of Coffeelake. Yeah, just another refresh of the current crop of 14nm processors. Yawn.

Yogi Berra said: It's deja vu all over again. Don't people remember when Intel went from 90nm to 65nm? The first processor out was called Presler. I had one and it sucked. The next one in the 65nm line was Conroe. Intel finally worked out the bugs with the Conroe. I don't remember what happened when they went from 65nm to 45nm. Maybe uneventful since I don't recall anything. But, more trouble and delays reducing from 45nm to 32nm. After getting it figured out Intel released the Sandy Bridge which was another home run. So, my point is Intel has a history of struggling when they shrink the die size. So, even the first 10nm Cannonlake is probably going to be less than optimal. The way Cannonlake keeps getting pushed back, it'll likely be at least another year before it gets released. Once it does, it'll have teething issues for sure, so the next one worth waiting for will be at least 2 years from now.

Ok, back to Coffeecake (yummy). I'm chomping at the bit to do a complete revamp of my computer, but was waiting to see the new i7 8700K Coffeelake reviews. Ok, now I've seen them, but I'm not impressed. One critical thing that I wanted to know was whether Coffeelake would work on a z270 motherboard. Most of the articles say no, you'll need a new chipset. That's a deal breaker for me. But, I keep hearing whispers that Coffelake might work on z270 boards. Supposedly a guy that got a hold of an engineering sample of Coffeelake got it to run no problem on a z270 mobo.

So, what Intel CPU is currently available that I might be interested in. Well heck, I've been wanting to snag a Kaby Lake and see it squirm at 5+ GHz for several months now. For us drag racers that love going for top speed, those times are almost over. From now on, you'll get more cores, not more speed. If a z370 chipset is required, most motherboard makers say they'll be hard pressed to release anything much before Christmas. Intel probably won't have many Coffeelake CPUs being shipped in large quantities until a couple months later anyway.

What this means is, I'm not waiting any longer. The time has come to spring into action. I ordered a ton of goodies that should be here on Monday. I'm pretty sure what I decided to do will surprise a few folks. This upgrade will be done in three phases over a two year timeframe. In addition to changing out CPU, motherboard, and RAM (phase I), I hope to add a little bling and paint to the beast. I also plan to install a Samsung 960 Pro 512 GB m.2 NVMe solid state drive.. Should be a fun time.

 

[Sentential]

Yea unfortunately Coffeelake reminds me a great deal of Prescott, a last ditch effort to keep the uarch alive before the revamp (Cannonlake). One thing I want to warn you is make sure if you haven't already buy cooling for the NVME drive. It will need it *quite* badly. The Polaris 5core is a great SOC but good god does it heat up fast and once you're there it's no better than a SATA drive. As much as I'd love to have one I'm holding out for Toshiba's XG5 controller before I move to NVME in my laptop.

 

[batboy]

Yep, those m.2 drives definitely get hot and that will cause performance to suffer if they thermal throttle. Not to mention heat degrades them over time. The Asus Tuf X299 Mark II motherboard I ordered has a hefty heatsink for the m.2 drives (and I believe an optional fan).

Uh oh, I sort of let the cat out of the bag. Now y'all know I'm building a system around the X299 chipset. I decided to call myself an "enthusiast" and step up to the Intel X-series.

I carefully planned out 4 options and entered all my research into a spreadsheet. I tried to be honest with myself and pick out components that were high quality with all the features I wanted. This time, I get to pick out what I really want (without being too extravagant), but I also tried to trim the fat off where I could since my budget wasn't infinite. I recently got a better video card, so let's take that off the table for now. Basically, it boils down to getting a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM (then use everything else from my current rig). I also ordered a 512 GB m.2 NVMe SSD drive and a few bits and pieces for my watercooling loop.

My 4 options were: (1) Skylake-X i7 7820X (8 cores), (2) Kaby Lake-S i7 7700K (4 cores), (3) Kaby Lake-X i7 7740X (4 cores), and (4) Coffee Lake-S i7 8700K (6 cores) .

Cost-wise, option 2 was the least expensive upgrade with option 4 being a close second. Option 3 (X299) costs about $200 more, but still easily within budget. Option 1 was by far the most expensive, besides I want a 5+ GHz stable overclock and 8 core Skylake is not up to the task. Without further ado:

Phase I (next week)
Intel i7 7740X (sale price = i7 7700K)
Asus TUF X299 Mark II
G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3600 2X8GB CAS 15

Phase II (in a few months or whenever I get tired of the 7740X)
i9 7900X or 7920X
DDR4 4X8GB of fast RAM (to be finalized later)
New video card, Vega 64? GTX 1080?

Phase III (probably in about 2 year)
Cannonlake CPU
Asus motherboard

 

[mackerel]

Phase I (next week)
Intel i7 7740X (sale price = i7 7700K)
Asus TUF X299 Mark II

Is there much price gap to a 7800X? Having said that, I've only taken mine to 4.8 comfortably, 4.9 may be at a limit, so I doubt I'll find a 5.0 24/7 setting.

Also that mobo seem popular, you'll be joining me and Woomack.

 

[TimoneX]

My 4 options were: (1) Skylake-X i7 7820X (8 cores), (2) Kaby Lake-S i7 7700K (4 cores), (3) Kaby Lake-X i7 7740X (4 cores), and (4) Coffee Lake-S i7 8700K (6 cores) .

Cost-wise, option 2 was the least expensive upgrade with option 4 being a close second. Option 3 (X299) costs about $200 more, but still easily within budget. Option 1 was by far the most expensive, besides I want a 5+ GHz stable overclock and 8 core Skylake is not up to the task. Without further ado:

Phase I (next week)
Intel i7 7740X (sale price = i7 7700K)
Asus TUF X299 Mark II
G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3600 2X8GB CAS 15

Phase II (in a few months or whenever I get tired of the 7740X)
i9 7900X or 7920X
DDR4 4X8GB of fast RAM (to be finalized later)
New video card, Vega 64? GTX 1080?

Phase III (probably in about 2 year)
Cannonlake CPU
Asus motherboard

Sweet. What are you planning to use the rig for? Given the memory options you've chosen, I'd guess gaming.

Do you have a build thread? Please keep us posted on how it goes. I'm slowly researching/obtaining parts for my own build at this time, so I find other's choices particularly interesting.

 

[Sentential]

Yep, those m.2 drives definitely get hot and that will cause performance to suffer if they thermal throttle. Not to mention heat degrades them over time.

Ironically NAND like high heat (not the controller) and it helps prevent it from degrading. So far the setup looks good.

 

[batboy]

Mac, are you asking about the price difference between the 7740X and the 7800X? No, there's not a big gap, the 7800X is $50 more I think. But, while the 7800X has 2 more cores and opens up more PCIe lanes, it's still a Skylake and will not clock as high. The i7 7740X is mainly to get my foot in the door of the X-series. The main thing this Kady Lake-X processor has going for it is the ability to clock high. I saw stats that looked like 75% will hit 5 gig with default or low voltage and about 50% will do 5.2 with low voltage. This Asus x299 Tuf II has a great rep so far. It has what I want and all the extra junk I don't want is not there. I've heard good things about the power circuitry on these boards. It's probably well worth the extra $110 premium over the Prime z270-A board I would have picked if I went with that option.

TimoneX, you guessed right, mainly gaming, but it'll also be used for video editing and encoding. I do not have a build thread, but maybe I should? I'm amazed at some of these custom cases nowadays, they are works of art. I've taken off all the outer panels from my case and prepping them for paint. Not going to go batty, but maybe fresh coat of paint will freshen up the look a little. I'm also going to clean up the wiring and water loop.

This will probably be my last hurrah for building, overclocking, and benching computers. I'm retired now, my eyesight is not as good as it used to be and sometimes my hands are a little shaky. Dang, it sucks getting old. I'm already looking ahead at those phases and figure they'll be changed numerous times. For example, maybe I'll pop for a bad boy i9 once the AMD competition drives prices down? Lots of options. Maybe Coffee Lake will have a X-series offering by next spring?

 

[mackerel]

Mac, are you asking about the price difference between the 7740X and the 7800X? No, there's not a big gap, the 7800X is $50 more I think. But, while the 7800X has 2 more cores and opens up more PCIe lanes, it's still a Skylake and will not clock as high. The i7 7740X is mainly to get my foot in the door of the X-series. The main thing this Kady Lake-X processor has going for it is the ability to clock high. I saw stats that looked like 75% will hit 5 gig with default or low voltage and about 50% will do 5.2 with low voltage.

Sounds good. You know what you want and why Thought I should at the least mention the 7800X in case it was overlooked, although its position might be taken somewhat by coffee lake when it arrives. I gambled on the cores over clock in my case. Not doing too badly with clock, it wont bother Kaby Lake any time soon.

 

[batboy]

Yeah, Intel will be hoping others are like you and will want more cores rather than high clock speeds. I know that's the future, but I'm old school and want to have one last fling. You mentioned Coffee Lake, but nobody seems to know if or when the Coffee Lake X series will be released. If so, will it be supported on the X299 chipset and LGA-2066 socket?

 

[mackerel]

AMD have started the core wars and set the battlefield for the near future. It's way too early to think about Coffee Lake X, given we only just got Skylake-X and the "real" Kaby Lake-X (based on KL Xeons) will probably not exist until next year some time at the earliest. Basically not worth worrying about.

 

[Sentential]

Yeah, Intel will be hoping others are like you and will want more cores rather than high clock speeds. I know that's the future, but I'm old school and want to have one last fling. You mentioned Coffee Lake, but nobody seems to know if or when the Coffee Lake X series will be released. If so, will it be supported on the X299 chipset and LGA-2066 socket?

My understanding that Cannonlake as a platform would merge HEDT with the consumer products but I could be wrong.

 

[batboy]

Well, they kind of are merging HEDT now with this X-series and entry level Kaby Lake i5 and i7. I'm assuming Intel will drop the Kady Lake-X and use Coffee Lake as the next gateway drug to lure the semi-enthusiast down into the depths of the X-series. It don't make sense for Intel do go to all this trouble to create a new market niche and then do away with it all that quick.

I agree Mac, any possible Coffee Lake-X is a long ways off considering the Coffee Lake-S is just now being released next week. Another deja vu all over again moment. We were here before when Intel was trying to shrink the cores and go dual core. AMD was thumping Intel pretty bad for a while. Same thing here.

 

[rpjkw11]

batboy, I know exactly what you mean about a last hurrah! I'm wanting one more "mega" build before I have to start using a motorized-wheelchair full time. Not at bad a weak eye and shaking hands, but building a rig sitting down is challenging. I mentioned to my wife the $2K proposed price for Intel's future screw job and she didn't bat an eye. Fine, but I refuse to validate P.T. Barnum's observation about a sucker being born every minute. Instead, I'm seriously looking at AMD's TR 1950X. But an Intel i7 7820K is interesting, too. So whatever I do, it'll be fun.

Note: ANYTHING over an i5 2500K is overkill for me.

 

[batboy]

I say build whatever you want. Now is the time to enjoy life.

Sounds like you got a good woman. My wife and I have an agreement that we tell each other about major purchases. When I told her I had decided to build a higher end computer. She just said, "Ok, its your money." We talked more about it and she encouraged me to do it and to not skimp. Then after a pause, she asked, "I get your old parts, right?" She knows the drill. I must say, it's rather fun and liberating not having to pinch pennies; but, I still waited until a couple of my components were on sale at newegg before I ordered them and I turned in a promo code to save $10.

 

[batboy]

I started a revamp log in the general hardware section if you want to follow my upgrade.

 

[wingman99]

Skylake X is 14nm+ like kaby lake. So it will overclock well.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Does this mean that police will be using Coffeelake and Donutlake?

 

[wingman99]

Intel has stated that Coffee Lake will offer a performance improvement of up to 30% over Kaby Lake in 15 W mobile processor parts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake I wonder if there are any IPC gains for desktop?

 

[batboy]

I read that in an article a few days ago too. At first I got excited, wow, 30% performance gain over Kaby Lake! Then after rereading it I saw the part about comparing it against a mobile CPU. Huh? That makes no ding dang sense. comparing a desktop processor to a mobile one. That's like saying a Chevy Camaro SS has 30% more power than a Toyota Prius hybrid. Certainly not an apples to apples comparison. In the article I read, Intel had previously said earlier in the year that Coffee Lake would perform about 15% better than Kaby Lake, so I don't know where this 30% comes from.

 

[wingman99]

Well if Coffee lake is 15% improved IPC, I will upgrade to i3 8350K for gaming.