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Intel hastens CPU and platform updates due to AMD pressure

by Mark Tyson on 19 April 2017, 15:31

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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According to Taiwanese PC industry insiders Intel is responding to AMD Ryzen pressure by accelerating its processor and platform release schedule. Evidence of a renewed vigour is provided by the source which says that the Basin Falls platform will arrive in time for Computex (three months earlier than previously indicated), and Coffee Lake products will arrive in summer 2017, rather than early next year.

Considering the industry rumours chronologically, DigiTimes says that Intel will unveil its Basin Falls platform at Computex 2017. This key PC tech show takes place spanning the end of May and the beginning of June. Basin Falls consists of the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors, and the X299 chipset. According to the source report Skylake X will consist of three 140W processors with 6-, 8- and 10-core architectures, followed up in December by a 12-core processor.

A little later, at the E3 gaming show, also in June, Intel will actually launch the Basin Falls platform, says the source. These dates are approximately three months earlier than Intel had previously signalled that the launch would go ahead.

Intel's 14nm Coffee Lake architecture is also said to be moving forward with regard to its scheduled release date. Rather than adhere to its planned January 2018 launch for Coffee Lake Intel is going to push for an August launch of the new processor series. The rollout will begin in August, say the Taiwanese industry sources, with several K-series Core i7/i5/i3 processors and accompanying Z370 chipsets. In the months following Intel will roll out more CPUs plus chipsets such as H370, B360 and H310 versions.

Offered as evidence for the accelerated rollout the DigiTimes report says Intel has bolstered its manufacturing capacity and capability with five new EUV machine sets from ASML.

Of course AMD has plans to move ahead with faster and more powerful Ryzen chips. The previously rumoured 16-core Ryzen processor(s) and X399 platform will launch to eager enthusiasts in Q3 this year, according to the Taiwanese report.



HEXUS Forums :: 34 Comments

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Finally some real pressure on Intel, thanks to AMD we can once again enjoy faster development and eventually better prices. The last few years we have only seen like 5-10% increase in real world performance with each generation from Intel, just recently Intel suddenly flagged that Canon Lake would have an 40% increase in performance. This confirms that Intel has been holding back immensely to milk its customers with the same old every year. The coming years will be interesting, we will now get to know how much Intel really has been holding back the last five years.
What's the point of stepping up the schedules? Unless the new chip performance is going to be drastically improved surely just applying some discounts to the existing product sets would suffice for the time being? Whilst Ryzen has put AMD back in the game if Intel wanted to stay ahead a price reduction now would keep them in pole position due to the single thread performance
marshalex
What's the point of stepping up the schedules? Unless the new chip performance is going to be drastically improved

Well Intel have gone on record as saying Coffee Lake will be 15% faster than Kaby Lake in terms of single core IPC, which would give it a combined 20-25% lead over Ryzens single core IPC performance.

Which would be a significant gap especially in the all important gaming benchmarks.
marshalex
What's the point of stepping up the schedules? Unless the new chip performance is going to be drastically improved surely just applying some discounts to the existing product sets would suffice for the time being? Whilst Ryzen has put AMD back in the game if Intel wanted to stay ahead a price reduction now would keep them in pole position due to the single thread performance

Lowering prices is only a temp fix which Intel wants to avoid so they can keep profits up, they do not want to ignite an all out price war. Intel also knows Ryzen is only the beginning and with AMD working hard at optimizing every aspect of the Zen 2 architecture and already on it's way to release 16 core HEDT platform Intel is feeling the heat for real. They have been holding back development for years now and if they do not start to accelerate and do some catching up they will find them self in AMDs rear view mirror end of next year.
Bagpuss
Well Intel have gone on record as saying Coffee Lake will be 15% faster than Kaby Lake in terms of single core IPC, which would give it a combined 20-25% lead over Ryzens single core IPC performance.

Which would be a significant gap especially in the all important gaming benchmarks.

Surely it would depend on the cost of such improvements? AMD have shown they can get nearly there whilst keeping costs low. If Intel come back with here's the best get your wallet out whats the point. The next Intel release has to be competitive on price IMO, not just fall back on performance