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Intel refreshes CPU roadmap and provides 14nm update

by Ryan Martin on 25 November 2014, 14:10

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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Intel revealed an array of important information last week at its annual investor meeting. Topics that were presented to analysts, investors and other attendees included the progress being made on the 14nm process node, Intel's market strategy going forward as far as 2016 and more importantly for techies; details about upcoming 'Broadwell' and 'Skylake' processors.

Broadwell has already arrived in its mobile form, the 'Core M' processor is shipping right now in a small number of hybrid power-efficient devices. From 'spring' of next year, seemingly Q2, the Core M will be joined by 5th-gen Core series CPUs for notebooks and 2-in-1 PCs. There was, however, no mention of Broadwell for desktop users; a deliberate omission?

Next on Intel's agenda is the cost-effective 'Braswell' design which spans the entry-level Celeron and Pentium ranges. Braswell parts are set to arrive in the second half of 2015 and will be deployed in a variety of low-cost devices such as Chromebooks, budget Windows laptops and tablets. Braswell is intended to phase out Intel's current Bay Trail-M offerings when it is economically feasible to do so.

Skylake is still on-course for a late-2015 launch, according to Intel, but just like Broadwell there have been no specifics given on the desktop variants. With Skylake being branded the 6th-gen Core series of CPUs from Intel, one would imagine that a full range of Core 5000 series parts would precede it.

Intel's Bill Holt demonstrated evidence of Moore's law in action, showing that the 14nm node has yields notably lower than the 22nm node did at the same stage in its development. In early 2015 Intel plans to ramp-up its 14nm production with the cost curve eventually bettering Ivy Bridge and Haswell towards the end of 2015.

Intel noted that its costs for all market segments; mainstream, performance and value, are elevated for 2015. The culprit for those increased costs is, unsurprisingly, the troublesome 14nm process which Intel has now tamed, albeit with a slight dent to its margins since analysts predict Intel cannot afford to raise its prices. Intel's ability to get to grips with the 14nm process properly in 2015 should allow for a more effective tape-out of Skylake, Intel's 14nm microarchitecture redesign. Matched with a matured 14nm process Skylake should bring costs back down again in 2016.



HEXUS Forums :: 14 Comments

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the price worth to buy an AMD!
Gosh, and I was just thinking that after 17 years I would finally buy myself an Intel again. :) I really want a PC that is energy efficient and powerful at the same time, this time around. My first PC was Pentium 166, then Pentium 200 just a few months after its release , then all AMDs until the last one Phenom II 965 BE. I just cannot justify having a 125W CPU any more. Sorry AMD, truly sorry. I do not care about performance/$ and I love AMD, but I cannot justify buying another >100W even >60W CPU.
SineWave
Gosh, and I was just thinking that after 17 years I would finally buy myself an Intel again. :) I really want a PC that is energy efficient and powerful at the same time, this time around. My first PC was Pentium 166, then Pentium 200 just a few months after its release , then all AMDs until the last one Phenom II 965 BE. I just cannot justify having a 125W CPU any more. Sorry AMD, truly sorry. I do not care about performance/$ and I love AMD, but I cannot justify buying another >100W even >60W CPU.

When did this even become a consideration? It seems like a completely pointless distinction. Particularly as tdp and power usage are only tenuously related in any event.

As an example I've recently moved from a heavily ocd 6300 to a 4790 with a net increase in power draw.

Comparing apples and apples I. E. A high performance 125w part with the equivalent i5 88w and making the (false) assumption that tdp == power draw you'd have to peg both cpus at 100% for a total of 9700 hours (about 13 months) assuming you're absolutely addicted to wow and game 6 hours a day 350 days a year that's 4.6 years. If you do a more realistic comparison (8370e) that goes up to 51000 hours or 25.5 years of gaming addiction.

By all means buy Intel for performance /willy waving /blues your favourite colour reasons. But please don't do it to save electricity.
Personally intel need to slow down. They release chips far too often either with little gain or bizarre decisions such as cheaper paste beneath the cap. I still don't need to upgrade from an i7 980. Whacked in a GTX 980 recently and working peachy fine even on PCIe 2.0 8x
The i7 980 is using 9-12w on web browsing and idling. These are 130w TDP. So just shows that you're never getting close to the TDP day to day. And*gaming seems gpu centric these days cpu rarely go above 40% usage. With the exception of ubisoft games
TDP is THERMAL Design power (the amount of heat the CPU can generate) NOT electrical power needed to run it!