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CPU-Wafer1

Always since Intel launched the Core i7 back in 2008, information technology has pursued a fairly consistent core resource allotment and marketing system. Intel'southward top-terminate mainstream parts are quad-cores with Hyper-Threading enabled, both on the desktop and the laptop. Information technology's been that way for well-nigh a decade, just if a leaked roadmap is accurate, that's about to change.

According to the roadmap, spotted by Overclock3D, Intel will introduce a new six-core processor as a peak-cease option in mobile when it refreshes its Cannon Lake 10nm chips with the second-generation Java Lake processors in 2018.

Intel hypothetical roadmap

The implication of this slide is that we won't see Cannon Lake until about this fourth dimension next year. Intel'south first generation 10nm process would go along to hold down the Y- and U-class product divisions, while Coffee Lake debuts in the fifteen-28W segment. It's just the height-terminate chips that'll get a half-dozen-core option, with TDPs from 35W-45W. There's another slide from Overclock3D that claims to prove things in a flake more particular.

Coffee Lake 2

While nosotros don't take any details on the desktop side of things, Intel tends to proceed its core counts fairly aligned between desktops and laptops. Every bit we've discussed in our guide to Intel CPUs, desktop microprocessors take consistently followed the same pattern: Core i7 means quad-core + Hyper-Threading, Cadre i5's are quad-core fries without HT, and Core i3 processors are dual-core with Hyper-Threading enabled. In mobile, the highest-end quad-cores too offer Hyper-Threading, merely the lower-power Cadre i7 processors are all dual-cadre with HT enabled. Intel now offers a few Core i5's without HT in mobile also, but that'south a relatively recent evolution, and these are still 45W chips.

What these slides imply is that Intel believes it can finally squeeze another two cores into its tiptop-cease 45W TDP bracket. These chips would target desktop replacements and mobile workstations, not conventional systems. And in all honesty, that'southward probably where they should stay.

The harsh truth is CPU performance simply isn't improving very much or very chop-chop. DirectX 12 has proven to be a significant boost for AMD's GPUs and CPUs in certain cases, but information technology hasn't all the same done much for Intel CPUs. The promise of DX12 is that information technology allows a CPU to accept reward of multi-threaded rendering much more efficiently — but if you stop and think about information technology, Intel CPUs have been the gold standard for conventional DirectX 11 workloads for a long fourth dimension at present. That ways developers design scenes and games to be executed efficiently inside the constraints DX11 put on Intel processors — and that, in turn, can limit the boost Intel chips see when using DirectX 12.

Long term we look to see amend support for multi-threaded rendering and college CPU cadre counts every bit developers begin using DirectX 12 more, but that may be a relatively slow transition. Major engines like Unreal volition continue to back up multiple APIs for some time into the future — DirectX 9's feature set is still relevant to gaming today, and that API is nearly old enough to drive. Meanwhile, many consumer applications still top out, practically speaking, at just four threads.

Some will see this roadmap as confirmation that Intel is reacting to AMD'southward Zen, but we bluntly incertitude information technology. Zen is not expected to match Intel clock-for-clock and while we await its power efficiency to be vastly better than anything AMD fielded with Bristol Ridge or Carrizo, it'south yet going to take multiple product cycles to bring overall APU performance up to compete with Intel. While AMD intends to launch Zen APUs, it's focusing on servers and the desktop market place first — areas where information technology has much larger TDP ranges and can leverage core counts more than effectively. Of class all of this is rumor at this point — take it all with a grain or 10 of salt.