Comet Lake-S CPUs Allegedly Command New LGA 1200 Socket and 400-Series Chipset

gggplaya said:

Coming so late to the party in 2020 and requiring a new expensive high end motherboard. It better hit 5.0ghz and sustain higher multicore clocks than the 3900x. Otherwise, I really don't see the point. I'd rather have the 2 extra cores of the 3900x.

Intel already does have higher multi core clocks. I doubt 10 cores will be able to at stock settings sustain 5GHz on all cores though, or maybe they can if Intel has done some tweaking to do so.

I have no doubt that it will clock higher and sustain higher boost clocks. The question is will the power draw be too much to justify buying this instead of waiting for say their 10nm or 7nm parts.

Growle said:

Thanks Intel? Seems like they're just trying to get a piece of AMD's cake, but 14nm vs zen 2's 7nm is a tough sell. Asking people to stay within the same architecture but buy a new motherboard is questionable, unless they make the price competitive. Now if they confirm that their 10nm process chips will work on the LGA 1200 motherboards, that might offer better value.

I will admit, with the higher TDP and pcie 4 boards I'm definitely curious to see how well they overclock, just not enough to buy one with 10nm so close.

By now we should all know that the process naming schemes are pointless. While the 7nm AMD used is better than Intels 14nm its not by as much as people like to think.

The mass majority of people also don't think about these things. I have talked to a lot of people who would stick with Intel since AMD has not been a major competitor for a few years. Even in the HPC and server space there is hesitation. Will take time to change.

I am still doubting we will get a 10nm desktop part considering how fast Intel is planning to push to 7nm. 10nm low power laptop parts have just arrived and if they launch in early 2020 with plans to push 7nm out in 2021 it might not make sense to release a desktop part based on 10nm.

Metal Messiah. said:

Another NEW Socket, another new Motherboard chipset ? Solid pass... 🔫

Meh. Intel has not ever really been one to run the same board for more than two generations. So this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone really.

jimmysmitty said:

Meh. Intel has not ever really been one to run the same board for more than two generations. So this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone really.

Yeah, I know that. This doesn't surprise me though. But come on, AMD has been giving backwards compatibility for the last few generations. Some of the new RYZEN chips support old motherboard chipsets, except the 3rd GEN RYZEN procs are not fully backwards compatible.

So why can't INTEL follow suit ?

It looks to me they are just forcing uses to upgrade ultimately, each time a new GEN CPU launches. And, there are very few Gamers who might do a complete system overhaul or upgrade in every 2 years or so, IMO.

If it comes out in 2020, CML-S isn't really going to compete with Zen 2. At least not for long. Pretty soon it's going to be up against Zen 3. CML-S is going to have to be amazing to compete (and it really doesn't sound amazing).

On top of that, Zen 3 should still land on AM4. CML-S needs a new socket? AMD can beat Intel up about that all year! (I'm surprised they aren't making a much bigger deal about it already). If AMD are on the ball, they will include a requirement in their next socket that OEMs use BIOS chips with enough memory to guarantee 3 generations of upgrades without running out of space (the purported reason why they are having some issues with making some existing motherboards compatible), and figure out a way of guaranteeing that new chips will at least boot enough to do firmware upgrades.

Metal Messiah. said:

Yeah, I know that. This doesn't surprise me though. But come on, AMD has been giving backwards compatibility for the last few generation. Some of the new RYZEN chips support old motherboard chipsets, except the 3rd GEN RYZEN procs are not fully backwards compatible.

So why can't INTEL follow suit ?

It looks to me they are just forcing uses to upgrade ultimately, each time a new GEN CPU launches. And, there are very few Gamers who might do a complete system overhaul or upgrade in every 2 years or so, IMO.

My observation is that Intel builds a CPU and chipset around each other. This may entail changes to power layouts and pin count changes depending on what they add to the CPU or change for the CPU. I see no issue with that.

Currently with the performance of CPUs someone who has a 9900K or 3900x will not need to upgrade for at least 3 years most likely. I don't foresee an explosion in core utilization by games, software is typically very slow to adopt to faster hardware. Its why people with Sandy Bridge still do decently in the enthusiast space. In the mainstream consumer space this is more so. The majority of people don't need anything beyond Sandy Bridge.

Now AMD did it because they probably knew that first gen Ryzen was not going to be as competitive with Intels lineup. Allowing for more CPUs to be added to the same platform allows people to get to that point who would prefer to use AMD. However the biggest caveat in doing so is the CPU gets limited by the platform.

I have no issue with AMD doing this but I feel its more of a limitation to the CPU. If you look when Intel adds more cores or more memory channels (HEDT) they tend to increase the pin count as well. Not always nut normally it does. If AMD decided to throw another memory channel into mainstream it would require more pins. I imagine if they created a new socket for Ryzen 3000 they might have been able to better route power for the higher core count and possible improve higher clock speed stability.

The longest lasting socket for Intel was LGA775. Some older 900 series chipsets could support Penryn CPUs. Not that I would want to bottleneck one of the best LGA775 CPUs with such an old platform but a few motherboard vendors did update higher end 900 series chipsets to do so.

jimmysmitty said:

My observation is that Intel builds a CPU and chipset around each other. This may entail changes to power layouts and pin count changes depending on what they add to the CPU or change for the CPU. I see no issue with that.

Currently with the performance of CPUs someone who has a 9900K or 3900x will not need to upgrade for at least 3 years most likely. I don't foresee an explosion in core utilization by games, software is typically very slow to adopt to faster hardware. Its why people with Sandy Bridge still do decently in the enthusiast space. In the mainstream consumer space this is more so. The majority of people don't need anything beyond Sandy Bridge.

Now AMD did it because they probably knew that first gen Ryzen was not going to be as competitive with Intels lineup. Allowing for more CPUs to be added to the same platform allows people to get to that point who would prefer to use AMD. However the biggest caveat in doing so is the CPU gets limited by the platform.

I have no issue with AMD doing this but I feel its more of a limitation to the CPU. If you look when Intel adds more cores or more memory channels (HEDT) they tend to increase the pin count as well. Not always nut normally it does. If AMD decided to throw another memory channel into mainstream it would require more pins. I imagine if they created a new socket for Ryzen 3000 they might have been able to better route power for the higher core count and possible improve higher clock speed stability.

The longest lasting socket for Intel was LGA775. Some older 900 series chipsets could support Penryn CPUs. Not that I would want to bottleneck one of the best LGA775 CPUs with such an old platform but a few motherboard vendors did update higher end 900 series chipsets to do so.

Hmmm... All this indeed makes sense. I agree with some of your points. Thanks.

Better wait for PCIe 4.0/5.0 boards with DDR5. But by the time Intel does that, AMD will have 32GB HBM3 RAM onboard the high end CPUs 🆒