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19 percent of generation-over-generation IPC versus 10th-generation desktop CPUs looks great – but the verdict is on the importance of “up to” protection, or the impact of reduced core counts on i9 CPUs.
Intel
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Intel shows some rather modest victories over the Ryzen 9 5900X in some of its “RUG” workflow tests – but they rely heavily on AVX-512 optimizations, which many workloads do not share.
Intel
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The new Intel Z590 cards support PCI Express 4.0, Thunderbolt 4 and enhanced DMI. The Z590 cards also support 10th generation Core processors.
Intel
This week, Intel announced its 11th generation of S series desktop CPUs, code-named Rocket Lake-S. These are game-oriented processors optimized for high clock rates and performance, reaching 19 SKUs ranging from i5-11400T to 19-11900K.
The new chips, based on Intel’s Cypress Cove architecture, claim an increase of up to 19 percent in Instructions per clock cycle – a very familiar number, as it is the same number that AMD has claimed to raise IPC from generation to generation between your Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures. We will do some practical benchmarking in the near future to determine the importance of the “up to” hedge in this claim.
In the meantime, we are cautiously optimistic about the performance of “up to 19 percent IPC” and “up to 50 percent iGPU” that Intel claims. As usual, the really big numbers that Intel shows for the new generation of processors don’t have much to do with the performance of the general-purpose CPU – they are directly linked to the location of AVX-512-optimized workloads. But the 19 percent is not tied to the AVX-512, nor is it priced at reduced clock speeds or the highest rated TDP.
Intel is also launching a new Z590 motherboard chipset. The cards built into the Z590 offer 20 PCI Express 4.0 lanes, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20 Gbps ports, Thunderbolt 4 and an enhanced direct memory interface. The new cards will also support 10th generation processors – but older CPUs do not support PCIe 4.0, so don’t expect a new Z590 card to unlock it.
Rocket Lake-S CPUs are incompatible with H410 or B460 cards and compatibility with Z490 is uncertain at best. If you want a Rocket Lake-S CPU, we strongly recommend a new Z590 card to go with it.
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This table shows all ten Core i9 and Core i7 Rocket Lake-S CPUs. Note that Core i9 CPUs have decreased from ten to eight cores in this generation.
Intel
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The main change in Core i5 CPUs from the 10th to the 11th generation is the onboard graphics, which achieve a substantial increase from UHD 630 to UHD 730 or UHD 730.
Intel
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Some 10th generation Core i3 and Pentium Gold CPU models will also be updated this month – but they are still the 10th generation, not the 11th.
Intel
In another familiar story for Intel, what the new generation gives up is the core count – albeit only at the Core i9 level. The i9-10900K was a TDP of 10 cores and 125 W with maximum increase of a single core of 5.3 GHz; the i9-11900K corresponds to TDP and frequency, but drops to eight cores. Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs remain 8c / 16t and 6c / 12t, respectively.
Ars has product samples for the i9-11900K and i5-11600K processors on hand, along with a new motherboard based on the Z590 chipset. Naturally, we will offer practical benchmark results later this month.
Intel list image