08-29-2019, 02:07 AM
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-...40260.html
Disregard what he says about PCIe 4.0 support on older motherboards.
Disregard what he says about PCIe 4.0 support on older motherboards.
Quote:Intel’s next-gen mainstream CPUs, dubbed Comet Lake-S, aren’t expected land in desktops until sometime in 2020. But the rumors and leaks about the company’s upcoming 14nm (++++?) processors have started to pile up. And boy, it’s hard to see how these chips -- which look to be a fifth (if you count Coffee Lake Refresh) re-warming of the company’s 2015-era Skylake architecture -- are going to find favor among just about any enthusiast or system builder next year.
Assuming the leaks hold true -- and we shouldn’t assume that they all will -- Comet Lake-S looks like the kind of lineup that would have been seen as a tepid, skippable update five years ago when Intel had little real competition in the desktop space. Here in the back half of 2019, AMD’s Ryzen 3000 processors (following on the well-received previous-generation Ryzen parts) have injected excitement into the desktop world, thanks to substantive performance (and performance per dollar) gains the likes of which we haven’t seen in going on a decade. Add in the bandwidth-doubling PCIe 4.0 interface packed into new AMD X570 motherboards and backward-compatibility with previous-generation, lower-priced X400-series boards and what Intel looks to be readying for early next year honestly borders on insulting.
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If we’re indeed several months out from new competing parts from Intel, and if all the company manages to deliver in early 2020 is yet another set of re-tweaked, hot-running 14nm CPUs with at best a couple of extra cores, AMD doesn’t have much to worry about in the short term, to say the least.
Granted, if 10nm still isn’t delivering the yields necessary for mass rollout, Intel likely feels like it has to release something. And there’s no doubt that Comet Lake-S will sell well enough to system integrators for new Intel-based desktops in big-box stores and for compact systems where Ryzen’s lack of integrated graphics (outside of its lower-end APUs) is a problem. New Intel chips will help move new PCs, especially in a world where the blue team’s long dominance means many mainstream customers don’t know enough to consider alternatives.
But with all the positive (and mostly well-deserved) press that AMD has been getting this year, even mainstream consumers are soon likely to start considering alternatives, as more and more AMD machines show up in Best Buy and on Amazon’s curated choice lists. Unless Comet Lake-S somehow turns out to be far more impressive than it looks on paper (granted, again from unconfirmed leaks), Intel’s next-gen desktop chips will be a Broadwell-like stop gap at best. And for enthusiasts -- even those who have been long-time Intel fans -- another round of modest performance gains packaged with yet another round of required motherboard upgrades is only going to increase the tide of consumers turning toward AMD.