Intel Launches Comet Lake (Core 10th Series)

[homerdog]

It's easy to be misled by the tech sites. They are totally dependent on advertising and shopping, so it's not surprising that they hype the new shiny. But as far as games are concerned, the return on investment in cores is terrible.
Looking at for instance techpowerup.com tests of the latest CPUs, (link to 10600K test), where they set the 10600K to 100%, using an RTX2080Ti graphics card, we find at 1280x720
3300x - 85.3%
3600x - 87.6%
3700x - 89.6%
3900x - 92.4%

note that the scaling by core is exaggerated by the higher end models having higher boost clocks (and power consumption). At ISO clocks the differences would have been effectively zero, as the scaling we see here is below clock scaling (!). As it would, of course, the instant the GPU would start to affect performance at all. (2080ti at 1280x720 is hardly a realistic scenario for anyone).
The benefit of increasing core count for gaming is completely negligible.
I expect that it will be nigh on impossible for me to buy a 5nm CPU in a couple of years with less than eight cores because as you point out, single thread performance isn't likely to evolve particularly fast in this segment of processors in the future, which simply means that it's an aspect of system building that is becoming a complete non-issue as we have moved from two to four and now further up in "standard" core count.

I see forum warriors blaming "lazy developers" for this, but that's just ignorance talking. Of course the entire industry isn't incompetent, and they have had really good reason to push multithreading as far as they could with the atrocious CPUs of the current console generation. The above is the result of their efforts.

I well aware of the current situation, just hoping that at some point this will change. Though as you pointed out, they had every reason to thread heavily this gen and it doesn't seem to have happened for the most part.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I partially agree, keep in mind that the 3300X has already 8 threads. Games like Battlefield V run much smoother on a 6700k than on my 6600k, once you have more than 4 threads available. However, at 12 or 16 threads you enter the land of rapidly diminishing returns. So yes, I agree 8/16 is an overkill for gaming, right now a 6/12 cpu should last you several years but if you still have a 4 threaded cpu you are going to notice the 1% lows can get... very low.

On another topic, according to rumors Intel is planning on releasing Rocket Lake by the end of the year. If you were planning on upgrading I suggest to wait for Zen 3 and RL as they promise nice increases in ST performance.

 

[RobertR1]

So as someone in the oc scene, if you want to get CML, avoid anything but the 10core. If it's purely gaming and nothing else the 6 core is fine also but might get left behind when next gen consoles mature and requirements go up. Silicon and IHS quality is all over the place so it's a properly lottery for voltage binning and even the thermals given the same voltage. 10700k and 10600k are rejects and bad ones at that. You get much worse voltage bins and depending which cores are de activated will determine your core to core latency.

For the 10core, get a mobo in the $280 or above range. The unify itx being the best small mobo available. All the ATX boards in that range and above are fine. Get one with the features and bios you like more.

Speaking of bios, somehow most of the bios are a mess with bugs and mem training issues so platform needs more time to mature.

IMC can be strong but ring bus being stretched beyond it's peak efficiency means latency is a worse than a similar tuned 9900k(s)

360mm AIO for the 10core. De lid, direct die with a custom loop is ideal. Drop in temps should be good for another 100-200mhz all core.

If you want to know your worst cores. Load up Prime 95 small avx2 with HT disabled. Then see which 2 cores fail first. Disable HT on those and then OC the rest and you can "max out" your chip that way.

bdie still the best for mem as you'd expect. Good target is cl16-17 and 4400-4600mhz for daily stable with tight timings.

If you don't care to do any oc and just want plug n play with xmp, get Ryzen instead. Better yet, wait for the XT variants of the Ryzen 3000 series chips coming out soon.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I partially agree, keep in mind that the 3300X has already 8 threads. Games like Battlefield V run much smoother on a 6700k than on my 6600k, once you have more than 4 threads available. However, at 12 or 16 threads you enter the land of rapidly diminishing returns. So yes, I agree 8/16 is an overkill for gaming, right now a 6/12 cpu should last you several years but if you still have a 4 threaded cpu you are going to notice the 1% lows can get... very low.

On another topic, according to rumors Intel is planning on releasing Rocket Lake by the end of the year. If you were planning on upgrading I suggest to wait for Zen 3 and RL as they promise nice increases in ST performance.

my poor 6600k. 4 threads is so 2017.

 

[Davros]

63 fps is still playable

 

[Deleted member 7537]

63 fps is still playable

Peasant.