Skylake-E. When?

[TheMastersSon]

Recent info about Skylake-E would be appreciated. All we can find is the same set of year-old articles quoting 3Q 2016 as a release date.

[FMod]

The latest rumor is that Skylake-E is going to be released as Skylake-X instead.

 

As far as the launch is concerned, Intel is suggesting that both processor series will launch in either Q3 or Q4 2017.

http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-platform-launch-2017/

 

 

Personally, I'm not holding my breath. Knowing Intel, H2 2017 tends to mean close to Xmas 2017. Skylake-X also doesn't seem to include any "Wow" features compared to what we can see today. And Broadwell-E fully supports Windows 7, unlike anything after.

Edited September 23, 2016 by FMod

[TheMastersSon]

Thanks for the info. Certainly sounds like an incremental upgrade, I mean aside from the die shrink I couldn't find anything other than moving from 40 to 48 PCIE lanes, which is pretty much a non-issue even today for most people. But nothing I read implies they've been able to get past the "anything toward 5GHz and everything starts heading south" wall they encountered all the back to the P4. Our 12 year-old Northwood runs at the same speed (3.6GHz) as some of these upcoming Skylake-X chips.

[Erik005]

The Skylake socket 2066 don't seem interesting at all, but the Kaby lake seems to be good.

 

Late 2017 or early 2018 would be a good moment to upgrade for me.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Erik005

[FMod]

There's a possible upgrade coming in 'late 2018' (intelspeak for 2019), the "Coffee Lake" (really?), which just might bring 6 cores to a mainstream platform. Mainstream platform = latest architecture instead of 2 year old architecture. Plus, if it comes with GT3e, which means L4 cache right away, another strong point.

 

Personally, I don't see much point in a core upgrade (have a Broadwell workstation and a Skylake desktop now) in the next 2 years. Nothing game-changing. For a compelling platform change, I'd want to see:

* PCI-E 4.0, which is currently final. No use for single cards, but it matters for multiple and for flexible storage.

* Next storage interface standardized. SATA Express is a useless monstrosity, M.2 slot count is too low, U.2 has all of one drive to choose from.

* 200-266 MHz memory as standard (DDR4-4266 in 16GB modules). DDR3 is at 300 MHz standard now, current DDR4 just copies that. Factory-overclocked kits, which all DDR4 above 2400 is today, are NOT the same as native speed, you can OC any DIMM.

* Non-trivial IPC gains.

 

All in all, unless AMD wakes up, we're probably in for a slow few years in CPU development. Beyond the tick-tock, Intel has two CPU design branches, one in the US, the other in Israel, which alternate on their tocks, architectures take that long to develop. The US branch came up with Pentium 4 and Haswell; the Haifa branch came up with Core (2), Sandy Bridge and Skylake... so if that is anything to go by.

[Erik005]

I really hope the AMD Zen is as good as they say, it might stir up the fire a little bit.

 

As for storage I think M.2 is getting more popular, it will be standard in the next Intel chipset.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Erik005

[TheMastersSon]

Glad I posted this thread, because I was intending to wait for Skylake-E until I read about Skylake-X. Now it seems like there's not much of a point in waiting, Broadwell/Z170 already support 40 PCIE lanes and X4 M.2 which is all I'm looking for in my next system. Thanks again all for the info.

[whould983]

Is this Skylake better than this one?

[Erik005]

So from the Intel roadmap I can conclude that the Kaby Lake-X will be the answer to AMD Zen?

 

Zen is supposedly going for the gap between the 115x and 2011 platforms.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Erik005