Tiger Lake Release Date and Xe Event Date Revealed

[zeusthemoose]

Summary

 On Wednesday, it was confirmed that the upcoming Intel event in which "something big" will happen is the launch of Intel's 11th generation mobile processor called Tiger Lake. The event will be happening on September 2nd. Since the announcement of the event, it has been believed to be the launch of these CPUs but was not confirmed until Intel accidentally marked their events calendar with the date saying "Tiger Lake Virtual Launch Event".

 Tiger Lake CPUs are believed to have massive improvement to single core performance which could give them the lead they need over AMD in certain applications like gaming. They will also be the first CPUs to feature their Xe based graphics. They will be using the 10nm manufacturing process! 

 Speaking of Xe graphics, it is believed that some news about them will be given on August 13th during Intel's "Updates From Our Chief Architect" event. Seeing as how it will be run by Intel's chief architect who has a background in graphics, Raja Koduri, it is logical to expect that we will be getting news about Xe.

 

Quotes

Quote

Over the next month or so Intel is scheduled to launch its next-generation Tiger Lake family of processors. Detailed in bits and pieces over the past several months, Tiger Lake will be Intel’s third 10nm-based CPU family and will incorporate the company’s Willow Cove CPU architecture as well as the first integrated GPU based on their new Xe GPU architecture. With that launch quickly approaching, Intel’s investor site has posted notice that the company will be holding two Tiger Lake-related events over the next month, with presentations scheduled for August 13^th and September 2^nd.

First off, on August 13^th Intel will be holding a presentation they’re dubbing “Updates From Our Chief Architect”. The event is set to be run by Raja Koduri, Intel’s chief architect, as well as the general manager of Architecture, Graphics, and Software groups. No other details are being offered about the event at this time – which is typical for investor event announcements – however given Koduri’s background in graphics we can easily make some educated guesses about what will be presented.

Intel to date has offered very little in details about the Xe-LP GPU architecture that will be going into Tiger Lake (and the DG1). So with Koduri helming the event we’re expecting to finally get some major Xe-related graphics architecture disclosures. Whether we should expect to see similar updates for the CPU side of Tiger Lake (Willow Cove) is a bit more nebulous, however; Koduri is Intel’s chief architect for a reason, but it’s well-known that his primary duties at Intel are GPU-related. But regardless of whatever is disclosed, it’s clear that this is going to be an architecture-focused event, as Intel has scheduled a second, later event as the official Tiger Lake launch.

On September 2^nd, Intel will be holding their “Tiger Lake Virtual Launch Event”. Even fewer official details are available about this event, but in this case the name says it all. Normally Intel would be holding an in-person event of some kind for the launch of a new CPU platform, however with a coronavirus pandemic going on, everything in the near future is being done virtually. So we’re expecting this event to offer a similar level of detail as past launch events, covering whatever details don’t get included in Intel’s architectural presentation, as well as more direct product details such as SKUs and chip configurations.

(anandtech)

 

My thoughts

 Im really looking forward to both events. There were recently rumors of Intel shutting down the Xe program so I really hope this event is not the announcement of that. I also hope the CPUs have a good performance increase and reasonable enough price to be a good competitor to AMD.

 

Sources

 anandtech

 techradar

 The Verge

 Big thanks to @Pascal... for letting me do this write up

Edited August 7, 2020 by zeusthemoose
Clarified that these are mobile chip

[mockedarche]

Man..... Feels like 10th gen was just released but I guess when you use a r7 1700 its hard to stay up on updated news especially from a different brand. Hope they make a come back i'd love real competition as that's always good. Good write up btw!

[zeusthemoose]

4 minutes ago, Ohsnaps said:

Man..... Feels like 10th gen was just released but I guess when you use a r7 1700 its hard to stay up on updated news especially from a different brand. Hope they make a come back i'd love real competition as that's always good. Good write up btw!

Thank you! I was surprised they were launching 11th gen so soon too. I just checked again and 10th gen only came out like 4.5 months ago.

[RejZoR]

10th Gen wasn't really that big of evolution. More like Zen to Zen+. I wonder if 11th gen will be anything actually worthwhile and not just rehashing of the same old for the billionth time. Tiger Lake's different core clustering is interesting, but we don't know how it'll work in real use. Also interested in seeing what's up with Xe.

 

Intel might be a bit stuck with CPU's and recent leak ain't gonna help them, but I hope Xe is a real thing and that it'll be good. Even if only mid range stuff. AMD did pretty well just with Polaris. If Intel can pull at least that with Xe it's a good thing. Polaris was actually quite disruptive. Hell, when relative was buying a mid tier system, we got RX 580 for like 160€. There was NOTHING for that kind of money with that kind of performance. All the GTX 1060's were like 250€ and they were what, faster by 3fps ? So, yeah, I hope Xe is at lest solid mid tier discrete chip and it's gonna be fun times for graphics market. And I hope they'll eventually expand to higher end too if they won't have them straight away.

[porina]

I didn't bother posting the following as news but it does also include the Hot Chips event where Intel (and AMD, nvidia, Xbox) are also giving talks.

 

8 hours ago, RejZoR said:

10th Gen wasn't really that big of evolution. More like Zen to Zen+.

Which 10th gen. In architecture terms, desktop hasn't moved from Skylake. Now, they have implemented improvements in other areas which allow it to turbo "better". For the same clock, you're still getting the same performance. Rocket Lake if it happens will be a new architecture. Alder Lake 2H 2021 for sure is.

 

Mobile is more complicated. I haven't managed to find anyone doing IPC testing, but Ice Lake is Zen 2 like, and we'll have to see how Tiger Lake's Willow Cove goes against Zen 3. Intel potentially has the timing advantage there given Zen 2 mobile was only recently released, and we're probably not going to see Zen 3 mobile for quite some time as server and desktop come before that.

[porina]

9 hours ago, zeusthemoose said:

Thank you! I was surprised they were launching 11th gen so soon too. I just checked again and 10th gen only came out like 4.5 months ago.

You have to be careful which area you compare in. Tiger Lake is a mobile part, replacing Ice Lake which came out around November last year. So by the time we get Tiger Lake, that would be out for around 10 months. So it is a bit of a shorter cycle than usually expected, but I guess Intel really want to push forward in their offerings to be as competitive as possible against AMD.

 

The desktop Comet Lake parts were released in May. I'm now so mixed up between rumours I'm not sure what successor there will be for those, but it isn't Tiger Lake.

[schwellmo92]

8 hours ago, RejZoR said:

10th Gen wasn't really that big of evolution. More like Zen to Zen+. I wonder if 11th gen will be anything actually worthwhile and not just rehashing of the same old for the billionth time. Tiger Lake's different core clustering is interesting, but we don't know how it'll work in real use. Also interested in seeing what's up with Xe.

First of all, Ice Lake was not a rehash at all, there are two architectures that fall under 10th gen in the 15w~ space.

 

Secondly, you’re getting Alder Lake mixed up with a Tiger Lake. Tiger Lake core config is normal.

[staticpage]

I'm still on x99 because it seems like if you are overclocked to at lest 4.5 on older Intel stuff ( Haswell and newer) you are still not going to see hardly any performance gains that justify the money spent from the newer chips. I don't think I have seen any videos on that, x99 with an average overclock of 4.5-4.7 vs. 9th 10th gen. All these incremental updates are mealiness IMO

[RejZoR]

49 minutes ago, staticpage said:

I'm still on x99 because it seems like if you are overclocked to at lest 4.5 on older Intel stuff ( Haswell and newer) you are still not going to see hardly any performance gains that justify the money spent from the newer chips. I don't think I have seen any videos on that, x99 with an average overclock of 4.5-4.7 vs. 9th 10th gen. All these incremental updates are mealiness IMO

I feel you as I'm on X99 too. 5820K @ 4.6 GHz and I can't bring myself to upgrade as there would be minimal or no difference. The thing is, this is 4.6 GHz ALL core. It's that clock unconditionally, no matter what I throw at it. Where Ryzen 5 3600X has same core configuration and boasts IPC improvements, it's still not clocked anywhere near that when under multicore load. It's more like what, 4.1 or 4.2 GHz? That's half a gigahertz of difference in raw clock. On ALL cores. Core i5 10600k, maybe, but for what realistic gains again?

 

I've done quick check and replacing CPU+MEM+MOBO would be around 1000€. And I'd gain what, 5fps in games, maybe? Instead, I'll probably replace my GTX 1080Ti with whatever new comes out for RTX 3000 series or whatever Big Navi will be, it'll probably cost me around 800€ and I'll see much more dramatic gains.

[illegalwater]

What was the point of releasing Comet Lake on desktop? It hasn't even been available six months and it's already being replaced..

 

Nevermind these are probably laptop CPUs first, my bad.

[thorhammerz]

1 hour ago, staticpage said:

All these incremental updates are mealiness IMO

Isn't that just great (for the consumer)?

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

I feel you as I'm on X99 too. 5820K @ 4.6 GHz and I can't bring myself to upgrade as there would be minimal or no difference. The thing is, this is 4.6 GHz ALL core. It's that clock unconditionally, no matter what I throw at it. Where Ryzen 5 3600X has same core configuration and boasts IPC improvements, it's still not clocked anywhere near that when under multicore load. It's more like what, 4.1 or 4.2 GHz? That's half a gigahertz of difference in raw clock. On ALL cores. Core i5 10600k, maybe, but for what realistic gains again?

 

I've done quick check and replacing CPU+MEM+MOBO would be around 1000€. And I'd gain what, 5fps in games, maybe? Instead, I'll probably replace my GTX 1080Ti with whatever new comes out for RTX 3000 series or whatever Big Navi will be, it'll probably cost me around 800€ and I'll see much more dramatic gains.

I'm still on i7-4770 with 32GB DDR PC32-12800 (800Mhz), but I updated the SSD to a NVMe and the GPU to a GTX1080 since the MB was last changed.

 

Like I priced things out, I could justify an upgrade... to a 5nm CPU and GPU since these are 22nm and 16nm, So something below 7nm makes the best sense. I've mainly been waiting to see if a PCIe 5.0 or DDR5 comes out, as both the DDR2 and DDR3 systems I bought I bought when the next memory came out to take advantage of the lower priced high end memory.

[soldier_ph]

As Long as AMD is ahead with the Node generations then they will stay ahead of the lead and take up even more Market Share per year in all three major segments so Mobile, HPC and Data Center and DIY/SI till Intel comes back with a new advanced Node. My prediction is that Intel will be really competitive again when they're on 5 and 3nm aka then when they fully caught up to AMD so maybe in like 2025. IMO. 

 

But when it comes to their Xe Graphics they'll never get as big as AMD Radeon or Nvidia. They'll stay in the iGPU business. IMO

 

Also good write up @zeusthemoose !

[RejZoR]

Frankly, it doesn't need to become big. If they can consistently pull "Polaris" cards. Biggest cut is in the mid segment. It's what people buy the most. I don't know anyone who avoided Polaris cards from AMD because they didn't have "top of the line" crown stealing bigger brother card. It just was what it was and people bought them because they were good value. Hell, I picked RX 580 for a PC build we were doing for a relative. It was way cheaper than GTX 1060 yet performs basically the same. And he can play games maxed out at 1080p no problem. Make Xe this way and it'll sell. I know they'll use it as iGPU, but having 3rd option for low end and mid end cards would be cool too. I wouldn't mind high end if they can pull one, but mid is fine too.

[Soppro]

Very interested to see what details they'll reveal about Xe. Hopefully Tiger Lake will see improvements to 10nm too, maybe better base clocks.

 

9 hours ago, Pascal... said:

But when it comes to their Xe Graphics they'll never get as big as AMD Radeon or Nvidia. They'll stay in the iGPU business. IMO

Bold thing to say when there's still very few details about Xe, no products are out yet and no details on performance (other than those revealed by Intel). I'm cautiously optimistic about Xe considering how ambitious Intel is positioning it to be and I am sure Intel does not want to be in a position where it disappoints everyone.

[straight_stewie]

10 hours ago, Pascal... said:

5 and 3nm

 

At the point that chip manufacturers are claiming 5nm and 3nm node sizes, we can be pretty sure that they are lying. Humans as a whole don't know if it's even possible to get a transistor that small working yet, at least at any scale above a single transistor.

We strongly suspect that it's not possible to get below 5nm at scale, but that if it is it will require major reworking of everything, including probably moving away from silicon.

I say all of that to say this: If you see a processor coming out anytime soon that claims to be below ~5nm, and the news isn't accompanied with all sorts of explanations about what ground breaking discoveries they made that allowed them to pull it off, we know they are completely lying about the node size.

In fact, some FAB manufacturing equipment suppliers are already starting to claim that the listed node sizes don't relate to the physical node sizes anymore. Additionally, a TSMC representative recently went as far as to say that "node sizes are more like model numbers these days, rather than an indication of the actual component size".

As a community, we need to stop caring about the technology that builds the chips, and start caring solely about how well the chips perform and how much they cost, especially when so much of us are apparently so far removed from what the actual limitations are here that node sizes ostensibly devolve into nothing but marketing terms.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, straight_stewie said:

 

At the point that chip manufacturers are claiming 5nm and 3nm node sizes, we can be pretty sure that they are lying. Humans as a whole don't know if it's even possible to get a transistor that small working yet, at least at any scale above a single transistor.

We strongly suspect that it's not possible to get below 5nm at scale, but that if it is it will require major reworking of everything, including probably moving away from silicon.

I say all of that to say this: If you see a processor coming out anytime soon that claims to be below ~5nm, and the news isn't accompanied with all sorts of explanations about what ground breaking discoveries they made that allowed them to pull it off, we know they are completely lying about the node size.

In fact, some FAB manufacturing equipment suppliers are already starting to claim that the listed node sizes don't relate to the physical node sizes anymore. Additionally, a TSMC representative recently went as far as to say that "node sizes are more like model numbers these days, rather than an indication of the actual component size".

As a community, we need to stop caring about the technology that builds the chips, and start caring solely about how well the chips perform and how much they cost, especially when so much of us are apparently so far removed from what the actual limitations are here that node sizes ostensibly devolve into nothing but marketing terms.

It does actually annoy me when you want to discuss what new node tech means for business and for us consumers but the threads devolve into ill-informed hurdur remarks about intel.  taking the thread right back to the begining.  Yes we get it,  intel are having issues, but the name of the node means literally nothing. 

[straight_stewie]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Yes we get it,  intel are having issues, but the name of the node means literally nothing. 

IKR. I really wanted to use this thread to try to figure out exactly what the care difference between mobile and desktop lines is.

I mean, if you compare chips like high end Ice Lake i7s and "high end" Comet Lake i3s you find that they are specced, and perform, very similarly.

Which, to me, begs the question: Why does the process they use for Ice Lake not translate into the process they use for Comet Lake?

There's another angle here too, and that is the question: Was the accidental posting of a secret product announcement more "accidentally on purpose" because they are afraid of what a bigger leak might contain, and need to push forward their timeline to try to beat it?

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

IKR. I really wanted to use this thread to try to figure out exactly what the care difference between mobile and desktop lines is.

I mean, if you compare chips like high end Ice Lake i7s and "high end" Comet Lake i3s you find that they are specced, and perform, very similarly.

Which, to me, begs the question: Why does the process they use for Ice Lake not translate into the process they use for Comet Lake?

There's another angle here too, and that is the question: Was the accidental posting of a secret product announcement more "accidentally on purpose" because they are afraid of what a bigger leak might contain, and need to push forward their timeline to try to beat it?

I put it down to 10nm teething verses 14 refinement. 

[soldier_ph]

10 hours ago, Soppro said:

Very interested to see what details they'll reveal about Xe. Hopefully Tiger Lake will see improvements to 10nm too, maybe better base clocks.

 

Bold thing to say when there's still very few details about Xe, no products are out yet and no details on performance (other than those revealed by Intel). I'm cautiously optimistic about Xe considering how ambitious Intel is positioning it to be and I am sure Intel does not want to be in a position where it disappoints everyone.

I mean they already said that they're gonna kill it in 2023 so it won't get big. Plus Raja Koduri is leaving Intel again, I wonder where he will go to this time. Maybe to Nvidia or Apple, who knows.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, Pascal... said:

I mean they already said that they're gonna kill it in 2023 so it won't get big. Plus Raja Koduri is leaving Intel again, I wonder where he will go to this time. Maybe to Nvidia or Apple, who knows.

The only source I could find for this is adoredtv,  is there anything reputable that suggests he is going to leave or that the Xe project is dead?  I am tired of talking about rumors. 

[Joduko]

I'd like to see some integrated graphics improvements. I don't think they've really done anything groundbreaking on that front since 5th gen and everything since has just been HD/UHD 630

[RejZoR]

Nanometers are a nice laughing thing when we're poking Intel for lagging behind, but realistically, it means nothing. I'm still on 22nm and my CPU is devouring workloads of all kinds that I need with ease and because I happen to have a gem it's not even that hot and it's running at 4.6GHz on all 6 cores (and 12 threads). Be it encoding of video clips that I need, processing massive images or playing games. It all works with excellent speed for my needs. And I consider myself a demanding user, but not to a point I'd care for 5 seconds more of waiting time that would mean 1000€ or 1500€ expense. Which is why I can't realistically justify a whole platform swap even right now. I am a lot more sensitive for framerate in games and that too is far beyond 60fps at everything at any quality so that's great too.

[porina]

10 hours ago, mr moose said:

The only source I could find for this is adoredtv,  is there anything reputable that suggests he is going to leave or that the Xe project is dead?  I am tired of talking about rumors. 

Agree with this. It is one thing to talk about rumours in a "what if" style, but to present them as fact is misleading at best.