How Intel came up with a 6 core mainstream design so fast?

[light-v]

Coffee Lake is just around the corner but they never made a 6 core for the mainstream which never had more than 4 cores so how the heck are they gonna do that? Scaled down enthusiast or 'glued together' dies Phenom II X6 1055T style?

[sazrocks]

? I don’t see why it is hard to put 6 cores on a consumer chip.

[PCGuy_5960]

They didn't, Coffeelake has been in the works for more than a year

[Mira Yurizaki]

Borrow designs from their HEDT parts, most likely.

[aisle9]

Maybe they've had architecture for 6-core mainstream CPUs ready since Ivy Bridge, but never saw a good reason to release them?

 

#ducksflames

[light-v]

3 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

They didn't, Coffeelake has been in the works for more than a year

I thought they began working on it around the same time as Kaby and pushed back Cannonlake because they had trouble with the 10nm node

[done12many2]

It's magic.  Don't overthink it. 

[AnonymousGuy]

2 minutes ago, light-v said:

I thought they began working on it around the same time as Kaby and pushed back Cannonlake because they had trouble with the 10nm node

OEMs bitched at Intel about lack of consistency in product releases.  They want Intel to put out a product every X months so then they can advertise it as something new.  So you end up with KBL, CFL, etc.  Basically "gap fillers" to smooth out lumps in developing new nodes.

[Colexd]

Probably had it in the works before but havent released it yet.

[light-v]

5 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Maybe they've had architecture for 6-core mainstream CPUs ready since Ivy Bridge, but never saw a good reason to release them?

 

#ducksflames

Linus pointed in a Wan Show that Kaby Lake would be the 6 core to kill off Ryzen if they had it

[DocSwag]

17 minutes ago, light-v said:

I thought they began working on it around the same time as Kaby and pushed back Cannonlake because they had trouble with the 10nm node

No they've probably been working on it for more than that. Intel announces things a lot later than when they actually decide things.

[SlaughterSmurf]

They knew Ryzen was coming out and they've probably had it for a while, just needed a reason to release it. 

[TacoSenpai]

I mean 5820K was x99 and I know thats considered Enthusiast but I thought that paired with an affordable board was pretty reasonable price wise.  But yeah to answer the the quest Ryzen happened and forced Intel to respond on that front. 

[light-v]

I mean Ryzen is not an excuse to rush X299 especially if they were going to release a 6 core mainstream platform 3-5 months afterward. It's not like AMD was going to steal their position anyway. They're going to be competing with themselves at this point even though half of the X299 CPU lineup shouldn't exist in the first place

[TacoSenpai]

Just now, light-v said:

I mean Ryzen is not an excuse to rush X299 especially if they were going to release a 6 core mainstream platform 3-5 months afterward. It's not like AMD was going to steal their position anyways. They're going to be competing with themselves at this point even though half of the X299 CPUs shouldn't exist in the first place

Of course its not.  However, if you are the sales and marketing guys at Intel and have to explain why a good chunk of market share was lost to your competitor you are also going to have to propose a solution.  I suspect (key word there suspect just conjecture) that the X299 platform was already well underway nowhere near complete mind you but certainly enough to show if they needed to on the spot.  So the idea of showing off an enthusiast platform with even more cores than the competition probably seemed like a good idea to shareholders at the time to reassure them that Intel is still dominate.  

[asand1]

Hexacores are not new to Intel. My Xeon is ~7 years old, all they needed to do was add an iGPU. 

[light-v]

2 hours ago, asand1 said:

Hexacores are not new to Intel. My Xeon is ~7 years old, all they needed to do was add an iGPU. 

I know that, but the mainstream platform never had more than 4 cores per die unlike their HEDT cpus and Ryzen which have disabled cores. They have to come up with a new design with Coffee Lake