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Intel officially launches Rocket Lake: more SKUs for everyone
For those keeping score, Intel's recent list of desktop CPUs goes like this:
Sky Lake
Sky Lake Refresh (aka Kaby Lake)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh (aka Coffee Lake)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh Refresh (aka Coffee Lake Refresh, and why is this the only one in the list that officially puts Refresh in the name?)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh Refresh Refresh (aka Comet Lake)
Rocket Lake, which is definitely not another refresh of Sky Lake, even if it is a backport of Ice Lake to an old process node.
AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of desktop CPUs has 4 SKUs in it: one with 6 cores, one with 8, one with 12, and one with 16. Simple, right? Also, the ones with 12 and 16 are typically out of stock, and the one with 6 is usually marked up to way over MSRP. You can get the 8-core SKU at MSRP pretty easily, but it's also the worst value of the lineup in terms of dollars per core at MSRP.
But back to Intel. Rocket Lake can't be built on a recent process node because Intel doesn't have a recent process node that actually works. Instead, it has to be on Intel's aging 14++^*#$%&@ node, which means that the Rocket Lake CPUs are mostly slower than Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, but make up for it by using a lot more power. You know, like a rocket. What is with vendors naming their products for their power consumption these days? First it was AMD's Polaris, Vega, and Navi, then Nvidia's Ampere, and now Intel's Rocket Lake? Did the FTC pass some regulation that products with runaway power consumption have to warn you about it in the architecture name?
So Intel has tried to compensate by releasing a whole lot different SKUs. You can choose just how much more power you want to use than AMD, and just how much slower you want the CPU to be. But these aren't independent, so your answer choice must be "a lot" on at least one of those metrics, and possibly both. As with AMD's lineup, Intel offers 4 numbers of cores, though they're focusing on the lower end with 2, 4, 6, and 8. But instead of one SKU for each, Intel is launching 30 SKUs. Literally. Though in their defense, offering versions both with and without an integrated GPU is responsible for a few of the extra SKUs. (The versions without an integrated GPU are a way to sell chips where the GPU was defective.)
At least this time, Intel is offering sane naming conventions:
2 cores is Pentium Gold.
4 cores is Core i3.
6 cores is Core i5.
8 cores is Core i7 or Core i9. Well, almost sane. But at least the Core iX is never more than one core away from having X cores.
Or maybe that would be kind of sane except that they have used Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 in so many generations that no one knows what they mean anymore. And now that they're clearly behind AMD, they've also decided to stop crippling their own products and enable hyperthreading on everything. Well, except that they still cripple most of their products by disabling overclocking.
But no, you can't actually buy Rocket Lake CPUs yet. That's coming March 30. If you're lucky. Which you might be, because these CPUs won't be useful for mining Ethereum.
Sky Lake
Sky Lake Refresh (aka Kaby Lake)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh (aka Coffee Lake)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh Refresh (aka Coffee Lake Refresh, and why is this the only one in the list that officially puts Refresh in the name?)
Sky Lake Refresh Refresh Refresh Refresh (aka Comet Lake)
Rocket Lake, which is definitely not another refresh of Sky Lake, even if it is a backport of Ice Lake to an old process node.
AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of desktop CPUs has 4 SKUs in it: one with 6 cores, one with 8, one with 12, and one with 16. Simple, right? Also, the ones with 12 and 16 are typically out of stock, and the one with 6 is usually marked up to way over MSRP. You can get the 8-core SKU at MSRP pretty easily, but it's also the worst value of the lineup in terms of dollars per core at MSRP.
But back to Intel. Rocket Lake can't be built on a recent process node because Intel doesn't have a recent process node that actually works. Instead, it has to be on Intel's aging 14++^*#$%&@ node, which means that the Rocket Lake CPUs are mostly slower than Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, but make up for it by using a lot more power. You know, like a rocket. What is with vendors naming their products for their power consumption these days? First it was AMD's Polaris, Vega, and Navi, then Nvidia's Ampere, and now Intel's Rocket Lake? Did the FTC pass some regulation that products with runaway power consumption have to warn you about it in the architecture name?
So Intel has tried to compensate by releasing a whole lot different SKUs. You can choose just how much more power you want to use than AMD, and just how much slower you want the CPU to be. But these aren't independent, so your answer choice must be "a lot" on at least one of those metrics, and possibly both. As with AMD's lineup, Intel offers 4 numbers of cores, though they're focusing on the lower end with 2, 4, 6, and 8. But instead of one SKU for each, Intel is launching 30 SKUs. Literally. Though in their defense, offering versions both with and without an integrated GPU is responsible for a few of the extra SKUs. (The versions without an integrated GPU are a way to sell chips where the GPU was defective.)
At least this time, Intel is offering sane naming conventions:
2 cores is Pentium Gold.
4 cores is Core i3.
6 cores is Core i5.
8 cores is Core i7 or Core i9. Well, almost sane. But at least the Core iX is never more than one core away from having X cores.
Or maybe that would be kind of sane except that they have used Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 in so many generations that no one knows what they mean anymore. And now that they're clearly behind AMD, they've also decided to stop crippling their own products and enable hyperthreading on everything. Well, except that they still cripple most of their products by disabling overclocking.
But no, you can't actually buy Rocket Lake CPUs yet. That's coming March 30. If you're lucky. Which you might be, because these CPUs won't be useful for mining Ethereum.
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