[GTALUG] the meaning of Core i[3579] (was: NUC NUC NUC)

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

TL;DR: Intel uses brands.  We care about technology.  Sometimes brands
map cleanly onto technology, but sometimes they don't.  You cannot
trust that mapping.

| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| Yeah the i7 is becoming very inconsistent in gen 9.  A few high end
| ones have kept SMT, while the lower end ones don't have it, but the core
| count has gone up instead.  I believe all i9 chips have SMT.

Here's my inference on the matter (not based on careful research):

- these names are brands, not technology

- we (techies) want them to represent technologies.  For example, we
  kind of know what "Core i5" means

- when times are good, and changes are smooth, intel tries to align
  its brands with technologies

- when Intel is desperate, they muddy the waters of their brands

Example trajectory:

- Pentium meant one thing.

- Then it got extended with the II and III branding AND technologies.
  Still related, and the branding evolved in a coherent way

- Then the Pentium 4 came along and it was something completely
  different

- Pentium M was also technically different, but that was signified by
  a sufficiently different name (in my perception)

- "Pentium" lay dormant for a bit, and then got attached to some
  Atom-architecture and low-end (crippled) Core chips.  Talk about
  confusing!  It became a pricing / value designator and not a
  technology.

Intel is in trouble.  It's latest fab processes (10 nanometer) are not
coming on stream as quickly as they had planned and promised.
Historically they have been significantly ahead of other fabs.  Now
they are behind and squirming visibly.  This has thrown their whole
roadmap off.

The i9 seems to be a way of showing forward motion without needing the
new fab processes.  A way to appear to "refresh" their line without
stressing their manufacturing capabilities.

As far as I recall, they do have one 10nm product that they claim is
shipping but it's not very good and so probably nobody is buying it.
It is probably so expensive to produce (low yields) that they don't
want anyone to buy it.  It's a mobile chip without a GPU (probably due
to yield issues) that isn't notably better than the normal 14nm
versions that are shipping.

Since 10nm isn't productive, they are shipping as much 14nm product as
they can make.  But it's not enough for the market.  They didn't build
up 14nm capacity because they thought they would be using 10nm fabs.

Intel also has AMD as a competitor and threat for CPUs, something they
could ignore for a long time.  The upcoming "Rome" AMD server chip
looks to be particularly scary.  AMD is selectively using TSMC's 7nm
technology (apparently comparable to Intel's 10nm -- don't get fooled
by the number).

In the eighth generation of Core, they moved some extra cores and HT
down to lower-numbered models, probably to ward off the mild AMD
threats.  Perhaps to stimulate consumer excitement.  In my mind, this
happens to make the i5 a "sweet spot".  And make the 8th gen fairly
attractive (up until now, I've been content sitting at the 4th gen).
But maybe the next one will better deal with the speculation problems.

Don't count Intel out.  Their server chips were inferior to AMD's
Opterons for a long period but the server market didn't significantly
switch to AMD.  Then Intel technology caught up and surpassed AMD.

================

The term "microarchitecure" is used to describe how a chip is
organized.  The Core "microarchitecture" started with the Core 2 Duo
branding.  The "Core" branding before that had a different
microarchitecture (32-bit).  So confusing.

Intel's current Core-brand processors (and XEON-brand too) are still
based on an evolved Core microarchitecture.

AMD's Zen microarchitecture is newish, and it is what has put them
back into the game.

When I talk about "Atom", I'm refering to microarchitecture.  The
branding of those products is way too hard to follow.