[HN Gopher] Intel Meteor Lake Architecture
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Intel Meteor Lake Architecture
 
Author : SandraBucky
Score  : 54 points
Date   : 2023-09-25 09:49 UTC (13 hours ago)
 
web link (hothardware.com)
w3m dump (hothardware.com)
 
| sillywalk wrote:
| I wish Intel would switch to a new code-name scheme. There's been
| enough "Lakes".
 
  | mariusmg wrote:
  | >There's been enough "Lakes".
  | 
  | Yeah, they need to move to rivers now...
 
    | kazinator wrote:
    | Just as long as they don't go chasing waterfalls, and stick
    | to the above like they used to.
 
  | throw0101a wrote:
  | Or some semblance of order, like alphabetical, so you have some
  | idea of timing / progression.
 
  | kookamamie wrote:
  | Amen. Most are incremental upgrades, so all the codenames seem
  | superfluous.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | layer8 wrote:
  | At least with "Foo Lake" you immediately know it's an Intel CPU
  | architecture. That a valuable feature. No reason to burn any
  | bridges. ;)
 
    | colejohnson66 wrote:
    | And the Foo Lake refresh would be Bar Lake?
 
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >Meet Meteor Lake's Tiles
| 
| isn't "Tile" is basically chiplet? why not just call it chiplet?
 
  | smolder wrote:
  | Best guess is that someone in marketing thinks calling them
  | Tiles will make Intel look better because people won't realize
  | they're just following behind AMD in this respect.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | Covzire wrote:
  | AFAIK this will be the first chip where multiple processes are
  | combined into one die, at least for consumer devices. AMD's
  | chiplets use separate dies from multiple node processes all on
  | one substrate so maybe they don't want to confuse it with that.
 
    | monocasa wrote:
    | It isn't on one die; Meteor lake is 4 dies on a substrate.
    | 
    | It's probably a lawyer thing like uncertainty over who owns
    | the noun 'chiplet'.
 
      | Covzire wrote:
      | The interconnect between dies doesn't rely on the substrate
      | though right?
 
        | wmf wrote:
        | The interposer is the only way the dies can communicate.
 
| kwanbix wrote:
| I still wonder how Apple was able to achieve such an incredible
| performance per watt ratio compared to Intel and AMD. Anybody
| knows how they let Apple do it?
 
  | windowsrookie wrote:
  | A few reasons.
  | 
  | 1. Arm is generally more efficient than x86. 2. Apple uses
  | TSMC's latest nodes before anyone else. 3. Apple doesn't chase
  | peak performance like AMD and Intel. CPU speed and power
  | consumption is not linear. Intel has been chasing 5GHZ+ speeds
  | the last few years which consumes considerably more power.
  | Apple keeps their CPUs under 3.5GHZ.
 
    | ernst_klim wrote:
    | > Arm is generally more efficient than x86
    | 
    | This is not entirely true in general sense. Yes, a typical
    | ARM CPU is more energy efficient indeed, but theoretically
    | nothing prevents x86 to be nearly as efficient.
    | 
    | The main reason why Apple silicon is more efficient is that
    | Apple silicon is a mobile chip basically, and competition on
    | mobile is harsh, so all the producers had to optimize their
    | chips a lot for energy efficiency.
    | 
    | On the other hand until apple silicon and recent AMD
    | ascension there was a monopoly of Intel on a laptop market
    | with no incentive to do something. Just look at how fast
    | Intel developed asymmetric Arm-like P/N-core architecture
    | right after Apple Silicon emerged. Let's hope this new
    | competitor will force more energy efficient x86 chips to be
    | produced by intel and amd eventually.
 
  | Denvercoder9 wrote:
  | One big thing is that Apple has (almost) bought out TSMC's N3
  | node, so they're the only one with chips made on the most
  | advanced manufacturing process available.
 
  | timc3 wrote:
  | I don't know where to begin... There is a lot of material on
  | the internet that is relevant to answering that.
  | 
  | What do you mean "how they let Apple do it". Do you think Intel
  | & AMD could stop them?
 
    | kwanbix wrote:
    | I mean, how didn't Intel and AMD saw what apple was creating.
    | 
    | PCs have been stuck to 3/4Ghz for more than 15 years, so it
    | is not like they didn't have the time to optimize from the
    | consumption/heat point of view.
 
      | wmf wrote:
      | It's kind of the opposite: Intel and AMD are burning power
      | racing to 6 GHz while Apple targeted a more efficient 3-4
      | GHz.
 
    | kridsdale3 wrote:
    | Well, in purely military terms, technically Intel and AMD are
    | only a few miles from Apple and their engineering corps is
    | likely far larger. They could all march over there with
    | broadswords if they really wanted to.
 
      | Mistletoe wrote:
      | The circular design of the HQ makes sense now.
      | 
      | https://www.reddit.com/r/castles/comments/4t5w0q/round_vs_s
      | q...
 
        | garblegarble wrote:
        | Completely off-topic, but: I think the state of the art
        | in castle design (pre modern explosives anyway) was a
        | star/bastion[1], since that allowed defenders to have
        | overlapping firezones, especially useful once an attacker
        | reaches the walls. With a circular design like Apple's
        | HQ, as attackers get closer to the walls fewer and fewer
        | defensive positions can see them until you can only see
        | them from right above.
        | 
        | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_fort
 
        | patapong wrote:
        | Clearly the move is to put all AMD and Intel engineers on
        | the inside of the circle. That way they would be visible
        | from all locations on the ring at all times.
 
        | throw0101a wrote:
        | A 'reverse Trojan horse'? The defenders sneak the
        | attackers in rather than the attackers trying to sneak
        | in?
 
        | Mistletoe wrote:
        | That sounds right.
 
| thunderbird120 wrote:
| Will be interested to see how this first(ish) gen of Intel's
| disaggregated chips pan out. I've been needing to replace my
| laptop and these seem like they have the potential to be
| extremely nice for a mid range machine with long battery life.
| The new scheduler hierarchy is especially interesting given how
| much of the physical chip they can avoid powering on at all for
| most simple tasks. For a lot of light use cases the entire "real"
| CPU and GPU parts of the silicon can be completely dark since the
| SOC has two tiny cores to run things and other necessary parts
| things like the video decode silicon were separated from the GPU.
 
  | brucethemoose2 wrote:
  | Eh, I have a sneaking suspicion the compute dies won't be shut
  | down as much as you'd think, and that there will be some extra
  | power usage from crossing the dies like desktop Ryzen parts
  | (though hopefully not nearly as severe).
  | 
  | A good Process Lasso config is probably worth the time
  | investment. Instead of "trusting" the scheduler, you could
  | force everything non time sensitive onto the efficiency island,
  | maybe by default.
 
| eBombzor wrote:
| So a more advanced and feature rich version of Ryzen's IO die,
| with dedicated silicon for AI of course.
| 
| Can't wait for Microsoft and Intel to team together to make an
| ultra AI search bar that can finally find files properly like
| back in Windows 7...
 
  | xnx wrote:
  | It's an embarrassment that sub-second feature-rich file search
  | isn't built in to Windows.
  | 
  | Fortunately there's a truly excellent third-party utility that
  | is probably the second thing I install on any new Windows
  | install (after Chrome):
  | https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
 
    | tibbydudeza wrote:
    | I think the Windows Shell Team (hey we got RAR support
    | recently) just withered on the vine when the grand idea of a
    | query able file system build on top off SQL Server in Post XP
    | Windows called "Cairo" collided with the memory/CPU
    | limitations of the time.
    | 
    | My desktop now has 24 cores (8P/16E) and now is the right
    | time to rethink the OS.
 
      | eBombzor wrote:
      | They've improved support for E cores on W11, though why not
      | just have gotten a 7950x and avoided the whole mess...
 
      | xnx wrote:
      | > now is the right time to rethink the OS.
      | 
      | Microsoft is definitely doing this, but they're putting all
      | the effort into making it into an attention-stealing ad
      | delivery platform.
 
    | mtreis86 wrote:
    | Every machine I get my hands on gets Search Everything and
    | Terra Copy. I usually start new machines by installing some
    | stuff through https://ninite.com because Windows still
    | doesn't have a proper package manager.
 
      | tibbydudeza wrote:
      | Chocolatey and Microsoft own winget
 
        | donmcronald wrote:
        | Often I think some of that stuff is strategically made to
        | be just good enough to discourage competition and so it
        | never actually becomes good enough to be mainstream.
        | 
        | Look at how WinGet was launched with just enough effort
        | to kill AppGet. It was a big announcement that was the
        | equivalent of "avoid this space or we'll crush you" and
        | then what? Nothing innovative has happened since they
        | killed the innovator (AppGet).
 
    | Aromasin wrote:
    | "Everything" should be a standard on every Windows computer.
    | I've found files that I thought completely lost to the ether,
    | including actual Ethereum after I had lost my key deep in my
    | file directories after an accidental drag and drop.
 
    | FirmwareBurner wrote:
    | _> It's an embarrassment that sub-second feature-rich file
    | search isn't built in to Windows._
    | 
    | It's not built in, but it exists:
    | 
    | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run
 
  | brucethemoose2 wrote:
  | > ultra AI search bar
  | 
  | Or you could use literally any other search program that works
  | wonderfully, without the indexing process using an eyebrow
  | raising amount of CPU? Including Microsoft's own shockingly
  | fast file search in VSCode.
  | 
  | > feature rich version of Ryzen's IO die
  | 
  | The interconnect Intel is using is more expensive/sophisticated
  | than AMD's (but less expensive than the TSVs for the X3D
  | chips), so hopefully its pretty good in laptops?
  | 
  | AMD's IO die setup burns tons of idle power, which is why the
  | laptop parts are still monolithic.
 
    | Voultapher wrote:
    | FYI that VSCode search is powered by ripgrep.
 
  | Arrath wrote:
  | I just want a search that shows what I'm looking for when I've
  | typed the first three characters of the search term (as, e.g.
  | the windows start menu does now), but _still shows that result_
  | when I type the 4th character before my brain processes the
  | fact that the result is there (you know, since my responses
  | aren 't that fuckin fast) and all the results change up.
 
  | speed_spread wrote:
  | Instead the AI will be made part of the unkillable core
  | "security" services and actually be used to find ways to
  | reroute Windows telemetry around DNS blockers, autoconnect to
  | all smart appliances in the house and teach the dog to report
  | on your most intimate habits.
 
    | szszrk wrote:
    | In win11 I am unable to even find apps (properly installed
    | via signed msi) by typing it's full name.
    | 
    | Searching for setting screens is also a pain in the ass,
    | especially if you use different language. MS recognizes only
    | their own translation, not the most intuitive text, not
    | English text ... you just have to _know_
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | smolder wrote:
  | I think MS is beyond redeeming and there's little reason to
  | stick with windows at this point.
 
  | wolpoli wrote:
  | Windows 95 had a powerful search dialog that could search by
  | file size/date ranges/content. Perhaps we could have that back,
  | but with AI enhancement?
 
    | sumtechguy wrote:
    | I would even settle for just 'back'.
 
  | donmcronald wrote:
  | > search bar that can finally find files properly like back in
  | Windows 7
  | 
  | I don't think that quality is ever coming back. No matter what,
  | they're going to be connecting to bing for the top results /
  | ads, so you'll always have a bunch of latency and will never
  | get back to Win 7 levels of local only performance.
  | 
  | It's sad and the AI, which is mostly useless based on my
  | experience, is going to suck up even more CPU cycles and add
  | even more latency.
  | 
  | For me, it takes _5 seconds_ for the start search to respond on
  | first use. My 12th gen i5 with NVMe storage and Win 11
  | literally runs worse than my 4th gen i7 with a first gen SSD
  | and Win 7.
  | 
  | Microsoft has usurped a decade of computing gains and spent
  | them on ads and tracking. Don't expect _anything_ that benefits
  | the user in the near future.
 
    | FirmwareBurner wrote:
    | There already exists a fast serarch tool reasleased by
    | Microsoft themselves, called PowerToys Run.
    | 
    | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run
 
  | elromulous wrote:
  | In case folks don't know about Everything[0], it is so truly
  | excellent.
  | 
  | [0] https://www.voidtools.com/
 
| dschuetz wrote:
| The article (or Intel) do not disclose up to how many cores that
| new architecture is designed for, and I am certain Intel would
| say something like "With our P-, E-, LE-cores designed
| architecture(tm) the core count does matter anymore".
| 
| Also the SOC with built-in AI engine. Oh boy, I wonder how long
| it will take for AI-assisted malware, or botnets to emerge.
| Exciting times!
 
  | karavelov wrote:
  | It's just 6P + 8E + 2IO (ultra efficient) cores or less. Looks
  | it's primary targeting laptops.
 
    | dylan604 wrote:
    | Sounds more like targeting is more of "Apple Silicon is
    | kicking our asses, and this is the best we could do"
 
      | brucethemoose2 wrote:
      | Again, Intel's target market is very different.
      | 
      | They are using off the shelf cores that have to be good in
      | everything from netbooks and industrial boxes to server
      | workloads. Apple, meanwhile, is laser targeting high
      | volume, premium, media heavy laptop-ish TDPs and workloads.
      | And they can afford to burn a ton of money on die area, a
      | bleeding edge low power process, and target modest
      | clockspeeds like no one else can.
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | this is such a weak argument. just because it's not in a
        | laptop does not mean that a CPU should be accepted as
        | being a horrible waste of electricity. making datacenters
        | as efficient as laptops would not be a bad thing. i'm
        | sure people operating at the scale of AWS and other cloud
        | providers would be beyond happy to see their power bills
        | drop for no loss in performance. i'm guessing their
        | stockholders would be pleased as well.
 
        | brucethemoose2 wrote:
        | > i'm sure people operating at the scale of AWS and other
        | cloud providers would be beyond happy to see their power
        | bills drop for no loss in performance
        | 
        | - The datacenter CPUs are not as bad as you'd think, as
        | they operate at a fairly low clock compared to the
        | obscenely clocked desktop/laptop CPUs. Tons of their
        | power is burnt on IO and stuff other than the cores.
        | 
        | - Hence operating more Apple-like "lower power" nodes
        | instead of fewer higher clocked nodes comes with more
        | overhead from each node, negating much of the power
        | saving.
        | 
        | - But also, beyond that point... they do not care. They
        | are maximizing TCO and node density, not power
        | efficiency, in spite of what they may publicly say. This
        | goes double for the datacenter GPUs, which operate in
        | hilariously inefficient 600W power bands.
 
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(page generated 2023-09-25 23:01 UTC)