News Coffee Lake variant including on-package Vega GPU

Combines a Core-H CPU part (45W) with an as yet unspecified semi-custom Vega Polaris GPU plus at least one HBM2 stack. Uses Intel's EMIB rather than a monolithic interposer, but appears to be doing so just for the GPU-HBM link rather than for the CPU-GPU link judging by the mockup image provided by Intel, which could just end up being PCIe x16 for simplicity (using an existing interface both GPU and CPU already posses).

All signs point to this being an "Apple wanted us to make it" SKU like the Iris Pro line, but there's a non-zero chance it could make its way to other products too. Probably in the form of NUCs rather than as installable LGA chips.

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Alternate headline: today's weather in hades; heavy snow with chances of hail.
 
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W

whum

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CC Ricers said:
Skull Canyon NUCs felt too weak for gaming performance. I never saw much value for the price of the Iris Pro chips. They might make it a bit larger this time to accommodate the cooling.
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Well, I think they filled a very unique demand for a very small group of people, though I think they were trying to reach a larger audience for gaming. But in my experiences I will say, I was very very close to buying one because - while not amazing - the iris pro 580 graphics on the skull canyon would have been miles better than on the 5th gen NUC I was using, and while I wanted a big graphics boost, I didn't want to go with anything larger than the skull canyon to do it. That said, the heat and noise people were reporting seemed too sketchy, especially when people reporting having to undervolt the processor to keep the heat under control - that was a big deal breaker. But they certainly opened the door on something great, and I'm very happy that Intel is going to try again to get it right. Heck, if they can get me 580 graphics on the standard 8th gen 4x4 NUCs I will want one, but like Kmpkt said, if they can up it to 1050ti level graphics, it will be a no brainier for me.
 
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CC Ricers

CC Ricers

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I can see them being a big improvement over past integrated graphics, but the price alone on that NUC was a deal breaker. For $50 more you can get one of the barebones Zotac boxes that has a dedicated 1050 GPU for not much more, but even a 1050 performs much better. It's up to you whether you want the NUC for its smaller size and Thunderbolt capability, though.

The thing with the CPU in the Skull Canyon is that while the Iris Pro 580 has 50% more execution units than the Broadwell predecessor, the TDP is also lower, so it could not get the full benefit of the performance increase with the added EU's. That's probably why people had problems with heat and power throttling. That is probably the sacrifice made for putting it in a smaller NUC package.
 
KepKe

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Could see this in a GB Brix or Asus GR8. I still would like to see the space savings turned in to an internal PSU.
 
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Hifihedgehog

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AMD is not giving Intel their latest and greatest in this deal. The actual GPU, if the hardware readings are correct in the benchmarks, is Polaris-based, not Vega. I have seen this in multiple postings online, and I am disappointed that even the more brainy tech news sites are missing this:

The sample Intel showed sports a gfx804 GPU. gfx8xx is Polaris. gfx9xx is Vega. IMO, it is a custom Polaris with HBM2 MC.
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Source:
https://semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?8371-WTF-Intel&p=294481&viewfull=1#post294481

That said, AnandTech thinks that there is a distinct possible that AMD might be giving Intel their last-generation Polaris-based GPUs:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1200...with-amd-radeon-graphics-with-hbm2-using-emib
 
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Therandomness

Therandomness

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Hifihedgehog said:
AMD is not giving Intel their latest and greatest in this deal. The actual GPU, if the hardware readings are correct in the benchmarks, is Polaris-based, not Vega. I have seen this in multiple postings online, and I am disappointed that even the more brainy tech news sites are missing this:


Source:
https://semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?8371-WTF-Intel&p=294481&viewfull=1#post294481

That said, AnandTech thinks that there is a distinct possible that AMD might be giving Intel their last-generation Polaris-based GPUs:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1200...with-amd-radeon-graphics-with-hbm2-using-emib
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Well I mean as people have said, this started a while back, before Vega was even close to being ready.
 
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EdZ

EdZ

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Hifihedgehog said:
That said, AnandTech thinks that there is a distinct possible that AMD might be giving Intel their last-generation Polaris-based GPUs:
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AMD's semi-custom business until now has basically been "build chips for the PS4 and XB1". The most recent iteration of those chips use a Polaris variant that integrates some features from Vega like packed math (32-bit units performing two simultaneous 16-bit operatons). Sony have also claimed explicitly that designs they worked on with AMD for their semi-custom chips eventually made their way into discrete parts (with the Asynchronous Compute Engines used as an example), so it's possible there are some features in Polaris/Vega/Navi that were requests from Intel.
 
EdZ

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Hmmm. Maybe the CPU portion is a Kaby Lake-R part rather than Coffee Lake (no Coffee Lake 4-core/8-thread CPUs, and dollars to doughnuts this is an Apple-requested part for their laptops). A 20-25W TDP (the i5-8250U is a 25W TDP-up CPU with 4-core/8-thread and a 3.4GHz turbo, so downrate that a bit) for the CPU leaves 75-80W for the Vega part. I'm not sure if anyone has tested a desktop Vega part pushed down to that low power yet.
 
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Kmpkt

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Rumour has it that there will be two variants of Hades Canyon, one with full fat on-die Vega at 100W and the other with a much lighter IGP at 66W. I would imagine that the CPU portion is going to be an equivalent of the 7920HK at 3.1 GHz base clock (4.1 GHz boost).

https://ark.intel.com/products/97462/Intel-Core-i7-7920HQ-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_10-GHz

Doing a little napkin math, let's assume a 5% improvement in clocks-per-watt of consumption between Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake and then remove Intel HD Graphics and whatever that consumes. By my estimation, the CPU is probably drawing between 30W and 35W on that package leaving 65-70W for the Vega IGP and around 35W for the lower powered option (half the Vega cores, half the consumption). The real question then becomes how many cores that works out to and where the performance lands.
 
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AleksandarK

AleksandarK

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This is going to be really interesting.

Given that Vega sort of failed in high-end space, i dont have much hope in performance. But Intel wouldn't use something that is not going to be better than their HD graphics, so this lower power model might surprise. As @EdZ said, no body tested such low power Vega.

Btw, there are some reasons i believe we would also see a socketed version.
Kmpkt said:
Also something I missed the first time, but this is down as being an unlocked processor. Overclockable gaming NuC?!?!?!?
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Skull Canyon was overclockable too, but due to heat, it couldn't be overclocked more than a few MHz.
 
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EdZ

EdZ

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On second thought, we HAVE seen Vega-ish cores in that power range before: inside the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. It's not quite a direct comparison: the Vega cores in the PS4 Pro and XB1X are likely even more customised than Intel's variant (e.g. the PS4 Pro uses mostly Polaris cores with some Vega tricks mixed in like packed math, plus some homebrew tricks like chequerboard rendering acceleration) and both sit somewhere below the 100W TDP the i7-8809G is rated at. Plus the performance of consoles does not predict PC performance (far more optimisation possible).
 
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