Intel Announces Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake CPUs

[tuaris]

So everything is "Ultra" now?

[coder]

The reason is previous generations used symmetric multi-threading (SMT) or what Intel calls Hyper-Threading. This uses speculation execution which led to all these vulnerabilities such as Spectre, Meltdown, etc.

The CPU uses speculative execution even without HT/SMT. The vulnerabilities that came from SMT were due to the possibility of having 2 threads from different processes or VMs executing on the same physical core, at the same time. It turns out there weren't quite such iron-clad barriers between the threads' state as had been assumed. This has been mitigated both directly, and by features in hypervisors and even the Linux kernel (called "core scheduling" - I think most distros disable by default) that restrict foreign threads from sharing a core.

As pesekcuy said, Intel didn't drop hyperthreading from its server CPUs, which tells us they're still confident in their ability to make it secure. The rationale Intel gave for dropping it from their client P-cores is that it saved power on lightly-threaded workloads and reduced the area of their P-cores. Since client CPUs have E-cores they can rely upon for scaling multi-threaded performance, they decided it was a net win to make the P-cores smaller and more efficient by dropping HT.

I think they've already started to. The Intel Xeon 6700E only uses E-cores, 144 cores, which I think are without multi-threading.

Intel's E-cores never had HT/SMT. The only exception to this was a special Frankenstein version of Silvermont they made for the Xeon Phi, which had dual AVX-512 pipes bolted on and 4-way SMT.

I wouldn't be surprised if the coming Xeon processors will be without multi-threading.

They've explicitly said otherwise.

[ms178]

I highly doubt that Intel's market share in the consumer desktop market will grow with ARL and they were already at 8% at Mindfactory lately. No AVX 10.2/AVX-512 and no gaming performance improvements won't get them anywhere and the efficiency improvements alone won't get them much sales either. There is also no incentive to invest into LGA18XX as a platform, as the chances are high that there is no newer generation on that socket.

[uid313]

If the reason was security, they should've been stripping the multi-threading from its server SKUs as well. The fact is they don't.

I think they've already started to. The Intel Xeon 6700E only uses E-cores, 144 cores, which I think are without multi-threading. I wouldn't be surprised if the coming Xeon processors will be without multi-threading.

[pesekcuy]

The reason is previous generations used symmetric multi-threading (SMT) or what Intel calls Hyper-Threading. This uses speculation execution which led to all these vulnerabilities such as Spectre, Meltdown, etc. The benefit of Hyper-Threading is you get better performance because you get two threads per core. This new generation doesn't use Hyper-Threading so it only has one thread per core so it loses some performance but it becomes more secure.

If the reason was security, they should've been stripping the multi-threading from its server SKUs as well. The fact is they don't.

[uid313]

No performance improvement? That's crazy. Especially since the Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs spontaneously destroy themselves.

The reason is previous generations used symmetric multi-threading (SMT) or what Intel calls Hyper-Threading. This uses speculation execution which led to all these vulnerabilities such as Spectre, Meltdown, etc. The benefit of Hyper-Threading is you get better performance because you get two threads per core. This new generation doesn't use Hyper-Threading so it only has one thread per core so it loses some performance but it becomes more secure.

[uid313]

Given that this is the first true new uArch from Intel since 2021, the new P core just fell short.

I've no other words to describe ARL.

You don't release a new gen of CPUs that basically matches the previous gen performance wise.

Even when Intel rehashed SkyLake over and over again, they posted higher gains for the same period of time.

I am fine with a new generation with the same performance as the previous generation if it brings something else to the table such as faster GPU performance, lower energy consumption and less heat production.

[coder]

Especially since the Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs spontaneously destroy themselves.

Intel promises their latest mitigation fixes the problem. Believe them at your own risk.

https://wccftech.com/intel-14th-13th-gen-cpu-instability-issues-solved-confirms-0x12b-as-final-mitigation/

I had long regarded Intel as the "safe" choice, for reliability. Those days are now in the past.

[muncrief]

No performance improvement? That's crazy. Especially since the Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs spontaneously destroy themselves.

However for the few who don't need more performance from the latest gen CPU, just less power consumption, I guess a few might sell.

But since the 13th/14th gen fiasco I've been able to convince 3 clients to switch from Intel to AMD, which rarely used to happen. In fact I'm receiving the parts for an all AMD gaming desktop build today. It's a first time client, but all I had to do was send them some links about the Intel meltdowns and they didn't argue at all about going pure AMD.

[coder]

If these are anything like the recent Xeons it’s going to be a very interesting generation

These have one generation newer P-cores and E-cores than Xeon 6 (i.e. Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids). They're also made on a full step smaller process node.