Intel Core i7-7820X Processing Unit: The Changes in the Intel Policy

Introduction

Last six years the Intel HEDT (High-End DeskTop) platform has been the leader at the market of highly-efficient desktop user systems because of simple absence of competitors. This fact allowed Intel to set the standards of new technologies integration, the changes extent, time limits of new processing units outcome, and, of course, of their price.

The price for premium class processing units by Intel, (the Skylake-X line is among them) is usually high. However, now Intel faces pressure from the opponents’ side, that’s why the price for LGA2066-microchips is pretty lower than usually.
If to compare with the processing units of Broadwell-E line with the same quantity of computing cores the cheapening turns to me more than 40 percents, and considering the initial price of HEDT-class CPU, it flows into some hundreds dollars.
At the same time appeared especially great-looking variants, which offer cheaper cores if to compare with other variants.
Today we will get acquainted with the Skylake-X family and with Core i7-7820X in particular with the price of 600 dollars.

Main Characteristics

Socket — LGA2066
Cores / Threads — 8 / 16
Base Frequency — 3.6 GHz
Boost Frequency — 4.3 GHz (4.5 GHz TB 3.0)
Memory Speed — DDR4-2666
Memory Controller — Quad Channel
Unlocked Multiplier — ✓
PCIe Lanes — 28
Integrated Graphics — ✗
Cache (L2 / L3) — 8MB L2 — 11MB L3
Architecture — Skylake-X
Process — 14nm
TDP — 140W

Design

At the first sight you can tell that this product in the box is from the Intel Core X.
The text on the sides informs about main advantages and some of the characteristics of the given model. The filling of the packaging consists only of the processing unit itself and the user’s guide. The standard cooling system is absent, as mainly more effective alien coolers are used. On the top side you will find the name of the model, Spec code and FPO code. The last one informs that the device was made in Malaysia. On the back side there are termination pads for the Socket LGA2066 connector.

Closer View

For which purposes were the processing units of Intel Core X line made?
Firstly, for creating multi-screen gaming system with the 12K resolution or for simultaneous launch of the games in 4K/12K (or VR) and streaming them to the popular services like YouTube, Twitch etc.
Secondly, it is recommended for the 360-degree video processing or for the music creating with the usage of more than 16 tracks.
Thirdly, it goes for the tasks on 3D-modeling and animation.
Without doubts, the systems will cope with easier tasks such as: 4K-games’ start, creating of video clip in Full HD or in 4K etc.

The benefits of this processing unit are not only in attractive price, which now allows combining a high-performance platform with LGA2066 mother board and memory for 1000 dollars budget.
More vivid is another Core i7-7820X advantage: increased clock rates. If to compare with the similar representative of the Broadwell-E line, the eight-core processor Skylake-X is given 15 percent higher operating frequency that without any doubts has to influence the speedwork.
One more thing to be said is that the extra growth of the newcomer’s productivity is caused by the improvement on the microarchitecture level. The bigger size of the internal buffers raises the productivity of the brunch prediction and the efficiency factor of out-of-phase execution of the instructions.

Due to the appearance of 512-bit registers and backing of the AVX-512 instruction set, new processing units increased the speed of dealing with data.
Skylake-X affords carrying two 64-byte loading from L1D-cache and one 64-byte storing, what is twice as much as Broadwell-E processing units could afford.

Core i7-7820X has new cache memory subsystem, but the organization of the third level cache has changed: it stopped being inclusive and began to work on the victim’s cache principle.

Unfortunately, Intel left only 28 lines out of 44 which are usual for the Skylake-X family. As a result, the given unit doesn’t go with some video cards in full PCIe x16 + X16, but only with PCIe x16 + x8.
Skylake-X unit appeared to be the first CPU, that can work with 512-bit registers. In fact, they can provide 512-bit AVX-512 instructions at the same rate as 256-bit AVX2-commands. For this purpose, the Skylake-X microarchitecture is realized through two execution ports, initially capable of processing 256-bit FMA instructions, which now can be joined to work together with 512-bit data, and also through the new 512-bit FMA device in the fifth execution port.
One more important moment is the development in Intel Turbo Boost Max 3.0 work, which came out in the processing units of Intel Broadwell-E. Its first version let the most solid core work at top dynamic volume. Now there can be two of such cores, what provides the benefit in productivity in single- or double-thread tasks. Moreover, this technology is wholly integrated into ОС Windows 10, that’s why the installation of additional drivers is not needed, as it was before.

Conclusion

The Skylake–X architecture brought many changes. The Intel company reconsidered the cores’ conduction path system redistributed the cache, that became faster, added the AVX — 512 instructions support, that increased the productivity in applications twofold. Due to the developed technique process we get higher clockrate, and new Turbo Boost Max 3.0 now can raise the processor speed of two cores.
Besides, the price policy was also reconsidered and lowered from 1100$ to 600$.
Intel Core i7 — 7820X’s potential will be opened in video editing, working with 3D and VR content, difficult calculations and streaming. It is definitely a good choice for the workstation.