Support us on Patreon
PayPalIn the market for a new CPU and sticking with Intel? The 11th Gen Intel Core S-series desktop processors code-named "Rocket Lake-S" have now launched. Designed around Intel's new Cypress Cove architecture, Intel say it's been designed with gaming in mind and "designed to transform hardware and software efficiency and increase raw gaming performance".
You can see this explainer video Intel put out about the newer architecture:
Direct Link
Coming in with support up to DDR4-3200, up to 20 CPU PCIe 4.0 lanes, integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20G), and Intel Optane memory H20 with SSD support. Intel say to expect up to 19% "gen-over-gen" IPC (instructions per clock) performance improvement along with up to 50% better integrated graphics performance with Intel UHD graphics featuring Intel Xe graphics architecture. There's also boosts for Deep Learning, Neural Networks and new "enhanced" overclocking tools.
The headliner is the flagship Intel Core i9-11900K, a monster with speeds of up to 5.3GHz with 8 cores and 16 threads. Here's all the different processors in the new line-up starting with the top end:
That being said, with the 10nm supposedly coming this year, I wouldn't buy this gen unless my current hw died. And even then I'd go AMD as stocks seems to finally be coming (unless gaming bench show intel be wayyyyyyy above, and it would have to be really significative).
Overall, even if you want to stay with Intel, I'd recommend to wait for 10nm sunny cove end of year. Considering what they seem to have fianlly managed on 14nm+++++++++++++ their 10nm should finally be great again. And more pcie lanes is awesome, albeit I hope they can deliver at least 24 pcie 4 lanes next gen, for dual ssd on pcie4, or to have some spare for an sfp+ network card on a x1 slot.
As for someone who is still undecided which CPU to get for an overdue upgrade the "refreshed 10th gen" i3-10325 looks quite good in comparison to a ryzen 3600 or is it? At least the price looks appealing.
Considering the price difference, I would go either with a 11400 or its "F" version if you don't care at all for integrated graphics. If you care for integrated graphics, 11400 will be the must buy anyway since it comes with massively faster igpu.
Both get 2 extra cores, and real 11th gen IPC boost.
The F version (no integrated gpu )is 3$ more, so it's almost a no brainer at that point ... The non F version is about 30$ more, but I'd say it's well worth it if you care for igpu. Quite cheaper than the ryzen 3600 I found on the internet still, and quite likely much more available. You get same core count, higher freq and with 11th gen IPC so it should be better overall indeed.
My recommendation for igpu: I find it's always nice to have one, and a good one if possible as you can always fry your gpu, or you might want to use iGPU for VMs when you want to try out updates or a new distro without installing bare metal. Intel has hw accelerated gpu virtualisation tech even in consumer CPUs which is very cool too, and can help you test much more stuff.
EDIT: For someone interested in iGPUs, the 11500 is just 10$ more, still quite cheaper than the ryzen 3600, slightly higher freq, but also full Xe die (33% more of everything), so should be even more powerful on that iGPU front.
Last edited by 3zekiel on 17 March 2021 at 9:03 pm UTC
But, what about cooked?
See more from me