Intel Readies New Stepping of 9th Gen Core Processors
by Anton Shilov on March 26, 2019 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Coffee Lake
- Core 9th Gen
ASUS and GIGABYTE have issued BIOS updates for their Intel 300-series chipsets-based motherboards that enable the platforms to work with Intel’s upcoming 9th Gen Core processors featuring a new stepping. The new CPUs will reportedly be available in the coming weeks.
Starting this week, all of ASUS’ 300-series motherboards with the latest BIOS versions will support Intel’s upcoming 9th Generation Core processors based on a new stepping. GIGABYTE has also issued new BIOS versions for its 300-series mainboards to enable support for the aforementioned CPUs.
GIGABYTE reveals that the new stepping will carry the R0 stepping ID. Intel’s existing 9th Gen Core processors carry the P0 stepping ID, whereas the 8th Gen Core processors use the U0 silicon. ASUS says that the new Coffee Lake R0 CPUs will be released in the second quarter. Regrettably, neither of the motherboard makers disclose differences between the current and forthcoming CPUs.
ASRock has also made a similar announcement.
Producers of processors release new product steppings for many reasons. Some new steppings fix certain errata, other enable higher clocks or lower TDP. Without a proper disclosure from Intel it is hard to say what the new stepping will bring. Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that Intel plans to launch a new stepping of its Coffee Lake processors for whatever reason as it gets increasingly hard to make any alterations to modern CPUs.
Intel did not comment on the news story.
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Source: ASUS (via TechPowerUp)
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mode_13h - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
Depends on how badly you need it. If there's a real cost to waiting, then I would just pull the trigger. Most often, steppings aren't huge changes.But, if you can afford to wait, then why not?
Personally, I'm waiting to see how 7 nm Ryzen turns out. If not for that and the high price point of the i9-9900K, I'd probably be right with you.
patel21 - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
If you can, then please wait for Ryzen 3 chips to land. Even if you want to buy 9900K, as it will have an impact on the prices of intel chips.eddman - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
We've had ryzen 3 since 2017.Targon - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
I believe that patel21 was referring to Ryzen 3rd generation chips, which are expected to have very similar clock speeds to the 9900k for less money and possibly better real world performance, even in single threaded applications.eddman - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
I'm aware of all that. I was making fun of wrongly calling ryzen 3rd gen or 3000 as "3".Targon - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
I'd wait until June and verify what the Ryzen 3700X specs are first. If the 3700X is 4.2/5.0 for clock speeds for 12 cores/24 threads and you pay $330 for it, that would probably be a better buy for you.benzosaurus - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
Cool, a new Sky Lake stepping!mode_13h - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
BITD, Intel would've referred to each architecture with the same marketing name, irrespective of the process technology changes. So, in that sense, Skylake would logically group together with everything since.But, it's not really accurate to group the 14++ nm processors with Skylake, in any strict sense. Even on a per-core basis, Coffee Lake is more than simply an overclocked Skylake. So, if you call them both Skylake, then you should probably also refer to Ivy Bridge as Sandybridge and Broadwell as Haswell.
garbagedisposal - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
Those chips in your last sentence were different architectures and process nodes. It is not the same situation at all.Intel 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th gen is all the *same* core. Same architecture. Same IPC. Same memory controllers (new chips still support DDR3 with the right board). Same graphics (except updated video decode in 7th gen). The 14+++ improvements are about what you would expect after having multiple years to tweak the process for variants of the same exact architecture. He is not wrong to call it an overclocked skylake.
eddman - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
"He is not wrong to call it an overclocked skylake."CFL might not be different from its predecessors from a microarchitecture standpoint, but it's not an OCed skylake either.