Reading about the upcoming Icelake SP (
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ice-lake-sp-xeon-36-cores and
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-ice-lake-sp-next-gen-xeon-architecture-at-hc32/) and assuming the Icelake X will be similarly speced, I'm unconvinced this is a great enough upgrade from a Cascade lake X to make it worth while...
I see benefit with:
- crypto applications (new and better instructions for these workloads) - great for server that need this but not a huge deal for me in the X space
- 45% to 90% higher RAM memory bandwidth at same latency in certain specific scenarios - this is a great step up and can be a real deciding factor (need to be tested in real applications)
- more L1 (data 32K ->48K/core), L2 (1M ->1.25MB/core ) and L3 cache (54MB unified) (will help, but how much really?)
- PCIe 4.0 - Sapphire Rapids comes with PCIe 5.0 so 4.0 seams transitional..
- lower negative offsets with AVX2 and AVX512 - I can do that today by Overclocking core i9-10980 XE - maybe with Icelake X we overclock AVX512 even higher but there are always a power limitations to that. this new feature in Icelake is more a about power management anyway.
- security - Total Memory Encryption etc - this is perhaps the biggest reason to upgrade. But it is solving Intel's security issues that Intel should already have solve in the existing Skylake X and Cascade lake X products by now! - I am still mad about that every microcode "upgrade" released for a/many year(s) now seams to make the CPU slower and slower (latencies etc), and instead of fixing the security, Intel have just resigned (by choice? I suspect so) and is now instead resorting to just simply disable them altogether (disabling TSX in 10980XE is one example)!
So I am not sure I want to reward intel by buying an Icelake X CPU for this reason - buying one for security reason would be reinforcing intel's bad behavior.
They should fix their existing product first!
Also, we do not know if these security fixes are truly going to be a real security fix or if this will introduce more and different security issues.
I ask myself: Why is it going to be different this time? They've had 3 years to solve this in existing products SP/X products 7 gen - 10 gen and yet here we are soon in 2021 and security have been solved by disabling features in the microcode and in the OS.
Ask yourself: Is this a behavior you want to reward by buying more from them or less? Would you accept this from a car manufacture or would you switch to a different brand...
- and 10nm process
I see Icelake SP/X as mostly a node change with new micro architecture, security "fixed" (we don't know that) and all this will be useful and will perhaps bring Intel on par with AMD EPYC and TR, but it will not be the stepwise change that I see Sapphire Rapids will give.
Feels like Sapphire Rapids is the one to hold out for... and go for a PCIe 5.0, new AMX instructions - which are truly impressive and a true stepwise change!
Maybe this will also send a message to intel to take their customer concerns seriously not leave us choosing between an insecure fast processor (using older mcode) or a slow crippled " possibly more secure" one (using latest mcode).