AlderLake anyone?

[Xyzzy]

We benchmarked one of our favorite games.

The results are kinda interesting and unexpected!

FPS  P E H
136  Y Y Y
139  Y Y N
143  Y N Y
152  Y N N


FPS = Frames per second
  P = Performance cores (6)
  E = Efficiency cores (4)
  H = Hyperthreading enabled?

[M344587487]

Game engines don't typically scale well, even the state of the art upper end rarely optimises beyond 8 cores because that's where consoles will be for another decade. It seems that in this scenario E and H cores enabled is most likely just a hindrance to the scheduler.

[Xyzzy]

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/d...scaling/8.html

[JWNoctis]

Enlightening.

E-cores aside, I'd have thought that hyperthreading would not have produced that ~5% performance penalty after a decade and a half. Something's probably not working as intended with their brand-new thread director or whatsit - But then it's just one game.

[Xyzzy]

Rust is an older game that is known for not being optimized.

Another game we play has an option in the settings to only use physical cores.

https://forum.escapefromtarkov.com/t...n-in-the-game/

https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromT...hysical_cores/

[JWNoctis]

Power scaling test, at long last: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/i...-power-limits/

In short, 241W is sorta excessive and memory- or thread-bound workloads top out much sooner.

[Xyzzy]

https://www.techpowerup.com/290460/i...ake-processors

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://www.techpowerup.com/290460/i...ake-processors

Disabling AVX512 there. OK, no Alder Lake for me then.

[ewmayer]

More on the intel-mandated avx-512 neutering:

https://www.igorslab.de/en/intel-dea...ews-editorial/

Just in time for the launch of the new smaller CPU SKUs and motherboard chipsets at CES next week, all existing Z690 motherboards are supposed to completely disable the AVX-512 instruction set via a BIOS update. So far, we can only speculate about the motives. However, it would be logical that Intel would want to artificially create a sales argument for upcoming workstation and server products. This is because applications in the enterprise sector in particular often benefit the most from the acceleration provided by the AVX-512 instruction set. Actually completely capable “consumer” hardware should, if Intel has its way, no longer be a valid option here.
...
It remains the question to Intel: Why create all these artificial limitations? Is there really that much fear of the competition over at team blue, that they not only keep their aces up their sleeves, but even pull back already played cards? Of course, heavy market segmentation is nothing new for Intel, keywords “vROC’ or “only offering quad-core mainstream SKUs for the first 7 Intel Core generations”. In both cases the blue giant only moved once it was forced to by the competition. But to now retroactively neuter already sold CPUs in their functionality really does leave an exceptionally sour taste in customers mouths, even if AVX-512 was officially never supported on Alder Lake.

In our tests we could already prove that AVX-512 on the Golden Cove P cores is indeed more efficient than AVX2 and even allows more computing power with less power consumption. The only prerequisite for AVX-512 is of course the deactivation of the Gracemont E cores, which simply physically lack the transistors for this instruction set. But we’ve also seen in our tests that the e-cores only provide performance gains in very few individual cases anyway, if not the outright opposite by slowing down the cache/ring and delaying memory accesses. Does the “E” then really still stand for “Efficiency” and not rather “Error” or “E-Waste”? Wouldn’t a CPU with only P-cores and AVX-512 be the far more economic and ecological approach?

Edit: Re. ixfd4's question below, the article notes:

To continue using AVX-512 requires slightly more exotic methods, but nothing impossible. Community members have already managed to inject an older microcode version into new BIOS releases, effectively providing a modified BIOS image with AVX-512 support. Of course, there is always a certain risk associated with such unofficial BIOS versions, since an error in the image could, for example, cause damage to the hardware. The use of such BIOS images is therefore always at your own risk! But at least this also shows that the deactivation of AVX-512 is reversible and thre is no downgrade-protection to the microcode version – at least at this point.

As the compatibility with DDR5 is still very much problematic and motherboard vendors are pushing fixes in new BIOS updates almost daily, many users now stand at a crossroads: Either install the new BIOS update for better DDR5 support and accept the removal of AVX-512, or not updating the BIOS, keep AVX-512 and stay limited in DDR5 compatibility, or install a BIOS from an unknown source that solves both problems, but might bring more in its self.

[ixfd64]

I wonder if there will be a way to bypass this.

[PhilF]

Probably not, except for voting with your wallet.