VROOM! Intel revs Devil's Canyon monster 4x4 at 4GHz

Intel has take the wraps off its rumoured “Devil's Canyon” CPU and revealed it is a brutal four by four monster. Each of the CPU's four cores run at 4 GHz, for starters. Overclockers can push the CPU beyond that to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz. Either way, the CPU means Intel's gone back to emphasising grunt, after a decade or so of …

[Nezumi]

16 lanes doesn't cut it

16 lanes isn't enough. Enthusiast class boards based on the latest Z97 chipsets either have to disable functionality in certain usage cases or resort to expensive PLX chips.

I haven't had coffee yet, but seem to recall that using Ultra M.2 storage can be an issue.

Why are we stuck on such a low number? Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable would like to shed some light?

BTW, reading El Reg before coffee. I know...

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: 16 lanes doesn't cut it

LGA 115[650] sockets only have enough contacts for 20 PCIe lanes (16 graphics, 4 everything else). That keeps the price down, and it is enough for a hefty chunk of the market. There are two obvious explanations for the lack of say LGA1600 with 30 PCIe lanes. Pick one:

A) Economies of scale: Dividing the market into two (LGA1150/LGA2011) reduced economies of scale. Dividing into three would reduce those economies still further, and increase prices for all except for people who want (fictional)LGA1600 but do not want to pay for LGA2011.

B) Segmentation. Although there are people who need a little over 20 lanes, the lack of an intermediate product forces those customers to pay for 40 lanes and a bunch of other features they will never use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 16 lanes doesn't cut it

1150 is plenty enough real-world bandwidth for 95%+ of users, for the small number that need more simply choose a 2011-based system. Yes they're not as cheap but it's worth the extra if you genuinely need the grunt.

[User McUser]

Re: 16 lanes doesn't cut it

Ah the old excuse equation: A is plenty enough B for C

Here are some sample values:

640K, RAM, anyone

IPv4, addresses, the Internet

two, political parties, the US

four, examples, this post

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 16 lanes doesn't cut it

Quite. 30 lanes would be ample for those needing two. Two lanes is not ample for those needing more. There's no reason a generous specification need be more expensive when it could serve everyone, it's just racketeering. Markets are intentionally fragmented like this in order for the cartels behind the specifications to extort gratuitous gratuities from those who need something a bit special. It would be cheaper for ALL concerned - consumers and manufacturers - if there was just a single cheap, mass produced SATISFACTORY spec. Not so great for the spec cartel (invariably intel, msft & chums) though...

[Bill Neal]

smaller and simpler power supplies

This may be a bit off-topic, but why aren't there power supplies for DC voltage applications like marine & automotive environments? Wouldn't it be simpler to skip the AC/DC transformer and just control voltage? Is there something out there that I don't know about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: smaller and simpler power supplies

Not sure I follow you... It sounds like you're either suggesting leaving out the rectifier and running silicon on AC or leaving out the transformer and stuffing rectified mains voltage into a rheostat or something, or possibly both. Can't imagine that's your intent though. Any chance of a rephrasing?

[Fred Fallacy]

> Overclockers can push the CPU beyond that to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz.

From 4Ghz, I'm sure they'll be going s little higher than that.