Stepping into PCIe 4.0, the 11th generation of Intel Core IO technology upgrade: more than just doubling the speed

This article is reprinted from Fast Technology, author Xianrui

At the autumn new product launch conference in early September, Intel officially launched the 11th generation Core processor, code-named Tiger Lake. This generation not only upgraded the 10nm SuperFin process, but also upgraded the three major systems including CPU, GPU, and AI, bringing a performance leap.

The 11th-generation Core's 10nm SF process has added a new "SuperFin" transistor technology, achieving a significant improvement in intra-node performance. This is also the key to the 11th-generation Core CPU frequency reaching 4.8GHz.

For the GPU, the Gen12 core graphics of the 11th-generation Core has been upgraded to the Xe architecture, which is an architecture developed for high-performance games/computing. It has as many as 96 EU units, an increase of 50%. The frequency has also been increased from 1.1GHz to 1.35GHz, and the floating-point performance has been improved by more than 80%. It can run many 3A masterpieces smoothly at 1080p, and e-sports games such as LOL and DOTA2 can easily reach more than 100fps.

The AI ​​unit is also a focus. The 11th generation Core has added DP4A, VNNI dedicated instruction sets, and a separate GNA 2.0 module. The AI ​​performance has been improved several times compared to the previous generation.

With advanced technology and architecture, the basic skills of the 11th-generation Core can be said to be very solid, but the upgrade of peripheral IO units cannot be ignored, especially this generation has added support for PCIe 4.0, which is the first support on Intel's notebook platform. It may change the rules of the game for notebook platforms and have a great impact.

What is PCIe 4.0? In fact, many players already know a lot about it. PCIe is a bus that connects the CPU to the chipset and peripheral units. The detailed technical principle is long to explain, but it can be simply understood as a high-speed channel for the CPU to exchange data with external units. The more channels and the faster the rate, the higher the overall performance and efficiency of the Core will be.

The current PC platform mainly uses PCIe 3.0, which has been used for nearly 10 years. PCIe 4.0 doubles the bandwidth on this basis, increasing the rate from 8GT/s to 16GT/s, or 2GB/s, so one PCIe 3.0 can replace the function of two PCIe 3.0 lines.

Specifically, PCIe 4.0 is currently mainly used for the connection of graphics cards, high-performance SSDs and expansion cards. For graphics cards, the PCIe 4.0 x16 bidirectional bandwidth can reach 64GB/s, which is almost close to the bandwidth inside the chip.

The 11th generation Core Tiger Lake is currently mainly used in notebook platforms, especially thin and light notebooks. In the past, this type of notebook did not have high performance requirements, and PCIe 3.0 was in excess.

However, the situation is different now. The productivity requirements of thin and light laptops are getting higher and higher. Many people even use thin and light laptops to play video editing. The original video capacity is often 10GB or more, and the data transmission requirements have increased significantly.

With PCIe 4.0, the theoretical bandwidth of the new generation of NVMe hard drives is 8GB/s, the high-performance version can reach 7GB/s, and the common standard is at least 5GB/s. This speed is more than 2-3 times that of existing PCIe 3.0 hard drives, because the actual speed of NVMe hard drives on many laptops is also 1GB/s.

As the 11th generation Core supports PCIe 4.0, notebooks that support this technology have also come to the fore. Lenovo has previously announced that the new generation of YOGA 13s and YOGA Pro 13s series will be equipped with PCIe 4.0 hard drives. This is also the first official thin and light notebook to support PCIe 4.0, which is worth looking forward to.

In addition to SSD hard drives, PCIe 4.0 has a lot of potential. The future 10Gbps 10G network card is also inseparable from PCIe 4.0. At the same time, the new generation of expansion bases and graphics card expansion docks are mostly based on PCIe 3.0. In the future, they will gradually turn to PCIe 4.0, which has faster speeds and can accommodate more interfaces and types.

In short, the notebook version of the 11th generation Core supporting PCIe 4.0 is just the beginning. At the beginning of next year, the desktop version of the 11th generation Core will join the PCIe 4.0 camp. In addition to the future Thunderbolt 4 interface and USB4 interface, graphics cards, NVMe hard drives and various peripherals will gradually gather into the PCIe 4.0 ecosystem.

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