Intel Comet Lake lack of PCIe 4.0 support is a big missed opportunity
Opinion: Intel Comet Lake is in a rough spot without PCIe 4.0
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After almost a year and a half of waiting,Intel Comet Lake-Shas finally arrived, bringing a 10-core processor to its mainstream lineup for the first time – one with pretty amazing clock speeds.
Just on the performance front, it does everything it needs to – theIntel Core i9-10900Kprovides some pretty incredible single- and multi-threaded performance, even if it doesn’t quite topple overAMD’s current hold on the desktop CPU throne.
We’re not living in such a simple world anymore, however, where performance is all that matters. Even if we’reonlytalking about PC gaming, the exclusion of PCIe 4.0 doesn’t bode well for future performance of systems with Comet Lake processors, especially wheregraphics cardsand storage are concerned.
PCIe 4.0 is the future, sorry
When I first heard that PCIe 4.0 was coming to the AMD X570 platform back atComputex 2019, I knew that it would be an improvement over PCIe 3.0, I just didn’t realizehow much of an improvementit would be.
I’ve only had the chance to test one SSD that uses the interface, the Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4 SSD that AMD provided in my testing kit when I reviewed theRyzen 9 3900XandRyzen 7 3700X. That SSD is currently locked up in an office building in Manhattan, but when I tested that processor, I was able to get speeds of 4,996 MB/s in the CrystalDiskMark sequential read test. To put that in perspective, the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro I use on my test bench gets 3,720MB/s in the same test – that’s a 25% improvement already, from one of the fastest PCIe 3.0 SSDs to one of the first PCIe 4.0 SSDs.
Thebest SSDswill get faster and faster on this interface as time goes on, making PCIe 3.0 SSDs obsolete in the same way that NVMe SSDs did to SATA SSDs.
That’s even before you consider the other major component on PCIe – the best graphics cards. Sure, the only graphics cards that use PCIe 4.0 right now areAMD Navicards like theRadeon RX 5700 XT, but that’s going to change. We’ve already heard rumors that theRTX 3000 cards are going to use PCIe 4.0, and if that’s not enough,Nvidiais already using PCIe 4.0 in itsserver-grade Ampere products.
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Gaming gaming gaming
ThePS5andXbox Series Xare just a few months away at this point, and bothSonyandMicrosoftwon’t stop talking about the SSDs in these systems and how they’re going to push gaming forward. Hell, remember thatUnreal Engine 5 tech demothat looked incredible? The developers behind that are saying that if PC gamers want to be able to see stuff like that they’re going tohave to pick up an NVMe SSD.
And, yeah, you can do that with a Comet Lake-S processor, that’s absolutely true. But if the consoles are all using PCIe 4.0 SSDs, it’s not going to be long before that’s the baseline of performance for AAA games – that’s kind of how it goes with each console launch.
Intellikes to make claims that it makes thebest processorsfor gaming, and what it bases those claims on is that single-core performance is the most important factor. And, for the most part, it’s right –at launch.
Given how even in my briefing for these 10th-generation Comet Lake-S processors, Intel compared the Intel Core i9-10900K to the Core i7-7700K because people typically upgrade every 3-5 years.
With a high-end product like the Core i9-10900K, there are going to be users that will upgrade as soon as Intel’s 11th-generation desktop chip comes out, sure, but there are going to be manymorethat will be relying on that processor far longer than just a year or two.
Intel should have waited
Back atCES 2020, when Intel teasedXe graphicsandTiger Lake, I said that Team Blueneeded to launch a desktop processorif it wanted to stay relevant. And it did that. However, nothing exists in a vacuum.
By launching a new processor that not only is expensive enough on its own, but also requires a whole newmotherboard, Intel is essentially asking that consumers spend hundreds (if not more) on a system that’s going to be, in some ways, inferior to a console in less than a year.
Because lightning-fast storage is shaping up to be one of the battling grounds of the upcoming generation of games – and you can be damn sure that will include the best PC games – Intel’s lack of PCIe 4.0 seems incredibly short-sighted, especially for a company that puts so much value in PC gaming.
Only time will tell if PCIe 4.0 becomes as big a deal as I think it will, but it’s not looking so hot for Intel. Here’s to hoping that the rumors that Rocket Lake is going to follow close behind Comet Lake are true – Intel’s going to need PCIe 4.0 support if it wants to be the best CPU for gaming.
Bill Thomas (Twitter) is TechRadar’s computing editor. They are fat, queer and extremely online. Computers are the devil, but they just happen to be a satanist. If you need to know anything about computing components, PC gaming or the best laptop on the market, don’t be afraid to drop them a line on Twitter or through email.
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