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AVX512 for mobile?

Travis_D_
New Contributor II
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OK, so Skylake has been out for a month, and IDF is long past - but I still don't have an answer to one basic question: will there be any mobile chips that support a AVX512? At first my hopes had been dashed with the announcement that AVX would only be in available on Skylake Xeon, but then they were raised again when we found out that there would be a mobile Xeons for Skylake. 

Now some specific mobile Xeons have been announced and appear on ARK, but despite all my best googling, I can't tell if they support AVX512? Really hoping Intel has a way to develop on their newest ISA without being chained to a workstation - but I don't want to delay my laptop purchase any further if that is not going to be the case.

 

 

 

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McCalpinJohn
Honored Contributor III
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The presentation on Skylake at IDF made it clear that the "client" and "server" Skylake cores are (for the first time in recent history) very different implementations.

I hope that Intel helps out with continuing clarification of the nomenclature, but it seems clear that the the "Xeon E3" versions of Skylake use the "client" core -- just as the Xeon E3 v1/v2/v3/v4 parts use the "client" *uncore*.

I expect the Xeon E5-26xx v5 models to use the Skylake "server" core, but that is a long way off, since the Xeon E5-26xx v4 (Broadwell EP) product line has not yet been announced.

It seems likely that there will be Xeon E5-16xx v5 parts based on the Skylake "server" core and "server" uncore, but it is less clear what will happen in the mobile space since the new Skylake Xeon E3-15xx v5 parts are the first Xeon products labelled as "mobile".

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Travis_D_
New Contributor II
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Thanks John for your quick response. Based on the division between client and server cores that you mention it looks like either there won't be any AVX512 on mobile, or if there is it will be a long wait. Looks I'll just get a decent dev laptop now and hope my *next* one has this new ISA. 

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angus-hewlett
Beginner
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So Skylake Server is a different architecture, a different instruction set, perhaps a different memory interface, and a release date 18-24 months later than the client part (which may well be on a different generation by then). Why position both under the "Skylake" code-name umbrella at all?

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jimdempseyatthecove
Honored Contributor III
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You might be able to find a vendor building a workstation notebook that uses the server Skylake (or later) processor.

Jim Dempsey

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McCalpinJohn
Honored Contributor III
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Intel's use of "Skylake" for two fairly different processor cores is an interesting departure from recent practice....  Folks will have to get used to referring to either "Skylake (client)" (SKL) or "Skylake Xeon" (SKX) to avoid terrific levels of confusion....

A similar confusion has been present in the "uncore" of processors for a couple of generations, and we still don't have a good nomenclature to specify families clearly and concisely.   You can purchase high-end Core i7 processors (normally considered "client" parts) that use the "server" uncore, and you can purchase low-end Xeon E3-11xx and Xeon E3-12xx server processors that use the "client" uncore.    So far only the Core i7 (not the Core i3 or Core i5) is available with the "server" uncore, and only the Xeon E3 (not the Xeon E5 or E7) is available with the "client" uncore.  

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Travis_D_
New Contributor II
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Indeed, it's all quite confusing. It seems then that the release of any chip with AVX-512 is not imminent - not to mention a mobile part. No doubt workstations will appear with the server part once it is released, or else development and use of these new extensions would be pretty difficult. Furthermore, I'd be surprised that AVX-512 would purely targeted towards server (i.e., racked blades) since, historically, a lot of the use of the new extensions have been seen in desktop applications such as media processing, games, under-the-desk scientific processing, etc.

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McCalpinJohn
Honored Contributor III
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Knights Landing should be the first processor launched with AVX-512 support.   Intel was initially saying 2H2015, but the most recent official comments refer to availability in 2016 (e.g., http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/white-paper/quick-path-interconnect-introduction-paper.pdf)

Skylake Xeon is likely much further off, given that the Broadwell EP platform has not launched yet.  Looking at Intel's historical lag between release of "client" and "server" parts suggests Skylake Xeon availability in 2017 (18-21 months after the announcement of the Skylake client parts in July/August 2015).

A mobile Knights Landing part would be interesting.   Knights Corner parts are in the 200W TDP range, so if Knights Landing is similar, it would take some serious batteries to power and some serious insulation to protect the user from burns.

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Travis_D_
New Contributor II
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Seems like the first mainstream mobile parts with AVX-512 support will finally arrive in 2019 - although it's ICL so you're getting a whole lot more AVX-512 extensions than SKX.

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