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Intel: We 'Forgot' to Mention 28-Core, 5-GHz CPU Demo Was Overclocked
- Angostura 8y ago... and went to a fair degree of trouble to hide the massive, noisy, watercooler.
- zaarn 8y agoPurely by accident of course. Same for the 16 phase mobo to supply upwards of 1kW of power to the CPU. All an accident. No ill intent to find here.
- nolok 8y agoEspecially since, once ASUS and Gigabyte showed how it was done, intel went to get their chip back and only gave them 30 minutes to comply. Way to show this wasn't supposed to be hidden from the public.
- raverbashing 8y agoOh it's not just a watercooler, I'm not even sure those work well at the low temperatures needed (probably -10C or even less) even with antifreeze It's at least an active chiller + heat transport equipment (which can be a watercooler but doesn't look like it)
- xxs 8y agoIt was a sub-ambient cooler, NOT a water cooler. I'd tolerate a water cooler and 5GHz on a prebinned chip. Watercooling would have been amazing but it was phase change. Note: Watrecooling is ok for everyday use, subambiend = condensation... i.e. competitive overclocking area.
- mehrdadn 8y agoDumb question: What is the difference (implication-wise) between being overclocked at 5GHz and not-being-overclocked but still at 5GHz? My CPU (just like any other modern CPU) limits its clock speed to regulate its own temperature despite the fact that it's not even unlocked to let me overclock it, so it's not the difference is throttling. So what's the difference?
- captainbland 8y agoI guess they're just trying to say it won't be released as a 5GHz stock clockspeed - it probably goes over their TDP limits. Edit: And here I learn to read the article first: It's almost definitely that they couldn't achieve it with stock air cooling based on the setup described in the article.
- zaarn 8y agoI think going over the TDP limits is putting it lightly considering it was outputting 2 watts per square millimeter. For comparison, a Ryzen 1800X does 0.49 watts per square millimeter and has a lot less square millimeters (probably less than half)
- tutanchamun 8y agoThe Xeon 28 core part seems to be 698mm² [0] while the AMD Ryzen 1800X is 213mm² [0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/11839/intel-core-i9-7980xe-and-core-i9-7960x-review/3 https://www.anandtech.com/show/11839/intel-core-i9-7980xe-an...
- cjslep 8y ago"Not being overclocked" at 5GHz means the system is designed to run at that speed off the shelf without becoming molten slag and without aftermarket industrial grade cooling systems.
- mehrdadn 8y agoSo it's not the fact that it was overclocked that matters, but the fact that it required aftermarket cooling, right? Like my current CPU cannot get within 100MHz of its supposed max TurboBoost frequency due to (I presume) cooling limits, despite the fact that I haven't overclocked it, so for me to even get the frequency it is marketed as I would need aftermarket cooling... which seems like the same problem despite the lack of overclocking, right?
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- loser777 8y agoI would argue that this is extremely shady by Intel. It being an overclocked part means that this could be the single best 28-core die Intel has ever produced, so good luck getting one yourself (even then it still required a 1700W+ water chiller). And doing a one-off demo of overclocked (suggesting it would be a product) silicon just as competitors are announcing new products at COMPUTEX? There is no reason for this other than to mislead.
- m-p-3 8y agoThe only image I have in mind is an old-school strongman show where the weights lifted are "assisted" with some invisible wires to help the strongman to lift a little more than he normally can. This is basically what Intel did.
- jedimastert 8y agoOr just straight up lying about what's written on the dumbbells? Or juicing the strongman. Actually, I think your analogy works better.
- nolok 8y agoThis really went wrong for intel. Let's sum it up: - People who don't follow the corrections and follow up are now expecting them to release it (you can especially find a lot of people who says "intel will release it this year" in reddit for some reason). Now whatever intel actually releases will feel like a let down. - By all account Amd only planned to release their 24 core threadripper 2 at computex, but after intel demo they moved to the 32 core model directly (with all 4 unit activated instead of 3 out of 4). Intel pushed the bar it has to compete with higher (also, good reminder that competition benefits the customer). Pricing wise TR2 is not even EPYC so intel also has trouble there. - Additionally, Amd / Global foundry whispered that with their new process getting those chips at 5 ghz barrier in the not so distant future is on the table. Nobody had that barrier in mind a few weeks ago, and now all we know is Intel had to cheat to look like it can, while Amd is on its planned course to reach it. And this right after intel's numerous failure to get their new miniaturisation process to be on schedule the last few years. - Once Asus and Gigabyte spilled the beans on how intel did it (aka it was overclocked, and the cooling unit was gigantic), intel came to their booth and gave them 30 minutes to hand back the cpu, ending the demo. Which moved it from "intel does a tech demo of what could be" to "intel tried to pull one over us and got caught". After the ME security failure, the meltdown/spectre "working as intended" joke, the multi-release of various chips to try and stop ryzen in a few months, we now have the classic "oh we're sorry we got caught" ... Could someone at intel PR and marketing get a grip and stop making so much stupid moves ? Nobody would have cared if they had come out and said "this is overclocked, a demo to show what we aim to do in the near future". Instead we got ... that. Remember, Computex is a PR event. It's a tech show, not an investors call. You can't "lose" there, it's people coming to drool over what you have planned next. On most of these things, I don't doubt Intel and Amd are neck and neck, or even Intel ahead. Somehow, they managed to make themselves look like the ones who can't follow. Utterly terrible.
- xxs 8y agoSub ambient cooling with all the insulating material to prevent condensation. The unit itself is like 1k7W. However, the best part is that now Intel cannot argue that overclocking is unintended as they bloody set 2.7Ghz chip to run at 5Ghz, albeit for like 5seconds. (I doubt the cooling would even survive a minute)
- raverbashing 8y agoThis reminds me when Intel "tried" to sell overclocked PIII (Coopermine) @ 1.1GHz (IIRC) and then recalled it when it failed because it was an effective overclock (processors were unstable and overheating). (It worked up to 1.2GHz, maybe 1.3GHz when they went to Tualatin based PIII - those also kicked the behind of higher clocked Willamette P4s)
- nolok 8y agoWell to be fair pretty much everything kicked the P4, the only way for it to compete was "let's go higher" (clock wise). Then they reached the higher ghz barriers and were in deep trouble until they figured out to re-purpose their core-m mobility chip into what become the basis for all their desktop core and i* cpu. Meanwhile AMD was owning everything. Without their anticompetitive behavior, Intel would have lost their place back then already.
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- f1nalpr1m3 8y agoIntel Confirms Some Details About 28 Core / 56 Threads 5GHz CPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12932/intel-confirms-some-details-about-28core-5-ghz-demonstration https://www.anandtech.com/show/12932/intel-confirms-some-det...
- jdietrich 8y agoI think the bigger story is that Intel is really starting to sweat. You don't pull this kind of stunt if you have an unassailable market lead - you do it when you're really worried about your competition. It's been a long, long time since Intel had any real competition at the high end.
- agumonkey 8y agoThey seem to be losing faith in themselves. I thought intel, after a decade of market domination, was sitting on piles of options and brains. But AMD made them drown (on the PR side) way faster than I expected. The only thing they had was Premium 10cores models. No innovative design or idea. I don't know if they sunk all their energy in the new fabs or not ..
- dingo_bat 8y ago> No innovative design or idea. Infinity fabric seems quite novel for desktops. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/infinity_fabric https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/infinity_fabric
- wolfgke 8y ago> I thought intel, after a decade of market domination, was sitting on piles of options and brains. But AMD made them drown (on the PR side) way faster than I expected. The only thing they had was Premium 10cores models. No innovative design or idea. Intel has AVX-512, which is in my opinion one of the greatest innvoation in the x96 instruction set for a long time. The problem is that Intel wants to introduce AVX-512 only very slowly into consumer CPUs (slowly beginning with Cannon Lake, which will only be available in small quantities for some time if rumors are to be believed). Even more: For some parts of AVX-512 (e.g. 4FMAPS and 4FMAPS which are very useful for deep learning), Intel seems to be willing only for special expensive accelerator cards (Knights Mill) to include them to segment markets even further. Similarly it is often complained that Intel offers no ECC support for the Core i... series of CPU (IMHO this complaint is rightful). Again: Intel does offer it, but only in the much more expensive server/workstation CPUs (Xeon). So in my opinion Intel is sitting on a lot of options and brains - but they seem only willing to sell this in the really expensive CPUs for much higher prices than lots of market segments are willing to pay.
- dis-sys 8y agoI think the problem is that many people at Intel are just doing the rest and vest most of the time. For those people, their logic is like - - Why bother pushing for higher core count? Just leave it to the marketing department to convince customers 4 cores are enough. - Why bother pushing for 10nm? Just leave it to the marketing department to talk about Intel's fancy 14nm++++++++++. - Why bother pushing for higher frequency? Just leave it to the cooling solution vendors to bring in their 1400W aircon. These are exactly what Intel actually did to its home users. If you look at the whole drama, the most shocking parts are - - They didn't deliver anything new when they know full well that AMD has been busy pushing for higher core count for the last 12 months. - No one from Intel's management team is going to step down for such PR disaster. Customers are lucky to have AMD.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoSteve Martin, famous American comedian: You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?" First.. get a million dollars. Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?" Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!" How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don't say "I forgot"? Let's say you're on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, "I forgot armed robbery was illegal." Let's suppose he says back to you, "You have committed a foul crime. you have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random, and you say, 'I forgot'?" Two simple words: "Excuuuuuse me!!"
- OJFord 8y agoWhat's the definition of overclocking that allows us to say the manufacturer has done it to its own chip? Just that it will be sold as lower?
- dingo_bat 8y agoMaybe the fact that they had to use an air-conditioning unit to cool it?
- white-flame 8y agoIf it comes with a massive cooling facility bundled, then sure, that's presented as manufacturer's spec.
- d3ckard 8y agoI'm a long time AMD fan, since my first computer had Athlon XP inside. However, over many years I have been using exclusively Intel CPUs, because in laptop space there was no other viable choice(and I use Macs). Nevertheless, I always hoped AMD can come back and shake the market a little. After Bulldozer fiasco, I was skeptical about Ryzen. I would have never guessed that it will mark their comeback to high performance market. What is really surprising here is how bad Intel has failed. You would expect company with its own fabs, virtual monopoly on the market and loads of capital to be prepared for such a situation. Everybody thought Intel to slow down progress because of no competition. I guess very few people thought they are actually clueless and that's how the situation looks right now. Processor market appears to be something to watch in the coming years.
- floatboth 8y agoThe "own fabs" part is actually dragging them down. AMD was in a similar situation before they split off Global Foundries.
- bgorman 8y agoIt seems like it's only a matter of time before the fabs are spun off
- gkya 8y ago> because in laptop space there was no other viable choice Uhm, how? For casual to complex personal computer use, how is an AMD chip is different from Intel?
- m-p-3 8y agoAMD's TDP and CPU power consumption made mid/high-range laptops mostly unviable. They really improved with Ryzen.
- nolok 8y agoThe last generation of AMD chips before ryzen were eating power like it was cake. You don't want your ultrabook to sport a gigantic power block and last 10 minutes on battery ...
- imaffett 8y agoAny current or former employee will all tell you the same; Intel did NOT forget to mention this. After the fiasco with compilers and chips in the past, they have to go through rigorous approval for any marketing claims. This was 100% planned by Intel.
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoAt least they're not in the memory business.
- colejohnson66 8y agoDoes Optane in a DDR4 module count?
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoOh that? I forgot ;-P
- floor_ 8y agoThey also say that this isn't intended for the gamer crowd and then shows a kid with gamer headphones on in a gamer chair on a pc.
- amelius 8y agoThis makes me think of the VW emissions scandal. And of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262510