You're getting into the weeds and will get different answers based on semantics, here. A FPGA emulation isn't inherently better than a CPU-based emulation of a

You're getting into the weeds and will get different answers based on semantics, here. A FPGA emulation isn't inherently better than a CPU-based emulation of any given chip; it's not more authentic because it still lacks the particular quirks of any old CPU that are associated with the way the hardware was laid out, path lengths, imperfections etc. I'm glad it's introducing FPGA programming to a wider audience because FPGAs are probably going to become more important going forward - and are probably going to be what keeps Intel alive - but it doesn't make the emulator inherently better.