• After a busy week at Computex 2018, looking back we can say there weren’t many big announcements at the show but perhaps one of the most exciting reveals was the upcoming 32-core, 64-thread Threadripper 2nd-gen CPU that is scheduled for release in just a few months.
  • But the day before AMD’s press event in Taipei, Intel came out on stage and showcased a suspicious 28-core CPU running at 5 GHz on all cores, which sent the internet into a flurry. It seemed like Intel was demoing a future product, they said so themselves, but later on we found that wasn’t the case.
  • It’s worth talking about this CPU and Intel’s announcement because it shows the difference between Intel and AMD’s current high-end desktop strategies. One company is talking about actual consumer hardware, while the other is demonstrating ridiculous garbage that serves no purpose other than to generate headlines.

After Intel’s demonstration, various outlets like Paul's Hardware went over to the Gigabyte suite and exposed the Intel test system shown on stage. And low and behold, the CPU in question is cooled using a massive air conditioner unit that’s bringing the liquid cooling system’s temperatures down to sub-ambient levels. That’s red flag number one.
  •  when you join the dots together it becomes obvious this is just an existing top-end Xeon processor (like the $10,000 28-core Xeon Platinum 8180), chucked into a board capable of extreme power delivery, attached to exotic cooling, then overclocked to the absolute maximum. Presumably this Xeon chip was also binned to a ridiculous degree such that a 5 GHz all-core overclock could be achieved. In fact, later on Intel would confirm to AnandTech that the demonstration was using an overclocked CPU and was intended as an overclocking demo… not that the company mentioned that on stage.

Update:

  •  An Intel spokesperson reached out and provided this statement:
  •  "The 28C demo at the keynote is a real product in development targeted at the high end prosumer and enthusiast audience. Intel continues to optimize design and process across its products, and the demo showcased an upcoming Intel product having the capability of 5.0 GHz overclocking across all 28 cores."
  • Overclocking experiments using exotic cooling are awesome and something we see enthusiasts doing all the time, but it’s pretty disingenuous to say this CPU is coming to the market in Q4. There is absolutely no way we’re getting a 5 GHz 28-core CPU as either a desktop part or server part. Maybe we’ll get a 28-core CPU that hits 5 GHz as a single-core Turbo frequency, but 5 GHz all-core when the current flagship Xeon Platinum 8180 tops out at 3.2 GHz all-core? Yeah, that’s not happening.
  • What Intel did at Computex is the equivalent of saying an i7-8700K is a 7 GHz CPU. Sure, it can hit 7 GHz as an overclocked part on extremely high-end motherboards with exotic cooling like LN2, but no consumer buying an 8700K is reaching 7 GHz in typical scenarios. They will be able to overclock it above Intel’s rated specifications, but not to the extremes possible with chillers bolted on to the CPU.
  • So, let’s go back to the initial reveal of Intel’s 28-core 5GHz CPU. During their Computex 2018 keynote, they showed this massive CPU running at 5 GHz on all 28 cores, and they managed to get it running a Cinebench multi-threaded workload that produced an appropriately huge score. People went crazy over this and headlines were generated everywhere, which is exactly what Intel intended, knowing full-well that AMD would be overshadowing them the next day with a 32-core Threadripper.
  • When this news hit, we were quite suspicious about how exactly Intel managed to get this 28-core CPU running all cores at 5 GHz. It couldn’t be a consumer product, and not something that would ever be reaching the market, at least at the frequencies Intel was running it at on stage. Intel did say the CPU shown was a prototype and would be released in Q4, but I’ll get to that later.
  • Now when you join the dots together it becomes obvious this is just an existing top-end Xeon processor (like the $10,000 28-core  Xeon Platinum 8180), chucked into a board capable of extreme power delivery, attached to exotic cooling, then overclocked to the absolute maximum. Presumably this Xeon chip was also binned to a ridiculous degree such that a 5 GHz all-core overclock could be achieved. In fact, later on Intel would confirm to AnandTech that the demonstration was using an overclocked CPU and was intended as an overclocking demo… not that the company mentioned that on stage.
  • Overclocking experiments using exotic cooling are awesome and something we see enthusiasts doing all the time, but it’s pretty disingenuous to say this CPU is coming to the market in Q4. There is absolutely no way we’re getting a 5 GHz 28-core CPU as either a desktop part or server part. Maybe we’ll get a 28-core CPU that hits 5 GHz as a single-core Turbo frequency, but 5 GHz all-core when the current flagship Xeon Platinum 8180 tops out at 3.2 GHz all-core? Yeah, that’s not happening.
  • What Intel did at Computex is the equivalent of saying an i7-8700K is a 7 GHz CPU. Sure, it can hit 7 GHz as an overclocked part on extremely high-end motherboards with exotic cooling like LN2, but no consumer buying an 8700K is reaching 7 GHz in typical scenarios. They will be able to overclock it above Intel’s rated specifications, but not to the extremes possible with chillers bolted on to the CPU.
  • This is in stark contrast to AMD’s announcement for Threadripper 2. Their 32-core CPU is a real product and it’s likely coming to market in August. It will be available for consumers, they will be able to put it in existing X399 boards, and they’ll be able to achieve the performance AMD showed on stage. AMD’s demo had the CPU clocked at a 3.0 GHz base and 3.4 GHz all-core boost, running on air cooling with the Wraith Ripper.
  • For now, it’s clear that Intel wanted to create a diversion and steal some of AMD’s thunder a day early, showing Cinebench numbers so ridiculous that Threadripper 2nd-gen didn’t look as menacing. But when time comes and only one of the two companies delivers the goods you can actually buy, then you’ll be able to vote with your wallet. We can’t say we liked the misleading demo, but hey, the CPU wars are back and that’s only great news for consumers.