If you thought running at 5 GHz was neat with a 6-core part, Intel had another surprise for you last night. As part of its Computex keynote, the company demonstrated a 28-core processor running at 5 GHz on all cores, planned for the HEDT segment sometime before the end of 2018.
We don't have a lot of detail on this demo, including what socket this is using, whether this is a single monolithic die design or a multi-chip package using EMIB, or if this is will cost you more than your current domicile to purchase.
It showed a score of 7334 on Cinebench R15. Think about that – the 18-core Core i9-7980XE is our current stock leader in this test with a result of 3346. That means this 28-core processor demo was 2.19x faster than the current fastest part on the market!!
All of the unknown factors make it slightly less exciting, to be honest. What power draw was it running at? Is this viable for a consumer platform, in reality? Is 5 GHz a possibility for us mere mortals? Clearly if you are in need of extreme multi-threading capability and performance for rendering, encoding, or mega-tasking, it appears Intel may have the best solution available come this holiday season.
UPDATE 6/6/18: It has now been confirmed by people on the ground in Taipei that the Intel 28-core demo was a complex feat. The motherboards were built by ASUS and Gigabyte, modifications of a server-class LGA3647 socket board that required a 32-phase power system, and a 1HP (horsepower) water chiller and refrigerant to drop the liquid to a cool 4 degrees Celsius. The processor is a single-die part, basically a Xeon Scalable Platinum 8180, that has a list price of $10,000.
Obviously this is not a configuration that any reasonable consumer, even the crazy ones really, would be willing to employ. It means motherboards with the X299 chipset will not be compatible with this part as it requires a new socket. It also means that clock speeds for real-world designs will be much lower, likely a Gigahertz or more.
There are a lot of questions to poke around about before the end of the year if we are truly going to understand Intel's plans for the enthusiast platform at the end of 2018.
I think this will solve any
I think this will solve any chess problem. Wish someone would have it run through a number of chess engine test suites using Stockfish 9 64-bit.
“…it appears Intel may have
“…it appears Intel may have the best solution available come this holiday season.”
dad+mom: son, we’ve talked it over a lot and we simply just can’t afford that cpu you want for xmas, so instead we will get you a car.
Wonder how related this new
Wonder how related this new processor is to the Xeon Platinum 8180 that was launched late last year. It’s already a 28 core processor but only boosts to 3.8GHz on a single core.
https://ark.intel.com/products/series/125191/Intel-Xeon-Scalable-Processors
dont skip rent, mortgage or
dont skip rent, mortgage or car payments just to buy and brag about owning one. im not impressed.
This is like Nvidia vs. Amd,
This is like Nvidia vs. Amd, where Nvidia releases a ridiculously priced part, all of the reviewers post articles about how great the perfomance is even though it is irrelevant for 99.9 percent of consumers. I would say this is Intel trying to maintain their product placement as premium in some maner and worthy of a higer price reguardless of performance. This is a attempt to justify their higher prices in the minds of consumers. It is a marketing part and that is all.
It will be interesting to see how they cool the thing. Operating at 5 GHz continuously seems like it would be dificult for even water cooling. Perhaps they have some more exotic cooling tech. I have some ideas about how to cool such anthing; thought about doing some searches to see if it is patented. Due to hot spots, it will be difficult to do without phase change cooling of some kind.
It is also interesting that Intel is essentially competing on clock speed. The core count isnt that interesting. If you want to drop that kind of money, you could buy a 32 core Epyc system now. AMD will probably have 32 core Threadripper with Zen 2 though, with high clocks. They would do two 16 core chips, which would be much more affordable than this ridiculous part. Also, this part will be memory starved with that many cores at that speed. You need to go Epyc to get 8 channel memory, but I don’t think AMD will want to have Epyc associated with gaming systems, so I doubt that they would release an Epyc based HEDT part.
Somehow it completely
Somehow it completely confuses me that Intel showed a picture of a former SC/SC2 pro player on the big screen during the presentation of this CPU…
It’s a PR stunt and nothing
It’s a PR stunt and nothing more, and a disengenous one at that.
Because now you just told
Because now you just told gamers this somehow would make gaming better……and well its all a paper spec pissing contest online….What you spent 3 percent of what I did? Well screw you have 1/2 more FPS! L2 buy good gear n00b!
Thinking of SC/SC2, perhaps
Thinking of SC/SC2, perhaps Intel’s implied marketing message was perhaps rather something like: “You would like to play like a pro, but you struggle with microing more than a dozen units at a time? If that is you, fret no more! With our new Intel CPU, you will be able to easily control up to 28 units at once, defeating even the strongest opponent(*). (*legal disclaimer: applies only if the opponent is not a better player than you.)”
Four more cores and it will
Four more cores and it will have as many as the already-shipping 5GHz SPARC M8.
Complex Feat ?
Why not LN2 a
Complex Feat ?
Why not LN2 a 6Ghz CPU coming out soon TM.