More details about the 28-core CPU reveal Intel's misleading presentation

It seems like Intel withheld some important information during the live presentation, and reviewers are now crying foul. (Source: Anandtech)

Apparently, Intel's 28-core CPU presentation from Computex was not really accurate, as the company tried to pull a few tricks on the audience. Anandtech meanwhile got some answers from Intel, revealing that the demo CPU was pre-overclcocked to 5 GHz. Moreover, the chip is designed for extreme workstations, so this was not the HEDT Cascade Lake-X CPU.

by Bogdan Solca, 2018/06/08

The 28-core HEDT CPU previewed by Intel a few days ago at Computex was quickly overshadowed by AMD’s Threadripper 2000 32-core CPUs, however, the difference between the two presentations was that Intel actually showed the CPU stably at 5 GHz per all cores and even displayed some Cinebench R15 benchmark results. Naturally, the audience at Computex wanted to know more details, but Intel was not able to provide any answers on spot. Anandtech managed to get some critical question answered, and it seems that Intel was up to some unethical behind-the-scenes tricks.

First of all, many people wondered if the 28-core CPU was overclocked to boost clocks or beyond. It turns out that Intel did some preliminary overclocking beyond the boost clocks behind the scenes, but this was somehow omitted during the live presentation. Furthermore, Intel now confirms that it used a special Hailea water chiller for the live presentation, which is not readily available on the consumer market.

Although Intel did not specifically confirm this, it turned out that the chip is designed for the LGA3647 server-based socket. Intel admitted that only very select customers will actually benefit from this chip, and this pretty much confirms that the 28-core chip is not even intended for the HEDT market, but, most likely, for the extreme workstation niche. Intel did promise to deliver the HEDT Cascade Lake-X versions by the end of 2018, however.

The motherboard used for the live demo was a Gigabyte SKL-SP 1S, and the CPU is built on the 14 nm stepping. Anandtech estimated that the chip has a 265 W TDP and the system included a 1600W power supply.

As it stands right now, the Computex presentation is considered by most analysts and reviewers very misleading, to say the least. Intel needs to officially come clean and present this as a highly experimental product that probably will not see the light of day for the consumer market in this form.