Intel 28 Core CPU was shown at Computex 2018 and it was allegedly running at 5 GHz across all cores and resulted in a Cinebench score of 7334 points. While that might seem to be the case, there is much more than what meets the eyes. It seemed that this was a new Cascade Lake-X CPU but as it turned out this was just an older CPU that Intel had overclocked to 5 GHz. An industrial cooling solution was used in order to do the job.
When you are picking out a CPU, you will find it common to face a trade-off between the number of cores and frequency. That is why the multicore CPUs thInteltel is bringing to the table turbo boost max on a single or two cores rather than all 4 or 6. Having a stable 5 GHz overclock on 28 cores would be a miracle indeed. While Intel might have pulled that off, the way it was done was misleading to say the very least.
This Intel 28 core CPU that we have seen is not new. How do we know that? We talked about the fact that the chip is using the LGA3647 socket, which is used for enterprise level Xeon chips. So what we are looking at here is most likely an overclocked version of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 or 8176. The chances are that the chip is indeed the 8176, which is based on the Skylake-X architecture. This is a pretty old architecture and is known for getting really hot and drawing a lot of power.
It was interesting to see that while the Intel 28 Core CPU was indeed overclocked, Intel did not show the cooling solution that was used for the demo. That is because an industrial chiller was used in order to cool the chip. We are not talking about a fancy top of the line cooler here that you can buy on the market, we are talking about an industrial chiller.
The chiller had the Intel 28 Core CPU at -10C to get to 5 GHz. Which seems like a lot of work just for a PR stunt. You can take existing Skylake-X chips for example, that have a lower number of cores. These chips do not get to 5 GHz even though they have a lower number of cores. Getting these chips to 5 GHz is a lot of work and you need some serious cooling in order to get that 5 GHz overclock.
According to reports, the Intel 28 Core CPU will pull 1000W off the wall under load and that is something very shocking indeed. This means that even if you did have a cooling solution powerful enough to keep this chip cool, you would not be able to use it. Using this chip at load will cause a blackout in your home and maybe the entire block as well.
This seems to be an answer to AMD Threadripper 2 and clearly not a good one now that we know that we are getting nothing new. The Intel 28 Core CPU was even pulled from the show floor from Asus and Gigabyte booths at Computex 2018. Getting to the point, Skylake-X can only do 5 GHz on 28 cores if LN2 or a chiller is used.
We have yet to hear from Intel regarding the matter and it will be interesting to see what the company has to say about it. For everything announced at Computex 2018 be sure to click here.
Let us know what you think about this Intel 28 Core CPU PR stunt and whether or not you feel deceived by this move that Intel has pulled off.
