
Intel demonstrates a 28-core processor running at 5GHz - mpweiher
https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/05/intel-28-core-cpu/
======
patrickg_zill
How many will they ship, though? And at what price?

Interesting how only when AMD starts shipping something competitive with their
chips, does Intel roll up its sleeves and get busy on breaking new ground.
There almost seems to be a correlation ...!

~~~
api
Did Moore's law really stagnate as much as we think or do we just have a lazy
monopoly?

~~~
Synaesthesia
Moores law held up pretty well. Frequency scaling did not continue as it did
in the old days, I mean we had 3ghz back in the P4 days. But performance has
certainly improved thanks to better IPC, more cores etc.

~~~
Joky
The law is about transistors I believe, not about frequency or performance,
isn’t it?

~~~
leetcrew
as originally formulated, yes, but no one really cares about transistor
density itself; we care because it correlates well with performance.

------
loser777
If we assume this design is based off of something similar to the 28-core 8180
which has a 2.5GHz base frequency and (generous, likely understated) 205W TDP,
this chip could easily have a TDP north of 300W.

Those boxes on stage sure don't look air-cooled to me. The plumbing seriously
resembles that of a phase-change setup, which would actually make sense here
as an extremely low operating temperature would help tame the leakage power
tremendously.

In summary though, it ain't gonna be cheap to buy or cool.

~~~
dis-sys
I'd willing to bet that it is very different to 8180.

it is simply not practical to boost freq from 2.5 base/3.5 turbo to all cores
5Ghz.

~~~
loser777
I think the cooling could be a significant part of the picture here---you can
nudge the power/frequency curve a bit with very aggressive cooling (phase-
change is extremely aggressive) to drop the leakage power (e.g., as AMD did
with the liquid cooled Fury X [1]).

If this had a different core count from the 8180 I would agree but I wouldn't
expect Intel to do a completely separate design _just_ for a model that will
need to be highly binned regardless.

That or Intel has made some serious magic happen at 14nm++++++++++.

[1] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/9390/the-amd-
radeon-r9-fury-x...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/9390/the-amd-
radeon-r9-fury-x-review/5)

~~~
dis-sys
> That or Intel has made some serious magic happen at 14nm++++++++++

will be interesting to watch what AMD is going to offer using their new 12nm
toy. ;)

~~~
tutanchamun
I'm more interested in Zen2 on 7nm which seems to be coming out earlier than
Intels 10nm CPUs.

Possible IPC enhancements from architecture optimizations of Zen2 + better
clocks = first time since over a decade that AMD beats Intel in single
threaded workloads? Due to their better SMT implementation (?) they seem to
beat Intel in multithreaded scenarios already with same core count and around
the same clock (at least in Cinebench).

~~~
dis-sys
Yes, Zen2 will be very interesting to watch next year. The only problem is
that AMD has not offered anything else other than some ppt presentation on how
great is the Zen2.

------
lisk1
The title is misleading, it reached 5Ghz through overclocking and no mention
of how many cores booted at 5Ghz, the nominal frequency of this part with all
cores is 2.7ghz. Saw the photos but still skeptical about it like price wise
and what cooling it need.

~~~
dannypgh
If it's Intel demonstrating on Intel chips, does it really count as
"over"clocking? Seems like it's just clocking.

~~~
taneq
It's overclocking if it's over the nameplate clock speed, regardless of who
does it.

------
oliwarner
That Cinebench screenshot though. It looks _really_ fast when you compare it
to a pile of 8yo+ CPUs.

Perhaps we should be more worried that it's only 5.something times faster than
an 8yo CPU with fewer than half the cores.

[https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/c18d803c00f096b8d7b57...](https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/c18d803c00f096b8d7b57e18d6019fd4/206427322/Intel+28+core+demo+1.jpg)

~~~
amq
Also interesting on the screenshot: Radeon.

------
bitL
That's cool! 32 core Threadripper coming as well? Good old competition is back
and I love it! :)

------
dis-sys
anandtech is reporting that the chip might be for the LGA2066 platform[1] for
home use. ;)

Before you get too excited, the current generation of 28-core xeon running at
2.5G costs you over $10k each [2]. I won't be too surprised if Intel sets the
price of a 5G 28-core Xeon at $15-20k.

That being said, having more choices is always good. Can't wait to see how AMD
is going to respond to this using their Epyc line of chips.

[1] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/12893/intels-28core-5-ghz-
cpu...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12893/intels-28core-5-ghz-cpu-coming-
in-q4) [2] [https://ark.intel.com/products/120496/Intel-Xeon-
Platinum-81...](https://ark.intel.com/products/120496/Intel-Xeon-
Platinum-8180-Processor-38_5M-Cache-2_50-GHz)

------
drewg123
Is this a single 28-core CPU? The only other 28 core chips that Intel has are
the Xeon platinum 8176 and 8180, which cost $9-$13K and don't clock nearly as
high.

Or is this like AMD's Threadripper any EPYC, and they are duct taping together
multiple CPUs in a single socket? Eg, 2 x 14 cores CPUS connected with QPI or
EMIB ? 4 x 7 cores? I wonder if AMD patented this technique..

~~~
maaark
>duct taping together multiple CPUs

IIRC, according to Intel's slides, AMD used glue.

------
nrclark
I wonder how much cache that CPU has, and how many memory channels? 28 cores
don't do you much good if half of them are always blocked waiting for
instructions.

~~~
xtreme
24/26 core CPUs have been in the market for quite a while. The caches
generally look like this: each core has 32KB instruction + 32KB data cache
(L1) and 1MB L2 cache. All cores share the 30-40MB L3 cache and the 4/6 memory
channels.

In my experience, cores getting blocked for instructions is not commonplace.
They can block waiting for data if the computation is memory-bound.

Edit: These are the specs for the [Skylake
8180]([https://ark.intel.com/products/120496/Intel-Xeon-
Platinum-81...](https://ark.intel.com/products/120496/Intel-Xeon-
Platinum-8180-Processor-38_5M-Cache-2_50-GHz)). These chips are nowhere close
to 5GHz though.

------
farseer
It would be infuriating if this doesn't come with ECC RAM support.

~~~
qwerty456127
It's infuriating ECC RAM doesn't come in everything.

~~~
dragontamer
ECC RAM is stuck at 2666 MT/s and rarely overclocks to 1.35V.

Normal RAM can handle 1.35V typically and often goes up to 3200 MT/s (on AMD
systems) or 3600 MT/s (on Intel systems). That's easily +20% to +35% more
memory bandwidth. With lower latency and better overall specs to boot.

And if your 3d render has a pixel-error on frame 50, delete the .png file and
rerender frame 50. No biggie.

~~~
wmf
That sounds like an artifact of Intel's artificial market segmentation. If we
imagine a world where ECC was mandatory then it's likely that ECC gamer RAM
would be available.

------
mbfg
The most impressive thing shown was the cooler used to get that chip to sub-
ambient. That's the magic part of the presentation.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRH0-QwhvVQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRH0-QwhvVQ)

------
swarnie_
Serious question, Who buys these chips?

There can't be many people in the world who will pay the 10k-20k price tag.
How many people have the pull with their employers to justify it?

The production run must be insanely low or i just don't understand the
marketplace around high end chips.

~~~
jpalomaki
Might be bargain if your software vendor is still selling licenses ”per
socket” (joke, I guess everybody has migrated to per core or something more
complicated).

To put hardware prices to perspective, think how much it costs to run even a
small development team. If hardware makes them more productive and/or happier,
most of the time you should go for it. Sad too see expensive people stuck with
mediocre tools.

------
IronWolve
They really need to release a cpu for the FCLGA2066 platform that can beat the
8700K/9700K in games. People are waiting for the 9700K to upgrade, and
avoiding intels high end because they dont have the a higher end cpu for gamer
enthusiasts.

~~~
wmf
There won't be. The 5 GHz 8086K will probably beat this 5 GHz monstrosity in
games due to lower latency.

------
ksec
I am thinking could this be fitted inside the iMac Pro, or the normal iMac. Or
is it for the new Mac Pro.

How did we manage to break 28 Core all running at 5Ghz barrier when we were
previously hold up even 8 Core running at 4.4Ghz at the same time.

------
majidazimi
Atom/Electron Devs: Challenge Accepted...

~~~
kome
ahahah you made me laugh! :) it's funny because it's true.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I wouldn't say it's true, but it shows we all got trapped in a way. Let's take
Mac OS development. In order to be able to publish apps, you need to have a
recent version of Xcode. In order to use a recent version of Xcode, you also
need to have a relatively recent version of macOS. Unfortunately, this also
means your hardware need to be up to date. When you discover you can no longer
develop on your 2012 machine, you buy a new one with a fast processor and
plenty of RAM. (NB Even your app is so simple it could run on 3GS perfectly
well, your lowest target is set at devices supporting the most recent iOS, but
it's a topic for another discussion.) Now you feel the full power of your
hardware and your opinion of what it means "current hardware" and "fast app"
changes. You start to say things like "Come on, it's 2018, 8 GB RAM is low-
end." You stop caring about these Core 2 devices because it looks like Apple
doesn't care about them too, co why would you? In this way the machine is
pushed forward, and we're becoming more and more wasteful.

~~~
dijit
a 2012 machine is more than acceptable as a builder, heck my mother still uses
a 2009 MacBook pro and she uses her laptop quite "heavily" (She never closes
programs/browser tabs), my mac pro is from 2013 and it's perfectly capable.

But, I think my pedantry does not dissuade from your actual point; making a
modern MacOS program requires that you have a macOS machine- It also precludes
learning a language that typically only runs on that platform (I know swift is
cross platform but none of the windowing libraries that you'll use are).

Making tailored software per platform is tedious, making the same program
multiple ways so that it can be native is just time consuming if nothing else.

Electron is an ugly way of fixing that; but it does the job of fixing it- Qt
is an ideal solution in theory but it's obviously too much of a burden on
developers to adopt.

~~~
phaemon
"Precludes" means to prevent something from happening. You probably wanted
something like "necessitates".

~~~
dijit
You're right, I have been living with the wrong definition of that word for
quite some time now. Thanks!

------
ramijames
Will these be able to be used in multi-cpu systems? Will you be able to build
a 56 core computer?

~~~
blackflame7000
Most likely under the Xeon brand

~~~
chupasaurus
IIRC top models from last i7 Extreme generation and i9 have support for dual-
cpu systems.

~~~
blackflame7000
No only Xeon E5-2600 V1-4 series (Dual Socket) and Xeon E5-4600 V1-4
series(Quad Socket) are multi-cpu capable.

------
outside1234
Can we get a processor that can handle 32GB of LPDDR first?

------
olliej
Wow a floating video over the content with no dismiss button? Wut? :-/

Seriously why have the video float? If I’ve scrolled down it’s probably to
read - like wtf is the intended user interaction goal there?

------
tjoff
How is that extremely intrusive tracking-management popup even attempting to
adhere to GDPR?

For one it is opt out, which isn't allowed. It also claims that you need to
accept to continue using the site, which isn't allowed, then it's countless
steps required to opt out (if you even can, I got lost and accidentally
allowed everything a few clicks in).

This is probably worse than just pretending GDPR didn't exist. This is a
deliberate and disrespectful fuck you to every single visitor.

~~~
Gravityloss
You can just go to another site, it's not original research anyway. That
should motivate them to fix it.

Example: [https://www.anandtech.com/show/12875/intel-announces-the-
cor...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12875/intel-announces-the-
core-i78086k-coffee-lake-at-5-ghz)

~~~
tutanchamun
I agree, but the anandtech article is about Intels anniversary CPU (6 cores
running @ 4ghz which can boost to 5ghz on a single core and probably 4.6 ghz
on all cores), engadets article is about a 28 core cpu running @ ~5ghz.

If this 28 core monster really is released I'm curious what it will cost. The
18 core i9 costs ~2000 dollar, the 28 core Xeon with much lower clocks (but
with ECC etc.) ~8000.

The power requirements will be even more interesting looking at the 18 core
numbers when overclocked.

------
RealDinosaur
Engadget... What the hell is with your GDPR consent.

1) Manage Options

2) (Body font sized link) Manage

3) (Body font sized link) Show

4) Scroll down

5-100) Click each toggle individually (select all button is currently broke)
(It is intentionally ambiguous which is the 'correct' selection)

101-150) Do the same on other page

151) Click done

152) Click OK (hoping it's saved, it doesn't feel like it has)

This is much harder than it is to opt-in. I'm pretty sure this against the
spirit of the GDPR.

Even if it isn't against the GDPR. It's a dick move.

~~~
kzrdude
GDPR rules in practice seem to turn into the "this site uses cookies" notice
but on mega steroids. Privacy control is great, but it's just not interesting
to have a checkbox or agreement click through on every new site visited.

~~~
logicallee
What you can do today:

\- If your browser doesn't have this option yet, write its developers, product
managers, or CEO, voicing your most humble request that they try do something
that does work, at least with some pages some of the time, to try to
proactively automatically agree to GDPR and cookies. (Or automatically
disagree with them, discard cookies, whatever.)

I promise you that it is possible technically to do something that works on at
least 1 page, that other web sites could mimic the interaction of and have it
work on them too.

Sites won't all support browsers' solutions but if browsers can automate
_something_ , then some web sites can adapt to it. (By using the same
interaction, names, etc - i.e. legally clicking for the user, or so that the
web site can't tell if the browser sent that automated per the setting chosen
by the user, or if the user manually clicked. Even if they can only automate
ones that closely match certain element names etc it will still be a step
ahead.)

~~~
gnode
I think you're missing the point. The operators of these sites are not
interested in respecting user choice. I'm sure they're aware that the most
ergonomic thing to do, and arguably the only legal thing to do, is to present
users with two buttons "Yes, track me" and "No, don't track me", then provide
the service with no degradation either way.

But they realise that almost nobody actually wants the tracking, and that does
not align with their interests.

~~~
tjoff
The thing is that the law requires exactly that. So it will be interesting to
see the consequences.

They are currently just trying the waters, see what they can get away with,
most certainly already have a backup plan they will enable at the first sign
of trouble.

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JBiserkov
From the photo:

# of cores: 28

# of threads: 56

Hyper Threading FTW!

~~~
stephengillie
Doesn't the success of hyperthreading depend on the ineffectiveness of branch
prediction?

~~~
wmf
No, a thread can still have low IPC even if every branch is correctly
predicted.

------
gaius
Is that all cores at 5Ghz or one core turbo boosting?

AMD had a 5Ghz processor in what, 2014? Clock speed isn’t everything...

~~~
dis-sys
all cores at 5G, check out the photo in the link below

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/12893/intels-28core-5-ghz-
cpu...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12893/intels-28core-5-ghz-cpu-coming-
in-q4)

