Intel: We 'Forgot' to Mention 28-Core, 5-GHz CPU Demo Was Overclocked | Hacker News Reader

Intel: We 'Forgot' to Mention 28-Core, 5-GHz CPU Demo Was Overclocked

tomshardware.com

335 pointsbuserror120 comments

This really went wrong for intel. Let's sum it up:

- People who don't follow the corrections and follow up are now expecting them to release it (you can especially find a lot of people who says "intel will release it this year" in reddit for some reason). Now whatever intel actually releases will feel like a let down.

- By all account Amd only planned to release their 24 core threadripper 2 at computex, but after intel demo they moved to the 32 core model directly (with all 4 unit activated instead of 3 out of 4). Intel pushed the bar it has to compete with higher (also, good reminder that competition benefits the customer). Pricing wise TR2 is not even EPYC so intel also has trouble there.

- Additionally, Amd / Global foundry whispered that with their new process getting those chips at 5 ghz barrier in the not so distant future is on the table. Nobody had that barrier in mind a few weeks ago, and now all we know is Intel had to cheat to look like it can, while Amd is on its planned course to reach it. And this right after intel's numerous failure to get their new miniaturisation process to be on schedule the last few years.

- Once Asus and Gigabyte spilled the beans on how intel did it (aka it was overclocked, and the cooling unit was gigantic), intel came to their booth and gave them 30 minutes to hand back the cpu, ending the demo. Which moved it from "intel does a tech demo of what could be" to "intel tried to pull one over us and got caught".

After the ME security failure, the meltdown/spectre "working as intended" joke, the multi-release of various chips to try and stop ryzen in a few months, we now have the classic "oh we're sorry we got caught" ... Could someone at intel PR and marketing get a grip and stop making so much stupid moves ?

Nobody would have cared if they had come out and said "this is overclocked, a demo to show what we aim to do in the near future". Instead we got ... that.

Remember, Computex is a PR event. It's a tech show, not an investors call. You can't "lose" there, it's people coming to drool over what you have planned next. On most of these things, I don't doubt Intel and Amd are neck and neck, or even Intel ahead. Somehow, they managed to make themselves look like the ones who can't follow. Utterly terrible.

You can add "perpetually delayed 10nm" and "Kafka-esque badge engineering" to the long list of intel blunders. Apparently things are so bad now that Anandtech is calling out their press team for announcing products with zero information.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12878/intel-discuss-whiskey-l...

This is what a decade of dominance does to a company. Success kills.

This is good. Old wood should die off, so new growth can replace it.

Arrogance is the cause, not success itself.

Complacency kills.

They'll do like Facebook and Microsoft, apologize, make new good deeds, send their PR team, then everybody will love them again.

It's not a problem anymore. The majority of the public never hold any company accountable on the long run. They now know that, and they adjusted accordingly.

s/company/politician

s/company/celebrity

Facebook never made any good deeds.

Microsoft, as much as I hate them, has actually made a lot of of them.

And in general, actions speaks louder then words. And people do remember what they have done. Forgiving was never going to be a easy thing, especially when you audience are developers.

The Network Effect makes people stick to the company/product. Opposition/alternative can snowball slowly and surely but needs a catalysator/enabler. This can be an event/deed such as eternal rain causing floods on Earth or poisoning of the aquaduct.

Companies and countries and personae know this. Its why ruling with authority happens. Its why those in power in Arabia feared the domino effect of the Arabic Spring. It can even be a reason why people swear.

Trying to avoid it (the domino effect) from happening is called damage control.

Can't edit my post anymore but PG's essay "What You Can't Say" also touches on the subject of the power struggle.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/say.html

Sub ambient cooling with all the insulating material to prevent condensation. The unit itself is like 1k7W.

However, the best part is that now Intel cannot argue that overclocking is unintended as they bloody set 2.7Ghz chip to run at 5Ghz, albeit for like 5seconds. (I doubt the cooling would even survive a minute)

Just a small clarification,

The chiller is rated at

1.7kW thermal while consuming

1kW electrical

That's about 1/2 tonne of AC. Insane ...

(and before anyone complains, yes, thermal pumps can have greater than 100% "efficiency" - that is: heat transported per energy spent)

What's 1k7W?

Shorthand for 1.7kW or 1,700 Watts. The shorthand is common in some fields, I've mostly seen it in electronics where you might have 4k7 to represent 4.7 kOhm or 4,700 Ohms.

This is a new one to this old dog. 2k18 is 2018. 1k7 looks to me like 1007. Much shorter to use 1.7kW which most know how to parse to 1.7 x 10<sup>3</sup> Watts.

I can vouch for the fact that 1k7=1700 is a common convention. It comes from the face that . can be hard to read sometimes. You often also see something like an “0R5” resistor which is 500 milliohms.

More common in EE contexts than anywhere else.

Sorry to break the news, but 2k18 is 2180. You're a few years off.

It's not. "2k" is pronounced "two thousand". "2k18" is "two thousand eighteen".

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL_2K

You, but in the case where the shorthand is required, the suffix (W in this case) is also dropped, or at least has been every time I've seen or used it.

Never saw that once in EE.

It's a fairly common notation on printed circuit board resistors where a dot could get lost. Better readability. They usually drop the suffix though, not sure if it's common for non-resistance items to use, but I got what he was trying to say.

A similar shorthand exists for calendar years - e.g. "2k8" means "2008".

which is clearly different to 2k8 meaning 2800. (or 1k7 meaning either 1700 or 1007...)

It's mainly common in EE schematics because 1k7W doesn't have any weird characters like '.' that may not parse correctly in CAD software.

1,700w CPU cooler

>"the meltdown/spectre "working as intended" joke"

I was really surprised by this. Why would you treat your customers as if they are idiots like this and make them lose trust in you? Its not like the main people making purchasing decisions are "the public" either, they should be much more informed than the typical person buying a laptop:

>"Intel now has eight major customers that are responsible for 75% of its revenues. In 2016, Intel's three largest customers were responsible for 31% of the firm's accounts receivable. Intel might obey Moore’s Law, but the Pareto Principle (a.k.a the 80/20 rule) is a different story." https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/100214/inside-...

Wasn't their public reaction as it was due to liability concerns? i.e. if they admitted that something was wrong with their chips, they may have gotten into significant legal / financial trouble?

I didn't think of that, interesting point. Stuck between a rock and a hard place...

> This really went wrong for intel

We do really miss you, Andy Grove. I can bet he wouldn't have let this insanity happen.

Not only that, but the CPU that Intel used was most likely an Xeon 8176, which retails for $8000 US. I'm thinking that the Threadripper with 32 cores will cost less than $2000 US.

For reference, the Epyc 7551P (32C, 2.55 GHz turbo) is $2100. The new Threadripper should be in the same ballpark.

It's a PR hit but certainly not a disaster. Everybody and their grandmother knew that a chip demoed to run at 5GHz is an overclocked hand picked engineering sample, Intel has been pulling the supercooled CPU stunt for decades.

At 250W thermal, the 4 die, 7nm Threadripper AMD announced will have similar cooling issues, a dead give away was that Lisa Su completely omitted Cinebench results - despite those being prominently featured before.

Bottom line is that AMD and Intel have roughly similar products and can easily cover for any performance differences using the large financial margins high end CPUs enjoy. The game then becomes a marketing one, who can keep more of that margin by convincing it's fan base they have decisively won the match.

At 250W you won’t see anywhere near the thermal output of that 2.7->5Ghz overclock on 28c/56T. There have been gpus with higher thermal output than 250W of the Amd’s cooled on air.

That CPU draws over 250W when running stock.

They had a separate 20+ phase power delivery board that could pump up to 2000W into that cpu...

Nonsense. We know the new Threadripper was running on air cooling. We know whatever Intel showed needed more than one horsepower of phase change cooling. They're both monstrous chips, but not even in the same ballpark.

250W << 2 horsepower

Before calling what you read 'nonsense', please follow the argument. We have a massively overclocked and unrealistically chilled chip from Intel, with massive results. And we have a cool chip sitting in Lisa Su's hand, that claims no performance numbers. Both use comparable technology, have comparable number of cores and per core performance and, we expect, comparable real life frequencies and dissipation when air cooled.

My conclusion is that the chips are roughly comparable in performance and we are witnessing a marketing war, not a performance showdown. Nothing you said seems to disprove that or even address that conclusion.

> This really went wrong for intel.

Why? Anyone with a brain knew this was carefully prepared and staged, and a nice muscle-flexing publicity stunt before AMD shows their new 32-core Threadripper.

I get it, it's slow season so journalists have to find news where there aren't any. Regardless of how did they achieve it, running 5GHz on all 28 cores is pretty neat! I am wondering if some 3rd party tries to push new TR to see how far will they go, so that a few "rocket scientists" among us can build similarly overclocked rigs.

I think the bigger story is that Intel is really starting to sweat. You don't pull this kind of stunt if you have an unassailable market lead - you do it when you're really worried about your competition. It's been a long, long time since Intel had any real competition at the high end.

Intel is in trouble because 1) their 10nm is very late and currently performs worse than their 14nm process, and 2) AMD's multi-chip module Infinity Fabric design for Epyc/Threadripper means they can produce high-core-count CPUs with much better yields (much more cheaply, better profit, less scarcity for highest-end models) than Intel can with their monolithic dies.

Combine these two factors and AMD might have high-core-count server chips on TSMC's (much more on track!) 7nm before Intel even has decent desktop chips on 10nm.

They seem to be losing faith in themselves. I thought intel, after a decade of market domination, was sitting on piles of options and brains. But AMD made them drown (on the PR side) way faster than I expected. The only thing they had was Premium 10cores models. No innovative design or idea.

I don't know if they sunk all their energy in the new fabs or not ..

> I thought intel, after a decade of market domination, was sitting on piles of options and brains. But AMD made them drown (on the PR side) way faster than I expected. The only thing they had was Premium 10cores models. No innovative design or idea.

Intel has AVX-512, which is in my opinion one of the greatest innvoation in the x96 instruction set for a long time. The problem is that Intel wants to introduce AVX-512 only very slowly into consumer CPUs (slowly beginning with Cannon Lake, which will only be available in small quantities for some time if rumors are to be believed). Even more: For some parts of AVX-512 (e.g. 4FMAPS and 4FMAPS which are very useful for deep learning), Intel seems to be willing only for special expensive accelerator cards (Knights Mill) to include them to segment markets even further.

Similarly it is often complained that Intel offers no ECC support for the Core i... series of CPU (IMHO this complaint is rightful). Again: Intel does offer it, but only in the much more expensive server/workstation CPUs (Xeon).

So in my opinion Intel is sitting on a lot of options and brains - but they seem only willing to sell this in the really expensive CPUs for much higher prices than lots of market segments are willing to pay.

I think they are waiting for 10nm in order to reduce massive power consumption/downclocking needed when one runs AVX-512. So in a way their manufacturing process is holding them back. AMD completely avoided these headaches by castrating AVX in Ryzen, allowing much lower TDP (65W).

I am also curious why would 4FMPAS be useful for Deep Learning when all the major performance improvements lately come from half 16-bit/quarter 8-bit-precision floating/fixed point math (you don't need precise boundaries).

> I am also curious why would 4FMPAS be useful for Deep Learning when all the major performance improvements lately come from half 16-bit/quarter 8-bit-precision floating/fixed point math (you don't need precise boundaries).

This is a claim by Intel. See for example slide 140 of http://cs231n.stanford.edu/slides/2017/cs231n_2017_lecture15...

Intel's TPU2 and 3, as well as NVidia's V100 series get great tensor performance on FP16 and FP8. There are many implementation and algorithmic risks associated with using such small FP sizes, especially if you are working on problems related to convergence, and you have significant roundoff error.

Smaller FP sizes mean you can run more of these in parallel. Smaller FP sizes mean (much) larger roundoff error, fewer bits of precision kept.

Yup, does the lower precision in Deep Learning matter though? You are basically constructing some hyper-dimensional soft boundaries separating classes of objects, and even between training runs on FP64/128/256/512 one can end up with very different boundaries - whether these come from some random training/sample order or lowered precision probably doesn't play a large role, if it speeds up training 10x? If you really want more precise boundaries, you can train on 8/16-bit first and then use transfer learning on pre-trained low-precision model with higher precision as your last step anyway.

The TPU is a google chip, not an Intel chip.

>Intel has AVX-512, which is in my opinion one of the greatest innvoation in the x96 instruction set for a long time

how is AVX-512 innovative when it's essentially SSE with 4x bigger registers? am i missing something?

> how is AVX-512 innovative when it's essentially SSE with 4x bigger registers? am i missing something?

It is much more: Just to give examples:

- The introduction of the opmask registers to mask many AVX-512 instructions

- AVX-512 Conflict Detection Instructions (CD) enables lots of loops to vectorize that could not vectorized before.

Also the fact that now 32 SIMD registered can be addressed does not seem very innovative from the outside, but implies a deep change: Before only 8 (32 bit mode; bite 5-3 of MOD-REG-R/M field) or 16 (64 bit mode; additionally use REX.R field) SIMD registers could be addresses for deep instructional encoding reasons. This also holds when using a VEX prefix. So being able to use 32 SIMD registers requires a completely new prefix scheme (EVEX). This new scheme contains lots of new capabilities (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AVX-512&oldid=841...):

- Expanded register encoding allowing 32 512-bit registers.

- Support up to 4 operands.

- Adds 7 new opmask registers for masking most AVX-512 instructions.

- Adds a new scalar memory mode that automatically performs a broadcast.

- Adds room for explicit rounding control in each instruction.

- Adds a new compressed displacement memory addressing mode.

I agree those features sound great.

But it's difficult to practically use AVX-512 when the turbo boost throttling prohibits breaking even with an equivalent AVX/AVX2 workload. I had a small project that would trivially scale up to AVX-512 register sizes. Despite doubling the vector width, it was actually much slower than the AVX/AVX2 version in practice -- just because it had such a low turbo boost ratio when running AVX-512 instructions.

> But it's difficult to practically use AVX-512 when the turbo boost throttling prohibits breaking even with an equivalent AVX/AVX2 workload.

This was also a problem with the first AVX implementations, so this is very typical: In the first generation, Intel makes such an instruction set extension available, so that one can write applications that make use of it (though they will usually not be faster, sometimes even slower). In the following generation this new feature is made fast, so that the newly written algorithms really get to profit from it.

A prefix that lets you properly pick more registers isn't much in the way of innovation either, no matter how important it is.

I'm really not convinced by this list.

AVX-512 itself isn't really an innovation. It's just making vector units bigger again. At best you struggle to fit two AVX-512 units. The equivalent of four AVX2 units isn't hard to keep fed with instructions, and would actually win in some scenarios due to being more flexible.

Intel having significantly more vector capacity than AMD in each core is just a design decision, not an innovation.

Adding a single-precision FMA instruction is also nice but not particularly 'innovative'.

And it's not like ECC is innovative either. Intel is sitting on options, but it's not sitting on ideas.

> AVX-512 itself isn't really an innovation. It's just making vector units bigger again.

No, AVX-512 is not only about doubling everything and calling it a day. I think the main innovation in AVX-512 is making it an easier vectorization target for compilers.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/the-intel-advanced...

> AVX-512 itself isn't really an innovation. It's just making vector units bigger again.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264520

Name me a usage scenario, that AVX-512 is applicable to speed up in 80% of the market. I cant even think of one.

Intel's 10nm HVM isn't coming until 2019. That has been confirmed in an investor meeting when they were pushed to finally give an answer. So Intel has options? yes, lower Pricing, new SKU to muddle things up, more tricks like these Overclocking to damage AMD buyers expectation. Show unrealistic Cinebench that now totally flavours them. More Intel Inside tactics, changes of LLVM / GCC general code to force slower compile on AMD CPU, bundle their SSD with their CPU and force any vendor to get off AMD.

Oh yes, lots of options. None of them are technically superior though.

And btw, lots of the best Intel engineers are no longer with them. Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, Telsa are all hiring their talents out of Intel Campus. If TSMC had Fabs in US I would bet many Intel Fabs engineer would have joined TSMC as well.

> Name me a usage scenario, that AVX-512 is applicable to speed up in 80% of the market. I cant even think of one.

The problem with this kind of statement is that many people by their PC/laptop just for surfing and office applications. Especially for the latter application even a 7 year old PC currently suffices. But it is in my opinion easy to come up with ideas how applications that really need this kind of speed will profit from AVX-512. Additionally keep in mind that people who run applications that benefit from more speed will much more be prone to buy new PCs than people who just do office and surfing.

> No innovative design or idea.

Infinity fabric seems quite novel for desktops.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/infinity_fabric

They meant Intel.

I did mean intel

Reading comprehension fail on my part, sorry.

I would argue that this is extremely shady by Intel. It being an overclocked part means that this could be the single best 28-core die Intel has ever produced, so good luck getting one yourself (even then it still required a 1700W+ water chiller). And doing a one-off demo of overclocked (suggesting it would be a product) silicon just as competitors are announcing new products at COMPUTEX? There is no reason for this other than to mislead.

The only image I have in mind is an old-school strongman show where the weights lifted are "assisted" with some invisible wires to help the strongman to lift a little more than he normally can.

This is basically what Intel did.

Or just straight up lying about what's written on the dumbbells? Or juicing the strongman. Actually, I think your analogy works better.

Any current or former employee will all tell you the same; Intel did NOT forget to mention this.

After the fiasco with compilers and chips in the past, they have to go through rigorous approval for any marketing claims. This was 100% planned by Intel.

At least they're not in the memory business.

Does Optane in a DDR4 module count?

Oh that? I forgot ;-P

... and went to a fair degree of trouble to hide the massive, noisy, watercooler.

Purely by accident of course. Same for the 16 phase mobo to supply upwards of 1kW of power to the CPU. All an accident.

No ill intent to find here.

Especially since, once ASUS and Gigabyte showed how it was done, intel went to get their chip back and only gave them 30 minutes to comply. Way to show this wasn't supposed to be hidden from the public.

It was a sub-ambient cooler, NOT a water cooler. I'd tolerate a water cooler and 5GHz on a prebinned chip. Watercooling would have been amazing but it was phase change.

Note: Watrecooling is ok for everyday use, subambiend = condensation... i.e. competitive overclocking area.

Oh it's not just a watercooler, I'm not even sure those work well at the low temperatures needed (probably -10C or even less) even with antifreeze

It's at least an active chiller + heat transport equipment (which can be a watercooler but doesn't look like it)

I'm a long time AMD fan, since my first computer had Athlon XP inside. However, over many years I have been using exclusively Intel CPUs, because in laptop space there was no other viable choice(and I use Macs). Nevertheless, I always hoped AMD can come back and shake the market a little.

After Bulldozer fiasco, I was skeptical about Ryzen. I would have never guessed that it will mark their comeback to high performance market. What is really surprising here is how bad Intel has failed. You would expect company with its own fabs, virtual monopoly on the market and loads of capital to be prepared for such a situation. Everybody thought Intel to slow down progress because of no competition. I guess very few people thought they are actually clueless and that's how the situation looks right now.

Processor market appears to be something to watch in the coming years.

The "own fabs" part is actually dragging them down. AMD was in a similar situation before they split off Global Foundries.

It seems like it's only a matter of time before the fabs are spun off

> because in laptop space there was no other viable choice

Uhm, how? For casual to complex personal computer use, how is an AMD chip is different from Intel?

The last generation of AMD chips before ryzen were eating power like it was cake. You don't want your ultrabook to sport a gigantic power block and last 10 minutes on battery ...

AMD's TDP and CPU power consumption made mid/high-range laptops mostly unviable.

They really improved with Ryzen.

This reminds me when Intel "tried" to sell overclocked PIII (Coopermine) @ 1.1GHz (IIRC) and then recalled it when it failed because it was an effective overclock (processors were unstable and overheating).

(It worked up to 1.2GHz, maybe 1.3GHz when they went to Tualatin based PIII - those also kicked the behind of higher clocked Willamette P4s)

Well to be fair pretty much everything kicked the P4, the only way for it to compete was "let's go higher" (clock wise). Then they reached the higher ghz barriers and were in deep trouble until they figured out to re-purpose their core-m mobility chip into what become the basis for all their desktop core and i* cpu. Meanwhile AMD was owning everything.

Without their anticompetitive behavior, Intel would have lost their place back then already.

This makes me think of the VW emissions scandal.

And of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262510

They also say that this isn't intended for the gamer crowd and then shows a kid with gamer headphones on in a gamer chair on a pc.

Dumb question: What is the difference (implication-wise) between being overclocked at 5GHz and not-being-overclocked but still at 5GHz? My CPU (just like any other modern CPU) limits its clock speed to regulate its own temperature despite the fact that it's not even unlocked to let me overclock it, so it's not the difference is throttling. So what's the difference?

When you say “here’s a 5GHz CPU” you expect it to fit with the current product lineup and to have thermal and power requirements within certain parameters that would allow you to run the thing at 5GHz without much effort.

“We overclocked this CPU to 5GHz” means all bets are off. You often have some headroom to overclock on stock voltage/cooling but always need to go above and beyond for more extreme overclocking. This particular setup apparently was using a very fancy 1700ish W chiller, and a 1300W PSU for the chassis itself.

Also, this is a Xeon part, so one you’d expect to see in servers or workstations. You don’t want that sort of thermals anywhere close to a data centre rack, and the sort of business with the budget to give you this sort of CPU wouldn’t want to have their IT department assembling custom coolers like this.

All of this assumes, of course, you can run the chip stably. That's more or less a given at stock speeds, operating within the vendor's operational specs. Once you start overclocking, all bets are off. Extreme overclocking (the sort that uses liquid nitrogen or this sort of chiller) never lasts long. Again, something an enthusiast overclocking for a few FPS on a gaming rig might be willing to live with, but a problem that's seriously disruptive in the sort of environment a Xeon is likely to be deployed.

(EDIT: Fixed chiller power and added stability concerns)

>fancy 1kW chiller

It was 1770W, not 1000W

The mobo had a 16 phase power delivery system designed to pump 1kw into the CPU itself. Kind of mindblowing actually.

The chiller unit consumes 1kW of power

and produces 1.7kW of cooling

Can you get 1kW of power from 1.7kW of cooling to power chiller unit?

Yes. The chiller unit consumes 1kW to move 1.7kW of heat off the CPU. It then has to dissipate 2.7kW.

The guarantee to get a CPU which can run stable 5ghz on all cores within the TDP limit and only requiring a cooling solution which can handle the TDP.

If you need to overclock you don't get this and have to buy more expensive cooling and probably need to de-lit (remove the heatspreader) of your above 2000 dollar CPU (which can permanently damage it) to improve the thermals because Intel - unlike AMD - didn't solder their heatspreader. Even then, you're not guaranteed to get a chip which can run 5 ghz on all cores 24/7. The best 18 core HEDT from Intel I have seen to date was running 4.5ghz on all cores 24/7 with delidding and a custom loop.

The 28 core Xeon which this probably is based upon runs 2.5 ghz stock and can boost to 3.8 ghz on a single core (3 or 3.2 ghz on all cores I believe).

What is the difference (implication-wise) between being overclocked at 5GHz and not-being-overclocked but still at 5GHz

It’s like extrapolating from an athletes 100m sprint time to their Marathon time. In other words, taking peak performance and presenting it as something that can be sustained for long periods.

This analogy is not about overclocking in general: if you OC for daily use you run stress tests and make sure it's stable.

But yeah, this is absolutely the case with the Intel demo. Their demo proved that the chip can run Cinebench at 5GHz.

Cinebench is not the heaviest load and it finishes very, very quickly. If they showed Prime95 AVX with small FFTs running for a couple hours, that would count as stable :D

That's a great analogy.

I guess they're just trying to say it won't be released as a 5GHz stock clockspeed - it probably goes over their TDP limits.

Edit: And here I learn to read the article first: It's almost definitely that they couldn't achieve it with stock air cooling based on the setup described in the article.

I think going over the TDP limits is putting it lightly considering it was outputting 2 watts per square millimeter.

For comparison, a Ryzen 1800X does 0.49 watts per square millimeter and has a lot less square millimeters (probably less than half)

The Xeon 28 core part seems to be 698mm² [0] while the AMD Ryzen 1800X is 213mm²

[0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/11839/intel-core-i9-7980xe-an...

"Not being overclocked" at 5GHz means the system is designed to run at that speed off the shelf without becoming molten slag and without aftermarket industrial grade cooling systems.

So it's not the fact that it was overclocked that matters, but the fact that it required aftermarket cooling, right? Like my current CPU cannot get within 100MHz of its supposed max TurboBoost frequency due to (I presume) cooling limits, despite the fact that I haven't overclocked it, so for me to even get the frequency it is marketed as I would need aftermarket cooling... which seems like the same problem despite the lack of overclocking, right?

Well, the aftermarket cooling in the presentation was a 1HP sub-ambient cooling solution (though one image shows the system with a rating of 1.7kW)

The entire system pulled over 2kW of power, a lot of that dedicated to cooling.

This isn't merely "you need aftermarket cooling" but rather "you need to dedicated serious resources to cooling this".

2kW is right about the wattage of a small electric fan heater for comparison. So regardless of how they made it look, anyone standing near it should have felt warmer.

People are overclocking using liquid Nitrogen for getting records but that is not something you can use practically, the backlash against what Intel did is that this overclock was hard to pull for regular use, it used so much power for cooling that some people on reddit suggested that you can't pull it from a regular power wall socket in some countries, also the demo was run for a few seconds that implies that if you would run it for a few minutes you may lose the ability to cool it enough and you will get less frequency.

A really cool feature the new AMD CPUs have is that they have a very well implemented turbo, if you give it good cooling it will know how to exploit it and give you more power.

As a side note, is a weird feeling running a 4 core/4 threads CPU when now workstation CPUs could reach up to 64 threads

Overclocking sometimes invalides warantee.

Overclocking almost always shortens life expectancy of the CPU.

Ahh, so the difference is the voiding of the warranty? If so then this seems to explain why it would be more than a naming issue.

He didn't mean it like that (or at least I think he didn't). Imagine it like person walking/running - When you are expect to walk at some pace (5GHz) you can do it proficiently for long time, considering you get your regular inputs and outputs taken care of (basic cooling, regular power drain), when you overclock - run, you need much more care to be able to run for a long time (stronger cooling, more power headroom, overclocking motherboard).

What Intel in this demo did is strapped you behind the car and drove a 100 meters dash proclaiming - look he survived, he 'ran' that 100 meters run like a champ, it's possible to run this fast.

It's in the category of "It may or may not work, YMMV, don't call us if you mess up".

It is the fact that it was overclocked because not every part can be overclocked the same.

Many times the announced max frequency is for single-core usage. If you're using all the cores they all have to slow down collectively so the whole CPU doesn't overheat.

Everything I'm talking about is single-threaded use only.

It changes the maximum speed attainable by that CPU, and allows to maintain it for longer.

You can change pretty easily the maximum clock multiplier the CPU is allowed to use (on K CPUs at least) -- but doing so without proper cooling and proper power supply will just crash.

SOME 'good' bin CPU can be overclocked a fair amount without extra power/cooling, but it's always touch an go.

My workstation still has a 4600K i7 that has been running at 5ghz for probably 5 years, without even pushing the voltage. It's in fact a lot quicker (single thread) than a more modern system I built since. That was a "good bin"! the 4500 and 4600 were known for their overclock potential.

If you buy a car that has an engine that produces 400 horsepower, you can reasonably expect it to run reliably. Every part will have been designed to handle the power output of that engine.

On the flip side, if you buy a car that has an engine that produces only 200 horsepower, but then add a large turbocharger that boosts the output to 400 horsepower, you're likely to run into problems. The cooling system might not keep up. The engine block internals might not be able to handle the extra pressure. The transmission or differential might not be able to survive the excess torque. Your clutch might slip.

Similar idea to a CPU. Transistors can only switch so fast. If you buy a CPU that Intel labels as a 5 Ghz CPU, Intel is guaranteeing those transistors can switch fast enough to maintain that clock speed. If you buy one that's only 4 Ghz and try to overclock it, there might be some transistors in that chip that can't switch that fast. Increasing voltage can help, but now you're creating more heat.

For extreme overclocking like this I'd expect the voltages and temperatures involved to result in a lot of electromigration inside the chip, wearing it out and causing it to stop functioning eventually.

The CPU requiring a massive cooling system to run at the advertised frequency is an important information to share with the consumer.

What's the definition of overclocking that allows us to say the manufacturer has done it to its own chip?

Just that it will be sold as lower?

If it comes with a massive cooling facility bundled, then sure, that's presented as manufacturer's spec.

Maybe the fact that they had to use an air-conditioning unit to cool it?

Steve Martin, famous American comedian:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes!

You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?"

First.. get a million dollars.

Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?"

Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!"

How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don't say "I forgot"?

Let's say you're on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, "I forgot armed robbery was illegal."

Let's suppose he says back to you, "You have committed a foul crime. you have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random, and you say, 'I forgot'?"

Two simple words: "Excuuuuuse me!!"

Intel Confirms Some Details About 28 Core / 56 Threads 5GHz CPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12932/intel-confirms-some-det...

I think the problem is that many people at Intel are just doing the rest and vest most of the time. For those people, their logic is like -

- Why bother pushing for higher core count? Just leave it to the marketing department to convince customers 4 cores are enough.

- Why bother pushing for 10nm? Just leave it to the marketing department to talk about Intel's fancy 14nm++++++++++.

- Why bother pushing for higher frequency? Just leave it to the cooling solution vendors to bring in their 1400W aircon.

These are exactly what Intel actually did to its home users.

If you look at the whole drama, the most shocking parts are -

- They didn't deliver anything new when they know full well that AMD has been busy pushing for higher core count for the last 12 months.

- No one from Intel's management team is going to step down for such PR disaster.

Customers are lucky to have AMD.

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