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by lbill 2929 days ago
I get that Intel feels threatened by AMD. They are trying to impress the consumers... but bullshitting a demo is a very bad move! When a consumer decides to build a new PC, the characteristics of the product matter, but so does the reputation of the company that manufactures it. Right now Intel is putting too much effort into sketchy marketing practices: it undermines the actual work being done on their processors by some very talented people.

Presenting it as an extreme overclocking demo would have been a much wiser option.

2 comments

Unfortunately it might work. With today's news cycles, an average consumer may have noticed the headline about Intel's 5GHz 28-core monster, and that's it. Follow up articles aren't as interesting.
The average consumer may just buy a smartphone over a PC. The average tech savvy consumer may just build the PC over buying off the shelf ones. In either case most people won't be buying these 28 core chips unless they are reps for enterprises in which case they will most definitely have done their HW before buying this.
>reps for enterprises in which case they will most definitely have done their HW before buying this.

Don't assume they would. Plenty of purchasing in large companies is associated with some higher up hearing about something, wanting it, then buying it to 'help' in some obscure way.

That would be akin to i7 8086k on 7.2GHz... just add LN2. What they presented was an extreme overclocking area with insulation (due to subambient condensation), a one HP chiller that runs on a banned gas and a 4 second benchmark (seriously aside CB being free is not a true testament of overclocking prowess). Such a demo is as pointless as it is almost as practical as daily LN2 use.

I can imagine few cases where first-to-right-the-bell performance on a single core determines if you get a specific quote in HFT but that's that.

> I can imagine few cases where first-to-right-the-bell performance on a single core determines if you get a specific quote in HFT but that's that.

That is actually the case from what I've heard, A lot of them buy consumer chips then disable all but one core and overclock it to the max.

Here is a guy from optiver talking about their process at CppCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1Tta7purM

What a great talk, thanks for sharing!