[News] Intel Will No Longer Disclose Multi-Core Turbo Boost Frequencies

[StyM]

https://www.eteknix.com/intel-multi-...ampaign=buffer

One of the great strategies to boost performance is clock boosting. Intel was the first to bring it to the masses with their Turbo Boost. Over time, we?ve seen many other chips adopt similar methods to help boost performance. Generally, Intel reveals the turbo bins for the different core workloads. In a surprise twist, Intel will no longer be making public some crucial Turbo Boost clock speed information.

Starting with the current crop of processors, Intel will only detail the base and single-core Turbo speeds. This means we lose out on the Turbo clock speed information for any other multi-core workload. This changes a long-term practice since Turbo Boost was first debuted by Intel. Due to this change, we are losing a lot of info from Intel useful for overclocking.

?[W]e?re no longer disclosing this level of detail as its proprietary to Intel. Intel only specifies processor frequencies for base and single-core Turbo in our processor marketing and technical collateral, such as ARK, and not the multi-core Turbo frequencies. We?re aligning communications to be consistent. All Turbo frequencies are opportunistic given their dependency on system configuration and workloads.?

There are several reasons that Intel may be making this change. Firstly, it could be due to legal issues. By no longer publicizing Turbo speeds, the user will have no guaranteed Turbo clocks. It also makes it a lot harder to compare CPUs as some chips may have a multi-core Turbo closer to either the stock or boost clock than others. Another could be binning less than perfect chips. By having a shifting multi-core Turbo, Intel just needs to make sure one core hits peak Turbo and the rest the stock clock. Depending on the chip, the multi-core boost could be set at any speed. This brings a whole new dimension to the silicon lottery.

[Metroid]

Intel wants to throw trash to their customer base. At least now they want to actually do and say to your face. Time to jump ship.

[SADS]

The way i view this one is by the last option.

You can then just market to the highest single clock and everything else can just middle above base clock if need be.

It gives them a lot more freedom in advertising by doing this, but it does probably mean that the end user will suffer in performance in my opinion.

[AliG]

Intel wants to throw trash to their customer base. At least now they want to actually do and say to your face. Time to jump ship.

Technically AMD designed 1 chip, and is selling the "trash" as lower end SKUs.

I don't see a problem with that if the price is right. Obviously Intel has a long way to go in that regard.

[Levish]

Meh, its easy enough to figure out, dumb that they won't publish the info to make selecting processors easier in the data-center.

[Revv23]

It will probably really help with binning something like an 18 core 7960. just need one core to get to max turbo doesn't matter what the others do.

[Charles Wirth]

Speculation, gotta love the optimism.

[Metroid]

It will probably really help with binning something like an 18 core 7960. just need one core to get to max turbo doesn't matter what the others do.

Exactly and i don't think they will care about customers complaining about it. They are making the trash selection much easier.

Speculation, gotta love the optimism.

So true.

[iddqd]

Well, the base clock is kinda meaningless, since (unless you disable Turbo - and who would?) your intel CPU will spend zero time at that frequency. It doesn't matter if they set the base clock to 3.2ghz or 300hz; it won't ever run at that speed. The actual speed it will spend most of its time at is the "all-core turbo". Occasionally, and only in some loads, you do get to the 1-core or 2-core turbo clocks... but all-core turbo is the actual frequency you'll find your CPU at if you throw any kind of serious task at it. So everyone always looks at that. For some reason, intel wants to withhold that information. Can't imagine why, but reviewers will probably be quick to figure out what turbo multipliers they're using, so whatever.

[zanzabar]

Technically AMD designed 1 chip, and is selling the "trash" as lower end SKUs.

I don't see a problem with that if the price is right. Obviously Intel has a long way to go in that regard.

intel only has 2 real HEDT/server xeon chips if you want to count it that way. i would assume this is to make it so they can have a high wattage and low wattage sku for each 1p or 2p core count. it also seems odd that they are sticking with the one core thing. if you have 20+ cores maybe max frequency should be at least 4 of them.