Quote Originally Posted by Movieman View Post
Everything I know about engineering( which isn't much) is first make it work, then make it work better(faster,less heat,etc)
My guess is that they start at a slow speed to see if the theory actually works in practice,then look at all the individual components to see any potential flaws and then they start to make it go faster.
Just a guess but maybe closer to the truth than we know.
exactly

most of the time the further steppings always include various speed path fixes to help ramp up the clocks and stomp out performance hampering bugs.

my job is pretty much the same thing. All the PHD guys make the process work (sometimes it only looks like it works), then they give it to my cohorts and I and we make it work safer, with less defects, and faster.