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Intel Will no Longer Disclose Multi-Core Turbo Boost Frequencies

Soldato
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@DragonQ We're talking about retailers here, AMD almost always advertises the Turbo speed in the title of their products while Intel has the base clock, check other retailers.
It doesn't even matter much, but this is mainly a shot at the whole "boo Intel is misleading" crowd in this thread.
I don't know what you mean. I gave you an example of another retailer that doesn't do what you say, plus phrasing it as "AMD advertises" and "Intel advertises" is disingenuous. Clearly it's the retailer's decision or they'd be the same on every website. Maybe we should say "boo, OcUK is misleading" in this case.

The whole point of argument is stupid to begin with, Turbo offers some tangible performance gains and isn't just for marketing numbers, regardless of vendor.
And this whole piece of news is taken way out of proportion by a few who don't understand how Turbo works and just wanted something to bash Intel for.
Of course it's useful, I'd rather the current situation than have chips only clocked to 3.5 GHz because otherwise they'd blow their TDP figures. I think the main point of contention here is that if they no longer advertise all-core boost numbers, then essentially you don't have any all-core turbo. The chip could sit at base clocks and as far as Intel or AMD is concerned it's "working fine".

I'm trying to think of a reason to not quote all-core boost figures except for "we want to sell lower performing chips for the same money". For example, if an i7-8700K has one good core that can run at 4.7 GHz but all the others can only run at 3.7 GHz, then it's still suitable to be sold if they don't have an all-core boost figure. If they had an all-core boost figure of 4.3 GHz, that chip couldn't be sold as an i7-8700K and would have to be a lower SKU.
 
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A lot of the OCUK competitors and international retailers are doing the same, it's not difficult to go to their websites and notice it. If one is disingenuous or misleading, so is the other.

And again, they never quoted the all core turbo for any of their CPUs in Ark or retail, they only previously made the information available in an obscure support page: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005523/processors.html
Also Turbo doesn't blow their TDP figures because TDP is one of the limits, it shows a very weak understanding of what Turbo is or how it works when you say things like that, including "essentially you don't have any all core turbo", because it's not true.
Plus the whole narrative of them changing the way they bin their CPUs also doesn't make any sense, the 6C is a 180mm2 die on a very mature process at this point, they're managing to produce in volume 484mm2 and 698mm2 dies but they're supposedly having issues with 180mm2? It makes no sense.

It's impressive how some of the knights of AMD on this forum have made an issue out of basically nothing, because like I've said 1) they never advertised all core turbo, 2) this probably changes nothing for the end user when it comes to Turbo functionality, and 3) their CPUs are advertised and will continue to be advertised the same as they've been for the past decade, base clock + max turbo.
 
Soldato
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Intel decided to kill the desktop chip design and pull both mobile and desktop parts from a single mobile process instead. That decision was made a while ago and didn't really effect the enthusiast too much while clock speed was still scaling and Moore's law held. Unfortunately Intel's process has become more and more mobile focussed as that part of the market has grown rapidly. Now the mobile market are demanding the very best silicon from the mobile process and Intel have to supply those chips even at cost of the desktop market. Essentially Intel have a pecking order and complicated binning process that can't cover all the bases.

Pulling this stunt also comes with the very nice fringe benefits of making Intel look faster than they really are on the desktop and keeps up the pretence that one design can supply three markets and holds with Moore's law.
 
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Soldato
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It's impressive how some of the knights of AMD on this forum have made an issue out of basically nothing

It's actually mostly Intel users and review sites complaining about it.

IMO as long as the information is still readily available online I don't mind Intel cutting corners.
 
Soldato
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If one is disingenuous or misleading, so is the other.
True.

Also Turbo doesn't blow their TDP figures because TDP is one of the limits, it shows a very weak understanding of what Turbo is or how it works when you say things like that, including "essentially you don't have any all core turbo", because it's not true.
I don't think you were understanding what I was getting at in my hypothetical example.

Plus the whole narrative of them changing the way they bin their CPUs also doesn't make any sense, the 6C is a 180mm2 die on a very mature process at this point, they're managing to produce in volume 484mm2 and 698mm2 dies but they're supposedly having issues with 180mm2? It makes no sense.
I agree it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I just can't think of another reason why they would stop giving the figures (even if it was hidden away). It's just speculation and I made that clear.

It's impressive how some of the knights of AMD on this forum have made an issue out of basically nothing
If you're referring to me then lol.

1) they never advertised all core turbo
Depends on your definition of advertised - you said a second ago that they did have it on their website, albeit not prominently.

2) this probably changes nothing for the end user when it comes to Turbo functionality
Probably, although it does mean that they could quietly drop maximum all-core turbo boost clocks without saying anything.

Out of curiosity, why do you think they've decided to no longer publish these frequencies?
 
Soldato
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Why do you think they've decided to no longer publish these frequencies?

It's puzzling isn't it. But maybe that's the wrong question. A few times I've asked myself what is it about AMD bringing the best enthusiast chip we've seen in the best part of a decade that's got a some people panicking so hard. Even when reading long winded posts about feelz and such like, the arguments make no sense. I can't even chalk it up to "coz intelz is da bestz"

Anyway, even when Intel do start shipping slower chips at least we have 8 pack sorting the wheat from the chaff.
 
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@DragonQ Intel's statement explains it well:
“We’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.

The all core turbos were never guaranteed or advertised in retail or on ark, if they did, they would be a lot more misleading than the max single core turbo figure they give.
Turbo is opportunistic as in if the power/thermal/TDP limits aren't reached, the CPU will boost its frequency on any number of cores, but nowadays in a lot of consumer applications that's not a certainty. For example, rendering or video encoding will most likely reach the TDP limit hence you might be limited to or close to the base clock in those scenarios.
Even with their older CPUs, try running anything with AVX support and see if you ever reach that all core turbo number they give.
 
Soldato
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@DragonQ Intel's statement explains it well:


The all core turbos were never guaranteed or advertised in retail or on ark, if they did, they would be a lot more misleading than the max single core turbo figure they give.
Turbo is opportunistic as in if the power/thermal/TDP limits aren't reached, the CPU will boost its frequency on any number of cores, but nowadays in a lot of consumer applications that's not a certainty. For example, rendering or video encoding will most likely reach the TDP limit hence you might be limited to or close to the base clock in those scenarios.
Even with their older CPUs, try running anything with AVX support and see if you ever reach that all core turbo number they give.

That's a very strong endorsement for AMD. I fully support this line of thinking.
 
Soldato
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Ok so that makes even less sense. Like I said cut AMD some slack if you want a strong desktop market. If you don't then keep trying to undermine them and hamming up Intel.

Why? They don't give a damn about the consumer anymore than intel/Nvidia.
Because they are making a comeback doesn't make them exempt from criticism.
 
Soldato
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Do you want me to pull your last 5 days posts, including those blaming even reviewers for hating Intel ?

Ouch :D :p

On a side note though, Jim at AdoredTV has went into this in a bit more detail about the "possible" and I say possible as INTEL certainly won't say why they are doing it, reasons for stopping advertising the all core numbers. I know he's a bit of an AMD fan but you can't deny his logic when looking deeper into why INTEL might be doing this. Worth a watch (26min video on youtube IIRC)
 
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Soldato
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I don't find it as strange as he does that the i5-8400 has such a low base clock speed, considering its lower TDP target. It'll be interesting to see what does actually happen when pairing these CPUs with the non-Z chipsets, i.e. whether they will still mostly run at 3.8 GHz all cores or not.
 
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