Breaking records with the Maximus X Apex and i7-8700KRog is obsessed with chasing the highest overclocks and fastest performance, and Coffee Lake is our latest muse on the new Maximus X Apex!"The overclocking capabilities of CPUs and memory modules vary from sample to sample, so the hardware needs to be hand-picked."
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"The first step involves binning CPUs by using air cooling and subjecting them to a multi-threaded benchmark (Cinebench) at a frequency and voltage (Vcore) that weeds out the stragglers. This process nets the top 10-15% of samples, which are then re-tested to check how Vcore requirements scale as clock frequencies increase."
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"The data we obtain from the binning process is also of interest for ambient cooling. Our Coffee Lake testing revealed that 50% of early 6-core CPUs can achieve 5GHz with water cooling. If retail CPUs achieve the same, it shows Intel's mastery of the 14-nm process."
So the parameters in this preliminary binning seem very high ... what were the air cooled frequency and voltage thresholds?
- Only the "top 10-15%" of samples (2-3 pieces in a 21 CPU tray) meet these frequency/voltage requirements.
- The remaining 85-90% of samples (18-19 pieces in a 21 CPU tray) are "stragglers".
- The photo with "a handful of promising CPUs" shows 8 pasted CPUs and 5 upside-down CPUs, suggesting ASUS binned 2-5 full trays and rejected 29-92 pieces.
And can we reasonably expect about "50% of early 6-core CPUs" to meet these performance parameters?
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