Alleged Commemorative Intel Core i7-8086K 40th Anniversary 6-Core CPU Rocks 5.1GHz Turbo
Intel might be working on a special processor SKU to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Intel 8086, a 16-bit chip that essentially standardized the x86 architecture for personal computing. A user on a Chinese forum posted images depicting a Core i7-8086K Anniversary Edition CPU, including a shot of the BIOS and screen grabs of various utilities purportedly identifying the commemorative chip.
Image Source: Baidu via zhyaojin
Naturally something like this requires a healthy dose of skepticism, as this could very easily turn out to be a hoax. Heck, it probably is. But even if that is the case, this is a chip that deserves to be made—the historical significance of the Intel 8086 and its impact on modern computing is certainly worthy of celebrating, and releasing a special SKU would be a delightfully fitting way to do that.
According to the images, the Core i7-8086K is a 6-core/12-thread processor with 12MB of L3 cache and a 95W TDP, same as the Core i7-8700K. However, it brings higher clockspeeds to the x86 party. Screenshots show the chip having a 4GHz base clock and a 5.1GHz boost clock, versus the Core i7-8700K's 3.4GHz base and 4.7GHz boost clocks. Since it is based on the same Coffee Lake architecture, the presumption is that only carefully binned silicon would make the cut.
It would not be unprecedented for Intel to release an Anniversary Edition processor. The company has done so before, namely with the Pentium G3258. When Intel launched that chip, it made a bit to-do about it being an commemorative chip celebrating 20 years of the Pentium brand. So, releasing a Core i7-8086K to celebrate 40 years of x86 computing is not out of the realm of possibility.
We don't want to get too excited though, as all of the images would be easy to manipulate in Photoshop or GIMP or whatever. But if anyone at Intel is paying attention, take this idea and run with it, if it's not already in the works.
Image Source: Baidu via zhyaojin
Naturally something like this requires a healthy dose of skepticism, as this could very easily turn out to be a hoax. Heck, it probably is. But even if that is the case, this is a chip that deserves to be made—the historical significance of the Intel 8086 and its impact on modern computing is certainly worthy of celebrating, and releasing a special SKU would be a delightfully fitting way to do that.
According to the images, the Core i7-8086K is a 6-core/12-thread processor with 12MB of L3 cache and a 95W TDP, same as the Core i7-8700K. However, it brings higher clockspeeds to the x86 party. Screenshots show the chip having a 4GHz base clock and a 5.1GHz boost clock, versus the Core i7-8700K's 3.4GHz base and 4.7GHz boost clocks. Since it is based on the same Coffee Lake architecture, the presumption is that only carefully binned silicon would make the cut.
It would not be unprecedented for Intel to release an Anniversary Edition processor. The company has done so before, namely with the Pentium G3258. When Intel launched that chip, it made a bit to-do about it being an commemorative chip celebrating 20 years of the Pentium brand. So, releasing a Core i7-8086K to celebrate 40 years of x86 computing is not out of the realm of possibility.
We don't want to get too excited though, as all of the images would be easy to manipulate in Photoshop or GIMP or whatever. But if anyone at Intel is paying attention, take this idea and run with it, if it's not already in the works.
