What made the announcement even more impressive is the fact that the unnamed single-socket 28-core, 56-thread CPU was actually running at 5.0GHz on all cores, although we doubt that the final consumer version will be pushing it that high. On the other hand, this was enough for it to score a Cinebench R15 score of 7,334, which is quite an impressive result and makes this CPU the fastest single-socket CPU in the world.

Unfortunately, Intel was not keen to talk about the name or any other details of the CPU but it was clear during the announcement that it won't be running on any currently available motherboard and will probably use some larger socket similar to the LGA 3647 socket, also known as Socket P and used for Intel's Xeon Skylake-EX and Skylake-SP CPUs with 6-channel memory controller and more.

The so-called consumer CPU, which will probably cost an arm and a leg, especially since the 18-core Core i9-7980XE goes for around US $2,000, looks a lot like the 28-core Xeon Platinum chip, although that one comes with a much lower base and boost frequency.

Intel's 28-core demo was obviously a move to show AMD that it has its own horse for the high-end desktop (HEDT) market and steal the spotlight from AMD's upcoming 2nd generation Threadripper CPU.

It will be interesting how well Intel can position itself against AMD in that part of the market. It is obvious that AMD poked Intel where it hurts as such a CPU would probably never show up if it wasn't for AMD's Threadripper and it will be interesting to see what improvement will AMD bring with 2nd generation Threadripper.