GIGABYTE SKL-SP1S Prototype Motherboard & The Chiller Used To Get 5GHz on 28-Cores

By Nathan Kirsch

When Intel showed their 28-core processor running at 5.0GHz during Computex 2018 they had two demo units on stage and they were running prototype ‘desktop’ boards from ASUS and Gigabyte. We were able to get a picture of the Gigabyte board that was used for the demo as it was pulled from the system shortly after the big reveal. The board that Gigabyte worked with Intel to design is known as the SKL-SP1S and we bet that is short for Skylake Scalable Processors 1 Socket if we had to take a wild guess.

GIGABYTE SKL-SP1S Motherboard
GIGABYTE SKL-SP1S Prototype Motherboard

The Gigabyte SKL-SP1S motherboard most certainly uses an Intel LGA3647 socket as the Foxconn socket cover states this. This socket is used by Intel Xeon Phi x200 and Skylake-EX and -SP server processors. We saved the image above at 2400 pixels across, so be sure to click on it if you’d like to see a higher resolution image. You can see the VRM heatsink off to the side of the picture and if you flip it over you’d be able to see four fans keeping things cool.

The Intel LGA3647 Socket
The Intel LGA3647 Socket

This board also has 12 DDR4 memory slots for 6-channel memory support, seven PCIe x16 slots and what looks to be enough power phases to power a small town. We counted almost 30 power phases for the CPU and another six for the DDR4 memory. You’ll need to connect a 24-pin ATX power connector and four 8-pin CPU power connectors to properly power this board. If you load up the PCI Express x16 slots there is also an optional 6-pin PCIe power header by the slots.

hailea chiller

Those with a really sharp eye will notice the board is sitting on the massive ‘chiller’ used to keep the 28-core 5GHz processor cool during the demo. The chiller being used was the Hailea model HC-1000B and this was primarily designed to be an aquarium chiller. It has a 1HP rating, flows 1500-4000 L/H of refrigerated water and uses up to 1,056 Watts of power (9.6Amps x 110Volts) to operate.

From what we gather an Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processor was likely used for the demo and overclocked to 5GHz on all cores. One of our very sharp eyed readers sent over this image from the Intel presentation and it shows two results for the 28-core 5GHz processor that Intel showed off at Computex. The score that everyone was looking at was 7,356 with all cores running at 5GHz, but waht is that score of 5,912? Could that have been the Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processor at stock speeds?

AMD’s 32-core 2nd Gen Ryzen Threadripper demo was run with an air cooler called wraithripper, so all we know is Intel has some work to do before they release a 28-core 5GHz processor!