Intel opens 24-hour Core i7-8086K giveaway
8,086 5GHz CPUs up for grabs worldwide - 500 reserved for the UK
Intel has opened its promised 'sweepstake' today, giving 8,086 people around the world the opportunity of winning a 5GHz Core i7-8086K CPU.
The competition is being held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the launch of the original 16-bit 8086 - but punters only have 24 hours to enter.
The competition is open to citizens of the US, Canada (but not Quebec), France, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China (but not Hong Kong) and the UK.
The Intel Core i7-8086K features six cores and 12 threads, running at a standard 4GHz, but capable of boosting to 5GHz on a single core, making it a decent gaming processor. The device is unlocked for overclocking for enthusiasts, but out of the box has a TDP of 95 watts.
The CPU is a limited edition released to celebrate the anniversary of Intel's 8086 microprocessor, released on this day in 1978. However, its specs are the same as the Core i7-8700K, with the exception of the cranked-up single-core boost.
The 5GHz boost clock, of course, mirrors the 5MHz standard clock speed of the original three micron 8086 chip - if you're using the same kind of mirrors they have in a Hall of Mirrors in a cartoon fairground, that is.
The 8086 was initially rejected in favour of similar 8088 on the grounds of cost. Its 16-bit data bus made it more expensive to integrate with RAM, logic chips and other elements on a printed circuit board.
IBM therefore went with the 8088, which was almost identical to the 8086, except for the eight-bit memory bus in place of the 16-bit bus of the 8086.
In addition to costs, it has also been suggested that the outwardly eight-bit 8088 CPU appealed to IBM, whose top-brass might have rejected an IBM PC that looked like it could undermine the careful pricing structure of the company's other, highly lucrative hardware.
However, IBM also insisted on second-source manufacturers for the microprocessors for its PC, with AMD, NEC, Fujitsu, Harris Semiconductors, Oki, Siemens, Texas Instruments, Mitsubishi and Matsushita all becoming manufacturers, as well as Intel. It also opened up the market from the start to x86 ‘clones'.
Despite the use of the 8088 in the original IBM PC, the 8086 and its variants gained widespread adoption during the 1980s as businesses increasingly needed machines capable of addressing more memory.
Intel used the x86 suffix to denote succeeding generations of 8086 compatible parts - the 80286, 80386 and 80486 - but dumped the branding in 1993 because it was unable to trademark a number, and had, in any case, been adopted widely by AMD, Cyrix and others.
The competition opens at 5pm PST on Thurday - 1.00am on Friday in the UK - and will run for no more than 24 hours. Entrants must be aged 18 or over. Winners will be selected at random next week. If you're not one of the lucky winners, you can buy one from today for a limited period.