Intel released a press release on February 24th (local time, February 25th Japan time) announcing the new grades of the “Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores” (English name: Intel Xeon 6 processors with Performance-cores, hereafter referred to as Xeon 6 (P-core)), also known as “Granite Rapids”, the “Intel Xeon 6700/6500 series processors with P-cores” (English name: Intel Xeon 6700/6500 series processor with P-cores, hereafter referred to as Xeon 6700P/6500P), and the “Intel Xeon 6 processors for network and edge applications with built-in Intel vRAN Boost” also known as “Granite Rapids-D”.
Granite Rapids’ mid-range to low-end Xeon 6700P/6500P models announced The Xeon 6700P/6500P announced by Intel this time is a new series of Xeon 6, following the Xeon 6 6700E of the Intel Xeon 6 processor (with E-cores) (hereinafter referred to as Xeon 6 (with E-cores)) announced in June and the Xeon 6900P of the Xeon 6 (P-core) announced in September. Intel has introduced two types of CPU cores in the Xeon 6. These two types of CPU cores were introduced in the 12th generation Core (development code name: Alder Lake) announced by Intel in 2022, and two types of CPU cores have been introduced: the P core, which has high single-thread performance with low latency and high clock frequency, and the E core, which increases the number of cores to improve multi-thread performance. In products for client PCs, a technique is used to improve performance by mixing P cores and E cores in one product, but since there is basically no point in mixing them in servers, P core products and E core products are released separately, with the Xeon 6700E announced in June having 144 E cores and the Xeon 6900P announced in September having 128 P cores.
The newly announced Xeon 6700P/6500P are products in the lower series of the Xeon 6900P, and by reducing the number of tiles (= dies, Intel calls dies tiles) integrated on the package, the number of CPU cores has been reduced, making it possible to offer them at a lower cost. Intel offers four configurations for die (tile) and package configurations for Xeon 6: UCC (three compute tiles + two IO tiles), XCC (two compute tiles + two IO tiles), HCC (one compute tile + two IO tiles), and LCC (one smaller compute tile + two IO tiles). The compute tiles used in UCC and XCC have a maximum of 44 cores per tile, but the single HCC tile has a maximum of 48 cores, and the single LCC tile has a maximum of 16 cores, which is different from the tiles used in UCC and XCC (UCC and XCC have fewer cores than the maximum configuration because some are disabled for manufacturing flexibility). Of these, UCC is used in the Xeon 6900P, and the Xeon 6 6700P/6500P uses the XCC or lower configuration. In addition, while UCC has a 12-channel memory configuration, XCC and below are limited to an 8-channel configuration due to product configuration. For this reason, the platform, such as the motherboard, is different from the Xeon 6 6900P, and Intel explains that a separate 8-channel memory motherboard for the Xeon 6 6700P/6500P is required. As with the Xeon 6900P, it supports memory modules that support multi-rank functions called MRDIMM, and when using MRDIMM, the data rate is effectively doubled, allowing for higher bandwidth.
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The Xeon 6900 is being used in limited models for specific customers, while the Xeon 6700 is being adopted in 5G cores for telecommunications carriers The features of all Xeon 6 products, including the products announced this time, are summarized in the table below. The features of the Xeon 6700P/6500P announced this time are that they support up to 4 and 8 sockets. Intel also revealed that the 288-core Xeon 6900E, which was announced to be released in the first quarter of this year at the time of the Xeon 6 (E-core) announcement in June 2042, has begun shipping to customers from today, but at this time it is intended for specific applications and will only be shipped to customers with limited applications. In that sense, the 288-core E-core product will be available on the market after the release of its successor, Clearwater Forest, which is scheduled for the first half of next year. As for the Xeon 6700E, which has already been shipped, it is being adopted by telecommunications carriers’ 5G cores (data centers that provide contract information and services on carrier networks), and not only server equipment vendors such as Dell and HPE, but also telecommunications equipment vendors such as Ericson, NEC, Nokia, and Samsung, and telecommunications carriers such as BT Telecom, NTT Docomo, and SK Telecom have commented that they are positively considering adopting it. According to the benchmark results released by Intel, the previous generation 8592+ (64 cores/350W) performs 1.14 to 1.53 times better than the 676xP with the same 64 cores/350W, and the 6787P (86 cores/350W) with more cores performs 1.3 to 1.54 times better. In comparison with competitor AMD, the EPYC 9755 (128 cores) and the Xeon 6787P (86 cores) perform 1.03 to 1.53 times better in AI inference processing (however, Intel’s results are the result of using the AMX instruction that AMD’s CPU does not support). In addition, when using MRDIMM on the Xeon side in a two-socket environment with EPYC 9965 (192 cores) and Xeon 6880P (128 cores), the Xeon side is said to be 1.2 to 1.38 times more powerful in AI processing. Intel also announced a performance comparison with the 5th generation EPYC, which had not yet been announced when the Xeon 6900P was announced last September. According to the results, Xeon outperforms EPYC in databases, HPC, and AI. The SKUs and prices of the Xeon 6700P/6500P and the Xeon 6300P series announced as an entry-level model are as follows.
Granite Rapids-D, the successor to the vRAN Boost-equipped product, has been released, with the L1 accelerator performance increasing by 3.The Xeon 6 (with vRAN Boost), known by its development code name “Granite Rapids-D,” is the successor to the 4th generation Xeon SP (with vRAN Boost), also known as “Sapphire Rapids-EE,” announced at MWC 2023. The 4th generation Xeon SP (with vRAN Boost) is equipped with an L1 accelerator (an accelerator dedicated to packet processing at the L1 network layer), which the company calls “Intel vRAN Boost,” and its main feature is that it is equipped at the silicon level with the functions required to build a virtualized RAN (Radio Access Network), also known as vRAN or O-RAN. Normally, when configuring a vRAN, it is common to install a separate expensive L1 accelerator, so by adopting the Xeon 6 (with vRAN Boost), equipment vendors and telecommunications carriers can reduce costs. Intel explains that the performance of vRAN Boost itself has also been improved, and when used for vRAN, performance is 3.2 times higher, capacity is 2.4 times higher, and power efficiency is improved by up to 70%. Xeon 6 models other than this Xeon 6 (with vRAN Boost) only support UPI and PCI Express for connecting chips as I/O, but Xeon 6 (with vRAN Boost) also has a maximum of 200Gbps Ethernet and a media accelerator (video encoder/decoder), making it possible to configure edge network equipment with just Xeon 6 (with vRAN Boost). In addition, Intel announced the 200Gbps “Intel Ethernet E830 Controllers and Network Adapters” (E830) and 10Gbps “Intel Ethernet E610 Controllers and Network Adapters” (E610). The former can be configured as a maximum 200Gbps Ethernet controller and adapter for data centers, with 1x200GbE, 2×100/50/25/10GbE, or 8×25/10GbE configurations, while the latter can be used as a 10GBASE-T, 5G/2.5G/1000BASE-T Ethernet adapter for applications, edge devices, and workstations.
SOURCE: Yahoo
