Intel recently unveiled its Xeon 6 family, the latest addition to its server CPU range, replacing the former ‘Scalable’ branding. This release introduces two lines of chips: Granite Rapids, with P (Performance) cores, and Sierra Forest, with E (Efficient) cores.
Intel plans to stagger the rollout of the Xeon 6 CPUs, with the initial launch of the 6700E chips, followed by the planned release of the Intel Xeon 6900P CPUs in the third quarter of this year. Further releases, including the 6900E, 6700P, 6500P, Xeon 6 SoC and 6300P, are expected in the first quarter of 2025.
Designed specifically for hyperscalers, the Xeon 6700E series features a 144-core configuration, supported by DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen5, all within a 250W TDP. Serve it house got a chance to put the Xeon 6780E and 6766E CPUs to the test and, spoiler alert, said they “shatter Xeon expectations.”
“Super” power consumption
The two Sierra Forest processors had to compete against AMD’s EPYC Bergamo and Siena series as well as older Intel models, such as the Xeon Gold 5218 of the Cascade Lake generation.
The Intel chips were also compared to the Ampere Altra Max, an ARM-based processor known for its efficiency. Finally, the E-cores were compared to the P-cores of the 5th generation Intel Xeon “Emerald Rapids” series.
For the full results, be sure to check out Serve it house Exhaustive testing, but the
Intel’s move to dual-socket capabilities with these chips clearly gives them the upper hand over competitors like AMD’s EPYC series and allows for better scalability and flexibility in high-density server environments.
To summarize the review, Serve it house Patrick Kennedy noted: “If you still have Xeon E5 servers or 1st/2nd generation Intel These energy savings can be immediately channeled to adding more AI servers, even as your traditional computing needs grow slowly.”