Intel’s new 128-core Granite Rapids Xeon 6900P processor family is designed to compete directly with AMD’s EPYC offering and is available in five variants.
There are the 6960P (72 cores), 6952P (96 cores), 6972P (96 cores) and 6979P (120 cores), and the flagship 6980P with 128 cores and 256 threads, with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz and 504 MB L3 -cache.
The first reviews are in from some of the major tech sites, and they make for interesting reading, with the main consensus being that the 6900P family successfully heralds Intel’s long-awaited resurgence in the server CPU arena.
Could increase Intel’s presence in the data center
ServeTheHome Applauds Intel’s return after years behind AMD EPYC, saying “Welcome back Intel!” The site was provided with a pre-production 6980P model by Intel, with some aspects, such as power metrics, pending further validation. General, STHPatrick Kennedy was impressed, saying: “From a raw performance perspective, the 128-core Intel Xeon 6900P is great and takes the performance crown for now. Of course, AMD said Turin is coming in the second half of 2024, so we’re not far off from AMD’s modern offering. Either way, Intel will compete with the same number of cores and a more comparable process technology, rather than with a 50% or more core shortage and a much older process technology that it has faced for half a decade.”
The next platform highlighted Intel’s strategic progress and noted that this was also the case STHthat the launch of the Xeon 6900P precedes AMD’s expected Turin processor. The site acknowledged the potential of Intel’s new chip to slow the loss of CPU market share in the company’s data center, even if it doesn’t reverse the trends. The article also highlighted Intel’s new focus on power-constrained performance versus pure IPC gains, and showed a fresh approach to chip design.
On the performance side Phoronix provided insights from Linux benchmarks, which highlighted strong gains, especially for the flagship 128-core Xeon 6980P, which pairs well with MRDIMM 8800MT/s memory. The site found that the Granite Rapids series exceeded expectations across a variety of HPC and AI workloads, often outperforming AMD’s top EPYC Genoa and Bergamo models when the software was optimized for Intel’s AMX technology.
Despite some logistical challenges with the test platform, Phoronix noted that Intel has shown with the launch of the
The arm question
Finally, Tom’s hardware said: “Intel’s Xeon 6 lineup finally brings it on par with AMD’s traditional core count advantage, but the true story will be told in independent benchmarking and cost analyzes of the different platforms.” Writer Paul Alcorn also noted that we don’t know how the range will fare against competing Arm server chips. “Arm has steadily made its way into the data center, largely through custom models deployed by hyperscalers and cloud providers. That makes direct comparisons a bit difficult, but we hope to see some virtualization comparisons with the Arm competition in the future.”
Despite the rave reviews for raw performance, Intel’s new Xeon 6900P CPUs won’t come cheap. High production costs translate into a premium price, making it a costly upgrade for data center operators looking to improve their infrastructure. While pricing for the flagship 6980P hasn’t been announced yet, The NextPlatform suggests it will end up around $24,980.