Intel Sapphire Rapids workstation chips tout up to 56 cores and unlocked SKUs

Intel has formally launched the workstation-centered versions of its Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors, claiming an practically 30 p.c enhance in performance per core customers when when compared to its earlier platform.

The most unusual updates to the Intel Xeon W processor portfolio, the original chips are essentially based totally on the same technology because the 4th Generation Xeon Scalable server family the chipmaker presented closing month.

These most unusual workstation parts are within the market for pre-stammer directly, Intel mentioned, with system availability coming in March from vendors comparable to Dell, HP, Lenovo and Supermicro.

At launch, the original chips are damage up into two families, the Xeon W-3400 line and the Xeon W-2400 line, with the latter aimed toward mainstream workstation methods and the faded concentrated on higher-stop methods, or what the chipmaker has dubbed expert workstations.

Alternatively, these don’t symbolize the height of Intel’s workstation portfolio, which is crammed by methods essentially based totally on the Xeon Scalable platform, dubbed dual-socket expert, whereas Intel Core chips will have the entry and mobile diploma (Intel mentioned this may maybe maybe maybe well repeat more on the latter this quarter).

The variations between the Xeon W-3400 expert chips and the Xeon W-2400 mainstream chips lie within the maximum probability of cores, DDR5 reminiscence channels and PCIe 5.0 lanes within the market in every.

Each of these are extra divided up into w9, w7, w5 and w3 sub-brands, such that w9 chips most efficient characteristic within the Xeon W-3400 expert family, and w3 chips are most efficient show within the Xeon W-2400 family. Got that?

The Xeon W-3400 tops out at 56 cores for the w9 chips, 28 cores for w7 and 16 cores for w5. All of these characteristic 8 reminiscence channels for up to 4TB of DDR5-4800 DRAM, plus 112 PCIe 5.0 lanes which permits for up to 28 storage devices or up to 7 GPUs to be linked.

For the Xeon W-2400 family, these enjoy up to 24 cores for the w7 chips, 16 for w5 and up to 8 cores for w3. All of this family characteristic 64 lines of PCIe 5.0 for up to 16 storage devices or 4 GPUs, and 4 reminiscence channels for up to 2TB of DDR5-4800 DRAM. The exception is the w3 SKUs which most efficient support DDR5-4400.

The W790 motherboard chipset, standard to every families, supplies a further 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes, up to 8 SATA ports, up to 5 USB 3.2 ports, plus integrated Wi-Fi 6E and 2.5Gbps Ethernet port.

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One of the original Xeon W processors are furthermore unlocked, enabling highly essentially expert workload tuning, in accordance to Intel. These chips are denoted by an “X” on the stop of the processor quantity.

“Whereas most workstation customers prioritize steadiness and reliability for these mission crucial workflows, we recognise that there are a group of customers within the market who price performance above all else and desire the different to tune their processor to meet their wants,” mentioned Intel Workstation Platform Manager Zac Kranich.

“For these other folks, these unlocked SKUs will give the customers the selections for tuning per core frequency and voltage regulate, detrimental offset ratio tuning for AVX moreover to the original AMX instructions.”

Tuning even extends to the flexibility to adjust the frequency of the interconnects between the cores and tiles within the chip kit, he claimed, by process of an Intel Vulgar tuning utility.

In accordance to Intel, these original Xeon W processors provide a performance enhance merely by enabling core counts (up to 56) in a single-socket workstation that would enjoy beforehand required a twin-socket configuration. Clock speeds can furthermore jog up to 4.8GHz with Intel Turbo enhance Max 3.0.

To build figures to these numbers, Intel claims that the original platform delivers up to 140 p.c more performance than the earlier technology, on the least as measured by the SPECworkstation 3.1 benchmark.

Intel furthermore claims 70 p.c higher performance for workloads comparable to modelling, simulation and visualization, and up to a 75 p.c enhance in performance for scientific computing and analysis, though the performance customers gape will obviously rely on their particular utility and workload.

The chip extensive mentioned there are over 50 original workstation designs powered by essentially the most unusual Xeon W processors within the pipeline, hailing the launch as “a serious milestone.”

The suggested customer place for the Xeon W Processor family starts at $359 (Xeon w3-2423) and scales up to $5,889 (Xeon w9-3495X), Intel told us. Fundamental sides on particular system availability will be coming from system vendors within the arriving weeks. ®