Intel has expanded its household of Xeon 6 processors with new high-performance chips designed for enterprises with compute-intensive wants, similar to synthetic intelligence, virtualization, and databases.
The chip big unveiled its Xeon 6700/6500P sequence processors, which function efficiency cores (P-cores) that ship a median of 1.4 occasions higher efficiency than Intel’s earlier technology processors throughout a wide range of enterprise workloads.
With at the moment’s announcement, the corporate mentioned it has accomplished its rollout of Xeon 6 processors. These processors supply two product households: P-core chips, that are centered on efficiency, and environment friendly cores (E-cores), which steadiness power effectivity with efficiency and are designed for private and non-private clouds.
Intel shipped its first E-core chip, the 144-core Xeon 6700E, final June, adopted by its first P-core chip, the high-end, 128-core 6900P processor, in September, which is constructed for workloads that want all-out efficiency, similar to AI and high-performance computing (HPC).
Diversified Functions
The brand new Xeon 6700/6500P line of P-core chips options 8 to 86 cores and is designed for a broad set of enterprise necessities, analysts mentioned.
“Intel is filling out its portfolio, particularly for purchasers which have completely different wants or purposes which have completely different wants,” mentioned Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst at Tirias Analysis, in an interview with DCN.
“What we’ve seen from each Intel and AMD within the server phase is that there’s not a one-size-fits-all anymore.”
With diversified purposes in thoughts, Intel additionally launched the Intel Xeon 6 SOC chip for telecommunications corporations’ edge environments. In the meantime, Intel’s high-end E-core chip, the 288-core 6900E processor, is now in manufacturing and has been deployed by a big cloud buyer, mentioned Ronak Singhal, Intel’s senior fellow and chief architect of Xeon merchandise, throughout a media briefing.
Singhal didn’t disclose who the client is, however he mentioned Intel is working with every of its cloud prospects to deploy the 288-core processor for their very own customized wants.
The Knowledge Middle Chip Warfare Heats Up
Intel’s newest Xeon 6 bulletins come as AMD continues to seize market share from Intel. Whereas Intel nonetheless dominates, AMD’s server income through the 2024 fourth quarter reached 35.5% – a 3.7% year-over-year improve and 1.6% quarter-over-quarter improve, based on latest information from Mercury Analysis.
AMD launched its fifth-generation AMD Epyc server CPU in October. The brand new AMD Epyc 9005 sequence processor, previously code-named Turin, is a high-performance, energy-efficient CPU that’s designed for cloud, enterprise and AI workloads.
Whereas AMD’s continued market share development continues to show heads, the newest information signifies that AMD’s fast development could also be leveling off and that Intel is discovering its footing within the server market with the discharge of its Xeon 6 processors, mentioned Matt Kimball, vice chairman and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Technique.
“Whereas AMD has continued to develop each its unit and income share, its fee of development will not be practically as quick because it has been, which is a sign that Intel is defending its enterprise buyer base,” Kimball instructed DCN.
AMD’s quick market share development has primarily come from cloud suppliers, massive enterprises that function like hyperscalers and organizations which have HPC workloads, he mentioned. However the space AMD has not carried out as nicely is within the conventional enterprise market, the place Intel dominates, he mentioned.
Kimball mentioned the brand new Xeon 6700P line of processors, designed for conventional enterprise mission-critical purposes similar to ERP, virtualization and databases, additional establishes Intel within the enterprise due to its efficiency, enhanced safety and ecosystem.
“The enterprise market is the place Intel has achieved nicely and goes to proceed to do nicely,” he mentioned.
For years, AMD has been capable of argue that it has extra cores and reminiscence, which interprets to raised efficiency and complete price of possession (TCO), however not, he mentioned. For instance, the Intel 6900E, with its 288 cores, leapfrogs AMD on cores.
“With Xeon 6, for the primary time in a very long time, Intel has discovered parity or benefit over AMD,” Kimball mentioned.
Extra Particulars on Intel Xeon 6700/6500P CPUs
Intel executives used at the moment’s launch of the Intel 6700/6500P to restate the case for Intel Xeon 6 chips, significantly for enterprises reaching the top of life with their current servers and needing to improve.
In the course of the briefing, Singhal touted Intel Xeon 6’s security measures, built-in AI accelerators and quicker reminiscence efficiency by means of Multiplexed Rank DIMM (MRDIMM). The corporate additionally mentioned it permits for a median of 5-to-1 consolidation of five-year-old servers with the potential of as much as 10-to-1 server consolidation in some use instances, which ends up in as much as 68% financial savings in complete price of possession.
Intel additionally claims that its Intel Xeon 6 processors present as much as 1.5 occasions higher efficiency in AI inferencing whereas utilizing one-third fewer cores than AMD’s newest fifth-generation Epyc processors.
McGregor, the Tirias Analysis analyst, mentioned the server market is thrilling as a result of Intel and AMD have aggressive options and information middle operators even have Arm alternate options.
Many organizations final upgraded their servers throughout COVID-19, so it’s time for a refresh, he mentioned. On the subject of x86 chips, they need to take a look at each earlier than selecting.
“It’s a good time for corporations which are evaluating their product strains,” McGregor mentioned. “Intel’s Xeon 6 is spectacular and aggressive, however they’ve a a lot stronger competitor now than they’ve ever had earlier than in AMD.”
In different information, Singhal mentioned {that a} new x86 advisory group that includes Intel, AMD and its companions not too long ago met for the primary time to debate the way forward for the x86 structure. The 2 chip rivals shaped the group in October to form the way forward for x86 and to make sure structure compatibility, simplify software program growth and develop progressive and scalable options.
