Intel-Xeon-6 family completed: New challengers for AMD EPYC from 8 to 288 cores

Intel-Xeon-6 family completed: New challengers for AMD EPYC from 8 to 288 cores 10 comments

Intel-Xeon-6 family completed: New challengers for AMD EPYC from 8 to 288 cores

Image: Intel

With many new fast processors from Granite aka Xeon 6, Intel wants to regain market share from AMD. And it works, says Intel, because in the market with the greatest mass does not look at the greatest number of cores, other things focus.

Table of contents The new challengers for AMD EPYC from 8 to 288 cores A bigger challenge for AMD Xeon 6700 and 6500 is Granite Rapids-Sp

The Xeon 6700p and 6500p are now the consumer versions of the architecture codenamed Granite Rapids. Intel had already presented the Granite-AP variant in the fall of 2024. The package is rounded off with Granite Rapids-D Alias Xeon Soc and Xeon 6300, which at first glance look like Intel Core – and they are.

Summary :

A bigger challenge for AMD

At the start of the new models, Intel has various references in their luggage. As usual with manufacturer references, the best of your own product is displayed. When analyzing AMD’s latest results with Turin Alias 5th Generation EPYC, AMD was shown to be partially accessible to Intel’s open source codes, Intel said in advance. These also help AMD’s products to be a better result, in Intel’s selection today it is of course not enough. It is no different with the manufacturer’s references, but depending on the workload the reality may be different.

Xeon 6700 and 6500 is Granite Rapids-S

The SP version of the Xeon is the most important on the market in years. The bread and butter company has been called Xeon Gold and Silver so far, from this Xeon 6700 and Intel explains that the solutions continue to pay separately, because the amount of CPUs with much fewer cores than with the top models is still “significant”.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-06 (Bild: Intel)

Regardless of seed count, these chips can be used in parallel with parallel node controllers in 2, 4 or 8 sockets. But also in the other direction: the unique operation of the socket becomes more important, according to which Intel can suppress market share here. The mix of seeds, fast memory and 136 PCIe lanes plays a role.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-07 (Bild: Intel)

Nothing changes on the basic parameters, follow the new Xeon 6700 and 6500 from the Because without these I/O tiles, in which communication with the outside world such as PCIe, but also UPI links, which include connections with other CPU socks and replace data, the CPU cannot do much,

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-08 (Bild: Intel)

Individual processor tiles follow the creation of recent years. The cores are arranged in a mesh network, L2 and L3 cache is placed near the core. Communication with the I/O tile or the next CPU tile is achieved via Intel EMIB. The company has been using the technology in many products for years.

Each CPU tile continues to offer its own memory controller. This brings more power to another tile with better latencies compared to outsourcing these units. The Xeon 6700 and 6500 also support MCR-DIMM according to the GDR5 standard. This new memory targets the speed or data transfer rate of the entire memory module and not the individual chips installed on it. A database chip allows parallel addressing of the two 64-bit wide ranks on the module.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-09 (Bild: Intel)

With its standard of 8000 mt/s, MCR DIMMs guarantee more bandwidth than DDR5-6400, as the base configuration, which is also supported, provides it. The number of memory controllers is pending from the CPU style, eight channels are achieved with two tiles, and the Xeon 6900 is 12 channels. Intel has rebuilt the HCC and LCC-DIE: they already offer eight storage chains in one chip. Four storage channels then offer the smaller Xeon 6 Soc – but these CPU styles ultimately come from the XCC and UCC tiles.

The bottom line is that there will be a variety of models that cover a wide (price) spectrum.

Xeon 6 SOC uses XCC-Tiles with new iodine

Speaking of Xeon 6 Soc, formerly Xeon D. The new, smaller offshoots mainly for the communication market with directly integrated Ethernet are also significantly increased. From there it can also be 70+ cores and then also as a dual-CPU chip.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-32 (Bild: Intel)

Intel will use the same CPU styles as with Granite Rapids with XCC and UCC-DIE, the maximum of theoretically 88 cores is deliberately not exhausted, Intel explains on request. And here too an i/o-tile, which is again adapted in a more modern Intel 4 production, takes over communication tasks with the outside world, but, for example, directly with Ethernet and accelerators.

At the beginning, however, there will be the small solution, which has often been the case in the past at Xeon D. In this case, this means that tile-to-CPU solutions are meant, including a maximum of four storage channels. So that the CPU and I/O tiles do not lead to a shaky build, a dummy-i/o-tile on the other side of the active I/OS (in the image below) will be installed.

Intel Xeon 6 Soc (Bild: Intel)

Large solutions with a maximum of 72 cores only come from the 4th quarter. Since these are also close-knit, it’s more a question of the whole ecosystem. The support of up to ten years also almost speaks for an integrated product – there is often a new performance there.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-59 (Bild: Intel)

Sierra Forest-AP with 288 seeds starts as a customer product

Also today the Xeon 6900E, i.e. the large Sierra Forest variant, which constituted a 6700e in June 2024. However, the 288 e-cors are not sent to regular trade, they are implemented directly with large customers.

Along with some of these customers, Intel is also working on Clearwater Forest for the coming year. The first chips are already working on customer requests for special workloads and thus finalizing the product for a debut in the first half of 2026, Intel confirmed in advance.

Intel Xeon and MWC Press Deck-44 (Bild: Intel)

Xeon 6300 IST Raptor Lake Refresh (Refresh)

And then there would be the Xeon 6300 as a well-known new entry. LGA 1700 and up to 8 active electronic core-free performance cores are available here as a platform. The rest corresponds to the well-known desktop processor.

assessment

The bottom line is that the Xeon 6700 and 6500 deliver what customers want. These have recently increased for AMD and bought EPYC, especially the more expensive variants have done very well. So Intel continues to aim for the middle and mass, at the expensive end there should probably be little to get. But here is known to be both AMD and up front, it just depends on the workload.

The upcoming figures should show whether all this will succeed. The Datacenter division has recently declined sharply for the Datacenter division, profits have barely been generated. Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest are the products Intel needs to bring to 2026.

Intel Xeon 6700, 6500, 6300 and Xeon 6 SOC Launch