Monday, February 6th 2017
Intel Readies the Xeon Gold Series Processors for Media Workstations
Hot on the heels of AMD Ryzen, Intel is planning to launch the pro-consumer targeted Xeon Gold line of processors. The company is reportedly "freaked out" at the cost/performance of AMD Ryzen R7-1800X in creative productivity applications, and is preparing a new line of processors targeting that niche of the market, which uses MacPro desktops and media production workstations using HEDT processors, but needs a bit of "reliability." The Xeon Gold series will be based on the 14 nm "Skylake-EP" silicon, and will feature up to 18 CPU cores. The first model in the series is the Xeon Gold 6150.
The Xeon Gold 6150 features 18 CPU cores, with HyperThreading enabling 36 logical CPUs. Intel increased the L2 cache amount per core to 1 MB, from 256 KB found on other implementations of the "Skylake" architecture. The chip features 25,344 KB (24.75 MB) of shared L3 cache. The core clock speed is 2.70 GHz, with a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 3.70 GHz. The chip features a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface. Going by its specs, the Xeon Gold 6150 will clearly occupy a higher market segment than the Ryzen R7-1800X, but could lure orders from the likes of Apple, for its next-generation MacPro workstations.
Sources:
CanardPC on Twitter, HardOCP Forums
The Xeon Gold 6150 features 18 CPU cores, with HyperThreading enabling 36 logical CPUs. Intel increased the L2 cache amount per core to 1 MB, from 256 KB found on other implementations of the "Skylake" architecture. The chip features 25,344 KB (24.75 MB) of shared L3 cache. The core clock speed is 2.70 GHz, with a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 3.70 GHz. The chip features a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface. Going by its specs, the Xeon Gold 6150 will clearly occupy a higher market segment than the Ryzen R7-1800X, but could lure orders from the likes of Apple, for its next-generation MacPro workstations.
29 Comments on Intel Readies the Xeon Gold Series Processors for Media Workstations
What exactly is the purpose of this release?, what gains will this processor have over, say a "normal" xeon?
creative profesionals who dont use mac pros already use xeons, where is the market for these processors? will they be cheaper than a normal xeon with similar specs?
to me this just looks like a modern 2699v3,
i hope they will be attractive in some way, they look cool. just dont see a reason :/
So what's next, Intel Hard Core for enthusiast level and Intel Soft Core for mainstream and entry level?
Xeon intended for workstation/server
Core/Pentium/Celeron for average user
is there any kind of special processor that I dont aware of?
I agree though unless it is priced right this looks like just a gimmick.
They may also limit memory to 64GB or something effectively making Gold very poor choice for server and whoever needs a server will still have to pay premium for "regular" Xeon but it will be good CPU for workstation.
It will be interesting to see how such competition will be, cost is a major concern for self prosumers and HEDT consumers, going from HEDT to workstation class platform add too much cost over a high-end system... I still think AMD might in future release a dedicated HEDT platform if Ryzen proved it well and gives AMD the cash it needs to invest more. but for the time being they will depend mainly on Ryzen and Zepteron to fill any gap, I guess for AMD the price jump between Ryzen and Zepteron will be higher than the jump from Intel's specially that Intel already have an HEDT platform which sits between regular Z260 platform and entry level Xeon Workstation.
So for many small task this will have a upper hand..
I bet with the 18 core Xeon, Intel will be targeting them TitanZ owners.
A professional user does not just need high-performance but also high reability, Xeon platforms offer more of this compared to HEDT platform...
"Skylake-SP" (14 nm) Scalable Performance
Xeon Gold 6150 18 (36) 2.7 GHz ?/3.7 GHz 18 × 1 MB 24.75 MB
198 W
LGA 3647 3 × 10.4 GT/s UPI 6 × DDR4-2400 Q2, 2017
Xeon Platinum 8180 28 (56) 2.5 GHz ?/? GHz 28 × 1 MB 38.50 MB
205 W
LGA 3647 3 × 10.4 GT/s UPI 6 × DDR4-2400 Q2, 2017
I take the Bronze then :D I guess the price will be affordable.
Most Adobe software has limited thread usage to four. Some parts of software are singlecore only.
Actually only 3D rendering and most of video software are well prepared to handle more than 4 threads.
So if you're pro working in 2D and 3D, then you'd need something very fast when using four threads, but also having more threads available when needed. At the moment i7-E's are best available cpus for mixed creative usage, but still far from perfect. In 2D the fastest consumer quadcores still beat Xeons and -E's in performance.
Higher Profit margin .Higher Stock price=Happier Stock holders. Improved NASDAC Rating/position
Just a Guess :)
PS Intel Iitanium cpu :)
There are great selections for server uses among Xeons, and even workstations which only need many "slow" cores, like:
Xeon E5-2630 v4 10 cores, 2.2 GHz (3.1 GHz boost), 85W, $667
Which offers fantastic performance per dollar and watt, and two of these offers a massive 20 cores.
But many professional users still need a decent clock speed, since many workloads scales better on many fast cores than many slow cores. This includes video encoding, rendering (both ray tracing and OpenGL based), CAD, compute etc.
The current options are too sparse:
i7-6800K 6 cores, 3.4 GHz (3.8 GHz boost) $434 - Great value, but too few cores.
i7-6900K 8 cores, 3.2 GHz (4.0 GHz boost) $1089 - Great performance per core, but too expensive.
i7-6950X 10 cores, 3.0 GHz (4.0 GHz boost) $1723 - Great performance per core, but way too expensive.
Xeon E5-2687W v4 12 cores, 3.0 GHz (3.5 GHz boost) $2141
The rumors of Xeon Gold sounds nice, I would love a CPU of ~3 GHz (~4 GHz boost) with more cores, and I'm willing to pay ~$1500 for a such CPU, if it justifies the price for professional use.
If the specs are roughly true, quadruple L2 cache per core would require a redesign of the cache hierarchy, which would mean that Intel planned this ~2 years ahead of release, so that can't be a reaction to Ryzen in any way. More L2 cache will improve IPC, but why cut down on the L3? There's hardly any point with both L2 and L3 if the L3 is so small. I would rather spend those transistors on more L3, giving the CPU ~100 MB of L3 cache. As a note, the "trashcan" MacPros are hardly used by pros any more, due to outdated configurations and extremely overpriced hardware. But there are too few affordable non-custom options out there, so it would be refreshing to see Intel actually focusing on this market segment. Perhaps finally the market can move beyond thinking a quad core is a proper workstation. It may not appeal to you, but for we professionals can't simply get enough fast cores. Hopefully yes, but these beasts wouldn't compete with Ryzen, but rather Opteron versions of Zen. See above, there are almost no Xeons for workstation use, but plenty for various server uses.
But again with the new LGA 3647 there is room for a BIG chip.
-18meg L2 cache
-AVX512
Looks like Intel getting panicky and FUD'ing to me