Intel "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon Processors Use "Golden Cove" CPU Cores, Company Clarifies in Linux Kernel Dev E-Mail Chain

[btarunr]

Intel's upcoming Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" processors which debut in the second half of 2021, will feature up to 80 "Golden Cove" CPU cores, and not the previously rumored "Willow Cove." This was clarified by an Intel developer in a Linux Kernel code e-mail chain. "Golden Cove" CPU cores are more advanced than the "Willow Cove" cores found in current-generation Intel products, such as the client "Tiger Lake" processors. Intel stated that "Golden Cove" introduces an IPC gain over "Willow Cove" (expressed as "ST perf"), increased AI inference performance from an updated GNI component, "network and 5G perf," which is possibly some form of network stack acceleration, and additional security features.

Over in the client segment, the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processor debuts a client variant of "Golden Cove." The "Alder Lake-S" silicon features eight "Golden Cove" cores serving as the "big" performance cores, next to eight "little" low-power "Gracemont" cores. The client- and server implementations of "Golden Cove" could differ mainly in the ISA, with the client chip receiving a slightly skimmed AVX-512 and DLBoost instruction-sets, with only client-relevant instructions. The server variant, in addition being optimized for a high core-count multi-core topology; could feature a more substantial AVX-512 and DLBoost implementation relevant for HPC use-cases.



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[dj-electric]

Sapphire Rapids seems like the most dramatic leap Intel has made in this segment.
Interested to see how performance of those gigachips looks like

 

[londiste]

Was this something that was not confirmed until now?

 

[dicktracy]

Golden Cove is gonna be a beast

 

[efikkan]

This is what you get when people listen to those nobodies on YouTube, several of which have no clue what they're talking about, despite doing it nearly daily.

Fairly little is known about Sapphire Rapids, but we've known it to be the next generation after Ice Lake for quite some time, and the name Golden Cove since Intel released their roadmaps. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to get this, it has been fairly obvious.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Golden Cove is gonna be a beast

Bit of an empty statement if you don't say what you compare it to.
A "beast" compared to the current Intel offering is.... not that impressive imo.

I'm going ahead and claim that this will not be enough to beat AMD yet, but Intel has enough contacts and contracts that it will sell anyway so it does not actually matter

 

[z1n0x]

Bit of an empty statement if you don't say what you compare it to.
A "beast" compared to the current Intel offering is.... not that impressive imo.

I'm going ahead and claim that this will not be enough to beat AMD yet, but Intel has enough contacts and contracts that it will sell anyway so it does not actually matter

Come on man, let him have some joy. It's been hard for him as of late.

 

[londiste]

Bit of an empty statement if you don't say what you compare it to.
A "beast" compared to the current Intel offering is.... not that impressive imo.

I'm going ahead and claim that this will not be enough to beat AMD yet, but Intel has enough contacts and contracts that it will sell anyway so it does not actually matter

Rocket Lake's Cypress Cove is 5-8% slower than Zen3 clock-for-clock. Cypress Cove is somewhere between Ice Lake's Sunny Cove and Tiger Lake's Willow Cove but closer to Sunny Cove due to cache setup. Tiger Lake/Willow Cove is a bit faster than that and Golden Cove is an evolution over that (from what we know a fairly significant one). This is more than likely to beat Zen3 in clock-for-clock performance.

I seriously doubt Sapphire Rapids is out in full force in 2021H2 though and it might go against Zen4 at some disadvantage but it will definitely be competitive when it comes to core performance.