Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" Server Processors Launch in January

[btarunr]

Intel just finalized the launch date of its 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" server processors. The company plans to launch them on January 10, 2023. The new processors will be launched at a special event dedicated to the company's various new Data Center (group) innovations, which cover server processors, new networking innovations, possible launches from Intel's ecosystem partners, and more.

A lot is riding on the success of "Sapphire Rapids," as they see the introduction of Intel's new high-performance CPU core on in the enterprise segment at core-counts of up to 60-core/120-thread per socket; along with cutting-edge new I/O that includes DDR5 memory, PCI-Express Gen 5, next-gen CXL, and on-package HBM memory on certain variants.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Daven]

Intel 4-8 socket Xeon Platinum processors have been on the same architecture since 2015 starting with Skylake-X and iterating over Cascade Lake and Cooper Lake with no major architectural changes. That’s seven years of standing still in the high end enterprise market.

Just imagine trying to sell to a client a major server upgrade on seven year old technology. If it wasn’t for the 40 core, 1 and 2 socket only Icelake stop gap from 2019 Intel would be nonexistent in servers and even that is now three years old.

Of course none of the above even mentions the huge losses to GPU compute solutions that made 4 and 8 socket servers almost obsolete. Products connected in large socket arrays represented the highest margin products for Intel often exceeding $20,000 per processor. Those glory days are long gone with Sapphire Rapids with HBM most likely being sold at very low margins now that they are going up against Zen 4 Epyc-X and Hopper/CDNA2-3.

 

[Chaitanya]

Intel 4-8 socket Xeon Platinum processors have been on the same architecture since 2015 starting with Skylake-X and iterating over Cascade Lake and Cooper Lake with no major architectural changes. That’s seven years of standing still in the high end enterprise market.

Just imagine trying to sell to a client a major server upgrade on seven year old technology. If it wasn’t for the 40 core, 1 and 2 socket only Icelake stop gap from 2019 Intel would be nonexistent in servers and even that is now three years old.

Of course none of the above even mentions the huge losses to GPU compute solutions that made 4 and 8 socket servers almost obsolete. Products connected in large socket arrays represented the highest margin products for Intel often exceeding $20,000 per processor. Those glory days are long gone with Sapphire Rapids with HBM most likely being sold at very low margins now that they are going up against Zen 4 Epyc-X and Hopper/CDNA2-3.

Dont forget power hogs that Intel sells compared to competition. ARM and RISC-V might be taking huge chunk of market from Intel which will be very difficult to retake even with undetgand tactics that Intel uses.

 

[Aquinus]

on-package HBM memory on certain variants.

Man would I get excited to see this kind of thing for a consumer CPU that isn't a soldered BGA chip.

 

[Daven]

Man would I get excited to see this kind of thing for a consumer CPU that isn't a soldered BGA chip.

You have that with X3D stacked cache and upgraded platform specs. The next one possible being a Ryzen 7950X3D with 16 cores, 208MB of total L2+L3 cache, gobs of GBs in dual channel DDR5-6000 RAM and up to 16 Gbps read/write PCIe 5 SSDs.

I’m not sure where HBM on package in a desktop form factor will improve things much over the above.

The only way I see HBM being useful is a replacement for upgradeable RAM and the slots repurposed for PCIe x16 connected SSDs configured in RAID 0 like format over four drives in the formerly four RAM slots. The 16 lanes made possible by placing the connectors on the M.2 long edge in the same way RAM is connected.

 

[Snoop05]

You have that with X3D stacked cache and upgraded platform specs. The next one possible being a Ryzen 7950X3D with 16 cores, 208MB of total L2+L3 cache, gobs of GBs in dual channel DDR5-6000 RAM and up to 16 Gbps read/write PCIe 5 SSDs.

I’m not sure where HBM on package in a desktop form factor will improve things much over the above.

The only way I see HBM being useful is a replacement for upgradeable RAM and the slots repurposed for PCIe x16 connected SSDs configured in RAID 0 like format over four drives in the formerly four RAM slots. The 16 lanes made possible by placing the connectors on the M.2 long edge in the same way RAM is connected.

I think HBM is more about getting enough of way faster memory that you couldn't get by other means, and to pick your own preference over bulk RAM capacity vs IO is going to be role of CXL

 

[prtskg]

Intel 4-8 socket Xeon Platinum processors have been on the same architecture since 2015 starting with Skylake-X and iterating over Cascade Lake and Cooper Lake with no major architectural changes. That’s seven years of standing still in the high end enterprise market.

Just imagine trying to sell to a client a major server upgrade on seven year old technology. If it wasn’t for the 40 core, 1 and 2 socket only Icelake stop gap from 2019 Intel would be nonexistent in servers and even that is now three years old.

Of course none of the above even mentions the huge losses to GPU compute solutions that made 4 and 8 socket servers almost obsolete. Products connected in large socket arrays represented the highest margin products for Intel often exceeding $20,000 per processor. Those glory days are long gone with Sapphire Rapids with HBM most likely being sold at very low margins now that they are going up against Zen 4 Epyc-X and Hopper/CDNA2-3.

Intel is giving such 'rebates' that even after $4.2B of sales, their datacentre gave 0 revenue. Hopefully from q1 2023, they'll have some revenue.