Intel Data Center & AI Update 2023: Sierra Forest & Granite Rapids On Track

[kylew77]

Hey, did you change jobs recently? Or was that web hosting gig something way in the past?

Yep! I got a systems administrator position in January, thanks! Moved from Michigan to Texas which is closer to my folks.

[coder]

You would think we used some kind of SAN technology, but in this case you would be wrong. It was just a local array of RAID 10 storage, regular SATA SSDs at that, we did testing with NVMe but it wasn't that much faster, presumably because once the website loaded to RAM it didn't need to read from disk.

IMO, the main argument for using a SAN (or distributed filesystem) would be to do load-balancing and hot failover, so that you don't lose however many websites a 288-core machine could host, if it fails.

[coder]

As always thank you Coder for your well written replies and helping me make sense of stuff!

Thanks, but take it all with a grain of salt. Especially that rumor of a 320+ core Sierra Forest. That's based on extremely sketchy information.

My current thinking is that 144 cores might indeed be the max configuration. In which case, it'll definitely receive their full LGA 7259 w/ 12-channel memory.

Hey, did you change jobs recently? Or was that web hosting gig something way in the past?

[kylew77]

Better efficiency and aggregate performance than Xeons made from their big cores. No AVX-512, however. Other than that, the E-cores' FPU performance is almost commensurate with their integer performance, which is more than half as fast as a P-core. So, if you had a choice between a 144-core Sierra Forest CPU and a 72-core Granite Rapids, the SF would probably be faster at highly-scalable workloads.

I assume their main objective is to fend off the threat posed by ARM's N2 cores, and the rumored CPUs featuring like 192 of them. Then again, Intel is probably ready to do just about anything to reclaim the performance and efficiency titles from EPYC.

BTW, a big version of Sierra Forest is rumored to have more than 320 cores and 12-channel DDR5-8000. I'm guessing the 144-core model will be a single die and have only 8-channel DDR5 support.

As always thank you Coder for your well written replies and helping me make sense of stuff!

[kylew77]

Good point. I guess they'd go Ceph storage + high availability or something?

You would think we used some kind of SAN technology, but in this case you would be wrong. It was just a local array of RAID 10 storage, regular SATA SSDs at that, we did testing with NVMe but it wasn't that much faster, presumably because once the website loaded to RAM it didn't need to read from disk.

[coder]

SO what is the advantage of an all E core CPU?

Better efficiency and aggregate performance than Xeons made from their big cores. No AVX-512, however. Other than that, the E-cores' FPU performance is almost commensurate with their integer performance, which is more than half as fast as a P-core. So, if you had a choice between a 144-core Sierra Forest CPU and a 72-core Granite Rapids, the SF would probably be faster at highly-scalable workloads.

I assume their main objective is to fend off the threat posed by ARM's N2 cores, and the rumored CPUs featuring like 192 of them. Then again, Intel is probably ready to do just about anything to reclaim the performance and efficiency titles from EPYC.

BTW, a big version of Sierra Forest is rumored to have more than 320 cores and 12-channel DDR5-8000. I'm guessing the 144-core model will be a single die and have only 8-channel DDR5 support.

[brucethemoose]

SO what is the advantage of an all E core CPU?

In theory, lower task energy and less cost. ~3 e cores have more throughput and probably similar die space/power as a single hyperthreaded, higher clocked p core.


As others said, cloud hosts will love this, as more cores per socket has many ancillary benefits for their business.


TBH I think many Phoronix readers would glady take e-core heavy desktops/laptops for the compilation muscle.

[Paradigm Shifter]

I used to be a DC tech for a webhosting company and they didn't want anything more than 32 cores because if you lose a single node in it takes out like 256 sites, I shudder to think what losing 288 threads of of web hosting in a dual socket system would do if it crashes.

Good point. I guess they'd go Ceph storage + high availability or something?

[kylew77]

I think it'll be popular for webhosts, cloud providers etc. They're almost entirely useless for my use cases for Xeon CPUs.

I used to be a DC tech for a webhosting company and they didn't want anything more than 32 cores because if you lose a single node in it takes out like 256 sites, I shudder to think what losing 288 threads of of web hosting in a dual socket system would do if it crashes.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Where have I heard "on track" from Intel before?

My thoughts also. Sapphire Rapids was "on course" for a summer 22 release in their 2022 investor call. Two slips later, and it landed Jan 2023.

I'll believe a new product is available when I can order it and have it arrive the same week.

SO what is the advantage of an all E core CPU?

I think it'll be popular for webhosts, cloud providers etc. They're almost entirely useless for my use cases for Xeon CPUs.