Running a data centre takes a huge amount of power, a fact that Intel is hoping will court watt-conscious companies with its latest Xeon 6 processors. While the usual Performance-core (P-core) offerings are due later this year, Team Blue is kicking things off with its first-ever E-Core Xeon CPUs, promising some serious performance-per-watt savings for those looking to upgrade their ageing sever racks.
So, Xeon 6 then offers companies a choice between the best CPUs Intel has in terms of raw performance and less-power-hungry but still performant chips. At least, it will once Xeon 6900P arrives in Q3 2024, following behind Xeon 6700E, which is available now. Naturally, both variants of Xeon 6 should work wonderfully with Intel’s newest AI accelerator, Gaudi 3.
| Xeon 6900P | Xeon 6700E | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU cores | 128 (P-cores) | 144 (E-cores) |
| Socket support | 1S/2S | 1S/2S |
| Maximum power draw | 500W | 350W |
| Maximum memory channels | 12 | 8 |
| Maximum PCIe 5.0 lanes | 96 | 88 |
Pay close attention to those P and E suffixes attached Xeon 6 processors, as both P-core and E-core variants of the Xeon 6900 and 6700 series will be available by Q1 2025. Intel also plans to release less-powerful albeit presumably more affordable 6500P and 6300P CPUs in the same quarter.
Compared to 4th Gen AMD Epyc, Intel claims Xeon 6 P-cores offer up to 3.7x AI inferencing performance. Naturally, Xeon 6 E-cores provide a performance-per-watt advantage, with media transcodes performing 1.3x more efficiently according to Intel.
Showboating against AMD aside, Intel discusses how Xeon 6700E should bring savings everyone can get behind. Team Blue claims 66 racks of 6700E can perform the same as 200 racks using its older Xeon 2 processors, a 3:1 consolidation. Better still, though, this switch should save 80k MWh of energy and 34k mt of CO2 over four years. Efficient by name, efficient by nature.
As much as Intel has something of a head start with Xeon 6700E against 5th Gen AMD Epyc CPUs, the company could find itself locked into a head-to-head when its own Xeon 6900P series launches in the same period. That said, cost savings from purchase and energy prices could sway things for Team Blue.
For more Computex news, check out our coverage on the Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen AI 300 series.