In their latest press release, which surprisingly comes a day before their competitor releases 7nm server chips, Intel has announced that they will be bringing out 56 core socketed processors with their 14nm Cooper Lake family, in 2020. The new Xeon chips will be accompanied by a completely new platform known as Whitley which will enable better I/O support and also allow compatibility on their future generation of Ice Lake Xeon CPUs based on the 10nm process node.
Intel's Cooper Lake-SP Xeon Socketed CPUs To Feature Up To 56 Cores, Arriving in 2020
According to Intel, the next-generation Xeon Scalable family, known as Cooper Lake (SP) & based on the 14nm process node would offer up to 56 cores and 112 threads in a socketed design. The current Cascade Lake-SP family offers up to 28 cores in socketed variants while the Cascade Lake-AP SKUs which come in BGA only, offer up to 56 cores and 112 threads with TDPs as high as 400W. In 2020, Intel would change that as their platform would offer a twice the number of core & thread count on LGA sockets. Following is the official presser from Intel themselves.
“We are excited about the early customer deployments of the Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 series that we introduced as part of our 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. Bringing a 56-core processor into our mainline Intel Xeon Scalable processor family in the next generation will further expand our ability to address customer needs for the highest levels of performance in artificial intelligence, high performance computing and high density infrastructure.”
–Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Data Center Marketing, Intel Corporation (Intel)
Intel 14nm Cooper Lake-SP With Up To 56 Cores, PCIe Gen 3 and 8 Channel DDR4 in Q1 2020
In addition to the higher core count, Intel's Cooper Lake line of Xeon scalable processors are said to offer higher memory bandwidth, higher AI inference & training performance while supporting blfloat16 through Intel's DL Boost framework. The Whitley platform which will be based around the LGA 4189 socket will also feature support for Intel's Ice Lake-SP processors that utilize the 10nm process node. Ice Lake-SP will also launch in 2020, just slightly after the introduction of Cooper Lake-SP. The Whitley platform would offer support for 8 channel DDR4 memory, PCIe Gen 3.0.
Intel will also have a 4S/8S platform known as Cedar Island which would support up to 28 core and 56 thread processors, 6 channel DDR4 memory and PCIe Gen 3.0.
Intel 10nm+ Ice Lake-SP With Up To 26 Cores, PCIe Gen 4 and 8 Channel DDR4 in Q2 2020
Intel Ice Lake-SP processors will be available around the second quarter of 2020 and will feature the 10nm process node. The chips will have up to 26 cores and support 8 channel DDR4 memory. The main highlight of Ice Lake-SP processors will be support for PCIe Gen 4 which is coming to AMD's EPYC Rome processors this year in Q3 2019. Ice Lake-SP processors would be based on the brand new Sunny Cove core architecture which is expected to deliver double-digit IPC gains and a much-needed increase in overall efficiency.
One thing to note is that Intel's 10nm for 2020 is an enhanced node of the original 10nm node that will launch this year. It's marked as 10nm+ and that is specifically what the Ice Lake-SP Xeon line will make use of. Some of the major upgrades that 10nm will deliver include:
- 2.7x density scaling vs 14nm
- Self-aligned Quad-Patterning
- Contact Over Active Gate
- Cobalt Interconnect (M0, M1)
- 1st Gen Foveros 3D Stacking
- 2nd Gen EMIB
Intel Xeon SP Families (Preliminary):
| Family Branding | Skylake-SP | Cascade Lake-SP/AP | Cooper Lake-SP | Ice Lake-SP | Sapphire Rapids | Emerald Rapids | Granite Rapids | Diamond Rapids |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process Node | 14nm+ | 14nm++ | 14nm++ | 10nm+ | Intel 7 | Intel 7 | Intel 3 | Intel 3? |
| Platform Name | Intel Purley | Intel Purley | Intel Cedar Island | Intel Whitley | Intel Eagle Stream | Intel Eagle Stream | Intel Mountain Stream Intel Birch Stream | Intel Mountain Stream Intel Birch Stream |
| Core Architecture | Skylake | Cascade Lake | Cascade Lake | Sunny Cove | Golden Cove | Raptor Cove | Redwood Cove? | Lion Cove? |
| IPC Improvement (Vs Prev Gen) | 10% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 19% | 8%? | 35%? | 39%? |
| MCP (Multi-Chip Package) SKUs | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | TBD (Possibly Yes) | TBD (Possibly Yes) |
| Socket | LGA 3647 | LGA 3647 | LGA 4189 | LGA 4189 | LGA 4677 | LGA 4677 | TBD | TBD |
| Max Core Count | Up To 28 | Up To 28 | Up To 28 | Up To 40 | Up To 56 | Up To 64? | Up To 120? | Up To 144? |
| Max Thread Count | Up To 56 | Up To 56 | Up To 56 | Up To 80 | Up To 112 | Up To 128? | Up To 240? | Up To 288? |
| Max L3 Cache | 38.5 MB L3 | 38.5 MB L3 | 38.5 MB L3 | 60 MB L3 | 105 MB L3 | 120 MB L3? | 240 MB L3? | 288 MB L3? |
| Vector Engines | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-512/FMA2 | AVX-1024/FMA3? | AVX-1024/FMA3? |
| Memory Support | DDR4-2666 6-Channel | DDR4-2933 6-Channel | Up To 6-Channel DDR4-3200 | Up To 8-Channel DDR4-3200 | Up To 8-Channel DDR5-4800 | Up To 8-Channel DDR5-5600? | Up To 12-Channel DDR5-6400? | Up To 12-Channel DDR6-7200? |
| PCIe Gen Support | PCIe 3.0 (48 Lanes) | PCIe 3.0 (48 Lanes) | PCIe 3.0 (48 Lanes) | PCIe 4.0 (64 Lanes) | PCIe 5.0 (80 lanes) | PCIe 5.0 (80 Lanes) | PCIe 6.0 (128 Lanes)? | PCIe 6.0 (128 Lanes)? |
| TDP Range (PL1) | 140W-205W | 165W-205W | 150W-250W | 105-270W | Up To 350W | Up To 375W? | Up To 400W? | Up To 425W? |
| 3D Xpoint Optane DIMM | N/A | Apache Pass | Barlow Pass | Barlow Pass | Crow Pass | Crow Pass? | Donahue Pass? | Donahue Pass? |
| Competition | AMD EPYC Naples 14nm | AMD EPYC Rome 7nm | AMD EPYC Rome 7nm | AMD EPYC Milan 7nm+ | AMD EPYC Genoa ~5nm | AMD EPYC Bergamo | AMD EPYC Turin | AMD EPYC Venice |
| Launch | 2017 | 2018 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023? | 2024? | 2025? |
While the announcement assures potential Intel customers that they will have something new out by 2020, AMD will be releasing their 7nm EPYC processors tomorrow that will offer much higher core/thread counts, better efficiency and a huge increase in IPC with their Zen 2 based Rome line. Already termed as a formidable competition by Intel due to their recent gains in the server, note-book and desktop space, AMD's server market share is steadily climbing and securing more deals from datacenter and HPC vendors. It will be interesting to see how Intel's 14nm and 10nm lineup will compete against EPYC Rome server chips in 2020 when AMD will be announcing their 7nm+ "Milan" generation of server processors.
