Increased Performance per Watt by 240% in New Intel Xeon Chips - What's the Secret?
Intel Unveils Energy-Efficient Xeon Processors at Hot Chips 2023
Intel has announced the release of two new Xeon processors, Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids, at the Hot Chips 2023 conference. These processors aim to address the ever-growing concern of electricity consumption in data centers. The company also disclosed, for the first time, the performance-per-watt (PPW) of its upcoming data center chips, stating that the Sierra Forest chip would deliver 240% better PPW than its current generation of data center chips.
The push towards energy efficiency is a pressing matter across the technology sector. Companies like Ampere Computing, a startup founded by ex-Intel executives, and AMD have introduced similar products to compete in this area. The new Xeon processors are expected to handle more computing work per chip while consuming less power.
Ronak Singhal, a senior fellow at Intel, shed light on the practical advantages of the new processors for data center operators. He explained that consolidating older software onto fewer computers within a data center could lead to significant power savings, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership. "I may have things that are four or five, six years old. I can get power savings by moving something that’s currently on five, 10, or 15 different servers into a single new chip," Singhal said.
The Sierra Forest processor is designed for efficiency, using Sierra Glen E-cores, while the Granite Rapids processor is intended for performance, featuring Redwood Cove P-cores. Intel claims that Sierra Forest will provide better rack density and higher PPW than its previous Xeon chips. On the other hand, Granite Rapids will excel in mixed artificial intelligence (AI) workloads due to improved memory bandwidth.
Intel plans to launch Sierra Forest in the first half of 2024, followed by Granite Rapids, coinciding with AMD's launch of its 5th-gen EPYC Turin chips. This competition between Intel and AMD is expected to result in higher-performance battles in the data center sector. AMD's Bergamo, already on the market, uses a similar approach to Sierra Forest, employing dense Zen 4c cores. Intel also plans to release a second-gen E-core-powered processor, Clearwater Forest, in 2025.
In terms of architecture, the new processors feature a tile-based design, with different components that can be combined to create multiple products. Some input/output (I/O) functions are separated into two HSIO chiplets, while the CPU cores and memory controllers are housed on dedicated compute chiplets. These components are connected by EMIB (Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge) interconnects.
In addition, the new processors support PCIe 5.0/CXL 2.0, have up to 6 UPI links, and include accelerators for compression, cryptography, and data streaming. Each HSIO die also includes power control circuitry that manages the compute chiplets.
In conclusion, Intel's Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids Xeon processors show significant improvements in PPW over their previous generations, emphasizing the company's commitment to energy-efficient computing for data centers, AI, and cloud workloads. The new processors are expected to maintain competitiveness against AMD and other server CPU makers in these critical areas.
Data center operators might see significant power savings by consolidating old software onto new laptops equipped with Intel's energy-efficient Sierra Forest processor. The performance-per-watt (PPW) improvement of the Sierra Forest chip, coupled with advanced data-and-cloud-computing technology, makes it a promising solution for handling computing work while maintaining energy efficiency.
