Intel announced a new Xeon processor called Sierra Forest, Intel’s first E-core Xeon Scalable processor, which is scheduled for H1’24. The new Sierra Forest lineup chips will use density-optimized “efficiency” cores.
The new E-core Xeon processor will have a significant boost in the number of CPU cores on a single socket. With the new E-core design, the overall compute efficiency per socket is improved(for massively threaded workloads) and will allow cloud service providers to get even more virtual machine instances onto a single physical system.
As you can see in the picture above, Intel had a Sierra Forest CPU up and running for 18 hours.
Even though it’s the first E-core Xeon, it’s already stable enough that Intel has it sampling to at least one customer.
As previously disclosed, Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids will share a platform, despite the E-Core/P-Core split.
With the confirmation from Intel, the new Sierra Forest CPU will ship with up to 144 E-cores, over twice as many cores found on today’s P-core based Sapphire Rapids processors.
Intel E-Core lineup will have many more advanced features, such as AVX-512, that require more powerful cores. The AVX-512 is a set of new instructions that can boost the performance for workloads and usages such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and audio/video processing, cryptography, and data compression.
Intel believes that x86 CPU revenue will follow core trends more closely than socket trends in the coming years. Sandra Rivera, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s data center and AI group, said that Intel sees a market opportunity of more than $110 billion for its data center and AI silicon business by 2027.
The new Intel Sierra Forest CPU is planned for release in the first half of 2024.