Some of the key changes to the data center platform will include AMX, AiA, FP16 and CLDEMOTE capabilities, and the accelerator engine will increase the efficiency of each core by offloading common-mode tasks to these dedicated accelerator engines, which will improve performance and reduce the need to complete task time.
In terms of I/O advancements, Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs will introduce CXL 1.1 for accelerators and memory expansion in the data center space. There’s also improved multi-socket expansion via Intel UPI, providing up to 4×24 UPI links at 16GT/s, and the new 8S-4UPI performance-optimized topology. The new tile architecture design also increases the cache to more than 100MB, while supporting the Optane Persistent Memory 300 series, and products that support HBM models will use a different packaging design.
Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon (Standard Package) – 4446mm2
Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon (HBM2E package) – 5700mm2
AMD EPYC Genoa (12 CCD package) – 5428mm2
The Sapphire Rapids series will use 8-channel DDR5 memory with speeds up to 4800 Mbps and support PCIe Gen 5.0 on the Eagle Stream platform (C740 chipset).
The Eagle Stream platform will also introduce the LGA 4677 socket, which will replace the LGA 4189 socket of Intel’s upcoming Cedar Island and Whitley platforms, which will correspond to Cooper Lake-SP and Ice Lake-SP processors, respectively. The Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs will also feature the CXL 1.1 interconnect, which will be a huge technological milestone for Intel in the server space.
In terms of configuration, the Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon can provide up to 60 cores and a TDP of 350W. What’s interesting about this configuration is that it’s listed as a split variant, which means it’ll use a tile or MCM design. Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs will consist of 4 tile layouts, each with 14 cores.
According to the specifications provided by YuuKi_AnS, the thermal power consumption of Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs will have four tiers:
Bronze: 150W TDP
Silver: 145-165W TDP
Gold: 150-270W TDP
Platinum: 250-350W+ TDP
The TDP listed here is at the PL1 rating, so the PL2 rating will be very high in the 400W+ range, the BIOS limit is expected to hover around 700W+ Compared to the last listing, most SKUs are still in ES1/ES2 status, the new Specs are based on the final chip that will go to retail.
Additionally, the series itself has nine sections, indicating the workloads they are aimed at. Listed below:
P–cloud computing–laaS
V–Cloud Computing–SaaS
M – media transcoding
H – Databases and Analytics
N – Network/5G/Edge (High TPT/Low Latency)
S – Storage and HCI
T – Long life usage / High Tcase
U – single slot
Q – Liquid Cooling
Intel will offer various SKUs that have the same but different structure affecting their clocks/TDP. For example, there are four 44-core parts listed with 82.5MB of cache, but the clock speed varies per SKU. There will also be an A0 version of the Sapphire Rapids-SP HBM ‘Gold’ CPU with 48 cores, 96 threads, 90MB of cache, and a TDP of 350W.
The flagship of the series is the Intel Xeon Platinum 8490H, which offers 60 Golden Cove cores, 120 threads, 112.5MB of L3 cache, a single-core boost to 3.5GHz, an all-core boost to 2.9GHz, and a base TDP of 350W. Here is the entire list of SKUs that have been leaked:
