Today, Intel is introducing its third-generation Xeon Scalable processors, which are made for data centers and anything else that requires that level of complexity in computing. A key new feature is that they come with AI acceleration using DL Boost. In fact, Intel says that these are the only data center chips with baked-in AI. Compared to the previous generation, Intel is promising 74% better AI performance.
The new Xeon Scalable processors are from the Ice Lake family, meaning that they"re built on a 10nm process, and Intel is promising a 46% improvement on common workloads. Compared to a five-year-old system, the firm is promising a 265% improvement in average performance. Each processor can have up to 40 cores, and it supports up to eight channels of DDR4-3200 memory and up to 64 lanes of PCIe Gen 4, per socket.
“Our 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform is the most flexible and performant in our history, designed to handle the diversity of workloads from the cloud to the network to the edge,” said Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Platforms Group at Intel. “Intel is uniquely positioned with the architecture, design and manufacturing to deliver the breadth of intelligent silicon and solutions our customers demand.”
Another thing that Intel is touting is crypto acceleration, which means better performance on cryptographic algorithms. If you"ve got what Intel calls an "encryption-intensive workload", you should feel the effect of this.
The platform also includes Intel Optane persistent memory 200 series, Optane SSD P5800X and SSD D5-P5316 NAND SSDs, along with the Ethernet 800 Series Network Adapters and the latest Intel Agilex FPGAs. There are new N-SKU chips for networking, which are promising 5G breakthroughs with 62% better performance.
Intel says that more than 800 cloud service providers use Xeon Scalable, and this year, all leading cloud service providers will be using services powered by the new third-generation chips.