One of AMD's EPYC processors' competitive advantages (except those in AM5 packaging, of course) has always been their set of 128 PCIe lanes, which allow the installation of plenty of accelerators and/or high-end storage devices. But Intel is looking to give AMD's CPUs a fight with its Xeon 6 R1S processor with 136 PCIe lanes, reports ServeTheHome. There is a catch, though: the CPU is designed for single-socket systems only.
Intel's Xeon 6 R1S is a part of Intel's Xeon 6700-series Granite Rapids family, featuring high-performance CPU cores that are targeted at users who need ample PCIe connectivity but do not require the highest core counts found in Xeon 6900-series CPUs. The processor features up to 136 PCIe Gen5 lanes, making it ideal for high-end storage applications. Still, it could also be used for multiple accelerators or special-purpose add-in-board applications. Additionally, it supports up to 64 lanes of CXL 2.0 for applications like accelerators or memory expanders. The processor will have eight-channel DDR5 memory channels supporting DDR5-6400 memory or faster MCRDIMMs. Total memory capacity is unknown.
