Intel is returning to the data center with Xeon 6+, now harnessing the power of Intel 18A. After revealing Xeon 600 chips for workstations earlier in the year, Intel is turning back to the data center with Xeon 6+, an E-core-only design previously known as Clearwater Forest. The flagship Xeon 6990E+ is designed for compute density, packing in 288 Darkmont cores with 576 MB of L3 cache, with support for dual-socket systems, taking the core count up to 576. Intel claims the 6990E+ delivers an average 30% performance per thread improvement compared to AMD’s 192-core Epyc 9965, as well as up to 30% better power efficiency.
We’ve heard a lot about Clearwater Forest leading up to this launch, including a full architectural deep dive from Intel last year. As a refresher, Xeon 6+ is the culmination of Intel’s disaggregated approach to processor design over the past several generations, using a mixture of nodes and packaging techniques to achieve such high core density. On top of the silicon stack are 12 CPU chiplets built on Intel 18A, each packing 24 Darkmont E-cores without Hyper-Threading. They sit on three base tiles that hold the L3 cache and memory, which are built using Intel 3. Sandwiching this stack are two I/O chiplets built on Intel 7. Bringing the chiplets together are 12 EMIB 2.5D tiles, which are silicon bridges built directly into the substrate.
