Intel has just revealed details of their upcoming Xeon Scalable Platform family named it Cascade Lake. This new platform was demoed today at Sapphire Conference where chip giant unveiled their new platform that is scheduled for launch in next year.
Family Demoed – 59% Faster, Utilises Up To 6 TB of Optane DIMMs, Launching in 2018
Intel Cascade Lake Xeon Scalable Platform begins in 2018 with Optane Dual Inline Memory Module Support, and Intel yet has to launch their Skylake-SP Xeon family but they are already talking about next refresh almost year earlier but it sounds typical of Intel talking about future products so soon, but it can also be due to AMD’s EPYC platform. Based on Zeppelin core so first but it can also be caused by AMD’s EPYC platform. Based on Zeppelin core architecture. EPYC data centre processors are aimed to give Intel a tough time also in servers market.
While Intel hasn’t released any public benchmarks of Skylake-SP Xeons, AMD showcased new data on EPYC’s performance against Broadwell-EP (not Skylake-SP) parts. It will be interesting to see the competing platforms pit up against each other in the main workloads. But AMD also revealed a long-term strategic roadmap for servers at their Financial Analyst Day. So after EPYC (Previously known as Naples), AMD plans on releasing Rome with 7nm Zen 2 cores in 2018 and Milan with 7nm+ Zen 3.0 cores in 2019. This further puts Intel in a tough position, and here they are, talking about their latest and greatest future tech which will compete against AMD Rome server chips in 2018. These are codenamed Intel Cascade Lake and will be replacing the current Xeon Scalable Platform family.
While Intel has not yet released public benchmarks of Skylake-SP Xeons, the AMD showcased new data on EPYC performance against Broadwell-EP (not Skylake-SP). You will find it interesting to see the computing platforms pit up against each other in the main workloads. But AMD also revealed a long-term strategic roadmap for servers at their Financial Analyst day.
Upcoming Intel and AMD Server Platform Comparison:
| Intel Xeon E5 Bronze / Silver | Intel Xeon E7 Gold / Platinum | AMD Naples Platform (2P) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family Branding | Skylake-SP | Skylake-SP | AMD EPYC |
| Process Node | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm |
| PCH | Lewisburg PCH | Lewisburg PCH | SOC |
| Socket | Socket P (LGA 3647) | Socket P (LGA 3647) | SP3 LGA socket |
| Max Core Count | Up To 26 | Up To 32 | Up To 32 |
| Max Thread Count | Up To 52 | Up To 64 | Up To 64 |
| Max L3 Cache | 35.75 MB L3 | 38.5 MB L3 | 64 MB L3 |
| DDR4 Memory Support | 6-Channel DDR4 | 6-Channel DDR4 | 8-Channel DDR4 |
| TDP Range | 45-160W | 110-160W | 35-180W |
Intel Cascade Lake-SP is Skylake-SP Refresh Based on 14nm+ Node – Up To 6 TB Optane DIMM Support
Intel Cascade Lake family of processors also to be known as Cascade Lake-SP will be refresh based on Skylake-SP this new chip will keep intact same architecture but based on slightly new 14nm+node that will surely increase power efficiency and clock speed.
“Intel persistent memory will allow users to improve system performance dramatically by putting more data closer to the processor on nonvolatile media, and do it in an affordable manner,”
“This will truly be a game-changer when it comes to the way applications and systems are designed.” via Intel
But the key upgrade to Cascade Lake would be its disruptive memory support. Intel is going to add support for their next-gen 3D XPoint based Optane DIMMs, allowing for the platform to support up to 6x memory capacity. So we are looking at up to 3 TB of memory for 4-socket and 6 TB of capacity for 8-socket platforms.
SAP certifies SAP HANA 2 platform for OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) workloads to support up to 3TB of memory per system for the upcoming Intel® Xeon® processor Scalable family for a 4 socket configuration (or 6 TB for an 8 socket configuration). Representative systems available four years ago (Intel® Xeon E7 Processor) were certified to support up to .5 TB (or up to 1 TB in 8 Socket configuration), respectively. Up to 6x greater system memory supported on SAP HANA software vs. available solutions from 4 years ago (representing Data Center installed based). via Intel
In a performance demonstration with SAP Hana, Intel used a Xeon E7-8890 v4 (Broadwell-EN) processor in quad configuration against a Cascade Lake-SP processor in a quad config. The Cascade Lake-SP platform featured a performance increase of 1.59x over the Broadwell-E based system which is a huge improvement. Intel expects to launch Cascade Lake with Optane DIMMs later in 2018 so we will have to wait a bit more for detailed information on the platform.
