Intel strikes back in x86 server CPUs

Time: 2018-02-06    Copyfrom:

Skylake server processors sport an average 65% performance boost over its prior Broadwell chips, according to Intel, while top-end versions of the new Xeon Scalable family nudge ahead of rival AMD’s recently released Epyc CPUs in performance but don’t pack as much I/O.

The results suggest that Intel will have no problem maintaining its dominance in the lucrative data centre. Nevertheless, AMD’s Epyc and a rising tide of ARM-based server chips from Qualcomm and others are expected to find significant footholds in the broad and diverse cloud computing sector.

Platinum 8180 and 8160 versions of Skylake edged AMD’s Epyc 7601 by 2% to 28% in performance and by 12% to 22% in performance/watt on the Specint_rate2006 benchmark. The results could be skewed by Intel’s tendency to use optimised compilers for its benchmarks compared to standard ones that AMD uses.

The high-end 8100 series packs 28 cores running at up to 3.6GHz with up to 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes and six channels of DDR4-2666 memory. By contrast, AMD’s high-end Epyc packs up to 32 cores and all nine of its family support 128 PCI Express 3.0 lanes and eight DDR4-2666 channels.

Intel showed tests with two dozen companies, each with different workloads. Results ranged from Skylake beating Broadwell chips by 1.4x for Ansys manufacturing software to 2.2x for apps using Skylake along with Intel’s proprietary Optane solid-state memory drives.

The results are “impressive … the increase over Broadwell is much better than they have had in typical generations, especially when you consider [that] these are both 14nm parts,” said Nathan Brookwood, principal of market watcher Insight64.