Data-Centric Day: Intel announces new Xeon processors with up to 56 cores and focus on data

In a day focused on data development and processing, the Data-Centric Day, Intel announced, in San Francisco, a series of novelties for the world of technology. The company launched its new portfolio focused on data centers, whose flagship is the second generation of processors Xeon Scalable, which has up to 56 processing cores and focus on data.

formerly known as Cascade Lake, in reference to the architecture used in the company's scalable processors, the new Xeon Scalable processors' main objective is to solidify the company's bias in recent years: leading the strategy data centric, a market that today is worth about 300 million dollars. It's no small thing.

Assuming that only 2% of data were analyzed facts and that, within this volume, half of it was created in the last two years, Intel's attitude grew out of urgency.

The company is focused on helping companies create business value from this untapped data by delivering a portfolio of data-centric solutions optimized to move data faster, store and access data efficiently, and process it all.

“Today's announcements reflect Intel's new data-centric strategy. The portfolio underscores our unrivaled ability to move, store and process data in the most demanding data center workloads. The second generation of Xeon Scalable processors with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and support for the revolutionary Intel Optane DC persistent memory will unleash the next wave of growth for our customers and market. ”

Navin Shenoy, Intel Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Data Center Group.

Intel Xeon Scalable: Everything for Everyone Processing

the investment of Intel resulted in a wide range of processors, ranging from general-purpose computing to special-purpose processors, and allows the so-called Intel architecture to power the widest variety of industries.

The data-centric processors that Intel launched today represent the most expansive portfolio of processors Xeon in the company's history, with more than 50 processors.

What makes the second generation of Xeon Scalable so special is its ability to provide a powerful platform that offers evolutionary improvements in performance, support for Artificial Intelligence, network functions, bandwidth and memory security.

Processors have been adopted by customers around the world as the foundation of data-centric processing. Broad ecosystem support and rapid customer adoption are expected to make the Second Generation a choice for high-performance servers.

opt and resources

The main features included in these new processors that are worth mentioning start with what they call Deep Learning Boost, technology optimized to accelerate AI inference workloads such as image recognition, object detection and image segmentation in data center, enterprise and what they understand intelligent edge computing environments.

A Intel worked extensively with ecosystem partners to optimize frameworks and applications that take full advantage of such technology. Customers can choose enhanced tools like the OpenWINE to facilitate deployment.

Another aspect in which these processors stand out is their ability to support the Intel Optane Data Center, which delivers affordable high capacity and persistence to Intel's data-centric computing portfolio.

Intel's new Optane technology is divided into two segments, bridging the gap between DRAM and storage. In the storage product, we are talking about a competitor for 3D NAND, but with a low-capacity, high-performance storage tier that uses NVMe.

In the memory product this is in the form factor DDR4 and offers a slightly slower high-capacity alternative to DRAM. With Intel's new Cascade Lake processors, there's the best of both worlds: there's support for the new DDR4-compatible version of Optane memory.

By moving more data into memory, this innovation allows users to free insights faster of your data and offer up to 36 TB of system-level memory capacity when combined with the DRAM traditional in an eight-socket system.

This represents an increase in 3 times in system memory capacity compared to the processor Intel Xeon Scalable from the previous generation.

Processors

Exceeding everything already released by the company so far and confirming some rumors and many other certainties, there is, among so many possibilities, a star that deserves to be highlighted: the Xeon Scalable Platinum 9282, which delivers 56 nuclei in a single unit. Add to that the processing of 14 nanometers and we have, without a doubt, the best processor in the Intel yet.

Does it look vague? To give you an idea, the closest thing to this in the company are precisely the chips from the Scalable Processor (affectionately nicknamed, check it out, Xeon SP) and which have exactly 28 nuclei e 56 threads. By comparison, it's an impressive feat. The focus? Artificial intelligence. THE Intel takes great strides to take the lead in processing.

It is worth remembering that the chips are also capable of handling a large number of data, and it is not for less, there are 12 channels of DDR4 memory.

The processor portfolio is completed with the models Intel Xeon Scalable Bronze 3200, Silver 4200, Gold 5200, Gold 6200 e platinum 8200, out of the potent Intel Xeon Scalable Platinum 9200. Each of the lines has sub-models, which meet the demands of partners and members of the company's ecosystem.

Post Office: Success Case

Everything would be in vain if such technology did not prove to be effective in practice. This is not the case and we have a Brazilian example to prove that, yes, Xeon Scalable and Optane processors can coexist and, in addition, bring results. The application and experience was made in a place where data is the most important: the Post Office. With a system very close to data-centric, the Brazilian postal service had its communication and information exchange capacity enhanced with the help of Intel.

Data-centric and no-nonsense feats

Being 20% ​​faster than its predecessors, the second generation Xeon has a big advantage when it comes to inconsistencies, since, by choosing to use smaller arrays, there is not a significant increase in transients, something that would happen if they kept a larger core. .

It is no simple task, however. Upgrading a processor portfolio is a multifaceted problem. There are the obvious improvements a company can aim for: more performance, better efficiency, less power.

In addition, there are the not-so-obvious improvements that might be customer-specific: support for new instructions, layered ecosystem optimizations, support for new technology, or a new product direction.

Cascade Lake builds on a foundation from its predecessor Skylake, enhancing secondary features that often take a back seat to a standard product ad.

By improving the periphery of the product and the ecosystem, a new generation is born. There is still no forecast for the arrival or prices of the Second Generation of Intel Xeon Scalable processors on Brazilian soil.

Datasheet of the entire family of Second Generation Xeon Scalable processors

Source: Intel