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Intel "Sapphire Rapids" Brings PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 to the Data-Center

btarunr

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As if the mother of all ironies, prior to its effective death-sentence dealt by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Huawei's server business developed an ambitious product roadmap for its Fusion Server family, aligning with Intel's enterprise processor roadmap. It describes in great detail the key features of these processors, such as core-counts, platform, and I/O. The "Sapphire Rapids" processor will introduce the biggest I/O advancements in close to a decade, when it releases sometime in 2021.

With an unannounced CPU core-count, the "Sapphire Rapids-SP" processor will introduce DDR5 memory support to the data-center, which aims to double bandwidth and memory capacity over the DDR4 generation. The processor features an 8-channel (512-bit wide) DDR5 memory interface. The second major I/O introduction is PCI-Express gen 5.0, which not only doubles bandwidth over gen 4.0 to 32 Gbps per lane, but also comes with a constellation of data-center-relevant features that Intel is pushing out in advance as part of the CXL Interconnect. CXL and PCIe gen 5 are practically identical.



The 2P machine platform for "Sapphire Rapids" is codenamed "Eagle Stream," and will form the bedrock for even the processor's 2022 successor, codenamed "Granite Rapids." This processor could introduce incremental improvements to performance, clock-speeds, and instruction-sets. "Sapphire Rapids" and "Granite Rapids" are timed to coincide with Intel's rollout of the 7 nm and 7 nm+ silicon fabrication nodes, respectively. The roadmap doesn't show 4P/8P implementations of these processors, so it may not be far-fetched to imagine a very high core count leveraging the new manufacturing nodes.

2020 will see Intel execute "Cooper Lake" across both its 2P and 4P/8P platforms, "Whitley" and "Cedar Island," respectively. It introduces CXL Interconnect in addition to PCIe gen 3.0, which overcomes many scalar limitations of PCIe in the data-center environment. CXL is expected to merge into the PCIe gen 5 specification in 2021. Intel will also release its first "Ice Lake-S" 2P-capable processor for the "Whitley" platform, which comes with 8-channel DDR4 and PCI-Express gen 4.0. Ice Lake-S is the only Intel enterprise chip to feature PCIe gen 4.0, highlighting its stopgap nature in the march toward gen 5. AMD's 2nd generation EPYC chips are also expected to feature PCIe gen 4.0.

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Aga, Huawei logo does encourage.

Partner conference lol
 

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I would never trust intel roadmap ever again, anything they are saying right now, might never happen.
Same here. Intel needs to fist execute on their roadmaps instead of confusing us with gazillion different codenames hoping we are too dumb to notice if anything slips.

I would like to see this mythical server CPU with 10nm+ and double digit IPC gains this time next year. Will it be another low clocked dry run like Cannon Lake to appease investors: hey we have 10nm+ on the market. But just 26 cores. Jesus that's low for server. AMD might go beyond 64 cores with Zen3 next year and even beyond that with 4-way SMT per core enabling 64c/256t monsters. And what will this Intel's server CPU even cost? One kidney? Questions, questions...
 

aQi

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Thats what i discussed few days ago that amd is coming out with PCIe 4.0 and Intel will definitely leap ahead by PCIe 5.0 and even further more.
PCIe 4.0 will not be short lived yet shortly loved as both these interfaces may co exist just like PCIe 2.0 is still alive and kicking. What im more concerned is an 8 channeled ddr5 memory (huge bandwidth)
This definitely wont effect the market unless you are an enthusiast and want to stay on top.
 
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Same here. Intel needs to fist execute on their roadmaps instead of confusing us with gazillion different codenames hoping we are too dumb to notice if anything slips.

I would like to see this mythical server CPU with 10nm+ and double digit IPC gains this time next year. Will it be another low clocked dry run like Cannon Lake to appease investors: hey we have 10nm+ on the market. But just 26 cores. Jesus that's low for server. AMD might go beyond 64 cores with Zen3 next year and even beyond that with 4-way SMT per core enabling 64c/256t monsters. And what will this Intel's server CPU even cost? One kidney? Questions, questions...

It's funny they are releasing all this amazing info just a few days away of ryzen 3000 series announcement. Intel left us in the dark for many years and now they are ready to make more promises and it just seems to be right now, how obvious it was and it was not only this news, flooding intel news every day. That tells us something, trolls will say this is just a mere coincidence, how clueless can they be, they are blind to the truth or just liers in their own way.
 
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PCIe 4.0 is short lived RIP

I don't know, according to roadmaps:
YES
According to requirements: no

I expect gpu's to adapt it quick but nvme's hardly use Gen 3.0, they will offer gen 4.0 and motherboards will have 5.0 capability for 1 nvme and gpu slot rest being gen 4.0.

SB will have PCI-E Gen 5.0, spit out gen 4.0

That is my expectations.
 
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I don't know, according to roadmaps:
YES
According to requirements: no

I expect gpu's to adapt it quick but nvme's hardly use Gen 3.0, they will offer gen 4.0 and motherboards will have 5.0 capability for 1 nvme and gpu slot rest being gen 4.0.

SB will have PCI-E Gen 5.0, spit out gen 4.0

That is my expectations.

Don't expect PCI-E Gen 5.0 anytime soon in consumer PCs. 5.0 - it was mostly prepared for servers and using them in normal PCs is pointless.
 

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I don't know, according to roadmaps:
YES
According to requirements: no

I expect gpu's to adapt it quick but nvme's hardly use Gen 3.0, they will offer gen 4.0 and motherboards will have 5.0 capability for 1 nvme and gpu slot rest being gen 4.0.

SB will have PCI-E Gen 5.0, spit out gen 4.0

That is my expectations.

Well, PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives will launch at Computex.
Here's an early preview back at CES. Expect the numbers to have improved since then.
 
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Remember when AMD focused on features to help performance instead of performance? It was when AMD also had real men cores.

Intel is dumping every good sounding gossip and hot talk trying to remain relevant or seem strong, and stay in the spotlight.
 
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PCI-Express 5? Sounds like it'll require a water chiller. :cool:
 
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I would like to see this mythical server CPU with 10nm+ and double digit IPC gains this time next year. Will it be another low clocked dry run like Cannon Lake to appease investors: hey we have 10nm+ on the market.
We haven't seen anything produced on 10nm+ yet, the delays of 10nm+ is what caused Ice Lake-SP to be postponed to next year. Anything launching this year will be on 10nm, not 10nm+.

I see several mention a double digit IPC gains, but I don't know where this comes from. Sunny Cove is certainly a large overhaul of the core, but I wouldn't dare to estimate IPC gains without benchmarks and details of the front-end.

But just 26 cores. Jesus that's low for server. AMD might go beyond 64 cores with Zen3 next year and even beyond that with 4-way SMT per core enabling 64c/256t monsters.
If this is accurate, then they dropped the bigger Ice-Lake-SP core configurations.
They still will have Cooper Lake-SP with 48 cores, and a massive performance advantage when it comes to AVX etc. Server CPUs are more than just "cores" or "threads", and it all comes down to the workload. Intel don't have much to worry about here for now.

It's funny they are releasing all this amazing info just a few days away of ryzen 3000 series announcement. Intel left us in the dark for many years and now they are ready to make more promises and it just seems to be right now, how obvious it was and it was not only this news, flooding intel news every day.
Most of this content was known already, and some of it has been repeated several times from Intel since last summer. You would know this if you followed all tech news, the world doesn't revolve around AMD ;)
 
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Thats what i discussed few days ago that amd is coming out with PCIe 4.0 and Intel will definitely leap ahead by PCIe 5.0 and even further more.
PCIe 4.0 will not be short lived yet shortly loved as both these interfaces may co exist just like PCIe 2.0 is still alive and kicking. What im more concerned is an 8 channeled ddr5 memory (huge bandwidth)
This definitely wont effect the market unless you are an enthusiast and want to stay on top.

PCIe 4.0 is intended as a short generation. See here.

AMD will be moving to PCIe 5.0 around the same time as Intel. Biggest driver is data center customers--mostly NICs and NVMe drives. I already saturate dual 100Gb NICs in our lab at work and would likely saturate dual 200Gb NICs too. PCIe 5.0 will bring 400 Gb NICs without any weird PCIe 32x business.
 
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AMD will be moving to PCIe 5.0 around the same time as Intel. Biggest driver is data center customers--mostly NICs and NVMe drives. I already saturate dual 100Gb NICs in our lab at work and would likely saturate dual 200Gb NICs too. PCIe 5.0 will bring 400 Gb NICs without any weird PCIe 32x business.

What is the current and what is the desired configuration for NICs and NVMe drives? At least for you and/or your business?
 
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Intel's average slide is what 2yrs at this point? Keller joined April 2018, this would be shy of the 3yr mark for products with his influence.
Depends how big of a splash he has made... I don't trust Intel to make this roadmap on time, but good things from them are coming.
At-least by 2022 :p
 
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This is a ranty pamphlet of mine, (blushing already) and it goes like this : " I for one Intel(ie: registered trademark) will one up the competition if any( competition) by one leg upp'ing sayd "competition" by just skipping an "eletcro communication protocol stepping altogether" that has not yet made to be available for the masses (consumers / private / select few for testing / "those" private entyties willing to test |) , Classic Intel is classy, I for one could'of, might'of, did the same yet who is to say that Infyni fabric is not a good cluster hub?, wouldn't of done it any other wise ( chiplets), computational wise.
Plenty of dances to be danced transistor wise, integrated MC, off chip MC.... either way latency dropped, so enough of my rant as I summoned way to much enginerding , even for me , drunk as I am posting this post.

"The Drunken Citizen for this eveni9ning"
 

aQi

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PCIe 4.0 is intended as a short generation. See here.

AMD will be moving to PCIe 5.0 around the same time as Intel. Biggest driver is data center customers--mostly NICs and NVMe drives. I already saturate dual 100Gb NICs in our lab at work and would likely saturate dual 200Gb NICs too. PCIe 5.0 will bring 400 Gb NICs without any weird PCIe 32x business.

Now why would you need such 200gb NICs ?? Thats sounds kind of overkill
 
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PCIe 4.0 is intended as a short generation. See here.

AMD will be moving to PCIe 5.0 around the same time as Intel. Biggest driver is data center customers--mostly NICs and NVMe drives. I already saturate dual 100Gb NICs in our lab at work and would likely saturate dual 200Gb NICs too. PCIe 5.0 will bring 400 Gb NICs without any weird PCIe 32x business.
That may be but the only things i see saturating 4.0 in near term are NVMe drives in RAID. Doubtful that we will see a single drive push over 7GB/s any time soon. Graphics cards do not even utilize 3.0 x16 link properly yet and the rest take much fewer lanes than that. So while 5.0 may be nice to achieve the same speed with fewer lanes (assuming the device supports it).

4.0 will live quite a while because of bunch of X570 boards and backcompat 300/400 series boards.
 
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Eagle Stream? Did this idea come from Angry Birds where Mighty Eagle takes a piss into the "Sky Lake"?
 
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That may be but the only things i see saturating 4.0 in near term are NVMe drives in RAID. Doubtful that we will see a single drive push over 7GB/s any time soon. Graphics cards do not even utilize 3.0 x16 link properly yet and the rest take much fewer lanes than that. So while 5.0 may be nice to achieve the same speed with fewer lanes (assuming the device supports it).

4.0 will live quite a while because of bunch of X570 boards and backcompat 300/400 series boards.

4.0 may live for a while in the consumer space, but 5.0 will be the majority in the enterprise space within a couple years of launch. Part of 5.0 is the CCIX/Gen-Z/CXL ecosystem for high-speed cache-coherent interconnects between devices. As we get faster GPGPU/ASIC/FPGA option for machine learning the higher interconnect speed will be crucial.

I do application performance testing for one of the SSD manufacturers and specifically test AI applications. PCIe 3.0 is already stressed heavily (one of the main reason NVLink exists). PCIe 4 is a nice uplift but the cool things start happening with 5.0
 
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