Intel Xeon Scalable Debuts: Dual Xeon Platinum 8176 With 112 Threads Tested


Xeon Scalable Processor Demos And Live Video Hands-On

While being briefed on the new Intel Xeon Scalable processor family, we also had the chance to get some hands-on time with systems equipped with the processors and were shown a handful of live demos. The demos consisted of various use-cases designed to illustrate the performance potential and efficiency of the processors and platform.

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Intel 4U (Top) And 2U (Bottom) Xeon Scalable Servers

There were a number of 4U and 2U servers on hand, powered by Xeon Platinum series processors and packed with various amounts of RAM and storage. The servers themselves were non-descript development platforms, but we thought you’d like to take a look at them nonetheless.

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Quad Xeon Platinum Series Processors And Gobs Of Memory

If you haven’t experienced a server of this type first hand, know that they are densely packed, and feature multiple processors, ultra-high speed fans, and accommodations for many drives. The machines pictured here were outfitted with dual or quad Xeon Platinum processors, each with 28 physical cores, for a grand total of 56 cores (112 threads) in a 2P system or 112 cores / 224 threads in a 4P system. They also featured 384GB or 768GB of Hynix DDR4 RAM (6 sticks per CPU) and all solid state storage, connected through Intel Lewisburg-based motherboards.

A system with all of those resources at its disposal will have some serious horsepower, as we'll show you a little later. If you’re a desktop enthusiast and would like like to experience a jaw-dropping moment, here’s a quick look at what a 112-thread, dual Xeon Platinum 8180-based system can do in Cinebench -- and we do mean quick...


Intel Xeon Platinum 8180, 112-Thread 2U Server Slays Cinebench

The performance and benchmark tests being shown in Intel's demos included Linpack, various big-data analytics, and heavy-duty storage workloads. Intel claims the Xeon Scalable Processor family delivers a 1.65x average performance increase (in a 2P configuration), across a broad range of benchmarks and applications versus the previous generation, and roughly 1.5x in a 4P configuration.

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Django Workload (Top), Linpack (Bottom)

In a Django / Python workload, the 2P Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processors-based server outpaced a 2P Xeon E5-2699 v4 based server by 1.43x (requests per second), in a battle of Intel's flagship server processors. Linpack was shown in action as well, in the bottom image.  We were lucky enough to run some tests of our own, which we will outline for you on the next couple of pages.

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