Specs Rundown
YuuKi_AnS managed to get their hands on an engineering sample of the Intel Xeon CPU to carry out a bunch of tests. It has a core count of 48-cores and 96-threads. The CPU comes in at a TDP of 270W and is a based on Intel’s 10nm process designed for Intel Socket E (LGA-4677). The clock speeds range from 2.3Ghz – 3.3Ghz with the former being the base and latter being the boost frequencies. As for the cache, we see 90MB of L3 cache with the single-core boost frequency rated at 3.6Ghz. It’s also important to note that this is an ES chip carrying a QSPEC of “QYFQ” and it’s a D0 revision. This SKU is second to only the flagship which sits at 56-cores and 112-threads with a 105MB L3 cache and a TDP of 350W. By default, the Sapphire Rapids CPUs come with DDR5-4800 memory support. For this test, Yuuki_AnS used a dual-socket configuration to create a combined core count of 96-cores and 192-threads, and put it up against Intel’s own Xeon Platinum 8380 (the current flagship) and the AMD EPYC 7773X Milan-X data center CPUs. The Platinum 8380 rocks 40-cores and 80-threads whereas the AMD outing offers 64-cores and 128-threads. The AMD CPU was tested with DDR4-2866 memory whereas the Platinum 8380 was likely running DDR4 at 3200Mhz.
The benchmark scores
All the CPUs were put to the test in AIDA64 and the Sapphire Rapids SKU topped the benchmarks overall with the AMD Milan-X CPU offering the best L2/L3 cache speeds due to its substantial 768MB 3D V-Cache. Despite that, the eight-channel DDR5 memory ended up giving Intel the advantage in this fight. The following picture is actually from the leaker’s latest tweet where they acknowledged that the scores they released previously were “wrong”. Apart from this, the CPUs were also put to test in V-Ray where the Sapphire Rapids chip came in last behind AMD EPYC 7773x and the Platinum 8380. The leaker updated the scores for the V-Ray benchmark as the previous ones were lower than they should’ve been. We’ve attached the tweet with the refreshed, correct scores below. https://twitter.com/yuuki_ans/status/1492457872810070016 Moreover, in Cinebench R15, we see it topple the Platinum 8380 but still lose to the AMD chip in Multi-Core tests where AMD’s core count advantage weighs in heavily. However, when it comes to Single-Core, the Sapphire Rapids CPU beats AMD’s offering and is almost neck-on-neck with the Platinum 8380. YuuKi-AnS later on also added scores for Cinebench R20 and R23 which have been neatly compiled in a single picture. These numbers are overall quite impressive for an engineering sample. By the time it releases, we expect to see some improvements which will heighten the performance even more and allow the chip to better compete with its contemporaries. But also, by the time Sapphire Rapids is out, AMD will also have its EPYC Genoa lineup on the shelves which will help AMD retain their current crown for datacenter supremacy.
