Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake SP) Review: Generationally Big, Competitively Small
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 6, 2021 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Servers
- CPUs
- Intel
- Xeon
- Enterprise
- Xeon Scalable
- Ice Lake-SP
SPEC - Single-Threaded Performance
Single-thread performance of server CPUs usually isn’t the most important metric for most scale-out workloads, but there are use-cases such as EDA tools which are pretty much single-thread performance bound.
Power envelopes here usually don’t matter, and what is actually the performance factor that comes at play here is simply the boost clocks of the CPUs as well as the IPC improvement, and memory latency of the cores.
The one hiccup for the Xeon 8380 this generation is the fact that although there’s plenty of IPC gains to be had compared to previous microarchitectures, the new SKU is only boosting up to 3.4GHz, whereas the 8280 was able to boost up to 4GHz, which is a 15% deficit.
Even with the clock frequency disadvantage, thanks to the IPC gains, much improved memory bandwidth, as well as the much larger L3 cache, the new Ice Lake part to most of the time beat the Cascade Lake part, with only a couple of compute-bound core workloads where it falls behind.
The floating-point figures are more favourable to the ICX architecture due to the stronger memory performance.
Overall, the new Xeon 8380 at least manages to post slight single-threaded performance increases this generation, with larger gains in memory-bound workloads. The 8380 is essentially on par with AMD’s 7763, and loses out to the higher frequency optimised parts.
Intel has a few SKUs which offers slightly higher ST boost clocks of up to 3.7GHz – 300Mhz / 8.8% higher than the 8380, however that part is only 8-core and features only 18MB of cache. Other SKUS offer 3.5-3.6GHz boosts, but again less cache. So while the ST figures here could improve a bit on those parts, it’s unlikely to be significant.
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Shorty_ - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
did you read the article before commenting?I'm inclined to believe him-- I think yields are still an issue (which is why they have so many dark cores) and that getting enough chips to meet demand on the 40 core parts will be tough.
Hifihedgehog - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
LOL Gondalf. Who pays $1000 for your thoughts?DannyH246 - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
Another Intel marketing presentation from www.IntelTech.comLet me summarize - slower, hotter, pricier than the AMD equivalent. Zero reason to buy.
SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
"As impressive as the new Xeon 8380 is from a generational and technical stand-point, what really matters at the end of the day is how it fares up to the competition. I’ll be blunt here; nobody really expected the new ICL-SP parts to beat AMD or the new Arm competition – and it didn’t."How is that "Intel marketing"?
ParalLOL - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
In this case you did not even need to read the article to know what the tone would be. I guess Danny did not manage to read the title either.fallaha56 - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
how? the chip isn't worth touching with bargepolethat's if the 38-40 core parts are actually available
which they won't be
and what sysadmin is going to go demand this when Milan is a drop in replacement and Intel next-gen is an entirely new platform
Azix - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
Are you assuming they won't be because semiaccurate said so? They have 100% track record? Didn't he also say Rocket Lake S wouldn't clock high at all?yeeeeman - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
this ain't intel marketing presentation. This is a laid back, relaxed, non-biased and professional review. Not everyone hates Intel with their whole heart and not every reviewer hunts for clicks, so as to say that the new Intel server chip are shit. In the grand scheme of things, sure, they are not competitive, BUT Intel still has a few advantages over AMD that for some customers it might matter more than absolute performance.In the server space, price, dependability, upgradeability, quality and support is the name of the game. AMD, as we know even from consumer products isn't that amazing when it comes to drivers, BIOS quality and fixing bugs, whereas Intel is much more reliable in this regard. Sure, sure, you might say I am a fanboy, but first check what I say and then call me that if you want. Nevertheless, Intel needs Sapphire Rapids badly because even with all their advantages, they will keep losing marketshare.
fallaha56 - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
absolute nonsense from a fanboi yesIntel is currently slower, buggier and overpriced with horrific security issues meaning you can have: slow and insecure or even slower and barely secure
and who ever thought servers would regularly need watercooling
also what on Earth are you talking about upgrades? this entire platform is getting chucked shortly while AMD has offered multiple generations on the same platform for years with an upgrade bringing DDR5 and PCIe 5
fallaha56 - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
wonderfully summed up here:https://semiaccurate.com/2021/04/06/intels-ice-lak...