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 - Per-Core Performance under Load
A metric that is actually more interesting than isolated single-thread performance, is actually per-thread performance in a fully loaded system. This actually is a measurement and benchmark figure that would greatly interest enterprises and customers which are running software or workloads that are possibly licensed on a per-core basis, or simply workloads that require a certain level of per-thread service level agreement in terms of performance.
This has been a strong-point of Intel SKUs for some time now, even when the chips wouldn’t be competitive in terms of total throughput. With the new Ice Lake SPs SKUs now more notably increasing total throughput, it’ll be interesting to see the per-thread breakdown and resulting performance:
Because the total throughput generational performance increase is larger than the core count increase of the parts, this means that per-thread and per-core performance is higher with this generation. The Xeon 8380 is posting +16.3% and +10.4% per-thread performance versus the Xeon 8280 when only using one thread per core.
Interestingly, these figures are less at +8.2 and +7.4% when using both SMT threads per core. Intel has explained such an increase through the better usage of shared microarchitectural structure usage in the new Sunny Cove cores, essentially diminishing the SMT yield by improving 1/T per core performance.
Generally, Intel is extremely competitive in this benchmark metric, and while AMD easily beats them with the frequency-optimised parts, it’s an advantage that should help Intel in the SLA-centric workloads.
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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...