Intel displays 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable CPUs; Cisco unveils CPU servers
Intel on Tuesday launched its most advanced, highest performance data center platform and showcased the new 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processors. Networking hardware company Cisco, Intel’s technology partner of more than 12 years, was quick to announce new server solutions supported by the new Intel processors.
The new data center platform by Intel is optimized to power the industry’s broadest variety of tasks, such as those on cloud, network and intelligent edge. The new 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, which Intel calls “the foundation” of the new data center platform, come with a flexible architecture that has built-in artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration with Intel’s DL Boost technology, becoming the only data center processors with integrated AI acceleration. Other new and improved platform capabilities of these processors include Intel SGX for built-in security and Intel Crypto Acceleration for protection of customer data without impacting user response times or overall system performance.
In addition to the new 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processors, Intel’s latest data center platform includes the semiconductor company’s Optane persistent memory 200 series, the latest Agilex FPGAs, the Optane Solid State Drive (SSD) P5800X, the Ethernet 800 Series Network Adapters and the D5-P5316 NAND SSDs.
Compared with the prior generation, the new Intel processors offer an average 46% improvement on popular data center workloads. The latest hardware and software optimizations of these processors provide 74% faster AI performance compared with the previous generation and deliver up to 1.5 times higher performance on a wide range of 20 popular AI workloads against AMD EPYC 7763 and up to 1.3 times against Nvidia A100 GPU.
Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Platforms Group at Intel, said in a press release, “Our 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform is the most flexible and performant in our history, designed to handle the diversity of workloads from the cloud to the network to the edge.”
The 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors-supported new server solutions that Cisco announced also today are the Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®) B200 M6, C220 M6 and C240 M6.
The new Cisco servers “feature native integration with the Cisco Intersight hybrid cloud operations platform, enabling simpler management at global scale,” said a press release by Cisco. “The Cisco Intersight platform makes it easy for customers to deploy and take advantage of the latest features on 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors like Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX), Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME), Intel Speed Select Technology (SST), and the latest version of Intel Optane™ persistent memory modules (PMem).”
DD Dasgupta, vice president of Product Management for Cisco Cloud and Compute business unit, said about the partnership between Cisco and Intel, “For over twelve years, Cisco and Intel have been committed to pushing the boundaries in the server market, together delivering many industry-leading innovations. Today’s announcement continues this tradition, and it could not come at a more crucial time. As customers’ hybrid cloud journeys accelerate, the need for simple yet powerful solutions increases. Cisco and Intel are proud to deliver solutions that not only meet the demands of today’s workloads but provide the foundations necessary to embrace new and emerging technologies.”
The new Cisco servers are expected to be generally available within three months.
