Intel Xeon 6780E And AMD EPYC Bergamo 1
This week we got some significant updates for the server roadmaps of Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, alongside Ampere’s recent AmpereOne update. At the same time, there appears to be massive confusion about the difference between an announced spec, a product launch, and product availability. Even with all of that, we know that in 12 months, a 32-40 core server chip is going to feel small, and no longer mid-range.
Server Core Counts Going Supernova by Q1 2025
Let us take a quick summary of the announcements:
Intel:
P-core: Emerald Rapids Up to 64 Cores Today
P-core: Granite Rapids-AP Up to 128 Cores Q3 2024 (Intel Innovation 2024?)
P-core: Granite Rapids-SP Up to 86 Cores Q1 2025
E-core: Sierra Forest-SP Up to 144 Cores Today
E-core: Sierra Forest-AP Up to 288 Cores Q4 2024/ Q1 2025
AMD:
P-core Genoa/ Genoa-X Up to 96 Cores Today
Pc-core: Bergamo 128 cores today
Pc-core: Siena 64 cores today, single socket
P-core Turin 128 cores announced for Q4 (SC24?)
Pc-core Turin Dense 192 cores announced (also Q4?)
NVIDIA:
P-core Grace in 2024 with 72 Arm cores/ 144 with dual chip Grace Superchip Module. For our charts we are going to use 144 cores, but that is 72x 2 in a module. It might be more accurate to call it 72 cores.
P-core Vera in 2026. NVIDIA did not give a core count or architecture details, but I would be betting on more than 72 cores per CPU and an Arm architecture.
Ampere:
128 Core Ampere Altra Max 2021
192 Core AmpereOne 2024 – We saw a chip in 2023, but neither STH nor Phoronix have the parts so we are going to call these 2024 parts under the assumption they will be made available publicly this year
256 Core 12-channel DDR5 AmpereOne 2025
One can argue that the Grace Superchip is a 144-core CPU split across two modules on a single package. If you do that, four public vendors in the market have now reached 128 cores/ socket or more with parts that are public. At this point, we have seen enough Grace Superchip that we will call those public and AmpereOne we first saw a year ago in person.
So here is what the announcement pace looks like from 2010-2025 by when we make the assumption that Turin Dense will be announced in the November timeframe, AmpereOne will be 256 cores in 2025. Note, NVIDIA and AMD have not announced parts for 2025 yet.
Dual Socket Server CPU Core Count By Vendor And Type 2010 2025 Announced By Q2 2024
Over the past week, a lot of folks have been confusing AMD EPYC Turin’s announced specs with the shipping parts. AMD’s release cycle tends to be longer between product launch and chip availability than Intel, but nowhere near a FPGA vendor’s lag for example. Genoa, as an example was released in November 2022, but it really started shipping in decent volumes in 2023.
What is really interesting here is that the P-core crown will likely pass from AMD to Intel in Q3 2024. Our best guess is September for Intel Innovation, but the materials just say Q3. Granite Rapids-AP will have new technologies beyond just the P-cores, but it will be 128 new cores when AMD EPYC Genoa only has 96. Given features like MCR DIMM support, higher TDP, and more acceleration, we would expect that it is in a different performance class than AMD EPYC Bergamo at 128 cores.
Here is what happens when we fill in the timeline with the max available dual socket core count by year.
Dual Socket Server CPU MAX Core Count By Vendor And Type 2010 2025 Announced By Q2 2024
In Q4 2024, our best guess is November, given Supercomputing 2024, AMD will have its 128-core P-core Turin part out, and we expect at least more detail on Turin Dense at 192 cores. We do not expect Turin Dense to be out before Q4 2024. Also, as we saw with the AMD EPYC Genoa launch that happened just before SC22, and then with Bergamo last summer, there tends to be a gap between AMD’s launch and availability. Again, we need to say it is generally a much shorter window than on AMD’s embedded side.
For quite some time, we had heard that Intel was going to release chips in Q4 2024, but now we have a Q1 2025 date on the Computex slide. If AMD launches Turin Dense in November 2024, there is a decent chance Intel will launch Sierra Forest-AP at 288 cores in the same quarter. If that happens, both parts may ship in ramped volumes in 2025 instead of 2024. Often, executives at chip companies have bonus structures based on key metrics like launching certain chips by the end of the year. A well-known practice is “Launching” in late November or December, even if volume shipments start the following year.
Dual Socket Server CPU MAX Core Count By Vendor And Type 2010 2025 Announced By Q2 2024 With AMD And Intel P Core Trendlines
When we say it is getting exciting, let us take a moment to look at the historical trendlines. When we say there is big acceleration in core counts, even just looking at P-cores Intel, we would have expected it to be around 80 in 2024, but it will be at 128 next quarter. AMD’s P-cores seem like they are on the trendline. Where it gets interesting is what we are calling the AMD Pc cores (Zen 4c, Zen 5c). The core counts go way above the AMD trendline. Likewise, Intel goes crazy with the E-core counts that are nowhere near its P-core timeline.
Final Words
Given all of this, sometime around Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, we are going to have AMD with 128 and 192 core systems. Intel with 86, 128, 144, and 288 max core count lines. Ampere has 192 to 256 maximum cores, and NVIDIA has 72 cores (in a 144 Grace Superchip module.)
As that happens, systems with 24, 32, or even 64 cores are going to have half or less of the core counts of modern server architectures. As we move to new architectures, we expect core counts to increase further.
Get ready for core counts to go supernova over the next year or two.