Intel reveals their 144 Core Sierra Forest processor – Launching in 2024

Intel promises to deliver 144-Core Xeon processors in H1 2024

During the company’s latest Datacenter and AI Investor web event, Intel has confirmed that they plan to release a new Intel 3 (3nm) based family of Xeon processors (Sierra Forest) that will give customers up to 144 cores per processor and up to 288 cores in a two socket system. The catch? These CPUs will only feature E-cores, maximising the core counts that Intel can deliver and the performance per watt characteristics of their designs. 

The future of Xeon is going to be split between various core designs, with Intel offering P-Core only Xeons for users who need maximised per core performance, and E-core only designs for users who require higher core densities and increased performance/watt. If you workload is easily parallelised across a huge number of cores, Intel’s E-Core based processors may be more performant, power efficient, and cost effective, though many applications will perform best on Xeon CPUs with fewer, more performant, P-cores.

In H1 2024, Intel plans to release Sierra Forest, E-Core only Xeon CPUs that will be based on Intel’s Intel 3 (3nm) process technology and feature up to 144 cores per socket. 

Intel has also confirmed that they are working on a successor to Sierra Forest called “Clearwater Forest”, which is due to launch in 2025 and use Intel’s 18A (18 Angstrom) process technology. This should be the first Xeon processor to utilise Intel’s 18A node and at tis time it is unknown how many cores this processor will feature. 

In a sense, Intel’s plans for Xeon mirror AMD’s plans with Zen 4 and Zen 4c, with Zen 4c being an optimised CPU design that features a higher core density than the company’s standard Zen 4 CPU cores. AMD are due to release their Zen 4c based Bergamo EPYC processors this year, offering users 128 CPU cores and 256 threads. 

You can join the discussion on Intel’s E-Core powered Sierra Forest Xeon Processors on the OC3D Forums.