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On paper, saphire rapids is a large step forward. Compute tiles to offer larger core counts (while maintaining a monolithic topology), 512 reorder buffer entrie
by celrod 5y ago
On paper, saphire rapids is a large step forward.
Compute tiles to offer larger core counts (while maintaining a monolithic topology), 512 reorder buffer entries (up from 354), 6 decode (up from 4), 2 more execution units, chips with HBM memory...
AMX might be interesting, too, although I currently stick to `Float32`+ precision, so I don't have use at the moment for <=16-bit FLOPS.
Overall, saphire rapids looks very interesting to me.
Of course, being built on an upgrade of the same node as Ice Lake means heat/energy use aren't getting better, so perf/watt gains will probably mostly have to happen on the perf side of things.
Tiger Lake clocks much higher than Ice Lake, but I'm not sure how their energy use compares at the same clock speeds. Saphire Rapids is another node upgrade on top of Tiger Lake.
- adrian_b 5y agoIce Lake Server is still made on the 2nd variant of the 10-nm Intel process (the 1st being that used in the pathetic Cannon Lake). Because of that, it is much less efficient than Tiger Lake, which is made on the 3rd variant of 10-nm Intel process. Tiger Lake is still less efficient than the CPUs made with the TSMC 7-nm process, like Zen 3. Sapphire Rapids will be made with the 4th variant of the 10-nm Intel process, the same as Alder Lake, now renamed as "Intel 7". So Sapphire Rapids is 2 generations above the current Ice Lake Server and it should be much more efficient. We still have to see how Alder Lake will behave, but there is a chance that "Intel 7" might be more efficient than the now old 7-nm TSMC process. However, when Sapphire Rapids will become available next year, AMD will probably soon launch Zen 4, using the 5-nm TSMC process, so it might become again better than Intel.