As one would expect of a brand new CPU, the Xeon Scalable processor is capable of achieving greater performance gains while also introducing new features to datacentres that are focused on AI-based services. In particular, this processor has comes with built-in AI acceleration in the form of Intel’s Deep Learning Boost and more specifically, bfloat16 (BF16).
The new Xeon Scalable CPU also supports more than 100 optimised topologies on Xeon, up from 44 topologies from the last generation Xeon Scalable CPU. Further, with the new BF16, AI systems are able to induce training and inference of data much faster and more accurately than a system doing INT8 Inference. Or a system running FP32 training and inference as well. Along with its 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable CPU, Intel is also introduced its Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series and 3D NAND D7-P5500 and D7-P5600 SSDs. now, it goes without saying that both the memory and storage devices are not designed for the general consumer, but it’s worth noting just how tremendous the specifications of these items are.
The Optane Persistent Memory 200 series, in particular, is capable of having up to 4.5TB of total memory on a single module alone. Statistically giving system 225 times faster access to data than a mainstream NAND SSD.
At the time of writing, Intel didn’t provide a pricetag with either of its devices, but again, these products were made to accommodate clients that deal with big data, including Microsoft, AWS, GE, and Google Cloud, to name a few.
