On April 16th, Intel officially announced that the next generation of their Xeon processor brand will be updated to "Xeon 6," which includes two branches: Sierra Forest with pure small cores (E-cores) and Granite Rapids with pure large cores (P-cores). These processors will start appearing on the market in the second quarter of this year.
Now, we have a glimpse of the validation motherboard for Sierra Forest, with the platform codenamed "Beechnut City." It features a new LGA4710 socket interface and is a dual-socket motherboard.
The Sierra Forest processor debuts as a single-chip design, featuring up to 144 cores and 144 threads. In the latter half of the year, there will be a dual-chip integrated package design, boasting a maximum of 288 cores and 288 threads. With dual sockets, it can reach a staggering 576 cores and 576 threads!
Memory support extends to 8 channels, with a total of 32 DDR5 RDIMM slots on the board. Each processor is paired with 16 memory modules, with 8 slots distributed on each side of the socket, equating to 2 memory modules per channel.
In terms of memory frequency, initial data indicates that with a single memory module per channel, the maximum frequency is DDR5-6400, but it drops to DDR5-5200 with two memory modules per channel.
Due to the abundance of memory slots, PCIe expansion slots are significantly constrained, unable to provide full-length x16 specifications.
Incidentally, Granite Rapids will feature a new socket, LGA7529.
According to leaks, Sierra Forest will be named Xeon 6 6900E Platinum and 6700E Gold series, while Granite Rapids will be named Xeon 6 6900P Platinum, 6700P Gold, 6500P Silver, and 6300P Bronze series.
