Intel Xeon Platinum 8176 Scalable Processor Review

[Guest]

Intel's new Platinum 8176 Scalable Processor lands in our labs with 28 cores and 56 threads and a plethora of new features.

Intel Xeon Platinum 8176 Scalable Processor Review : Read more

 

[the nerd 389]

Do these CPUs have the same thermal issues as the i9 series?

I know these aren't going to be overclocked, but the additional CPU temps introduce a number of non-trivial engineering challenges that would result in significant reliability issues if not taken into account.

Specifically, as thermal resistance to the heatsink increases, the thermal resistance to the motherboard drops with the larger socket and more pins. This means more heat will be dumped into the motherboard's traces. That could raise the temperatures of surrounding components to a point that reliability is compromised. This is the case with the Core i9 CPUs.

See the comments here for the numbers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3464475/skylake-mess-explored-thermal-paste-runaway-power.html

 

[Snipergod87]

Do these CPUs have the same thermal issues as the i9 series?

I know these aren't going to be overclocked, but the additional CPU temps introduce a number of non-trivial engineering challenges that would result in significant reliability issues if not taken into account.

Specifically, as thermal resistance to the heatsink increases, the thermal resistance to the motherboard drops with the larger socket and more pins. This means more heat will be dumped into the motherboard's traces. That could raise the temperatures of surrounding components to a point that reliability is compromised. This is the case with the Core i9 CPUs.

See the comments here for the numbers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3464475/skylake-mess-explored-thermal-paste-runaway-power.html

Wouldn't be surprised if they did but also wouldn't be surprised in Intel used solder on these. Also it is important to note that server have much more airflow than your standard desktop, enabling better cooling all around, from the CPU to the VRM's. Server boards are designed for cooling as well and not aesthetics and stylish heat sink designs

 

[InvalidError]

the thermal resistance to the motherboard drops with the larger socket and more pins. This means more heat will be dumped into the motherboard's traces.

That heat has to go from the die, through solder balls, the multi-layer CPU carrier substrate, those tiny contact fingers and finally, solder joints on the PCB. The thermal resistance from die to motherboard will still be over an order of magnitude worse than from the die to heatsink, which is less than what the VRM phases are sinking into the motherboard's power and ground planes. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[jowen3400]

Can this run Crysis?

 

[bit_user]

The 28C/56T Platinum 8176 sells for no less than $8719

Actually, the big customers don't pay that much, but still... For that, it had better be made of platinum!

That's $311.39 per core!

The otherwise identical CPU jumps to a whopping $11722, if you want to equip it with up to 1.5 TB of RAM instead of only 768 GB.

Source: http://ark.intel.com/products/120508/Intel-Xeon-Platinum-8176-Processor-38_5M-Cache-2_10-GHz

 

[Kennyy Evony]

jowen3400 21 minutes ago
Can this run Crysis?

Jowen, did you just come up to a Ferrari and ask if it has a hitch for your grandma's trailer?

 

[qefyr_]

W8 on ebay\aliexpress for $100

 

[bit_user]

W8 on ebay\aliexpress for $100

I wouldn't trust a $8k server CPU I got for $100. I guess if they're legit pulls from upgrades, you could afford to go through a few @ that price to find one that works. Maybe they'd be so cheap because somebody already did cherry-pick the good ones.

Still, has anyone had any luck on such heavily-discounted server CPUs? Let's limit to Sandybridge or newer.

 

[JamesSneed]

The 28C/56T Platinum 8176 sells for no less than $8719

Actually, the big customers don't pay that much, but still... For that, it had better be made of platinum!

That's $311.39 per core!

The otherwise identical CPU jumps to a whopping $11722, if you want to equip it with up to 1.5 TB of RAM instead of only 768 GB.

Source: http://ark.intel.com/products/120508/Intel-Xeon-Platinum-8176-Processor-38_5M-Cache-2_10-GHz

That is still dirt cheap for a high end server. An Oracle EE database license is going to be 200K+ on a server like this one. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

 

[bit_user]

An Oracle EE database license is going to be 200K+ on a server like this one. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

A lot of people don't have such high software costs. In many cases, the software is mostly home-grown and open source (or like 100%, if you're Google).

 

[bit_user]

I know these aren't going to be overclocked, but the additional CPU temps introduce a number of non-trivial engineering challenges that would result in significant reliability issues if not taken into account.

Actually, the main reason to solder these is because datacenter operators like to save energy on cooling by running their CPUs rather hot.

I think you guys should de-lid and find out!

 

[bit_user]

it is illegal and you could get in trouble for buying engineering samples when they arrive in your country if you live in USA or some countries in EU .

Wow. Source?

Unless they're stolen (because it's illegal to receive stolen property, regardless of whether you know it is), how on earth can it be illegal to buy any CPU?

I can see how it might be a civil offense to sell them, if they're covered by NDA or some other sort of contract, but that would only pertain to the party breaking contract (i.e. the seller). Regardless, I wouldn't want engineering samples because they usually have significant bugs or limitations.

 

[bit_user]

engineering samples are owned by Intel/AMD and if some one sells them then they are stolen .

So, then why doesn't the owner get in trouble when Intel/AMD/etc. wants it back? Or is the ownership just a legal fiction created to establish grounds for pursuing buyers?

as for engineering samples full of bugs and limitations ? not really they work fine .

I have limited experience with them, but I have to disagree. Surely, some work alright. But that's not categorically true. And whenever benchmarks start to leak out about some new CPU or GPU, you always read caveats that they might be from engineering samples that aren't running at full speed.

 

[none12345]

"as for bugs ? it is VERY RARE to happen in ES these days..."

You ment to say very common. All processors have eratta in them. I think you mean serious bugs, but all of them have bugs.

 

[adamboy64]

This was a great read. It was good to get up to speed on the new Xeon lineup, even though I'm far from understanding all the technical details.
Thank you.

 

[GR1M_ZA]

Would like to see comparison between the new EPYC Server CPU's and these.

 

[hannibal]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11544/intel-skylake-ep-vs-amd-epyc-7000-cpu-battle-of-the-decade

 

[cats_Paw]

MSI Afterburner cant run on this. Too many threads to fit in the screen.

 

[aldaia]

The 28C/56T Platinum 8176 sells for no less than $8719

Actually, the big customers don't pay that much, but still... For that, it had better be made of platinum!

That's $311.39 per core!

The otherwise identical CPU jumps to a whopping $11722, if you want to equip it with up to 1.5 TB of RAM instead of only 768 GB.

Source: http://ark.intel.com/products/120508/Intel-Xeon-Platinum-8176-Processor-38_5M-Cache-2_10-GHz

Adding to that, we recently renovated our supercomputer. We have almost 3500 dual-socket compute nodes. That's nearly 7000 24-core Xeon 8160. Other than 4 less cores per unit, its identical to Xeon 8176. I don't really know how much we paid for each Xeon, not even high management knows that, since we ordered the supercomputer as a whole to the best bidder.

The whole supercomputer is €34 million. €4 million are devoted to the disc system, and €30 million to the compute subsystem + some work on the electrical and cooling systems. The compute system includes the racks, the interconnection network, cabling (more than 50 Km of cabling) and several months installing and testing components. I assume most of the cost is due to the compute nodes.

As a guessing exercise, lets say that €25 million are devoted to the compute nodes, that is €7150 per node, which includes 2 sockets , motherboard, memory, SSD disc, redundant power source and router to connect to other nodes. Guessing again I would say that each Xeon 8160 should be somewhere around €2000-2500. Xeon 8160 is listed at $4702

 

[captaincharisma]

An Oracle EE database license is going to be 200K+ on a server like this one. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

A lot of people don't have such high software costs. In many cases, the software is mostly home-grown and open source (or like 100%, if you're Google).

which is why the majority of businesses are still stuck on windows XP and 7 PC's only able to use internet explorer 6 for a web browser

 

[Trevor_45]

These tests are all fine and good for IT professionals. But I want to see some gaming results! Just for the entertainment value. PLEASE!

Yes, it's a server chip not meant for gaming blah blah blah. Just run the games. k thx.

 

[Rob1C]

Now we wait for 7nm Wars.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Do these CPUs have the same thermal issues as the i9 series?

I know these aren't going to be overclocked, but the additional CPU temps introduce a number of non-trivial engineering challenges that would result in significant reliability issues if not taken into account.

Specifically, as thermal resistance to the heatsink increases, the thermal resistance to the motherboard drops with the larger socket and more pins. This means more heat will be dumped into the motherboard's traces. That could raise the temperatures of surrounding components to a point that reliability is compromised. This is the case with the Core i9 CPUs.

See the comments here for the numbers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3464475/skylake-mess-explored-thermal-paste-runaway-power.html

You mean thermal issues that will never be seen because server CPUs are never OCed? Most server CPUs will not be maxed out 24x7. A single server with this CPU will probably be cut up into at least 6 different server roles using VM.

Either way the i9 seems to be fine at stock speeds. The biggest issues arise when overclocking, which is the same with every CPU.

Temps are also irrelevant as they do not have a proper setup for it. Most servers in datacenters, where these will normally reside, have a hot and cold side. The cold side is normally kept in the 60s so the air coming in is very cold and the hot side is all the expelled air being pushed over the RAM, CPUs and CPUs (HDDs too if you have them in your server instead of a SAN) and gets damn hot. Our server room up in North Dakota lost power about 4 months ago, when it is still very cool outside, and the backup batteries kept the servers running long enough without AC that it hit 165f in the room.

Anything that the consumer side is affected by wont normally affect the server market as they are very different beasts all together.

 

[bit_user]

In many cases, the software is mostly home-grown and open source (or like 100%, if you're Google).

which is why the majority of businesses are still stuck on windows XP and 7 PC's only able to use internet explorer 6 for a web browser

I think the majority of businesses still on Win7 are just too cheap to upgrade or don't want the hassle. At this point, you might be right about the businesses still on XP.

Anyway, that's not what I had in mind. I was talking about homegrown datacenter & cloud apps, as this is a server chip.