Intel has introduced a new line of Xeon processors designed specifically for network and edge deployments.
The new Intel Xeon D chips are based on the company's next-generation platform, codenamed Sapphire Rapids, and feature built-in AI and crypto acceleration, built-in Ethernet, and several other features that address network workloads. and common perimeter.
Ahead of MWC 2022, Intel told LaComparacion Pro and other media that the new chips offer "breakthrough performance" in use cases such as security devices, enterprise routers and switches, cloud storage, wireless networks, AI inference and servers perimeters.
New Intel Xeon chips
Aimed at enterprises, cloud providers and CSPs, the Intel Xeon D series will consist of two new chips, the D-1700 and D-2700, which Intel says are specifically designed to operate in rugged, space and electrical environments. - restricted environments found on the periphery.
The D-1700 is scalable from four to ten cores and the D-2700 from four to twenty cores, giving customers a wide range of performance that should meet all common use cases. The new chips also feature up to 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes and up to 100GbE Ethernet performance.
In terms of performance improvement over comparable previous generation chips, Intel claims the Xeon D-series offers up to 2,4x improvement for visual processing inference (an increasingly popular peak workload) and up to 1,7x more performance for complex network workloads like 5G UPF. .
"As the industry enters a world where everything is software-defined, Intel offers programmable platforms for networking and edge to enable one of the most significant transformations our industry has ever seen,” said Dan Rodriguez, who leads the Networking group. and Perimeter at Intel.
“The new Intel Xeon D processor is designed for this. Based on Intel's tried and trusted architecture, this processor is designed for a variety of use cases to unleash innovation at the network and edge.
Additionally, in an effort to solidify its dominant position in the vRAN space, Intel also announced architectural enhancements to the Sapphire Rapids core.
The company says its next-generation chips will benefit from improvements to 5G-specific signal processing instructions that deliver capacity gains of up to 2x for vRAN and support advanced capabilities that will allow vRAN to be deployed in the most inhospitable environments. .
We can also look forward to new additions to the Sapphire Rapids family, with built-in acceleration optimized for vRAN workloads, which will supposedly give customers more optimization opportunity.