Upcoming Intel Sierra Forest CPUs for servers will ship with up to 144 active electronic cores per processor. Intel reported this while updating its data center roadmap. Sierra Forest will appear in the first half of next year.

Intel Shared during Datacenter and AI webinar Several updates to its server roadmap, which extends through 2025. Among other things, it confirms core numbers for upcoming Xeon Sierra Forest CPUs. The company announced these chips last year, but then shared some concrete details.

Sierra Forest CPUs consist entirely of efficiency-oriented electronic cores. Intel provides chips with a maximum of 144 electronic cores per processor. They will be the first Xeon server processors with such cores. Intel has been using E-cores in its consumer processors since Alder Lake, albeit with more powerful, traditional P-cores. The electronic cores are more economical and take up less space than the P cores, but they are also less robust and do not support excessive entanglement.

Sierra Forest will appear in the first half of 2024. The company produces chips on Intel 3 nodes, which should be ready for mass production by the end of this year. Intel also says that Clearwater Forest, the second generation of Xeon CPUs with electronic cores, will be released in 2025. These processors are produced on Intel’s 18A process, which is the most advanced node the company has in its technology roadmap. The company does not share any other details about Clearwater Forest.

P-core Xeon CPUs: Emerald Rapids and Granite Rapids

The company also continues to release Xeon processors with P-cores. This year, the company will present Emerald Rapids. These CPUs serve as successors to the recently released Sapphire Rapids CPUs for servers. The company produces these chips again on the Intel 7 process, previously known as Intel 10nm Enhanced Superfin. Intel has begun delivering the first Emerald Rapids samples to select customers. The official release should follow in the fourth quarter.

These CPUs follow Granite Rapids, which also uses P-cores. Granite Rapids is produced on Intel 3 process and has higher core count than Emerald Rapids and Sapphire Rapids CPUs. It is not known exactly how high this number of cores is. The chips also support speeds up to DDR5-8800. These processors should launch shortly after Sierra Forest, in the first half of next year. Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest use the same socket.