There's no doubt about it: Intel (INTC 0.06%) has fallen behind Advanced Micro Devices in the server CPU market, at least technologically. Intel remains the leader in terms of market share, but it's been losing ground for the past few years. AMD had a server CPU market share of less than 1% at the end of 2017, according to Mercury Research as reported by Tom's Hardware. In the third quarter of this year, AMD's share had shot up to 23.3%.
Great server products from AMD were part of the equation, but so were chronic delays from Intel. Intel's Sapphire Rapids server CPUs, its latest family of Xeon server chips, were finally launched in January of this year after a long delay. One selling point of Sapphire Rapids was its built-in AI hardware, which is capable of accelerating some AI inference workloads. However, that feature hasn't stopped Intel from losing market share to AMD.
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Key Data Points
Solid performance gains
Intel will launch Emerald Rapids, the successor to Sapphire Rapids, on Dec. 14. That's the same day the company will officially roll out its Meteor Lake PC chips. Unlike Meteor Lake, which moves to the Intel 4 manufacturing process and introduces a slew of major changes, Emerald Rapids will employ the same Intel 7 process used by Sapphire Rapids with an updated CPU core architecture.
Despite Emerald Rapids being an iterative update, the new chips could bring significant performance gains in certain areas versus Sapphire Rapids. Intel claims that Emerald Rapids can deliver 1.2 times higher web server performance, 1.2 times higher media transcoding performance, and between 1.3 times and 2.4 times AI inference performance. The new chips can be slotted into servers currently running Sapphire Rapids chips, making for an easy and cost-effective upgrade.
One big advantage Emerald Rapids has over Sapphire Rapids is a far greater amount of cache. CPUs contain multiple levels of cache, which is ultra-fast memory that holds copies of data stored in main memory. It's much faster to pull data from the cache compared to pulling it from the main memory, so for certain types of workloads, an increase in cache can greatly improve performance. Emerald Rapids will bump up the amount of L3 cache by a factor of 2.6 over Sapphire Rapids, a change that's likely part of the reason behind the significant performance gains in some workloads.
Intel's comeback begins next year
While these performance improvements are solid, they probably won't be enough to halt AMD's market share gains. AMD's Genoa server chips, launched late last year, feature far more cores than both Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids. On top of impressive performance overall, the core density of AMD's chips allows customers to pack more computing power into a smaller footprint, lowering the total cost of ownership.
Emerald Rapids is unlikely to change the story, but Intel's upcoming Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest families of chips just might. Intel is splitting its server CPU lineup next year, with the former featuring high-powered P-cores, and the latter featuring low-power E cores. While Granite Rapids will be the direct successor to Emerald Rapids, Sierra Forest will be positioned for cloud workloads that benefit from an extreme number of cores.
Both chips are expected to launch in the first half of 2024 using the Intel 3 process. Granite Rapids should deliver big performance and efficiency gains given the more advanced manufacturing process, and Intel is likely to boost the core count. Sierra Forest will go all the way up to 144 cores, although those cores will operate with efficiency in mind. Sierra Forest will go up against AMD's Bergamo chips, which use modified versions of the cores in its mainline server CPUs.
AMD is expected to launch its next-generation server CPUs sometime in 2024, so if Intel does manage to outclass Genoa and Bergamo, it won't take long for AMD to have an answer. However, Intel has already laid out plans to launch the follow-up to Sierra Forest, code-named Clearwater Forest, sometime in 2025 using its upcoming Intel 18A process. The company expects this cutting-edge process to be the most advanced in the industry when it's ready for production, potentially giving Intel a competitive advantage. Nothing is known about the follow-up to Granite Rapids, although it will likely use the Intel 18A process as well.
Emerald Rapids will help Intel hold down the fort, but Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest in 2024 will give the company a real chance at winning back some market share. If Intel can successfully launch its manufacturing processes on time through Intel 18A, it could regain its edge over AMD in the server CPU market in 2025 and beyond.
