At OCP Summit 2023, Intel confirmed a number of the 2024 generations of motherboards for its upcoming Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest platforms. There are large adjustments coming that we now have previewed beforehand, comparable to within the PCH-Much less Intel Granite Rapids motherboard from Computex 2023. Now, Intel is overtly exhibiting the brand new designs.
Intel Reveals Granite Rapids Motherboards at OCP Summit 2023
Years in the past, next-gen {hardware} littered the OCP Summit ground and keynotes. Now, the distributors are usually extra reserved, exhibiting off next-gen {hardware}, however Intel had its associate’s merchandise on show at its sales space to point out off the OCP DC-MHS platform. For these questioning, the thought of DC-MHS is to standardize motherboards and connectivity to make it simpler to drive quantity and high quality whereas nonetheless permitting flexibility.
The enjoyable half about that show is that it was targeted on next-generation components, such because the upcoming Intel Xeon Granite Rapids components.
The primary is a full-width motherboard from QCT. That is the 8-channel DDR5 platform for Granite Rapids. One thing that’s price noting right here is that we now have 2 DIMM per channel or 2DPC right here with sixteen DIMM slots per CPU. There are additionally MCIO connectors on the entrance and the again of the CPUs for entrance connectivity (e.g. for NVMe SSDs) and rear connectivity (e.g. for enlargement playing cards.) There are additionally OCP connectors for NICs and DC-SCM modules.
There was additionally a Wiston model of a Granite Rapids 8-channel platform on the ground.
If this appears to be like acquainted to a few of our readers, that’s as a result of we noticed one thing very comparable 5 months prior at Computex 2023.
One of many large adjustments right here is that not solely do the motherboards not have an onboard BMC due to the transfer to DC-SCM, however additionally they do not need a PCH. As an alternative, there’s an Intel-Altera FPGA onboard. In 2024, we count on the PCH to (lastly) go away Intel’s server platforms.
Intel Reveals Sierra Forest Motherboards at OCP Summit 2023
The opposite major motherboard is the LGA7529 platform for Sierra Forest AP.
That is additionally a QCT DC-MHS platform. One can see the bigger LGA7529 sockets and 12-channel DDR5 reminiscence. In case you noticed our Why 2 DIMMs Per Channel Will Matter Much less in Servers this can instantly make sense. This Sierra Forest Xeon platform is designed for as much as 288 cores per socket for 576 per server, so it wants extra reminiscence bandwidth. Consequently, with 12 channels of DDR5 and bigger sockets, there is no such thing as a room in a 19″ server motherboard for two DIMMs per channel. There are some single-socket AMD EPYC SP5 platforms with 2 DPC, together with the Supermicro AS-2015HS-TNR we reviewed and offset Gigabyte 48 DIMM 2P AMD EPYC Genoa GPU servers, however 12 channel reminiscence means 1DPC for dual-socket servers. If you would like extra reminiscence capability, that’s the place CXL 2.0 Sort-3 units will are available for reminiscence capability and bandwidth enlargement.
As with the Granite Rapids QCT platform, we get the identical PSU, DC-SCM, and OCP NIC 3.0 slots on the again and cabled PCIe connections. One thing barely totally different is that we do not need entrance PCIe connectivity by way of MCIO connections on this motherboard.
Remaining Phrases
We additionally grabbed a couple of different pictures of the upcoming platforms from the present, as Intel had them stashed in a couple of locations. Keep tuned for a bit extra on this one as we undergo a number of the pictures we captured at OCP Summit 2023.
To us, eradicating the PCH is an enormous win because it modernizes the Intel Xeon platform. Of us who need SATA connectivity in 2024 are going to be utilizing SAS4 enlargement for JBODs for giant disk arrays so this is sensible. Additionally, seeing 12-channel reminiscence platforms actually highlights an enormous problem. In case you noticed our Why DDR5 is Completely Crucial in Fashionable Servers piece or Up to date AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Core Counts Over Time items, you should have seen the core rely versus reminiscence bandwidth progress. We totally count on a 288-core Sapphire Rapids AP platform in 2024 to be aggressive in uncooked CPU efficiency with 10+ servers being retired on a 5-year refresh cycle. Which means many applied sciences like reminiscence capability, reminiscence bandwidth, community bandwidth, and PCIe I/O can even want to seek out methods to massively scale.
