To remain competitive in today’s dynamic markets, businesses need data centers with agile, flexible, and scalable infrastructures that can support a range of workloads and applications with diverse requirements in terms of performance and energy efficiency. In this Intel-sponsored study, Prowess Consulting examines the Intel® Xeon® 6 processor family, a modular x86 architecture that allows IT staff to configure and deploy purpose-built infrastructures that meet specific business requirements around performance and efficiency. The study then shows how the Intel Xeon 6 processor family can be used to modernize data center infrastructures and resolve many challenges associated with today’s computing environments.
The processor family supports two types of core microarchitectures: Intel Xeon 6 processors with Performance-cores (P-cores) and Intel Xeon 6 processors with Efficient-cores (E-cores). Both core types share a common software stack and highspeed input/output (I/O) and memory interfaces, enabling seamless integration and flexibility for a wide variety of use cases. Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores are optimized for high-performance deployments, while Intel Xeon 6 processors with E-cores are designed for high-efficiency and scale-out deployments. Demanding workloads such as AI, high-performance computing (HPC), relational databases, and analytics can benefit from the advanced matrix and compute engines and large cache provided with P-cores. Scale-out workloads such as microservices, application DevOps, and cloud-native apps can benefit from the energy efficiency and performance-per-watt capabilities of E-cores. This paper explores use cases for both types of processors to help organizations determine which solution might best suit their needs.