Intel’s Xeon Platinum 8284 CPU: When 300 MHz Cost $5,500
by Anton Shilov on July 18, 2019 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Xeon
- Enterprise CPUs
- Servers
- Xeon Platinum
Besides Xeon processors that are officially mentioned on its website and price list, Intel has tens of ‘off roadmap’ server CPUs only available to select customers that have special requests. Recently journalists from ComputerBase discovered that Intel has Xeon Platinum 8284, the company’s fastest 28-core chip for multi-socket servers. The CPU runs 300 MHz faster than the ‘official’ Xeon Platinum 8280, but costs considerably more.
Intel’s Xeon Platinum 8284 packs 28 cores with Hyper-Threading that run at 3.0-4.0 GHz, feature a 38.5 MB cache, a six-channel memory controller supporting up to 1 TB of DDR4-2933 with ECC, 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes, and other capabilities found in codenamed Cascade Lake CPUs. Since the chip runs at 300 MHz higher base frequency when compared to the Xeon Platinum 8280, it has a 240 W TDP, up from 205 W. Meanwhile, Tcase of the CPU (the maximum allowed temperature on the IHS of the processor) was reduced to 65°C (down from 84°C), so the CPU requires a very sophisticated cooling system that can take away 240 W at the aforementioned temperature.
Being Intel’s fastest 28-core CPU for multi-socket servers, the Xeon Platinum 8284 processor costs $15,460 (recommended customer price for 1k unit order, RCP), whereas the Xeon Platinum 8280 that runs at a 300 MHz lower frequency, costs $10,009 for 1ku.
Intel Second Generation Xeon Scalable Family (Cascade Lake) |
||||||||
Cores | Base Freq |
Turbo Freq |
L3 Cache |
TDP (W) |
Optane | Price (1ku) |
||
Xeon Platinum 8200 | ||||||||
8284 | 28 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 240 | Yes | $15460 | |
8280 | L | 28 | 2.7 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 205 | Yes | $17906 |
8280 | M | 28 | 2.7 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 205 | Yes | $13012 |
8280 | 28 | 2.7 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 205 | Yes | $10009 | |
8276 | L | 28 | 2.2 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 165 | Yes | $16616 |
8276 | M | 28 | 2.2 | 4.0 | 28.50 | 165 | Yes | $11722 |
8276 | 28 | 2.2 | 4.0 | 38.50 | 165 | Yes | $8719 | |
8270 | 26 | 2.7 | 4.0 | 25.75 | 205 | Yes | $7405 | |
8268 | 24 | 2.9 | 3.9 | 35.75 | 205 | Yes | $6302 | |
8260 | L | 24 | 2.4 | 3.9 | 25.75 | 165 | Yes | $12599 |
8260 | M | 24 | 2.4 | 3.9 | 25.75 | 165 | Yes | $7705 |
8260 | 24 | 2.4 | 3.9 | 25.75 | 165 | Yes | $4702 | |
8260 | Y | 24 | 2.4 | 3.9 | 35.75 | 165 | Yes | $5320 |
8256 | 4 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 16.50 | 105 | Yes | $7007 | |
8253 | L | 16 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 35.75 | 165 | Yes | ? |
8253 | M | 16 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 35.75 | 165 | Yes | ? |
8253 | 16 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 35.75 | 165 | Yes | $3115 | |
The Xeon Platinum 8284 is not mentioned in Intel’s pricelist, and not under Cascade Lake on Intel's ARK database, but it is searchable if you know the exact number. This typically means that the CPU is only available to select customers or even a customer. That said, it is possible that apart from higher clocks, this 'semi-custom' off-roadmap processor may come with features that go beyond that and this might explain the huge price difference when compared to the model 8280.
Related Reading
- The Intel Second Generation Xeon Scalable: Cascade Lake, Now with Up To 56-Cores and Optane!
- Intel’s Enterprise Extravaganza 2019: Launching Cascade Lake, Optane DCPMM, Agilex FPGAs, 100G Ethernet, and Xeon D-1600
- Intel Architecture Manual Updates: bfloat16 for Cooper Lake Xeon Scalable Only?
- Intel Xeon Update: Ice Lake and Cooper Lake Sampling, Faster Future Updates
Source: Intel’s ARK (via ComputerBase)
81 Comments
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HStewart - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
Only if some one bash Intel, you miss that part. I am sure some one in the discussion bash it.Or in case of Cray supercomputer bash Aurora.
Korguz - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
only if some one bash intel ?? are you serious ??? you gladly bash amd ANY chance you get, even if no one said anything negative about intel 1st... you will find some way to bash them, then turn around and praise intel.. come on HStewart, enough with the bs. your long winded post above.. is also complete bs. you even go as far as making things up, to make amd look bad, and intel to look good.Qasar - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
HStewart, even if some one didnt bash intel in their comment, but instead suggested AMD as a better alternative, cause of price, performace, power usage, or all 3, you take it as an intel bash, and reply with an amd bash. so you are the one that bashes amd 1st most of the time, not the other way around.AshlayW - Saturday, July 20, 2019 - link
He's financially invested. :)azfacea - Thursday, July 18, 2019 - link
HStewart again LUL. He thinks we don't know who he is LULPeachNCream - Thursday, July 18, 2019 - link
What surprises me is that there's like a dozen people saying, "Hey, you're being cluelessly brand loyal to a fault," and his mind can still find an escape route which doesn't endanger his poorly grounded thinking. A non-obsessed, rational person would have gone through some sort of internal self-assessment a long time ago and concluded that dialing it back a bit at the very least, would be a good idea.arashi - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
You cannot make him admit his bias when his job as a marketing peon with a made up a/iamverysmart backstory depends on that.Qasar - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
i think he kind of admitted he is bias with this line " I prefer Intel because they are the one that actually create the x86 based CPU and was not cloned from it " and he never answered my direct question to him about if AMD released a cpu that was in EVERY way better then what intel has, in performance, power usage, cores, etc, while costing much less, if he would still buy the intel chip.. my guess, is he would still by the intel chip because is blind loyalty to intel wouldnt allow him to buy a non intel chip, even if the intel chip cost 2 or 3x more. " In fact AMD helps Intel moving toward the future " so intel cant move forward WITH OUT AMD's HELP ?? thats ludicrous. intel is QUITE capable of moving forward on its own, but it CHOOSES not to, instead, intel CHOOSES to stagnate the cpu market like it has over the last few years, and milk its customers for as much as they can.bobhumplick - Thursday, July 18, 2019 - link
probalby. in server environments the amd cpu will be much better. but in latency sensitive tasks maybe not. a lot of people running high end autodesk software like maya or 3dsmax would probalby run better on intel cpus. besides the cpu is such a small cost of a server that the price isnt that significant.and support both hardware and software support is an intel selling feature. if a chip goes down intel will send out a courier and replace it. even for your desktop chip. amd are missing some key software tools that intel have. mostly people just use the intel tools though so thats not a huge difference.
the final most important piece of the puzzle is supply. even if everybody in the world wants to go amd they cant. amd just cant make enough chips to replace even half of intels sales. people have to buy intel. they could buy amd out and then move some stuff over to arm and they would still have to buy intel. at least somebody would
web2dot0 - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
AMD will have a 64C Rome SKU that will destroy all Intel SKYs. And it won't be $15k. The clock is ticking ... and tocking ... LOL.