Intel’s HBM-Supercharged Sapphire Rapids CPUs Up To 32% Faster In Leaked V-Ray Benchmarks, Xeon Platinum 8472C & 8490H Performance Revealed
Update: It seems like the Xeon Platinum 8472C is not an HBM part but could be a custom design with faster clocks. That might explain the higher V-Ray score. Today, YuuKi_AnS has put the Intel Sapphire Rapids HBM parts against the non-HBM parts. The chips that are compared include the Xeon Platinum 8490H which is the 60-core flagship and the Xeon Platinum 8472C which is a 52-core CPU with HBM memory onboard. Both CPUs are ES or Engineering samples and have different specifications as made evident by their core counts. The CPU specs are as below. Intel’s Xeon Platinum 8490H CPU is the flagship Sapphire Rapids SKU with 60 cores, 120 threads, 112.50 MB of L3 cache, 120 MB of L2 cache, and clock speeds tuned at up to 3.5 GHz (single-core) plus a 2.9 GHz (all-core) boost clock. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 350W, a PL2 TDP of 420W & a peak power rating of 764W with a TjMax of up to 96C. The other chip, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8472C, is an HBM SKU with 52 cores, 104 threads, 97.50 MB of L3 cache, 104 MB of L2 cache, and clock speeds rated at 3.8 GHz (single-core) and 3.0 GHz with an all-core boost. The CPU has the same TDP ratings but the TjMax is down to 86C. While Sapphire Rapids supports the latest UPI 2.0 interconnect, the software being an older version is only able to recognize it as UPI 1.0. The HBM chip has 3 UPI links while the non-HBM chip has 4 UPI links though we can’t say for sure if this is the exact figure. There’s no word on the exact HBM2e capacity but the company revealed last year that its HBM chips will feature four 8-Hi stacks so we are looking at 64 GB of memory onboard these chips. Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Platinum 8472C HBM vs 8490H Non-HBM CPU-z Benchmark (Image Credits: YuuKi_AnS): In standard benchmarks such as CPU-z, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8490H and 8472C are mostly identical in performance with the 8490H edging out the HBM chip due to its higher core count although it loses in single-thread due to 8472C’s higher clock speeds. Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Platinum 8472C HBM vs 8490H Non-HBM V-Ray Benchmark (Image Credits: YuuKi_AnS): The real difference comes through the V-Ray benchmark with the 8472C scoring 95014 ksamples while the 8490H scores just 71830 ksamples. That’s an increase of 32% and we can see even higher uplifts once the final-tuned version of the Sapphire Rapids-SP HBM CPUs is out. The performance of the Intel Sapphire Rapids HBM CPUs will mostly depend on the application. Those workloads that can benefit from higher bandwidth and HBM memory will show a benefit whereas non-HBM workloads will see little to no performance increase. The 8472C has the core clock advantage too so it’s going to be a tad bit faster than the other high-end Sapphire Rapids chips even if the core count isn’t as high as 60. IntelIntel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Platinum 8472C HBM vs 8490H Non-HBM HWINFO (Image Credits: YuuKi_AnS):
