With the Xeon 6 generation, Intel is refocusing on workstations. The Intel Xeon 600 series has up to 86 cores, 128 PCIe lanes, and 8 DDR5 channels.
Intel announces the launch of new Xeon processors. With the Xeon 600 chips, Intel wants to show that it is once again playing a role in the workstation category: a segment where Intel had been letting go of the reins in recent years. Intel Xeon 600 succeeds the Xeon W generation and is based on the 6700 chips for data centers, based on the Granite Rapids architecture.
It is no coincidence that Intel is now coming up with Xeon processors. The chips are launching at a time when prices for PC components are rising to unprecedented heights. The Xeon processors are suddenly much more interesting to Intel than affordable laptop processors because they contain more AI computing power. Intel is resolutely opting for the AI goldmine.
Focus on performance
The Xeon 600 chips are therefore fully playing the performance card. The available configurations have twelve to 86 P-cores, there are no models with more efficiency-oriented E-cores. Intel is touting benchmarks that show that the new generation delivers up to nine percent higher performance per core and 61 percent multi-thread, without increasing the TDP. This results in, among other things, 17 percent higher performance on AI/ML workloads.
The Intel Xeon 600 is available in eleven variants with the following specifications
| Number | P cores | Max. Clock speed (GHz) | L3 memory (MB) | TDP | DDR5 | PCIe 5.0 |
| 698X | 86 | 4.8 | 336 | 350 | 8 | 128 |
| 696X | 64 | 4.8 | 336 | 350 | 8 | 128 |
| 678X | 48 | 4.9 | 192 | 300 | 8 | 128 |
| 676X | 32 | 4.9 | 144 | 275 | 8 | 128 |
| 674X | 28 | 4.9 | 144 | 270 | 8 | 128 |
| 658X | 24 | 4.9 | 144 | 250 | 8 | 128 |
| 656 | 20 | 4.8 | 72 | 210 | 8 | 128 |
| 654 | 18 | 4.8 | 72 | 200 | 8 | 128 |
| 638 | 16 | 4.8 | 72 | 180 | 4 | 80 |
| 636 | 12 | 4.7 | 48 | 170 | 4 | 80 |
| 634 | 12 | 4.6 | 48 | 150 | 4 | 80 |
The first business workstations with Intel Xeon 600 processors are expected from the spring. Intel also wants to be price competitive with AMD. The price per chip varies from 499 dollars for the entry-level chip to almost 8,000 dollars for the most powerful configuration.
Anyone hoping to get their hands on an affordable workstation or business laptop this year is already out of luck, as the AI hunger of the large technology companies is causing PC component prices to rise sharply. A turnaround does not seem to be in sight immediately.
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