Review: Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 Processor 2P (Ice Lake)

by Tarinder Sandhu on 6 April 2021, 16:01

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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Test Methodology

Server Processor Configurations

CPU
AMD Epyc 7713
AMD Epyc 75F3
Intel Xeon Platinum 8380
Intel Xeon Platinum 8280
Codename
Milan
Milan
Ice Lake
Cascade Lake Refresh
CPU Base Clock
2.0GHz
2.95GHz
2.3GHz
2.70GHz
CPU Turbo Clock
3.675GHz
4.0GHz
3.4GHz
4.0GHz
CPU L3 Cache
256MB
256MB
60MB
38.5MB
CPU Cores / Threads
64 / 128
32 / 64
40 / 80
28 / 56
CPU TDP
225W
280W
270W
205W
Test Configuration
2P
2P
2P
2P
Socket
SP3
LGA 4167
LGA 3647
Lithography
7nm
10nm
14nm
Motherboard
AMD Daytona Reference
Intel Coyote Pass Reference
Intel Reference
Memory
Micron 512GB
SK hynix 512GB
Micron 384GB
Memory Config
16x32GB - 2DPC
16x32 2DPC
12x32GB 2DPC
Memory Speed
3,200MHz
3,200MHz
2,933MHz
Disk Drive
Micron 256GB 1100 SATA SSD
6x Micron 9300 3.84GB NVMe
Intel Optane P5800X 800GB
Power Supply
2x 1,200W Redundant Configuration
2,100W
1,200W
Operating System
Ubuntu 20.04.2

Benchmark Suite

STREAM Memory 1.3.1 Used to evaluate bandwidth using optimised compilers for both platforms.
NAMD 1.0.1 NAMD is a parallel molecular dynamics code designed for high-performance simulation of large biomolecular systems.
OpenSSL 1.11.0 The test measures the RSA 4096-bit performance of OpenSSL. 
Linux Kernel Compilation 1.9.1 This test times how long it takes to build the Linux kernel in a default configuration.
Redis 1.10 Redis is an open-source in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache, and message broker.
POV-RAY 1.21 POV-Ray is used to create 3D graphics using ray-tracing.
m-queens 1.10 A solver for the N-queens problem with multi-threading support via the OpenMP library.
JTR Blowfish 1.70 A password-cracking test using brute CPU strength.
C-Ray 1.2.0 A simple raytracer designed to test the floating-point CPU multithreaded performance.

Notes

We have updated Ubuntu to 20.04.2 LTS, featuring Linux 5.8, to better reflect performance on a newer build. With that being the case, we have benchmarked the Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 against its direct predecessor, Xeon Platinum 8280, and also rebenchmarked AMD's third-generation Epyc 7713 (64C128T) and high-frequency 75F3 (32C64T) processors. All were tested in a 2P formation.

It is incredibly difficult to test server processor performance without having access to racks upon racks, to reflect real-world use where networking, memory infrastructure and heavily-tuned software play pivotal parts in defining overall speed and service-level agreement parameters. Customers wanting to purchase a significant volume will likely evaluate these chips in their own environment, on their own software, but we don't have that luxury.

Appreciating we're looking at compute throughput first and foremost, mostly in isolation, we use a subset of the excellent Phoronix Test Suite to measure server performance. It ought to provide a glimpse into how far Intel has come from one generation to the next and also offer insight into comparative performance against AMD's latest.