Intel Announces Xeon 6500P + Xeon 6700P Processors

After launching the Intel Xeon 6900P “Granite Rapids” processors last September, today Intel is expanding the family with the launch of the Xeon 6500P and Xeon 6700P server processors.

The new Intel Xeon 6500P and Xeon 6700P processors are available in up to 86 cores per socket. Unlike the Xeon 6900P series, the new Xeon 6 processors that are of the “scalable” SKUs can scale out to four and eight socket platforms. Besides the lower core counts compared to the Intel Xeon 6980P topping out at 128 cores to the 86 cores with the new models, the new processors only support eight channel DDR5 memory compared to twelve channels with the Xeon 6900P series. MRDIMM memory continues to be supported on these new Xeon processors.

The new Xeon 6500P/6700P processors also only support up to 88 lanes of PCI Express 5.0 compared to 96 lanes with the Xeon 6900P series. There is also only four UPI 2.0 links compared to six UPI 2.0 links with the Xeon 6900P series. These new Granite Rapids processors share the same AVX-512, AMX, and other ISA capabilities of the Xeon 6900P series.

Intel talks up nice performance capabilities for the Xeon 6500P/6700P processors. AI remains a big focus for their performance comparisons and there Xeon 6 can stand out great for AI software able to Intel’s Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX). Unfortunately, Intel has not provided any review samples of these new processors for being able to deliver any independent benchmarks for launch date… I have reached out about review samples but to no answer yet and talking with other reviewers they haven’t heard anything either about independent reviews/testing of these new Granite Rapids processors. A real shame to be able to put them side-by-side up against the 5th Gen AMD EPYC competition.

Without any Xeon 6500P/6700P hardware for review and testing, not much to add here right now due to the Phoronix focus on the performance benchmarking and Linux support/compatibility. The Linux support should be in good shape but would be interesting to put these new processors through more benchmarks than what Intel is just publishing today for mostly talking up its AI capabilities and power efficiency.

The flagship model being announced today is the Xeon 6787P that is 86 cores with a 3.8GHz turbo frequency, 350 Watt TDP, and $10,400 list price. Or part of their mainline/scalable stack is the Xeon 6788P with 86 cores, 3.8GHz turbo, 350 Watt TDP, and up to eight socket scalability but will cost $19,000 USD. At the bottom-end of the newly-announced wares is an eight-core Xeon 6507P for $765 USD. At the bottom end are the 12-core Xeon 6505P for $563 USD and the 8-core Xeon 6507P for $765 USD.

For some perspective on pricing, at the common 64 core size, the Intel Xeon 6767P provides 64 cores with a 2.4GHz base frequency and 3.9GHz max turbo frequency for $9595 USD at list price… Meanwhile the 64-core AMD EPYC 9575F for some perspective can be found for around $7.6k USD right now for 64 cores with 3.3GHz base clock, 5GHz maximum boost clock, and 12 channel memory. The EPYC 9655 can also be found at less than $8k for 96 cores compared to the Xeon 6787P at $10.4k for 86 cores.

Intel also used the briefings for announcing the Xeon 6 SoC, which was known as Granite Rapids D. The Intel Xeon 6 SoC is catering to networking and edge scenarios. At the top-end is the Xeon 6726P-B for 42 cores, 235 Watt TDP, 2.3GHz base frequency and 2.9GHz all-core turbo while supporting quad-channel DDR5-6400 memory and 200G Ethernet. Down the stack is the Intel Xeon 6503P-B as a 12-core Granite Rapids D SoC.

Intel reaffirmed during the briefings that next-gen Clearwater Forest E-core processors as the successor to Sierra Forest will be launching in the first half of 2026.

That’s all for now, hopefully we find our hands on some Intel Xeon 6700P/6500P hardware soon for independent Linux performance benchmarks review. Intel also used today for announcing the Xeon 6300 budget server processors.