Intel’s next-gen Xeon “Avenue City” reference platform detailed, supports up to 500W TDP CPUs

Intel may now launch 500W TDP CPUs, thanks to the upcoming Xeon platform

Intel Avenue City is a new platform for upcoming Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest data-center CPUs. 

Intel Sapphire Rapids series has only just started to see broader adoption among data-centers and now workstations after months long delays. It will take a while before Intel recaptures its position in a high-density market. However, the company is already planning ahead to introduce its Emerald Rapids series by the end of this year. The series will be based on the same socket, but they will feature more cores and support faster memory.

The next-step is an entirely new platform based on the LGA-7529 socket. Hardware leaker YuuKi-AnS revealed that this platform will power the next-gen Granite Rapids (GNR) and Sapphire Forest (SRF-AP) series. This platform is set to launch next year with even more powerful CPUs and even faster DDR5 memory.

It appears that the validation platform for these Xeon series has now been named as “Avenue City RP”. This is the first confirmation that future Xeon CPUs may launch with 500W TDP, as the platform supports such power:

The Avenue City RP is a reference validation board based on the Birch Stream platform, a backbone of the future Xeon series deployment. The board has a 20 layer PCB design with a 16.7×20 inch design. It has two sockets with a total of 24 memories DDR5 slots.

What may be important to note is that this slide confirms what had already demoed a few months ago, the next-gen platform will support faster DDR5 memory and that up to 6400 MT/s in 1SPC/1DPC configuration. This is an upgrade from Sapphire Rapid’s 4800 MT/s and Emeralds’s 5600 MT/s.

Although the slide does not explicit mention PCIe lane support for the CPU, it would appear that at least 80 lanes are available for each processor. Each CPU should support 80, a same number as Eagle Stream, however this may not be a final spec for this platform.

Intel LGA7529 socket and Xeon Roadmap, Source: Yuuki_Ans/Intel

According to Intel, Granite Rapids is to feature Performance cores only while Sierra Forest would be Intel’s first Xeon based solely on Efficient ‘Atom’ architecture. Both should use Intel 3 process technology and both should launch in 2024.

Source: YuuKi-Ans