(Image credit: Intel)

Intel is returning to the data center with Xeon 6+, now harnessing the power of Intel 18A. After revealing Xeon 600 chips for workstations earlier in the year, Intel is turning back to the data center with Xeon 6+, an E-core-only design previously known as Clearwater Forest. The flagship Xeon 6990E+ is designed for compute density, packing in 288 Darkmont cores with 576 MB of L3 cache, with support for dual-socket systems, taking the core count up to 576. Intel claims the 6990E+ delivers an average 30% performance per thread improvement compared to AMD’s 192-core Epyc 9965, as well as up to 30% better power efficiency.

We’ve heard a lot about Clearwater Forest leading up to this launch, including a full architectural deep dive from Intel last year . As a refresher, Xeon 6+ is the culmination of Intel’s disaggregated approach to processor design over the past several generations, using a mixture of nodes and packaging techniques to achieve such high core density.…