Although Intel formally announced its Xeon processors codenamed Sierra Forest last year and even disclosed their maximum number of cores, the company has never revealed its performance expectations. But at this year's Mobile World Congress, Intel disclosed that its upcoming CPU platform will increase per rack performance by 2.7X compared to its 2021 platform while consuming around 30% less power.

Intel's Xeon 'Sierra Forest' processors with up to 144 energy-efficient cores are designed primarily for cloud data centers as well as various infrastructure workloads, such as handling 5G core networks, that can benefit from high core count and relatively low per-core power consumption. Intel now says that when compared to its 2021 Xeon Scalable platform, machines based on the Xeon 'Sierra Forest' processors will offer up to 2.7X higher performance per rack for 5G core workloads while consuming less power, up to 30% when used with Intel Infrastructure Power Manager (IPM) Software while maintaining performance networks.

Intel's IPM software seems to be as important as the 144-core Sierra Forest processor itself, as it is designed to help 5G core operators reduce CPU power usage without compromising key performance metrics by using the built-in telemetry of Intel's Xeon processors. The program is said to be compatible with existing and future Xeon-based network infrastructure, so it should work on a variety of platforms.

Without any doubt, a 2.7 times performance increase over a three-year-old platform is an impressive improvement. Meanwhile, we have no idea whether Intel meant Cascade Lake or Ice Lake platform. Furthermore, the company also did not disclose the total core count.

Another aspect that Intel did not disclose is which workloads were impacted. 5G core workloads encompass various tasks and processes crucial for the functionality of a 5G telecommunications system's core network. These workloads include managing data movement, controlling network functions, creating separate virtual networks, and ensuring that different services get the right level of quality, such as fast data speeds, low delay, and connecting many devices.

In addition to disclosing some of the advantages of its codenamed Sierra Forest processors due in 2024, Intel also said that it would launch its codenamed Granite Rapids-D CPUs in 2025. These Granite Rapids-D processors will address edge computing, networking and communications, and storage servers, among other workloads.