Quote:Today, thanks to the ServeTheHome forum member "111alan", we have the first pictures of the alleged Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon processor. Pictured is what appears to be a dual-die design similar to Cascade Lake-SP design with 56 cores and 112 threads that uses two dies. The Sapphire Rapids is a 10 nm SuperFin design that allegedly comes even in the dual-die configuration. To host this processor, the motherboard needs an LGA4677 socket with 4677 pins present. The new LGA socket, along with the new 10 nm Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors are set for delivery in 2021 when Intel is expected to launch its new processors and their respective platforms.

The processor pictured is clearly a dual-die design, meaning that Intel used some of its Multi-Chip Package (MCM) technology that uses EMIB to interconnect the silicon using an active interposer. As a reminder, the new 10 nm Sapphire Rapids platform is supposed to bring many new features like a DDR5 memory controller paired with Intel's Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA); a brand new PCIe 5.0 standard protocol with a 32 GT/s data transfer rate, and a CXL 1.1 support for next-generation accelerators. The exact configuration of this processor is unknown, however, it is an engineering sample with a clock frequency of a modest 2.0 GHz.

Quote:In a document released a couple of days before the New Year, Intel confirmed that its upcoming Xeon Scalable processors based on the Sapphire Rapids microarchitecture would support on-package HBM memory. A memory subsystem featuring HBM will significantly increase the bandwidth available to the CPU compared to a subsystem that uses conventional types of memory, like DDR4 or DDR5, meaning that future CPUs could resemble today's GPUs with a healthy amount of HBM memory riding on the same package.
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So far, Intel has officially confirmed that its Sapphire Rapids processor will feature an eight-channel DDR5 memory controller enhanced with its Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA) technology, which should already provide a significant bandwidth boost over today's DDR4-based memory subsystems. Additionally, the chip will support Intel's next-generation Optane Memory modules.
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Intel's Sapphire Rapids processor promises to be a rather massive leap in terms of performance and features over the upcoming Ice Lake-SP chip.

In addition to the all-new Golden Gove microarchitecture that will bring support for Intel’s Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) as well as AVX512_BF16 and AVX512_VP2INTERSECT instructions designed for datacenter and supercomputer workloads, the CPU will also support PCIe Gen 5, the CXL 1.1 protocol, and the DSA accelerator. To boost core count, clocks, and yields, Sapphire Rapids is also expected to adopt a chiplet design, though this hasn't been confirmed by Intel.

Quote:Intel's CEO recently confirmed that the company had started to sample its next-generation Xeon Scalable 'Sapphire Rapids' processors to partners, so it isn't particularly surprising that the first images of the CPU have emerged, proving that the chip is in the hands of Intel's partners.

Being a sample rather than a commercial product, the processor is marked as Intel Confidential and features the QVV5 sSpec, along with a 1.30 GHz frequency. The image was published by YuuKi_AnS, a known hardware leaker who sometimes has access to unreleased chips.

We confirmed the CPU's validity with an independent source with knowledge of the matter, who identified the device as a 28-core Sapphire Rapids A2 sample that Intel sent to partners several weeks ago.
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It's noteworthy that the new alleged Intel Sapphire Rapids A2 sample doesn't look like another assumed sample of a Sapphire Rapids CPU, of which a picture emerged last year. The backside of the processor from December actually looks like the backside of an LGA4189 CPU, which means that it might not be a Sapphire Rapids in an LGA4677 package. Meanwhile, since the front side of the device has two bulges and does not look like the front side of Intel's Cooper Lake or Ice Lake-SP CPU, it is indeed an unannounced processor that allegedly uses an MCM design.

Quote:Update: YuuKi_AnS has published a photo of the delidded Sapphire Rapids processor revealing what is under the hood of the CPU. The Sapphire Rapids sample apparently carries four dies and an Altera Max 10 FPGA (which is probably used for startup/initialization purposes).
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One thing to note about the current leak is that YuuKi_AnS added two stickers to his pictures. The stickers carry the G14056-002 part number, which matches the part number of Intel's Xeon Phi 7120P. Obviously, the addition does not add any credibility to the leak, but since the CPU packaging corresponds to the LGA4677 blueprints and we have another confirmation from an independent source, it is highly probable that we are dealing with a Sapphire Rapids sample.

Quote:These are engineering samples for a CPU we don’t expect to see for 18-24 months, so we’d take them with a shaker of salt more so than a grain, but what we see here is broadly what we’d expect to see. Intel has previously stated it believes its advanced packaging technology is a meaningful differentiator between itself and AMD. We’ll see if AMD pulls its Epyc chiplets back together into a clustered configuration over the next few product generations, but for now it looks like Intel and AMD may pursue different strategies when it comes to handling intra-chip communication.