The chip giant has launched the first generation of processors with integrated full vRAN acceleration, a range that marks a major inflection point and is part of the Intel family Xeon Scalable Gen4 with Intel vRAN Boost. Its presentation took place at the MWC in 2023, but today we are talking about a general launch, that is, commercial availability.
As many of our readers will know, with the Xeon Scalable Gen4 in Intel they have not neglected the raw power, but it is clear that they have opted for specialization, and this is noticeable in the different specific accelerators that the company has integrated into its new processors for servers and data centers. As if this were not enough, the company also offers versions equipped with HBM memory.
The acronym vRAN stands for virtualized radio access networks and it is, in short, a method used by different telecom operators to run baseband functions as non-proprietary software, which means they can run on any server. However, this does not mean that they cannot benefit from hardware acceleration.
As we have said, Intel Xeon Scalable Gen4 processors from Intel include Intel vRAN Boost technology, which means that it has full acceleration of this type of networks on the CPU, so no need to use an additional card anymore to enjoy this type of service. Obviously, this reduces the complexity of the systems and the costs, since we are eliminating a component, and at the same time improves energy efficiency.
According to Intel, these new processors can offer up to twice the capacity and an energy saving in computing of approximately 20%, always compared to the previous generation of the chip giant. In relation to performance per watt consumed values doublebut we must not forget that these new Xeons also have functions to optimize the workload that represents the processing of packets and signals, as well as their integrated acceleration for associated workloads to the artificial intelligence and deep learning.
In the attached table we can see the different models Intel Xeon Scalable Gen4 with vRAN Boost that the company has released to the market, as well as its core and cache configurations, its working frequencies, AMX support, TDP and other key features. The base model has a 20-core configuration, while the more advanced model has 32 cores.
