More specifically, the CPU cores in AWS Graviton5 are Neoverse V3 cores, which implement the Armv9.2-A ISA specification.
Neoverse V3 is the server version of the Cortex-X4 core which has been used in a large number of smartphones.
The Neoverse V3 and Cortex-X4 cores are very similar in size and performance with the Intel E-cores Skymont and Darkmont (the E-cores of Arrow Lake and of the future Panther Lake).
Intel will launch next year a server CPU with Darkmont cores (Clearwater Forest), which will have cores similar to this AWS Graviton5, but for now Intel only has the Sierra Forest server CPUs with E-cores (belonging to the Xeon 6 series), which use much weaker CPU cores than those of the new Graviton5 (i.e. cores equivalent with the Crestmont E-cores of the old Meteor Lake).
AMD Zen 5 CPUs are significantly better for computationally-intensive workloads, but for general-purpose applications without great computational demands the cores of Graviton5 and also Intel Skymont/Darkmont have greater performance per die area and power consumption, therefore lower cost.
sahilagarwal•4d ago
Do you have any insight on when these will be generally available?
adrian_b•3d ago
Amazon says "Sign up for the preview today".
I have no connection with them, so I have no idea when these instances will be generally available.
Privileged big customers appear to be already testing them.
bushbaba•31m ago
Well, also no licensing costs to AMD/intel. So even if at slightly worse performance per chip it’ll end up being cheaper still. AWS doesn’t need to make money on their chips, as they already have the Ec2 margin.
ksec•19m ago
>The Neoverse V3 and Cortex-X4 cores are very similar in size and performance with the Intel E-cores Skymont and Darkmont (the E-cores of Arrow Lake and of the future Panther Lake).
That is not entirely accurate. X4 is big core design. All of its predecessor and successor has always had >1mm2 die space design. X4 is already on the smaller scale, it was the last ARM design before they went all in chasing Apple's A Series IPC. IRRC it was about 1.5mm2 depending on L2 cache. E-Core for Intel has always been below 1mm2. And again IRRC that die size has always been Intel's design guidelines and limits for E-Core design.
More recent X5 / X925 and X6 / X930 / C1 Ultra?? ( I can no longer remember those names ) are double the size of X4. With X930 / C1 Ultra very close to A19 Pro Performance. Within ~5%.
I assume they stick with X4 is simply because it offers best Performance / Die Space, but it is still a 2-3 years old design. On the other hand I am eagerly waiting for Zen 6c with 256 Core. I cant wait to see the Oxide team using Zen 6c, forget about the cloud. 90%+ of companies could fit their IT resources in a few racks.
stevefan1999•3d ago
If only dedicated game servers could run on aarch64...
I've been experimenting FEX on Ampere A1 with x86 game servers but the performance is not that impressed
01HNNWZ0MV43FF•4d ago
watermelon0•4d ago
adrian_b•4d ago
Neoverse V3 is the server version of the Cortex-X4 core which has been used in a large number of smartphones.
The Neoverse V3 and Cortex-X4 cores are very similar in size and performance with the Intel E-cores Skymont and Darkmont (the E-cores of Arrow Lake and of the future Panther Lake).
Intel will launch next year a server CPU with Darkmont cores (Clearwater Forest), which will have cores similar to this AWS Graviton5, but for now Intel only has the Sierra Forest server CPUs with E-cores (belonging to the Xeon 6 series), which use much weaker CPU cores than those of the new Graviton5 (i.e. cores equivalent with the Crestmont E-cores of the old Meteor Lake).
AMD Zen 5 CPUs are significantly better for computationally-intensive workloads, but for general-purpose applications without great computational demands the cores of Graviton5 and also Intel Skymont/Darkmont have greater performance per die area and power consumption, therefore lower cost.
sahilagarwal•4d ago
adrian_b•3d ago
I have no connection with them, so I have no idea when these instances will be generally available.
Privileged big customers appear to be already testing them.
bushbaba•31m ago
ksec•19m ago
That is not entirely accurate. X4 is big core design. All of its predecessor and successor has always had >1mm2 die space design. X4 is already on the smaller scale, it was the last ARM design before they went all in chasing Apple's A Series IPC. IRRC it was about 1.5mm2 depending on L2 cache. E-Core for Intel has always been below 1mm2. And again IRRC that die size has always been Intel's design guidelines and limits for E-Core design.
More recent X5 / X925 and X6 / X930 / C1 Ultra?? ( I can no longer remember those names ) are double the size of X4. With X930 / C1 Ultra very close to A19 Pro Performance. Within ~5%.
I assume they stick with X4 is simply because it offers best Performance / Die Space, but it is still a 2-3 years old design. On the other hand I am eagerly waiting for Zen 6c with 256 Core. I cant wait to see the Oxide team using Zen 6c, forget about the cloud. 90%+ of companies could fit their IT resources in a few racks.