Overview

• The all‑E‑core design uses new Darkmont cores that Intel measures at roughly 17% higher IPC than the prior generation, with four‑core clusters sharing a 4MB L2 and doubled L2 bandwidth.
• Clearwater Forest adopts a chiplet and 3D stack: 12 compute dies on Intel 18A sit on three Intel 3 base tiles with LLC, linked to two Intel 7 I/O tiles via Foveros Direct and EMIB in a coherent fabric.
• Each socket supports 12‑channel DDR5‑8000, 96 lanes of PCIe 5.0 with 64 CXL, and 144 UPI links providing 576 GB/s; dual‑socket systems top out at 576 cores, 3 TB of memory, and about 1.3 TB/s bandwidth.
• Intel highlights consolidation gains over aging Xeon fleets and keeps platform continuity by avoiding a new socket, while the efficiency cores do not support AVX‑512.
• Release timing remains unsettled, with Intel indicating a 2026 shipping target and some outlets reporting earlier expectations that have not been confirmed.