Intel Xeon 6+ ‘Clearwater Forest’ puts 18A in the data center with up to 288 cores, 576 MB of L3 cache — new Xeon 6990E+ is 30% faster per thread than 192-core AMD Epyc 9965, says Intel

Intel launched Xeon 6+ data center CPUs based on its Clearwater Forest design and 18A process.

The flagship Xeon 6990E+ packs 288 E-cores, 576MB of L3 cache, dual-socket support, and new telemetry and security features.

Intel says the chip delivers up to 30% better per-thread performance than AMD’s EPYC 9965 while targeting higher density and efficiency.

The move highlights Intel’s push to bring 18A into servers and compete directly with AMD’s top EPYC parts.