CONNECTING THE DOTS: Intel is trying to reset its data center strategy on two tracks at once. On one side, it is rolling out Xeon 6+ Clearwater Forest, an all-E-core design built on the new Intel 18A process that pushes core counts up to 288 per socket. On the other, it is laying the groundwork for Xeon 7 Diamond Rapids on a refined 18A-P process, with higher core counts, PCIe 6.0 support, and a major increase in memory bandwidth for the next wave of servers. Together, these moves show how Intel is shifting its competitive focus toward core density, chiplet architecture, and process technology rather than raw clock speeds or thread counts.
In the near term, Xeon 6+ Clearwater Forest is the part that matters. Formerly known simply as Clearwater Forest, the family uses only E-cores and scales up to 288 Darkmont cores per socket, along with 576 MB of L3 cache.
The flagship Xeon 6990E+ is built for density first. In dual-socket systems, it can reach 576 cores, putting it squarely in the sights of hyperscalers and operators building large fleets of cloud or network servers that prioritize per-rack throughput over single-core performance.
Intel says the 6990E+ delivers around 30% higher performance per thread and 30% better performance per thread per watt than AMD Epyc 9965.
