During its ISC 2021 event, Intel announced that it’s Sapphire Rapids will support high-bandwidth memory (HBM); however, it’s now being speculated that the Sapphire Rapids variants with HBM support will not be launching alongside the non-HBM variants.
According to sources, the Sapphire Rapids variants with HBM are codenamed SPR-HBM and will not be vendor-specific. Earlier, it was rumoured that team blue would be launching its non-HBM variants and HBM variants together. But now, sources have confirmed that HBM supported CPUs will come out in late 2022, after the launch of Sapphire Rapids.
Intel has started to AnandTech that they are committed to making HBM-enabled Sapphire Rapids available to all enterprise customers and server vendors as well. These versions will come out after the main Sapphire Rapids launch and entertain some interesting configurations. We understand that this means SPR-HBM will be available in a socketed configuration. Via AnandTech
Even though the news about the SPR-HBM variants coming out next year has been made clear, Intel is yet to announce any important details regarding the new CPUs. especially the fact that exactly how much HBM the new CPUs would support. according to previous rumours, Sapphire Rapids processors could support up to 64GB of HBM2e memory.
Intel’s main aim here seems to be that it’s trying to make the HBM in the server space become a mainstream technology by keeping it limited to specific partners or vendors. There is a large-scale potential in the HBM memory, especially in large-scale computing simulations.
The launch date of these Sapphire Rapids SPR-HBM variants is expected to be in late 2022, so let’s wait for more information to pop out soon.
