Leak shows an Intel 32-core monster CPU to keep up with AMD

A 32-core (64-thread) monster CPU from Intel, apparently the Skylake ‘Purley’ flagship, is the subject of the latest leak to emerge in the processor world.

Details of the chip were spilled via a Geekbench performance benchmark (as spotted by Wccftech.com), and this is allegedly likely to be the Xeon E5 2699 v5.

The 32-core CPU managed to produce some breath-taking numbers in Geekbench, with a multi-core score of 49,647, hitting 3,526 when it came to single-core performance.

As Wccftech.com notes, that’s probably the highest multi-core benchmark ever achieved on Geekbench (when talking about single socket processors).

Apparently the chip is for an upgraded LGA 3647 socket and operates with a base clock of 2.1GHz (although the Geekbench details show it running at 2.3GHz). ‘Purley’ also promises better power efficiency (naturally) and will support 6-channel DDR4 (up from 4-channel).

Scores on the cores

What’s also very interesting here is that Purley was previously said to max out at up to 28-cores, but Intel has reportedly upped the ante in order to match AMD’s Naples processors which offer up to 32-cores.

AMD officially unveiled its Naples CPUs a couple of weeks back, offering some very impressive claimed performance levels when compared to the current Xeon E5-2699A v4 (the latter runs to 22-cores). These chips aim to make a big impact in the server market (following the recent release of Ryzen CPUs for desktop PCs).

Of course, pricing will be a key point in the battle between these beefy processors, and it’s likely that this particular Intel monster will carry a weighty price tag to say the least.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).