Leaked 12-core Ice Lake server ES nearly 100 percent faster than Cascade Lake in Geekbench, takes the fight to EPYC Milan

A leaked Geekbench listing spotted by InstLatX64 confirms that Intel is working on a 10nm Ice Lake-based server CPU as part of its server lineup. The model spotted here is a dual-socket part with 12 cores and 24 threads.

It scored a stunning 27,926 in the multithreaded test. This is nearly as high as the 24-core 48-thread Cascade Lake Xeon Gold 6226, which scored 32,937. Intel's 10nm Ice Lake part delivered nearly the same performance with just half the core count. 

What's truly remarkable is that these numbers come from a CPU with a max operating frequency of 2.7 GHz. Engineering samples are often clocked lower than final shipping parts. With Ice Lake being built on the 10nm process node, we expect shipping Ice Lake Xeons to clock in the 3 GHz range.

The Cascade Lake Xeon Gold has an all-core turbo of 3.5 GHz. Even then, and with twice the core count, it only manages to edge out the Ice Lake ES.

AMD's EPYC Rome server parts have been making steady inroads in the server market. According to Q4 2019 figures, Team Red saw a substantial increase in year-on-year server market share. This is in large part because Intel's current 14nm Xeon lineup consumes more power and costs more per core than AMD alternatives.

Intel's monolithic die design means that more cores cost exponentially more to manufacture. If Intel can bring Ice Lake Xeons to the market, delivering more performance with fewer cores, it could mean the end for AMD's server ambitions, even as Team Red preps EPYC Milan.