It took more than a year longer than Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) had originally planned, but the company's innovative Sapphire Rapids server CPUs have finally launched. The Sapphire Rapids family is composed of 52 CPUs spanning a wide range of core counts and features, and it launched alongside a set of new data center GPUs.

Unfortunately, chronic delays allowed rival Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) to get its powerful Genoa server chips to market first. AMD used a 5nm manufacturing process, a first for data center CPUs, helping the company's new chips deliver huge gains in performance. At the high end of the Genoa family, a 96-core monster provides unprecedented core density.

Intel can't compete on core counts, and general-purpose performance is still unknown as we wait on third-party reviews of the Sapphire Rapids chips. But Intel's decision to include special-purpose accelerators paired with a new pricing model could help the company's new chips overcome AMD's advantages.

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Source Fool.com