As part of my end-of-year 2025 benchmarking I looked at [1]how the Intel Xeon 6980P Granite Rapids performance evolved in the year since launch and seeing some nice open-source/Linux optimizations during that time. On the other side of the table were also benchmarks of how [2]AMD EPYC 8004 Sienna evolved in its two years , [3]Ubuntu 24.04 vs. 26.04 development for AMD EPYC Turin , [4]the AMD EPYC Milan-X in its four years since launch , and also a look at the performance evolution lower down the stack with [5]the likes of sub-$500 laptop hardware . Out today is a fresh look at how the Intel Xeon 6780E [6]Sierra Forest has evolved in its one and a half years since its launch.

With some time having passed since the last round of Sierra Forest benchmarks (the Intel reference server here is a pain due to various firmware issues), being curious about all the Linux performance optimizations made over 2025 as shown in the other articles, in anticipation of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS coming out in April, and then next-generation Intel [7]Clearwater Forest expected later this year, it was time for some fresh Sierra Forest comparison benchmarks.

[8]

This article is looking at the same dual Intel Xeon 6780E server performance using an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS software stack back from June 2024 when Sierra Forest first launched compared to now with a development snapshot of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. There have been a lot of upstream Linux software improvements over the past year and a half from Intel and other vendors. All the same hardware was in use with simply that Ubuntu Linux upgrade from then at-launch to now in looking ahead toward Ubuntu 26.04 in its current development state.

The Intel Xeon 6780E processor as a reminder features 144 cores, 3GHz max turbo frequency with 2.2GHz base frequency, 108MB cache, AVX2 support, and a 330 Watt TDP. For those wondering about a fresh look at Intel Xeon 6 Sierra Forest up against the AMD EPYC 9005 competition, those fresh benchmarks are being worked on for a separate article in the coming weeks.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-xeon-6980p-2025

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-8534p-2year-linux

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2604-jan-amd-epyc

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-milanx-2025

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-krackan-point-2025

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Sierra+Forest

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Clearwater+Forest

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=intel-xeon6-sierra-forest-2026&image=intel_xeon_6_ubuntu_2604_lrg