Intel's 256-core Xeon 7 CPUs are a Diamond in the rough

DEEP DIVE Intel's Xeon 7 platform, better known by its codename Diamond Rapids, was supposed to launch this year with up to 192 cores backed by a whopping 16 memory channels. But that's not going to happen. This being Intel, the launch was, to no one's great surprise, delayed until 2027 to give what remains of the company's engineering team time to cut and polish the chip — and polish they certainly have. At the Hot Chips show this week, Intel revealed the chip won't ship with 192 cores af