How to Save $6000 on a 28-core Flagship Intel Xeon: Platinum 8280 vs Gold 6258R

Test Bed and Benchmarks

For this test, we’ve run through our updated suite of benchmarks, as part of our #CPUOverload project. As this isn’t a strict review of the processors, more of a comparison article to see if they perform the same, then each benchmark is relatively binary– yes it performs the same, or no they don’t (and which one is better). For these tests, we fired up our single socket LGA3647 testbed.

Both processors were tested on 192 GB of SK-Hynix DDR4-2933 RDIMMs, and a sufficient 500W liquid cooling configuration.

For non-performance benchmark related data, we saw both CPUs score the same average core-to-core latency (8280 was 45.8 ns, 6258R was 45.6 ns), both CPUs get to turbo from idle to max in 35-38 milliseconds, and power consumption was almost identical.

There is a slight variation here, though this could just be down to the specific voltage characteristics of the chips I have. The 6258R hits nearer the 205 W TDP that both chips have.

For the performance benchmarks, don’t get too excited all at once. We’ll mark any performance difference as significant where a >4% change is observed.

Well, that was a whole lotta nothing.

If we retain that a 4% difference might be more than just statistical noise, then none of these benchmarks come close. A slightly blurry eye with these results might concede that the 6258R actually has the upper hand, which might go in line with the slight variation in power consumption we saw in the power test. But by and large, these chips are essentially identical in performance.

Breakdowns of most of the benchmarks and sub-tests can be found by looking at our benchmark comparison database, Bench. To get the best experience when comparing products on Bench. I find it best to increase the browser zoom and reduce the browser window width, so it looks like this:

Click on the image to go to the section in Bench that compares these two CPUs.