Intel Xeon Gold 6240 Processor — Full Technical Overview

Overview

The Intel Xeon Gold 6240 is a high-performance server processor from the 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake) family. Designed for enterprise and data center workloads, it delivers an excellent balance of high core count, multi-threaded performance, and memory bandwidth.

With 18 cores and 36 threads, the Xeon Gold 6240 is ideal for virtualization, cloud infrastructure, database servers, analytics, high-performance computing (HPC), and mission-critical enterprise applications. Its support for AVX-512, large L3 cache, and six-channel DDR4 memory provides a strong foundation for compute-intensive tasks.

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Key Features

• 18 cores / 36 threads for robust multi-threaded performance

• 2.60 GHz base frequency with 3.90 GHz max turbo frequency

• 24.75 MB L3 cache to accelerate data access

• Six-channel DDR4-2933 memory support

• Up to 1 TB memory per socket (platform dependent)

• Supports AVX-512, Intel DL Boost, and other enterprise acceleration technologies

• 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes for expansion of storage, networking, and accelerators

• Compatible with dual-socket (2S) server platforms

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Detailed Specification Table

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Performance Analysis

1. Virtualization & Cloud Workloads

With 18 cores and 36 threads, the Xeon Gold 6240 is ideal for:

• Virtual machine consolidation and high-density VDI

• Cloud-native applications and multi-tenant infrastructures

• Container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Docker)

2. Database & Analytics

Large L3 cache and six-channel memory enable:

• OLTP and OLAP database operations

• In-memory analytics and caching layers

• Big data processing and distributed computing frameworks

3. HPC & Compute-Intensive Applications

AVX-512 and high core count provide acceleration for:

• Scientific simulations

• Machine learning inference

• Engineering computations

• Rendering and batch processing tasks

4. Enterprise Applications

Efficient for:

• ERP and CRM systems

• Web and application servers

• Financial modeling and analytics

• High-uptime enterprise servers

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Advantages

• High core count and multi-threaded performance for enterprise workloads

• Robust memory bandwidth and support for large datasets

• AVX-512 and DL Boost acceleration for specialized workloads

• Enterprise-class reliability and virtualization support

• Scalable dual-socket platform support

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Limitations

• Moderate single-core turbo compared to high-frequency CPUs

• Based on 14 nm architecture (Cascade Lake)

• PCIe 3.0 rather than PCIe 4.0/5.0 for ultra-high-speed I/O