Clearwater Forest is turning out to be an entirely different beast. It will incorporate not only the latest goods from Intel Foundry—like Foveros Direct 3D, RibbonFET, PowerVia, and EMIB 3.5D—but also 3D cache, which Intel calls "Local Cache," per an interview with Intel's Florian Maislinger conducted by der8auer and Bens Hardware. And sadly, Team Blue has no plans to introduce AMD 3D V-cache-esque capabilities in its desktop CPUs.
Intel's next-generation E-Core, a Xeon-only series codenamed "Clearwater Forest," will leverage the flagship 18A node on which Pat Gelsinger has staked the entire company's future. Clearwater Forest is expected to use Atom Darkmont cores, succeeding the already-fast Skymont featured in Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs.
