NVIDIA Vera CPU Image © PhoronixNVIDIA Vera CPU (Image © Phoronix)

The Vera CPU is an ARM-based processor equipped with 88 customized Olympus cores. It was developed specifically for the requirements of inference workloads. According to NVIDIA, the architecture is designed to deliver 50% better performance and twice the efficiency of traditional x86 CPUs, with four times the density per rack.

NVIDIA Vera CPU Benchmarks BenchmarksNVIDIA Vera CPU Benchmarks Benchmarks (Image © Phoronix)

First benchmark performance

Current tests by Phoronix provide the first performance data for the Vera CPU. In the geometric mean values of the test results, the 88-core Vera showed a performance increase of 63% compared to the previous 72-core Grace CPU.

Compared to x86 competitors, the Vera CPU outperformed the 64-core EPYC 9575F (with Zen 5 cores clocked at 5 GHz) by 10%. In addition, it showed a performance advantage of 55% over Intel's 128-core Xeon-6980P from the Granite Rapids series.

NVIDIA intends to establish itself as a major CPU vendor by 2026, selling Vera both as standalone units and as part of larger AI system integrations. This strategy targets the growing demand for CPUs that can support Agentic AI.

It is important to note that these benchmarks were conducted on pre-production hardware, meaning that further performance adjustments and optimizations can be expected. In addition, specific efficiency metrics, such as performance per watt, were not included in the test results.