What is Exadata X9M hardware improvement over X8M?
When Oracle transitioned from the X8M to the X9M, they didn't just tweak a few settings—they leaned heavily into the "M" (for Memory) and "RoCE" (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) technologies. The X9M was designed to eliminate the final few bottlenecks in massive OLTP and analytics workloads.
Here is the breakdown of the most significant hardware leaps from the X8M to the X9M.
The most immediate improvement was in the "brain" of both the Database and Storage nodes.
X8M: Used Intel Xeon "Cascade Lake" processors.
X9M: Upgraded to the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Ice Lake).
The Result: A 33% increase in CPU cores. More cores mean more parallel processing for Smart Scans and higher throughput for consolidated workloads where hundreds of small databases share the same rack.
Performance in Exadata is often a game of "how much data can I keep near the CPU?"
System RAM: The X9M moved to DDR4-3200 memory (up from 2933 in the X8M). This provided a significant boost in memory bandwidth.
Capacity: Total memory capacity per database server increased, allowing for larger SGAs (System Global Areas) and more concurrent user sessions without hitting the swap file.
While both used NVMe flash, the X9M moved to a newer generation of storage hardware.
Storage Bandwidth: The X9M utilized PCIe 4.0 (the X8M used PCIe 3.0). PCIe 4.0 effectively doubles the bandwidth between the flash drives and the CPU.
Flash Capacity: In the High Capacity (HC) storage cells, the flash capacity was increased by 33%, and the physical hard drives grew from 14TB to 18TB, providing significantly more "cheap" storage for long-term data.
The X8M introduced Intel Optane Persistent Memory (PMEM), but the X9M perfected its use.
Because of the PCIe 4.0 architecture and the faster Ice Lake CPUs, the X9M could achieve read latencies of less than 19 microseconds.
The X9M delivered up to 70% more IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) from PMEM than the X8M, making it the ultimate machine for high-frequency trading and rapid-fire banking transactions.
| Feature | Exadata X8M | Exadata X9M | Improvement |
| CPU (Intel) | Cascade Lake | Ice Lake (3rd Gen) | Faster per-core speed |
| Max Cores (DB Node) | 48 Cores | 64 Cores | 33% Increase |
| PCIe Version | Gen 3 | Gen 4 | Double internal bandwidth |
| Disk Capacity (HC) | 14 TB | 18 TB | ~28% more space |
| SQL Throughput | 350 GB/s | 560 GB/s | ~60% faster scans |
| IOPS | 16 Million | 27.6 Million | ~70% more IOPS |
The X9M wasn't a revolutionary change in architecture (since the X8M had already introduced RoCE and RDMA), but it was a massive jump in density and efficiency. By moving to PCIe 4.0 and 3rd Gen Intel chips, Oracle was able to deliver nearly double the performance in some categories without increasing the physical footprint of the rack.