A full POWER9 chip should be compared with a 48-core Xeon.
In regards to cores, the distinction is between the PowerVM and Linux (OpenPOWER/PowerNV) ecosystem variants. Both are made to process 96 threads, but the difference is in whether the thread processing units are grouped eight to a core (SMT8) or four to a core (SMT4).
The PowerVM version, some say for licensing reasons, gets the SMT8 cores. Either way, you get 96 threads:
In regards to cores, the distinction is between the PowerVM and Linux (OpenPOWER/PowerNV) ecosystem variants. Both are made to process 96 threads, but the difference is in whether the thread processing units are grouped eight to a core (SMT8) or four to a core (SMT4).
The PowerVM version, some say for licensing reasons, gets the SMT8 cores. Either way, you get 96 threads:
12 cores * SMT8 = 96 threads 24 cores * SMT4 = 96 threads