Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “New Xeons: Intel is coming for muh Threadripper!!!!!!”.
They’Re, coming from a threadripper, no yeah, this is my really awesome. 59. 75 wx-32 core system. It’S really it’s pretty kick butt. It’S! Actually. One of two systems that I have Trader for pro is really awesome, but did you click on the wrong video? No Intel just announced their xeons, but it’s a little weird because nobody actually has any, but I want to talk about it because the roadmap does look really exciting. Oh boy, the workstation Market has been hot.
The past couple of years and Intel’s roadmap looks even hotter for Xeon workstation Parts. You may remember this other system that Intel promoted in 2018 that I got my hands on almost a year later, based on the Intel w3175x. I still have that system check it out. So this system started out with the Asus motherboard for socket 3647, but it had the warm bug and I had to do my own level, one Diagnostic in order to figure it out. Ultimately, I changed the motherboard to the EVGA dark sr3, which has been rocking this entire time. This system rocks my socks off.
It’S got an EK loop with dual 360 millimeter radiators and the incredible 28 core, the w3175x. It’S a workstation CPU. It’S a Xeon.
I’Ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this system. Now that system it aged not super amazing, I mean it’s 4.5 gigahertz on almost all the cores, all 28 cores and it was pretty amazing, but it was pretty quickly followed by the ryzen 3000 Series. Threadrippers and those threadripper CPUs beat it in single and multi-core performance. Pretty completely and those CPUs were unlocked from AMD and just plain awesome and then the threadripper pro 5000 series CPUs launched just about a year ago and basically there hasn’t been anything from Intel. In response I mean my w3175x remained. The only deliberately unlocked Xeon in the face of a Relentless Onslaught from AMD and so demand for AMD systems based around these workstation CPUs, far outpaced anything that AMD could do and Intel seemed like they were stuck in analysis paralysis.
They never did release more Enthusiast CPUs for socket 3647 on that EVGA dark sr3 motherboard, which is just a crying shame that motherboard is amazing and the socket isn’t bad, either now fast forward to this road map that just dropped from Intel, there’s not one but two Cpu families on this roadmap for the high-end desktop I thought high in desktop, was dead and you’re telling me it’s coming back with a vengeance. Ah yeah, maybe you’re, probably familiar with how Intel does things on the desktop processor side, core I3, core i7, Core i5. Core I9: these two families kind of split those depending on what you’re looking at so you can get maximum compute resources or some compute resources and some more extra pcie Lanes so like a desktop plus plus or a real higher breathing workstation.
That’S the Xeon w3400, with the accompanying w790 chipset at the high end and a Xeon w2400 series with the same chipset for the mid-range. Now. The w2400 series is four memory channels at up to 56 pcie lanes. While the w3400 series is up to 56 cores and eight memory channels that it’s all pcie5 and ddr5 now the four channel w2400 series CPUs range from 6 to 24 cores, but that’s full Intel, P cores the performance course there’s no efficiency cores. So this should be a monster performance system. The eight channel w3400 series – you know from 56 cores at the high end of 16 cores two to four terabytes of memory respectively on each one of those platforms and we’ve got four processors launching in each of those two families that bear the X designation. Just like our w3175x, which means they are unlocked and overclockable holy moly, more unlocked, overclockable xeons, yes, but Intel’s pricing here is actually fairly aggressive, at least given Intel’s history. Now I paid over three thousand dollars cash money for one of my w3175x systems. Back in the day and a pro overclocker sent me one of theirs as a thank you for something that I helped them with. So that’s what I’ve been rocking and uh. The dollar has gone down in value quite a bit since then, but I mean, if you look at the pricing here, that Intel’s announced the 56 core CPU is almost you know it’s expensive, but it’s about a hundred dollars a core a little less pretty much across The board so the 28 core CPU and the 3400 series is just shy of three thousand dollars: 4.8 gigahertz Max boost 28 cores.
Like I said it’s going to be a performance monster, it is easily going to 2x, maybe 3x, my w3175x per core. So that’s pretty good pricing. I think now one unsettling thing here with this announcement and the roadmap is that no one is hands on Intel is calling this a launch, but uh. Is it really okay? I may have gotten my hands on a mechanical sample of a motherboard here, which means that the motherboards are in mass production, but nobody seems to have any of these to review. That seems weird right.
I mean I’m a little worried because it was a year before I got my W1 w3175x. I mean there was computex, and then there was almost computex the following year before you could actually buy them uh. One other thing I noticed in the Press materials from Intel is one of their diagrams. The labels have changed so we have multiple pcie root complexes, but in stuff they shared about six months ago.
One of the tiles on Sapphire Rapids workstation was accelerators, but now it’s just a pcie root. Complex little details like that in the in the diagrams are a little alarming and again you got to go Hands-On with these parts so that you can go back and say hey what happened to the accelerators. It does look like AMX and accelerated. Avx 512 are going to be a thing and Intel just dropped: new accelerated, AVX, 512 stuff.
On the software side for python and a bunch of other languages, I mean we’re talking about a 1.7 x to like five six x speed up for the parts that are already on the market and Sapphire rapid server Parts which will translate to these. That I’m sure of so things are interesting in the software side of things, for what Intel is doing for Sapphire Rapids and the architecture and everything else. But again, there’s a lot of spinning plates here and Intel’s.
Gon na have to do a lot of work to bring it all together and bring it home. It’Ll also be really interesting to see how consumers respond to the high-end desktop. I mean high-end desktop processors. Now I mean desktop: processors. Are I mean desktop processors now, at the high end, they’re really crowding out? You know the thousand dollar price point and I think the the high-end desktop price point historically has been that 800 to 1200 motherboard CPU combo pricing, but with inflation and everything else.
It’S looking like that’s more around the 2500 Mark. These days, consumers may not be very receptive to that. I mean sure I’ve gotten a lifetime out of the w3175x system, but I don’t know that I wouldn’t have been better off having more frequent upgrades, maybe an upgrade about every 18 to 24 months versus only owning the w3175x, since as soon as you could get it, I don’t know now, if, if big, if there is strong market demand for these CPUs and Intel executes well on them, AMD may be in a bit of a pickle here for them. There’S 300 for pro 5000 and presumably sp5 threadrippers are coming.
You know the generalist socket 96 cores, but there’s a huge gap between threadripper Pro and ryzen 9 on the desktop AMD needs, pcie, E5 and ddr5 in order to compete and extending the lifetime of the thread. Pro 5000 series with price counts, or something else everybody’s going to want those Zen 4 cores. As the answer to the awesome Intel, P cores – and I have – I have little doubt that Intel’s lineup here is going to use more power than their AMD counterparts. But, unlike server markets, where density really is a key buying parameter for Server buyers, it’s going to be much less important in the workstation Market.
It’S also another competitive Advantage for Intel. When we’re talking about workstation Parts, it doesn’t matter that they drink the power, even if they’re wildly inefficient, which they’re not actually, it’s not terrible, at least not on paper. The servers are actually pretty good too. Then the workstation Market could get really interesting with these Sapphire rapid CPUs. Now it could be that Intel is leaning hard into the workstation Market overall with sapphire Rapids designs, because they know they have a tougher challenge ahead in the server space with AMD and Genoa and the server components so Intel could actually be well positioned, especially with their Quad Channel Sapphire rapid Xeon parts, because there’s not really anything that we know of right now today from Intel and Intel with the Enthusiast Market in mind, with the unlocked Xeon parts, that’s way different than the w3175x days, but no one’s gotten hands on. I guess you need to get subscribed and uh stay tuned. If you want to see me, go Hands-On with the Mad Science with this Xeon platform, which I would love to do, and I absolutely will do one way or another, quick [, Laughter ] to the qualification samples on eBay. Don’T worry, you’re still pretty .