Intel to Cut Alder Lake CPU Pricing by 20%
February 1, 2023
AMD Rolls Out EPYC Embedded 9004 CPUs: Up to 96 Cores
March 14, 2023
They're pricey, but HEDT-class chips are back.
Intel announced its Xeon W-3400 and W-2400 workstation processors, codenamed Fishawk Falls, with 15 new chips spanning from the flagship 56-core $5,889 Xeon w-3495X to the eight-core $359 w3-2423. Eight of the new models are also overclockable, thus marking Intel's return to HEDT-class desktop processors (lower-cost overclockable server processors) for the first time since it launched the Core i9-10980XE back in 2019 and then abandoned the HEDT segment to AMD.
AMD's competing Threadripper Pro currently holds the top spots on the list of best CPUs for workstations and still has the core count lead with the 64-core Threadripper Pro 5995WX. However, Intel's support for the latest connectivity options, including up to 112 PCIe 5.0 lanes and eight channels of DDR5 memory while AMD still relies on PCIe 4.0 and DDR4, could give it the edge in some workloads.
Intel claims the new Xeon W chips are up to 28% faster in single-threaded and 120% faster in multi-threaded work than its own previous-gen Xeon W processors, but didn't share any performance comparisons to AMD's Threadripper Pro series processors that address the same core workstation market segments. Intel also didn't share any gaming performance benchmarks to give us a sense of where these chips will land on the list of the best CPUs for gaming. This makes sense, given the workstation focus, but the chips' overclockability will make game testing results interesting once the silicon is in the wild.
INTEL XEON W-3400 W-2400 SPECIFICATIONS AND PRICING
Here's a quick comparison of a few of Intel's flagship chips to AMD's competing Threadripper Pro. Intel's workstation family includes four tiers with w9, w7, w5, and w3 models, mostly analogous to Intel's Core i9, i7, i5, and i3 branding scheme. Intel carves the Xeon W stack into four tiers, including dual socket models. We'll dive into the families in more detail below, but the single-socket W-2400 and W-3400 tiers are the focus of this launch:
- Intel Xeon W-3400: "Expert," 12 to 56 hyperthreaded cores, 112 Lanes PCIe 5.0 from CPU, Eight Channels up to DDR5-4800 (4TB), 270W to 350W (w5, w7, w9), single LGA-4677 socket, W790 chipset
- Intel Xeon W-2400: "Mainstream," 6 to 24 hyperthreaded cores, 64 Lanes PCIe 5.0 from CPU, Four Channels up to DDR5-4800 (2TB), 120W to 225W (w3, w5, w7), single LGA-4677 socket, W790 chipset
- Maximum Turbo Power (MTP) is 1.2X the Processor Base Power (PBP)
The processors wield Intel's Golden Cove architecture and use the same design as the fourth-gen Xeon Scalable server processors, which are also known as Sapphire Rapids. The W-3400 processors come with the multi-chiplet XCC Sapphire Rapids design, while the W-2400 processors use a single MCC die.
The Golden Cove architecture is also found in Intel's consumer-oriented Alder Lake and marks a big step forward from the Sunny Cove cores found in the previous-gen Ice Lake Xeon processors. Notably, the new Xeon W processors only have large performance cores, so there are no smaller e-cores like we see with Intel's hybrid processors for mainstream desktop PCs.
