Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPUs & W790 Platform Official: Up To 56 Cores, 105 MB Cache, 112 Gen 5 Lanes, $359 To $5889 US SKUs

Intel has officially lifted the curtains off its next-gen Xeon Workstation family, Sapphire Rapids, which comes in W-3400 & W-2400 CPU flavors.

Intel last updated its Xeon Workstation family back in July 2021 with the launch of the Xeon W-3300 "Ice Lake" CPUs, The lineup was mostly optimized for high-end workstations with no options for the mainstream user. This changes in 2023 as Intel is unveiling not one but two Xeon Workstation CPU families aiming at a diverse range of users.

Enter Sapphire Rapids, the same Xeon CPUs that launched for cloud servers and data centers last month are now coming to the workstation market. Intel is saying goodbye to the older Sunny Cove architecture and adopting the latest Golden Cove architecture which will be shipping in the chiplet layout. The chiplet will not feature a hybrid architecture like the one we get on the 12th & 13th Gen mainstream desktop SKUs.

So starting with the workloads that these chips are designed to address, while this isn't necessarily a HEDT replacement, there are a lot of features that make it an alternative to a proper HEDT setup. Workstation workloads such as Media & Entertainment, Life Sciences, Financial Services, Energy & Geo-Sciences, Data Science & AI Development, and Engineering are just a few key areas where the Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation family will be targeted at.

As expected, the Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation lineup will range from Xeon W9, Xeon W7, Xeon W5, and Xeon W3 segments and will come in both Monolithic and MCM flavors. The lineup includes a total of 15 SKUs of which 7 are part of the Xeon W-3400 and 8 are part of the Xeon W-2400 family.

Following is the split of SKUs between the two segments:

All Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon workstation CPUs will come with Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 with up to 4.8 GHz frequencies, Intel Smart Cache with up to 105 MB L3, 3rd Gen Deep Learning Boost (AVX-512 Support), and Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) with INT8 and BFLOAT16 support.

The Intel Xeon W-3400 Sapphire Rapids chips are designated within the "Expert" Workstation CPU family. These chips offer up to 56 cores, 112 threads, 8-channel DDR5-4800 memory support, and 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. All Intel Xeon W-3400 CPUs support up to 4 TB memory capacities (EEC/R-DIMM).

Starting with the SKUs, the top chip within the lineup is the Xeon W9-3495X which offers 56 cores & 112 threads. This chip packs 105 MB of L3 cache and has a base clock of 1.9 GHz & boosts up to 4.8 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 350W and a PL2 TDP of 420W. The unlocked mode should push the TDP even higher. The Following is the PL1 and PL2 distribution of the various Xeon W-3400 SKUs:

Next up, we have the Xeon W9-3475X with 36 cores & 72 threads, the Xeon W7-3465X with 28 cores & 56 threads, the Xeon W7-3455 with 24 cores & 48 threads, the Xeon W7-3445 with 20 cores & 40 threads, the Xeon W5-3435X with 16 cores & 32 threads, and lastly, the Xeon W5-3425 with 12 cores and 24 threads. The Xeon W-3400 lineup starts at $1189 US and goes up to $5889 US for the fastest variant.

The Intel Xeon W-2400 Sapphire Rapids chips are designated within the "Mainstream" Workstation CPU family. These chips offer up to 24 cores, 48 threads, 4-channel DDR5-4800 memory support, and 64 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. All Intel Xeon W-2400 CPUs support up to 2 TB memory capacities (EEC/R-DIMM).

Starting with the SKUs, the top chip within the lineup is the Xeon W7-2495X which offers 24 cores & 48 threads. This chip packs 45 MB of L3 cache and has a base clock of 2.5 GHz & boosts up to 4.8 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 225W and a PL2 TDP of 270W. The unlocked mode should push the TDP even higher. The Following is the PL1 and PL2 distribution of the various Xeon W-2400 SKUs:

Next up, we have the Xeon W7-2475X with 20 cores & 40 threads, the Xeon W5-2465X with 16 cores & 32 threads, the Xeon W5-2455X with 12 cores & 24 threads, the Xeon W5-2445 with 10 cores & 20 threads, the Xeon W3-2435 with 8 cores & 16 threads, and lastly, the Xeon W3-2425/2523 with 6 cores and 12 threads. The Xeon W-2400 lineup starts at $359 US and goes up to $2189 US for the fastest variant.

The Intel Xeon Workstation CPUs offer full unlocked support to overclockers for even faster CPU performance. There are a total of 8 SKUs within the family that offer functionalities such as the Processor Core Tuning, AVX2/AVX512 & brand new AMX Negative Ratio Offset Tuning, Mesh CPU Tuning, Turbo Boost 2.0 Frequency Tuning, and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 Tuning. All of the above-said Tuning options will be available with the latest version of Intel's XTU or Extreme Tuning Utility. The unlocked SKUs are listed below:

Intel's official performance benchmarks show that the Xeon W-3400 CPUs offer up to a 28% single and 120% multi-threaded performance improvement over the Cascade Lake chips. This difference is even higher when you compare specific workloads such as SPEC Workstation 3.1 where the new Xeon parts deliver upto 140% faster performance, up to 131% faster performance in entertainment and media applications, 74% better performance in Engineering applications, and 75% bump within data science workloads.

These are obviously some big performance numbers that Intel is showcasing today but there's a lot more that needs to be discussed in detail such as power efficiency, power consumption, the overall value of these chips, & how they perform across an even wider set of benchmarks. Those will have to wait a bit more till independent testers get their hands on these chips.

The latest platform to support the new Xeon Workstation CPUs is known as Fishhawk Falls and is based around the W790 chipset. The W790 motherboards will feature the LGA 4677 socket which will get various motherboards from partners such as ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte & Supermicro. The cooling systems will be offered by Cooler Master, Noctua, EKWB & AURAS while memory vendors will be optimizing support around them with the leading RDIMM partners being ADATA, Kingston, Micron, Samsung & SK Hynix. Leading system OEMs will also offer their brand-new workstation PC options.

All Sapphire Rapids Workstation CPUs including Xeon W-3400 & Xeon W-2400 have a vast amount of PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes with the W-3400 family offering up to 112 and W-2400 offering up to 64 lanes directly from the CPU. In addition to the CPU lanes, the W790 'Fishhawk Falls' PCH is also going to offer 16 PCIe Gen 4.0, 12 PCIe Gen 3.0, and 8 SATA 3.0 ports. Following is a breakdown of the lanes available on the workstation/HEDT platform:

As for the memory configurations, the Intel Xeon W-3400 CPUs will offer 8-channel DDR5 support with 2 DIMMs supported per channel while Xeon W-2400 CPUs will offer 4-channel DDR5 support with 2 DIMMs supported per channel on the W790 platform. The Xeon W-3400 CPUs can support up to 4 TB while the W-2400 CPUs can support up to 2 TB capacities at speeds of up to DDR5-4800 out of the box.

All Intel Sapphire Rapids Workstation & HEDT CPUs will come with IA & memory performance tuning options. It is stated that these unlocked performance tuning features will only be available on select SKUs. There will also be integrated Intel Wi-Fi (CNVi) support, up to 14 USB 2 ports, an insane 25 USB 3 ports (5 Gen2x2, 10 Gen2, 10 Gen1), and there will also be VROC PCIe/SATA raid support on the platform.

The following are the main features as highlighted by Intel itself:

The Intel Xeon W-3400 & Xeon W-2400 Sapphire Rapids Workstation CPUs are now available for pre-order and OEM systems will be available in early March. Users will be able to purchase the CPUs (boxed) and motherboards separately.