Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon Workstation CPUs & Accompanying W790 ‘Fishhawk Falls’ Platform Unveil In February Followed By Launch in April
It’s been more than a year since Intel launched a new Xeon Workstation family. The last lineup, the Xeon W-3300, is based on the older Ice Lake design and tops out at 38 cores. Meanwhile, AMD has been offering its latest Zen 3 architecture on the Threadripper WX ‘Workstation’ parts, supporting brand-new features and up to 64 cores. Even in terms of value, the AMD Threadripper options are simply unmatched by Intel’s workstation offerings. However, Intel has planned a new platform that will be launching next year. Based on the info provided to us by a little birdie, we have come to know that Intel plans to officially unveil its latest Xeon Workstation family, codenamed Sapphire Rapids-WS, the official announcement should take place somewhere around the 7th week of 2023 (12th Feb - 18th Feb). If all goes smoothly, then we will see a launch and by launch, I mean retail (on-shelf / sales) by April 2023.
Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS / W790 Unveil - February (7th Week), 2023 Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS / W790 Sales - April 2023
Launching their next-gen Xeon Workstation platform early on will give them some time before AMD lands another punch in the form of its 4th Gen Threadripper family, the Ryzen Threadripper 7000 ‘Storm Peak’ with up to 96 Zen 4 cores. It looks like Intel will be going the competitive route with a pricing strategy that might hit AMD a lot since the red team will be going the premium route as the chipmaker did with its Zen 4 consumer lineup. Meanwhile, certain board makers such as Supermicro have been ready with their W790 Xeon-WS motherboards for a while now. Just yesterday, Momomo_US revealed a listing for the X13SWA-TF which is an Intel LGA 4677 socket motherboard designed specifically for workstation-class chips & we know that there’s no chip out there that can utilize this board at the moment. Retailer, Atica.ca, has listed the motherboard for a price of $1290 CAD or $960 US. The motherboard features six PCI Express 4.0 x16 slots, two 10Gb Ethernet LAN ports and comes in an EATX form factor.
Here’s Everything We Know About The Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon Workstation CPU Lineup & W790 Platform
Just like the Core lineup, the Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon chips will come in various segments starting with the Xeon W9, Xeon W7, Xeon W5, and Xeon W3. Each segment comes with its own SKUs with various configurations that will be compatible with the “Fishhawk Falls” platform. We can also confirm that this much is true because we have seen an internal roadmap that lists the following: As for the CPU family itself, the Intel Xeon W9 lineup will range from 56 and 36 core models, featuring up to 105 MB of L3 cache, 350W TDP, and 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. The Xeon W5 family comprises 28, 24, and 20-core models featuring up to 75 MB of L3 cache and 300W TDPs while the Xeon W5 class chips will feature 16 and 12-core SKUs with up to 45 MB of L3 cache and 270W TDPs. Only the base clock speeds are mentioned for the Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon lineup with the Xeon W9 offerings peaking out at 2.2 GHz, the Xeon W7 lineup peaking out at 2.6 GHz & the Xeon W5 lineup peaking out at 3.2 GHz. Each CPU will come with a diverse range of boosting algorithms for all, single and multiple cores. There are at least nine SKUs that have been listed and will run on the Fishhawk Falls platform. You might remember that the Xeon W9-3495 and the Xeon W5-3433 have already been leaked here and here. The Fishhawk Falls platform is going to be a robust and next-gen ecosystem comprising 8-Channel DDR5-4400 (1DPC) / DDR5-4800 (2DPC) and up to 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. These will come with ECC support and up to 4 TB DDR5 memory is possible (theoretically). There’s also a good chance that we might see dual-socket SPR Expert Workstation motherboards that would boost the core count per platform to 112 cores, almost double the amount featured on AMD’s flagship Threadripper, the 5995WX (64 Zen 3 cores). To sum things up:
Intel ‘Expert’ Sapphire Rapids HEDT CPUs Up To 56 Cores / 112 Threads LGA 4677 Socket Support (Possible Dual-Socket Motherboards) 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 Lanes 8-Channel DDR5 Memory (Up To 4 TB)
The other family that will be launching on the Fishhawk Falls platform (W790 chipset) will be the Xeon-MS or mainstream lineup under the Xeon W-2400 series branding. So far, we only know the upper-level features that those chips will have to offer but it is likely we get to hear about them in the coming months.
Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon Workstation CPU Lineup Specs:
