Sapphire Rapids-Refresh: Intel's Xeon W-3500 and -2500 workstation processors

If the headline and previous text look familiar to you, then you have a good memory. In fact, we've gone to about as much trouble up to this point as Intel did with its refresh of the Xeon W-3400/2400, which originally launched around 18 months ago based on Sapphire Rapids. The fourteen new workstation processors use chips from the Sapphire Rapids refresh generation and have two to four more processor cores than their respective predecessors – only the second largest, the W9-3575X, has eight more cores. The clock rates are also slightly higher across the board, but neither the new performance cores of the Granite Rapids generation expected shortly, by the end of the third quarter of 2024, nor the Emerald Rapids introduced last year will find a home in the new Xeon W.

The top end of the price range remains roughly the same at $5889 – as usual in wholesale quantities and excluding tax. At the lower end of the model table, a minimum of 609 US dollars is now due instead of the previous 359 US dollars, but at least there are eight CPU cores instead of six. As is usual in the older Xeons, these are all P-cores with a double AVX512 unit and AMX accelerators for AI. Other accelerator IPs such as QAT, IAA and DLB are not supported, but a single Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA) does its job.

Most of the new Xeon Ws are either available at the same price as their predecessors or even one to two hundred dollars cheaper. If you factor in the clock rate and core count, you generally get the better deal with the new ones. A complete list, including the models of the previous generation, can be found at the end of the article.

The new Xeon W processors are expected to be available in the third quarter of 2024, including in workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo, as well as SuperMicro, Puget Systems and Hypertec. Mainboards with the LGA4677 version will be available from 499 US dollars.

Same platform, same boards

The increase in performance through additional processor cores and higher clock rates does not come for free in terms of energy, however, because with SPR-R the manufacturing process has also remained with the Intel 7, which is now quite well established. The top model now comes with a base power, i.e. thermal design power (TDP) outside the turbo window, of 385 watts in the socket, which is 35 watts more than before. For the other models, the maximum increase is 55 watts compared to the respective predecessors. The maximum Turbo power of the top model Xeon W-3595X increases to 462 watts from 420 watts for the 3495X.

Nevertheless, the Xeon W-3500 and -2500 run on the same mainboards with the W790 chipset as their predecessors, but generally require a BIOS update. As a result, the platform capabilities are also the same, especially in terms of I/O expansion and memory (see table). The memory speeds have also remained identical. The restriction to the same platform is also what blocks newer processor generations such as Emerald Rapids or even Granite Rapids: Changes to the I/O dies would limit compatibility with the W790 chipset.

Per core faster than Threadripper Pro ...

The renaissance in workstation use, which Intel claims was accelerated by the introduction of the Xeon W-3400/2400 last year, together with the strong competition from AMD's Threadripper Pro 7000 WX, has probably led to the decision to refresh the Xeon W. As is customary for product launches, there were some key performance data selected by the manufacturer. Selected to present their own products in the best possible light – this is also common.

In most tests, Intel compares the respective top models Xeon W9-3595X and W7-2595X against the Xeon W-3295/2295 with 28 and 18 cores from the Cascade Lake generation, which was introduced almost four years ago. A performance leap of 50 to 140 percent is hardly surprising. If the AMX matrix multipliers are used, performance increases by a factor of 4.3 are even possible in conjunction with reduced-precision data formats such as BF16 or INT8, as Intel demonstrates using the upscaling example of Topaz Video AI.

The aim is also to beat AMD's Threadripper Pro 7985WX by a factor of 2. In the test with the Python benchmark NumPy, it is said to be +26 percent. A customized Python distribution that uses INT8 and AMX is said to deliver another 100 percent more performance with the Xeon.

Although this comparison of 60 to 64 cores is still reasonably valid, it ignores the fact that AMD also offers a 96-core model, the Threadripper Pro 7995WX, whose name would not necessarily suggest this potential 50 percent leap in performance compared to the 7985WX.

Workstation-Prozessoren: Intel Xeon W 2500/3500
Modellname	Kerne	L3-Cache (MByte)	Takt (Basis / Turbo / Max, MHz)	Speicher	Base Power (Watt)	Preis (US-Dollar)
w9-3595X	60	112,5	2,0 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	385	5889
w9-3495X	56	105	1,9 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	350	5889
w9-3575X	44	97,5	2,2 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	340	3789
w9-3475X	36	82,5	2,2 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	300	3739
w7-3565X	32	82,5	2,5 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	335	2689
w7-3465X	28	75	2,5 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	300	2889
w7-3555	28	75	2,7 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	325	2339
w7-3455	24	67,5	2,5 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	270	2489
w7-3545	24	67,5	2,7 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	310	2039
w7-3445	20	52,5	2,6 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	270	1989
w5-3535X	20	52,5	2,9 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	300	1689
w5-3435X	16	45	3,1 / 4,5 / 4,7	8 × DDR5-4800R	270	1589
w5-3525	16	45	3,2 / 4,6 / 4,8	8 × DDR5-4800R	290	1339
w5-3425	12	30	3,2 / 4,4 / 4,6	8 × DDR5-4800R	270	1189
Modellname	Kerne	L3-Cache (MByte)	Takt (Basis / Turbo / Max, MHz)	Speicher	Base Power (Watt)	Preis (US-Dollar)
w7-2595X	26	48,75	2,8 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	250	2039
w7-2495X	24	45	2,5 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	225	2189
w7-2575X	22	45	3,0 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	250	1689
w7-2475X	20	37,5	2,6 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	225	1789
w5-2565X	18	37,5	3,2 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	240	1339
w5-2465X	16	33,75	3,1 / 4,5 / 4,7	4 × DDR5-4800R	200	1389
w5-2555X	14	33,75	3,3 / 4,6 / 4,8	4 × DDR5-4800R	210	1069
w5-2455X	12	30	3,2 / 4,4 / 4,6	4 × DDR5-4800R	200	1039
w5-2545	12	30	3,5 / 4,5 / 4,7	4 × DDR5-4800R	210	889
w5-2445	10	26,25	3,1 / 4,4 / 4,6	4 × DDR5-4800R	175	839
w5-2535	10	26,25	3,5 / 4,4 / 4,6	4 × DDR5-4400R	185	739
w5-2435	8	22,5	3,2 / 4,3 / 4,5	4 × DDR5-4400R	165	669
w3-2525	8	22,5	3,5 / 4,3 / 4,5	4 × DDR5-4400R	175	609
w3-2425	6	15	3,0 / 4,2 / 4,4	4 × DDR5-4400R	130	529
w3-2423	6	15	2,1 / 4,0 / 4,2	4 × DDR5-4400R	120	359
Alle Xeon W haben Hyperthreading und stellen 2x soviel virtuelle Threads bereit. Xeon W-3000 haben 112 PCIe-Lanes und max. 4 TByte registered ECC-RAM, W-2000 nur 64 Lanes und 2 TByte, Geschw. nur bei 1DPC, mit 2 DPC generell DDR5-4400. Modelle mit X-Suffix sind „unlocked“ und lassen sich z.B. übertakten. Preise: Großhandelsmengen, ohne Steuern.

(csp)