Intel will soon release the Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPU family, which will include Xeon W-2400 and W-3400 processors. While these chips are expected to provide a significant performance boost over their predecessors, rumors suggest that they will be extremely power-hungry.
The Intel Xeon Workstation CPUs appear to have no fixed wall when it comes to power consumption, according to Chiphell’s Editor, nApoleon. Although he does not mention any specific SKU or segment, it appears that this is related to the higher-end Xeon W-3400 CPUs, which will have a default TDP of 350W. These CPUs will also support up to 56 cores, 112 threads, extremely fast clock speeds, and 8-channel memory.
The Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPUs can consume around 600W of power by default, but overclocking causes things to go crazy.
All Xeon Workstation “X” processors will have an unlocked multiplier and can be overclocked in the same way that any other mainstream or HEDT CPU can. In Cinebench R23, the chips can reach up to 700W of power and consume more than 900 Watts when overclocked.
Motherboard designers will have to work harder to design VRMs and cooling for their motherboards with this level of wattage in mind. Custom-loop cooling should be considered for the Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids Workstation CPUs because standard 360mm AIO coolers may not be sufficient if these bad boys are overclocked.
Intel’s Sapphire Rapids-SP CPUs with PL1 limits of 350W already have an MTP (Maximum Turbo Power) rating of 420W, which is equivalent to the RTX 4090 graphics card. The maximum BIOS limit was 764, and those chips not only ran at lower clock speeds but also did not support overclocking. Given that the W-3400 and W-2400 SKUs are mostly unlocked and run at higher clock speeds, the increased power is to be expected.
It’s also been reported that the single-core performance of Intel’s Xeon Workstation Sapphire Rapids chips is on par with the top 13th-Gen SKUs, implying that those Golden Cove cores are clocking extremely well, as one would expect given that they’re operating at over 500W of power.
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