In the earlier part of this year, Intel introduced its Sapphire Rapids workstation family, which included the Xeon W-3400 “High-End” and Xeon W-2400 “Mainstream” CPUs. The company is now gearing up for a refresh set to launch next year, under the Xeon W-3500 and Xeon W-2500 series. The specifications for these chips seem to have been finalized, with details shared by YuuKi_AnS.
The All-New Intel Xeon W-2500 CPU
Similar to this year’s lineup, the upcoming Intel Xeon W-2500 “Sapphire Rapids” refresh CPUs will utilize the Golden Cove P-Core architecture and will be compatible with the existing LGA-4677 socket on various W790 motherboards. The lineup comprises seven SKUs, offering 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 22, and 26 cores.
The flagship SKU is the Intel Xeon W7-2595X, featuring 26 cores and 52 threads. This is two cores and four threads more than the current flagship, the Xeon W7-2495X with 24 cores and 48 threads. The chip operates at a base clock of 2.8 GHz and a boost clock of 4.8 GHz, packing 48.75 MB of L3 cache and support for DDR5-4800 (4-Channel) memory. The chip is rated at a 250W TDP, which is 25W higher than its predecessor. All chips will come with 64 PCIe Gen 5 lanes.
Compared to the 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh, the Xeon W-2500 Refresh offers improvements in the core and thread count as well as clock speed across all SKUs. Each SKU features two additional cores and threads compared to their predecessors, along with higher TDPs.
According to a previous rumor, the Intel Xeon W-3500 and Xeon W-2500 Sapphire Rapids refresh family for workstations is expected to launch in early 2024. More details about this launch might surface during Intel’s CES 2024 presentation. However, Intel typically keeps a low profile when it comes to refreshes, as seen with the 14th Gen Raptor Lake launch. This lineup will compete with AMD’s Threadripper 7000 series in the mainstream workstation category, which mainly includes 12, 16, and 24 core options.
If Intel maintains similar pricing to the Xeon W-2400 CPUs for the Xeon W-2500 series, we could expect the 12-core Xeon W-2545 to be priced around $839 US and the 18-core Xeon W-2565X around $1389 US. The flagship 26-core CPU is likely to retail for around $2189 US, positioning it as more affordable than the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7965WX at $2649 US but pricier than the DIY Threadripper 7960X, which retails at $1499 US.
How Intel prices its new Xeon lineup will be an interesting aspect to watch, but AMD holds a significant advantage in efficiency and multi-threaded performance with its Zen 4 architecture. Intel will need to consider this factor when releasing the refreshed lineup.
