Intel Launches Xeon-W for Workstations

[Ezzy-525]

 

Intel has today launched it's latest entry into the "professional" CPU slot with it's newest Xeon line, named Xeon-W

 

Article from AnandTech:  http://www.anandtech.com/show/11775/intel-launches-xeon-w-cpus-for-workstations

 

Quote

On the professional side of the CPU space, Intel’s new Xeon Scalable Processor family, based on the Skylake-SP architecture, is suiting up against the new EPYC processors from AMD. Part of Intel’s Xeon-SP launch was a rebranding of their product stack: gone are E5 and E7 families, and now Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze make for a confusing conversion. With this announcement, Intel also gave the image that now consumer and professional platforms were separate: no longer were Xeons welcome in consumer sockets. However as it turns out, this would not quite be the case.

Today Intel is taking the wraps off of their new Xeon-W family of processors, which will be their new brand for workstation-class processors. With the Xeon-W announcement today, Intel is bridging the gap between servers and consumer processors (in name at least) with a direct replacement for the old E5-1600 series, which will see Skylake-SP Xeons come to the LGA2066 socket with additional professional-level features in tow.

For Intel this appears to be their bridge between Skylake-X and Skylake-SP, so hopefully will be competitively priced for those who want a serious workstation but aren't willing to drop 10k on a CPU. Personally, I like the drop in TDP which is great for always on workstations and the power bills that come with them, and a very nice bump from the 128GB DRAM that Skylake-X supports. And 48 PCIe lanes to boot...although still no Threadripper in THAT respect.

 

When stacked against TR and EPYC...they still lack overall cores/threads, PCIe lanes, L3 AND overall RAM capacity. However...Intel still has higher clocks. So swings and roundabouts I guess. Oh...and of course, Intel has "the ecosystem".

 

That being said, it offers a nice middle ground within Intel's own top tier chip line up...at least until the price comes out  (You'll note the top end W-2195's are still...TBD)

 

P.S This is my first time posting news, and I checked it wasn't already here...if I've messed up anything just let me know. 

[PCGuy_5960]

They seem kinda pointless TBH, unless you really need ECC RAM or those 4 more PCIe lanes, you might as well get a 7980XE. But EPYC is a better option than the 18c Xeon because it will probably cost the same, but it will have 32 cores, 64 threads 128 PCIe lanes and 8 channel DDR4.

Edited August 29, 2017 by PCGuy_5960

[Ezzy-525]

Just now, PCGuy_5960 said:

They seem kinda pointless TBH, unless you really need ECC RAM or those 4 more PCIe lanes, you might as well get a 7980XE. But EPYC is a better option than the 18c Xeon because it will probably cost the same, but it will have 32 cores, 64 threads and 128 PCIe lanes. 

I agree they're pointless when there are alternatives, but I guess at least they're filling in the gaps on their own product range for the people who only trust Intel. 

[Coaxialgamer]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

They seem kinda pointless TBH, unless you really need ECC RAM or those 4 more PCIe lanes, you might as well get a 7980XE. But EPYC is a better option than the 18c Xeon because it will probably cost the same, but it will have 32 cores, 64 threads and 128 PCIe lanes. 

Plus all ryzen chips support ECC

[Ground]

Btw, is it possible the details on the EPYC 7401P are wrong? AMD shows it as a 24 core, 48 thread and 128 PCIe lane monster... Though its price is probably around 1700$,,,

[Guest]

Sounds nice because of the ecosystem of course!

 

But hey, if this is lower than Bronze wont people buying this feel underwhelmed :l?

[Misanthrope]

Prices: 835, 1113, 1440, TBA, TBA.

 

Might as well be "Too embarrassing to even show" instead of TBA

[NumLock21]

skus

 

 

Pro-VR entry level ready for Xeon W and Pro-VR expert level ready for Xeon Scalable.

[Matu20]

37 minutes ago, Ground said:

Btw, is it possible the details on the EPYC 7401P are wrong? AMD shows it as a 24 core, 48 thread and 128 PCIe lane monster... Though its price is probably around 1700$,,,

Specs are correct.

[Taf the Ghost]

Okay, the really important question:

 

Are these the CPUs that Intel cut down for the Skylake-X chips or to not make Skylake-X a disaster these got approved from the same semi-custom line? I'd lean towards the first. Skylake-X was going to be the lower-quality silicon from the W-line. Now they've run out the entire line to the Skylake-X platform.

[NumLock21]

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Okay, the really important question:

 

Are these the CPUs that Intel cut down for the Skylake-X chips or to not make Skylake-X a disaster these got approved from the same semi-custom line? I'd lean towards the first. Skylake-X was going to be the lower-quality silicon from the W-line. Now they've run out the entire line to the Skylake-X platform.

Xeons are not cut down of any chips. Core i7 or i9 are cut down of Xeon chips.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

Xeons are not cut down of any chips. Core i7 or i8 are cutdown of Xeon chips.

Skylake-X was always re-purposed from the Xeon development branch. I'm just curious whether SKL-X caused the SKL-W branch to exist or if SKL-W was simply the product line they used to make the SKL-X. These are clearly the same CPUs (with a bit more features turned on with SKL-W), I'm just laughing about which came first.

[NumLock21]

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Skylake-X was always re-purposed from the Xeon development branch. I'm just curious whether SKL-X caused the SKL-W branch to exist or if SKL-W was simply the product line they used to make the SKL-X. These are clearly the same CPUs (with a bit more features turned on with SKL-W), I'm just laughing about which came first.

SKL-W is the product they used to make SKL-X. SKL-W does not have more features turned on. It just doesn't have any features disabled. Even X99 5960X is actually a 12 or 18 core Xeon, with half of its cores disabled.

[PCGuy_5960]

5 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Even X99 5960X is actually a 12 or 18 core Xeon, with half of its cores disabled.

Nope, the 5960X is using an 8 core die :

[samcool55]

They need to do something about pricing, these are just stupid.

 

I mean, 1400 dollars for a 10C/20T cpu, seriously? You get a 16C/32T threadripper for 1000 dollars and if you go with epyc it's only 600 dollars. That's less than half! Yes clock speeds are lower but still, holy crap.

 

And "up to" is all over the place again, time for another rant video Linus!

[NumLock21]

37 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Nope, the 5960X is using an 8 core die :

NO. 5960x is advertised as 8 cores. Its die is a cut down xeon.

 

 

https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-de-lidded-interesting-discoveries-found/

[PCGuy_5960]

9 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

NO. 5960x is advertised as 8 cores. Its die is a cut down xeon.

 

 

https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-de-lidded-interesting-discoveries-found/

Nope, that's not a 5960X.

As you can see in the video, the 5960X has a much smaller die than the CPU in the photo, that's because it's using an 8 core die

 

And iirc, Intel confirmed that the 5960X isn't a cut down Xeon.

[bimmerman]

So...unless I'm misunderstanding something the 4 and 6 core Xeon W SKUs are both cheaper than the i9-7900x and have the same number of PCIE lanes. In other words, the Kaby-X and Skylake-X i7s are only slightly cheaper than the lower end Xeon SKUs, are not appreciably faster unless you have to overclock, and have more PCIE lanes. Seems like the 4 or 6 core Xeon is a multi-GPU gaming or computation win to me without paying the artificial segmentation game with the i9 vs i7s.

 

Seems to me that the Xeons are the better 'budget' X299 chip than the cut-down i7s.

[Shreyas1]

Microsoft recently announced windows for workstation... 

[Taf the Ghost]

6 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

So...unless I'm misunderstanding something the 4 and 6 core Xeon W SKUs are both cheaper than the i9-7900x and have the same number of PCIE lanes. In other words, the Kaby-X and Skylake-X i7s are only slightly cheaper than the lower end Xeon SKUs, are not appreciably faster unless you have to overclock, and have more PCIE lanes. Seems like the 4 or 6 core Xeon is a multi-GPU gaming or computation win to me without paying the artificial segmentation game with the i9 vs i7s.

 

Seems to me that the Xeons are the better 'budget' X299 chip than the cut-down i7s.

List price is one thing; "retail" for the W-line is a completely different discussion. Plus, you can't OC the part. Though the lower SKUs really look like a "damn you, AMD! We didn't want to have to do this" move.

[bimmerman]

11 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

List price is one thing; "retail" for the W-line is a completely different discussion. Plus, you can't OC the part. Though the lower SKUs really look like a "damn you, AMD! We didn't want to have to do this" move.

Agreed, but not everyone with an HEDT chip immediately OCs their parts; I'd wager only a small subset do (i.e. gamers). Doing some more research it looks like these Xeons won't be compatible with X299 anyway, requiring a different chipset. I wonder if motherboard bios revisions will allow the chip to work on the X-series boards. Or, whether Nvidia/AMD certify the workstation boards for multi-GPU.

[WMGroomAK]

19 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

Doing some more research it looks like these Xeons won't be compatible with X299 anyway, requiring a different chipset

Even with them not being compatible with the X299 boards, at least the Gigabyte C422 board being shown off looks like it has plenty of good features...  

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11777/gigabyte-announces-mw51-hp0-motherboard-c422-chipset

 

[Guest]

I am surprised how expensive the top of the line Xeon is, 28c/56t priced at $10,009, its also interesting that it doesn't support six-channels of ddr4 or multi-socket capabilities. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, TheBeastPC said:

I am surprised how expensive the top of the line Xeon is, 28c/56t priced at $10,009, its also interesting that it doesn't support six-channels of ddr4 or multi-socket capabilities. 

Take AMD's EPYC server CPU's for example, its cheaper than the Xeon 8c/16t W-1245, your getting an extra 8 cores, 2TB 8 channel memory support and 64 mb of cache. I understand that when it comes to the pricing between the Xeon W-1245 and EPYC that there isnt much difference in terms of price, only a $38 difference. 

[leadeater]

Well this tells us a lot about the base/boost frequencies of the upcoming Skylake-X processors 
 
i9-7900X vs W-2175 the Xeon has 200Mhz higher boost and same base.