TOTAL Ripoff from Intel?

[Emily Young]

Xeon W is Intel's high end desktop "workstation" line, but does ANYTHING set them apart from their Core i9 siblings?

 

 

Buy a Core i7 7820X:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/wLZG
On Newegg: http://geni.us/in4HB

 

Buy a Core i9 7900X:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/LT0z
On Newegg: http://geni.us/o8SdBuU

 

Buy a Core i9 7980XE:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/zlAWGG
On Newegg: http://geni.us/K1UIs

 

Buy an ASUS WS X299 SAGE: 
On Newegg: http://geni.us/4FRYwBJ

 

Buy an ASUS C422 PRO/SE:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/zoBgzaF
On Newegg: http://geni.us/PXP79

[Nicnac]

I always though X299 had ECC support........ wrong again I guess 

[AnonymousGuy]

3 hours ago, Nicnac said:

I always though X299 had ECC support........ wrong again I guess 

On X99 you could buy boards that would support ECC memory (like my ASRock X99 WS-E and Asus X99M WS).  Doesn't seem like any X299 board supports it thought.

[davrosG5]

The Xeon W's make a little more sense at the bottom end of the range. The Core i7-7740X etc only have 16 PCIe lanes and support up to 64GB of dual channel RAM compared to 48 lanes and 512GB or quad channel RAM. Price differential is still in the £150 - £200+ range though so it would need to be a fairly specific usage scenario in the first place - high IPC but not many threads and high PCIe usage - NAS or other sort of storage applicances come to mind but that's about it.

 

Until Intel really feels some heat from the likes of Ryzen & Threadripper in the workstation and UP server market they'll carry on charging whatever they want.

[Sauron]

27 minutes ago, davrosG5 said:

The Xeon W's make a little more sense at the bottom end of the range. The Core i7-7740X etc only have 16 PCIe lanes and support up to 64GB of dual channel RAM compared to 48 lanes and 512GB or quad channel RAM.

Yes, but the 7740x never made any sense to begin with, especially given the competition.

[davrosG5]

Yes, I know the 7740X (and the 7640X) didn't make a lot of sense. But then a lot of the Core X series doesn't make a lot of sense. Intel were panicked by Threadripper while also trying to avoid cannibalising sales of their Xeon line by artificially hobbling some of the Core X capabilities but it doesn't really work.

Unless you desperately need something like vPro the majority of people are better off with the Core X with the possible exception of the very bottom of the range where the Xeon premium gets you a markedly better/more flexible CPU.

IMHO Intel should have had the 4 core  Core X parts with at least 28 PCIe lanes and the same RAM capacity as the higher up models (or just not bothered) otherwise using the bigger socket makes zero sense.