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It’s only been a few days AMD has rolled out its Ryzen 7000 processors with up to 16 Zen 4 cores and there are already rumors about the next big CPU announcement.
What appears to be the successor to the world’s fastest x86 processor – the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX – has appeared in a popular computer science project, einstein@home (opens in new tab)as reported by the prolific CPU chaser Bank Leaks (opens in new tab) (via Tom’s Hardware (opens in new tab)).
The processor is listed as an “AuthenticAMD AMD Eng Sample: 100-000000454-20_Y” [Family 25 Model 24 Stepping 1]” which, with 128 threads (64 cores, two threads each) and an unusual identifier, does not match any current AMD processor.
Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, this impending Storm Peak product will likely be called 7995WX and have four dies glued together (probably underclocked 65W AMD Ryzen 9 7950X), achieving a TDP of about 260W with some overhead (I/O etc.).), which matches the 280W TDP of the Zen 3-powered 5995WX nicely. The latter had a base clock of 2.7GHz with a maximum boost clock up to 4.5GHz, 292MB of combined cache (L1 + L2 + L3).
Workstation galore
The new processors will find their way to desktop workstation PCswhere high processor/thread counts help immensely – more than just higher frequencies – with a wide variety of tasks: video editing, rendering, financial analysis, GIS, AI, ML etc.
Lenovo, Dell and boutique providers (Maingear, Speed MicroPuget Systems) are likely to launch products based on the latest Threadripper, likely in June 2023.
Intel will also be watching closely as it tries to ramp up the core count, reflecting what we’ve seen in the consumer market. For the first time, Core i7 processors (the 13th generation launched a few days ago) now have 16 cores, matching AMD’s Ryzen 7 family.
Will Intel raise the bar and increase the number of Xeon cores (currently peaking at 40 cores)? We wouldn’t bet against it, although that might require a big drop in price to maintain any sense of competitiveness; the 40-core 8380 costs about 50% more than the 64-core 5995WX.
It will also be interesting to see if AMD launches a new line of Threadripper processors targeting mobile workstationsa small but still very lucrative niche currently dominated by Intel.