Intel Announces Xeon W-3175X 28C/56T CPU, $2000 Soldered 9980XE Overclocking CPUs

Intel today announced its Xeon W-3175X 28C/56T CPU, not to be confused with the previously demonstrated 28C HEDT Skylake-X CPU from Computex. The CPU targets workstation users on Xeon platforms. Its intended use is for production, like Blender (a tool we use for our own animations) and other heavily multithreaded render applications. As these are heavily core-dependent, the use case is more pronounced than in production software like Premiere, which is frequency-dependent.

For frequency, the 28C/56T Xeon part operates at a native boost frequency of 4.3GHz – but Intel did not specify if this is single-core or all-core. It’s almost certainly single-core Turbo, leaving us uncertain as to the frequency in all-core boost.

Following this announcement, Intel pushed word that its X-series CPUs, including unlocked K-SKUs, will remain maxed at 18C/36T (a la 7980XE), but will move to solder for its thermal interface. Intel refers to this as “STIM,” or “soldered TIM.” Technically, solder is a TIM, so we are uncertain if there is anything beyond this marketing namesake.

The new X-series CPUs will also offer 68 PCIe lanes, which propels Intel into more direct competition for PCIe throughput with AMD. Quad-channel DDR4 remains, and the i7/i9 branding also remains.

At least some of these CPUs, like the Xeons, will run on the new X599 platform. We are unclear as to what platform the HEDT CPUs are using. We have some videography of these that will land in our upcoming video. We previously posted a PCB analysis of one of these.

We’ll publish additional information as we learn more.

UPDATE

Intel has announced further specifications for the 28C 3175X:

• 3.1GHz/4.3GHz boost (two fastest cores)
• 28C/56T
• 255W TDP
• 38.5MB Cache
• Price TBD

The X-series products are as follows:

• 8 to 18C options
• 48PCIe lanes off of the CPU, the remaining 10 off of the chipset

Specs are as below, courtesy of Bitwit:

Intel demonstrated gains versus the 2990WX, although only showed applications which are often single-threaded -- like Premiere, Maya, and gaming-related tasks. Blender and other entirely multi-threaded applications were absent from the comparisons. Intel claims "108% faster" video editing (unclear on what precisely Intel thinks "editing" means), "27% faster" rendering in Maya, and "13%" faster game build-time versus the 2990WX.

Intel got back to us on our repeated questions about frequency vs. cores for the 9980XE. All-core is 3.8GHz, single-core is 4.7GHz.

Editorial: Steve Burke