Intel's Sapphire Rapids Xeon W (codename Fishhawk Falls) processors won't be the only core-heavy offerings on the HEDT market for long. Tony Yu, General Manager at Asus China (via HXL), confirmed that AMD's rivaling Ryzen Threadripper 7000 (codename Storm Peak) and spanking new TR5 platform will hit the market in the second half of this year. Wielding the power of the latest Zen 4 cores, Ryzen Threadripper 7000 will surely earn a spot on the list of best CPUs for workstations.
AMD's consumer (Ryzen 7000), mobile (Ryzen 7045 and Ryzen 7040), and server (EPYC 9004) lineups have all received the Zen 4 upgrade. Therefore, it's only fair that AMD gives its leftover Ryzen Threadripper parts the same treatment. AMD uses a combination of TSMC's 5nm and 6nm process nodes for the core compute dies (CCDs) and I/O Die (IOD), respectively, in Zen 4 processors with a chiplet design. It's unlikely that Ryzen Threadripper 700 will deviate from this formula. The hot topic is whether AMD will limit Ryzen Threadripper 7000 to 64 cores or allow it to match the maximum core count on EPYC 9004 (codename Genoa).
Ryzen Threadripper has always been a mirror image of AMD's EPYC processors regarding core counts. Of course, the feature set is different since AMD doesn't want the Ryzen Threadripper cannibalizing the more expensive EPYC counterparts. With Genoa, AMD pushed the server Zen 4 chips up to 96 cores, 50% more than the previous EPYC 7003 (Milan) processors. So far, we've only seen evidence of a 64-core Ryzen Threadripper 7000 chip, so whether HEDT users will get the complete Zen 4 package remains a mystery.
As a quick introduction, AMD's current Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX has 64 Zen 3 cores, whereas the Xeon w9-3495X rocks 56 Golden Cove cores. As a result, the former was mainly faster than the latter in the Asus-provided benchmarks. The Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX also exhibited excellent power efficiency compared to its peer. The results don't look favorable for Intel's Xeon w9-3495X, so even a 64-core Ryzen Threadripper 7000 processor should suffice to blow the Xeon chip out of the water. AMD may not need to push Ryzen Threadripper 7000 to 96 cores, although many HEDT consumers would love that.
AMD introduced the Socket SP5 (LGA6096) specifically for EPYC 9004. Logically, a new platform will accompany AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 7000 lineup, meaning AMD will push the Socket sTRX4 (Socket SP3r3) and Socket sWRX8 (Socket SP3r4) into the retirement home. Yu alluded to the new platform as the "TR5." Similar to how Socket SP3 and Socket sTRX4 share the same number of contacts (4,0946), we presume the same goes for Socket SP5 and the upcoming TR5.
According to a previous leak, AMD may launch Ryzen Threadripper 7000 in HEDT and workstation flavors. The vanilla HEDT chips reportedly support four-channel memory, 64 PCIe 5.0 lanes, eight PCIe 3.0 lanes, and overclocking. However, the workstation chips, likely the Pro variants, seemingly embrace eight-channel memory, 128 PCIe 5.0 lanes, and eight PCIe 3.0 lanes but lack processor and overclocking support.
With the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX (Chagall) series, AMd omitted the non-Pro versions, resulting in the chipmaker ending HEDT chips. While AMD does have a Zen 4-powered Ryzen Threadripper on its roadmap, the chipmaker didn't specify whether it plans to release non-Pro and Pro versions.
Yu was confident that the Ryzen Threadripper 7000 would land in the second half of this year, and whispers around the hardware circles ostensibly point to a September launch. If the dates are accurate, we could see an official appearance at Computex 2023.
