AMD launches Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX series led by the 5995WX that trounces two Intel Xeon Platinum 8280s

AMD pits the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX as the "ultimate workstation processor" with up to 64 Zen 3 cores, 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, and eight memory channels. These HEDT CPUs also feature several AMD Pro security and manageability features backed by 18 months of planned software availability and 24 months of planned hardware availability.

Speaking of software updates, AMD said that ongoing ISV collaboration combined with regular driver optimizations can potentially result in application performance increases over the life of the processor. The company showed examples of industry-standard programs such as Ansys Mechanical and Autodesk Arnold that wherein significant performance uplifts were gained from software updates on a Threadripper Pro 3995WX system with all specifications being the same.

The company said that modern security features such as Shadow Stack, which is basically AMD's way of preventing control-flow attacks and other enterprise-class feature sets come in-built with Threadripper Pro 5000 WX series unlike Intel's Xeon W-3300. AMD also highlighted other advantages over Ice Lake-based workstation processors including availability of higher core counts, higher boosts, a much larger L3 cache, and twice the PCIe lane count.

The Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX series starts from the Threadripper Pro 5945WX with 12 cores 24 threads and a 4.1 GHz base. Then we have the Threadripper Pro 5955WX with 16 cores 32 threads and 4 GHz base followed by the Threadripper Pro 5965WX with 24 cores 28 threads and 3.8 GHz base, Threadripper Pro 5975WX with 32 cores 64 threads and 3.6 GHz base, and finally the flagship Threadripper Pro 5995WX with a massive 64 cores 128 threads and a 2.7 GHz base.

All Threadripper Pro 5000 WX processors can boost up to 4.5 GHz, offer 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, are rated at a 280 W TDP, and support up to 2 TB of ECC UDIMM, RDIMM, and LRDIMM 8-channel memory.

AMD also said that the new Threadripper Pro 5000 CPUs, particularly the Threadripper Pro 5995WX offers twice the performance to power ratio compared to an Intel Xeon Platinum 8280. Though the Zen 3 architecture is a couple of years old by now, AMD said that workloads moving to the new architecture still stand to benefit from increased IPC, faster clocks, and 256 MB of total L3 cache.

AMD showed off several performance numbers for the new Threadripper Pro 5000 WX series, which you can see in the slides embedded below. Unsurprisingly, the new Threadripper Pros show significant leads in every application. The Threadripper Pro 5995WX was compared to a dual-socket Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 to somewhat tally the core counts since the Xeon W series tops-out at 38 cores with the Xeon W-3375.

We did see rumors of dual-socket support coming for the new Threadrippers, but today's announcement does not indicate any such feature. We have reached out to AMD for confirmation on this. 

Unfortunately, AMD will not be offering DIY non-Pro versions of Threadripper 5000 processors, so going the OEM route is the only option for now — that too, Lenovo is the only OEM that is offering configurations that include all the announced SKUs. It is not clear whether the likes of Dell and HP would come onboard at a later date.

It is also not clear whether it would be technically possible to drop-in a Threadripper Pro 5000 WX processor on current sWRX8 socket boards. Most likely, this will be limited by the BIOS since consumer HEDT boards do not offer the Pro security features. We have reached out to AMD on this and will update the article if we get any information.

Based on what we know so far, Sapphire Rapids Fishhawk Falls will be offered in both workstation and mainstream workstation offerings. Intel may segregate the Sapphire Rapids SKUs based on MCC (medium core configs) and XCC (extreme core configs) that are expected to top-out at 56 cores and up to 350 W for workstations.

Sapphire Rapids Fishhawk Falls is also expected to offer support for 8-channel DDR5-4800 2DPC RAM and up to 112 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. Mainstream workstations are likely to be rated below 300 W and will offer up to 44 cores but with support for up to 8 sockets. It remains to be seen how Intel can make a comeback with Sapphire Rapids later this year. 

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX processors will be available in Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstations starting March 21.

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