The brand new 64-core AMD Threadripper Professional 5995WX and 32-core Threadripper Professional 5975WX are lastly out there at retail, breaking free from the confines of pre-built OEM methods to contend for a spot on our record of greatest CPUs for workstations. They’ve a troublesome act to comply with: AMD’s previous-gen Threadripper CPUs delivered a crushing blow to the entrenched Intel’s HEDT and workstation lineup, with the buyer fashions basically muscling Staff Blue out of the excessive finish desktop (HEDT) market fully whereas the Professional fashions relegated Intel to an also-ran within the workstation market.
However there’s an issue for fans — Intel deserted the consumer-oriented excessive finish desktop (HEDT) market after its crushing defeat three years in the past, and now that AMD is the one recreation on the town for HEDT chips, it is also dropping the section.
AMD says it’s going to not make the extra reasonably priced non-Professional Threadripper fashions. As an alternative, we get the Threadripper Professional chips which can be priced for professionals and include all of the trimmings to justify the worth tag, just like the Zen 3 structure, clock speeds as much as 4.5 GHz, 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0, and eight DDR4 reminiscence channels that ship unmatchable workstation efficiency.
AMD’s unique Threadripper chips (and supporting motherboards) had been geared for HEDT, which means they got here with greater core counts and entry to extra reminiscence and PCIe connectivity than mainstream desktop PC chips. Nevertheless, pricing was nonetheless largely inside attain for fans. After a number of generations, AMD launched its Threadripper Professional fashions with twice the variety of reminiscence channels (eight) for skilled customers and distinctive motherboards, however the beefy chips carried the eye-watering pricing to match their unimaginable efficiency.
AMD then maintained two lineups, one for customers and one for skilled workstations, however that they had completely different pricing tiers though they had been primarily based on the identical underlying structure. AMD modifications that with the Threadripper 5000 WX-series, unifying the usual HEDT fashions with the skilled lineup, which means there’s now just one line of chips and motherboards for each OEM workstations and DIYers — Threadripper Professional and the WRX80 platform.
| Cores / Threads | MSRP/SEP | Base / Enhance (GHz) | L3 Cache (MB) | TDP | PCIe | |
| Threadripper Professional 5995WX | 64 / 128 | $6,499 | 2.7 / 4.5 | 256 (8CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128 |
| Threadripper Professional 5975WX | 32 / 64 | $3,299 | 3.6 / 4.5 | 128 (4CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128 |
| Threadripper Professional 5965WX | 24 / 48 | $2,399 | 3.8 / 4.5 | 128 (4CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128 |
| Threadripper 5955WX | 16 / 32 | OEM-only | 4.0 / 4.5 | 64 | 280W | 128 |
| Threadripper Professional 5945WX | 12 / 24 | OEM-only | 4.1 / 4.5 | 64 | 280W | 128 |
The issue is AMD has left the 2 lower-end 12- and 16-core Professional fashions as OEM-only, so they will not come to retail. Which means entry-level pricing for Threadripper Professional begins at $2,399 for a 24-core 5965WX — and that is earlier than you buy the requisite super-pricey motherboard (extra beneath) and sufficient reminiscence to fill eight channels. You may pay $3,299 to step as much as the 32-core Threadripper Professional 5975WX, and $6,499 for the 64-core 5995WX, each representing large markups over the prior-gen chips.
It does make some sense for AMD to maintain the 12- and 16-core fashions as OEM solely, provided that Ryzen 5000 and the soon-to-be-launched Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 mainstream platforms already help as much as 16 cores. Nevertheless, these platforms haven’t got quad-or octo-channel reminiscence or greater than 20 PCIe lanes, a standard purpose for fans to step as much as HEDT. Not like the previous-gen Professional chips, all the Threadripper Professional 5000 WX chips do help core and reminiscence overclocking, although. That is a slight comfort prize, however just a few motherboards help the function.
All of which means AMD positions the Threadripper Professional chips squarely for the workstation market, and there they ship. Like its predecessor, the 64-core Threadripper Professional 5995WX is a specialised beast that delivers unbeatable efficiency in workloads that may leverage parallelism. That stated, some purposes merely do not profit from 64 cores, so you need to know your workload earlier than you pull the set off. Nevertheless, you will not discover this many cores or PCIe lanes in a single-socket Intel workstation — the Intel Xeon W-3300 lineup is outclassed with its most of 38 cores and 64 PCIe lanes from a single chip. You may need to pay a heart-stopping $6,499 for the retail 5995WX, although.
The $3,299 32-core Threadripper Professional 5975WX is the extra rational alternative for many professionals, once more delivering stellar efficiency whereas providing all the connectivity of its costlier counterpart. This chip presents the lion’s share of the 5995WX’s efficiency and is not as topic to finicky efficiency in some workloads.
We put each of those chips via a take a look at suite of professional-class purposes, like SPECworkstation and SPECviewperf, together with our commonplace utility take a look at suite. And sure, we put the chips via our gaming take a look at suite to see how they fare.
Spoiler alert: They match AMD’s quickest commonplace gaming chips.
Threadripper Professional 5995WX and 5975WX Specs and Pricing
| Cores / Threads | MSRP/SEP | Base / Enhance (GHz) | L3 Cache (MB) | TDP | PCIe | Reminiscence | |
| Threadripper Professional 5995WX | 64 / 128 | $6,499 | 2.7 / 4.5 | 256 | 280W | 128 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon W-3375 | 38 / 76 | $4,499 | 2.5 / 4.0 | 57 | 270W | 64 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper Professional 3995WX | 64 / 128 | $5,489 | 2.7 / 4.2 | 256 | 280W | 128 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3990X | 64 / 128 | $3,990 | 2.9 / 4.3 | 256 | 280W | 72 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper Professional 5975WX | 32 / 64 | $3,299 | 3.6 / 4.5 | 128 | 280W | 128 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon W-3365 | 32 / 64 | $3,499 | 2.7 / 4.0 | 48 | 270W | 64 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper Professional 3975WX | 32 / 64 | $2,749 | 3.5 / 4.2 | 128 | 280W | 128 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3970X | 32 / 64 | $1,999 | 3.7 / 4.5 | 128 | 280W | 64 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper Professional 5965WX | 24 / 48 | $2,399 | 3.8 / 4.5 | 128 | 280W | 128 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon W-3345 | 24 / 48 | $2,499 | 3.0 / 4.0 | 36 | 250W | 64 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3960X | 24 / 48 | $1,399 | 3.8 / 4.5 | 128 | 280W | 64 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
Threadripper Professional chips include the ‘WX’ suffix to indicate they’re designed for the workstation market. AMD did not introduce extra cores with the 2 top-end fashions, however they’re sooner because of the step up from the Zen 2 structure to Zen 3.
AMD has elevated costs on the 64-core mannequin by $1,000 and bumped up the 32-core chip by $550. All retail Threadripper Professional fashions have a prime dual-core clock velocity of 4.5 GHz, a generational enhance of 300 MHz for the 5955WX and 5975WX. The 24-core 3975WX did not have a previous-gen Professional counterpart, however its clock speeds are the identical as the buyer 3960X. We additionally see a 100 MHz enchancment to the bottom clock velocity on all fashions besides the 64-core, 128-thread Threadripper Professional 5995WX.
The Threadripper Professional chips have the identical 280W TDP envelope because the previous-gen chips. Notably, the 280W restrict is probably going imposed by the sWRX80 socket design, so AMD would not have a lot room to extend frequencies for the highest-end half. As we have seen in earlier checks, the core-heavy Threadripper fashions attain peak energy consumption lengthy earlier than all the cores are absolutely saturated, however the help for overclocking/PBO will assist break these bonds.
Threadripper Professional has 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes (the CPU exposes 120 lanes to the person) in comparison with Intel’s 64 lanes, a bonus as a result of most workstations have loads of components, like GPU accelerators, NVMe storage, and high-speed NICs.
Aside from the quad-channel Ryzen Threadripper 3000 chips, all the above AMD and Intel processors help eight channels of DDR4-3200 ECC reminiscence. Threadripper Professional helps a most of 2TB of reminiscence in UDIMM, RDIMM, and LRDIMM flavors, whereas Xeon W-3300 helps as much as 4TB. That is to not point out that AMD’s core/thread counts weigh in at 64/128 in comparison with Intel’s 38/76.
As you’ll be able to see, AMD barely undercuts Intel’s instructed pricing for the 24- and 32-core fashions, however the flagship 64-core 5995WX prices $2000 greater than the highest-end 38-core Xeon W-3375.
The Threadripper Professional chips drop into single-socket WRX80 motherboards, so present WRX80 motherboards help the 5000 sequence chips after a BIOS replace. The LGA4094 socket (aka Socket sWRX8) is bodily an identical to the previous-gen Threadripper shopper and EPYC knowledge middle platforms, so coolers are additionally suitable. Nevertheless, the socket options completely different pin assignments: AMD enabled some pins to help extra reminiscence channels and PCIe lanes than can be found on the outdated Threadripper shopper chips and disabled sure pins used to help a number of sockets on EPYC platforms.
This is how Threadripper has progressed through the years:
| Codename | 12 months | Structure | Socket | Chipset | Fashions | |
| Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Sequence | Whitehaven | 2017 | Zen 1 | SP3r2 / TR4 | X399 | 1950X / 1920X / 1900X |
| Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Sequence | Colfax | 2018 | Zen+ | SP3r2 / TR4 | X399 | 2990WX / 2970WX / 2950X / 2920X |
| Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Sequence | Citadel Peak | 2020 | Zen 2 | sTRX4 | TRX40 | 3990X / 3970X / 3960X |
| Ryzen Threadripper Professional 3000WX Sequence | Citadel Peak WS | 2021 | Zen 2 | sWRX8 | WRX80 | 3995WX / 3975WX / 3955WX / 3945WX |
| Ryzen Threadripper Professional 5000WX Sequence | Chagall WS | 2022 | Zen 3 | sWRX8 | WRX80 | 5995WX / 5975WX / 5965WX / 5955WX / 5945WX |
AMD Threadripper WRX80 Motherboards
| Motherboard | Worth |
| MSI WS WRX80 | Not Accessible |
| Supermicro M12SWA-TF | ~$700 |
| GIGABYTE WRX80 SU8 IPMI | ~$1,300 |
| GIGABYTE MC62-G41 | Not Accessible |
| ASUS Professional WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI | ~$1,000 |
| ASRock WRX80 Creator | ~$900 |
It is not all crimson and roses, although. The X399 platform was considerably moderately priced given its function set, with most motherboards beginning at round $350 (there was even a $240 mannequin). Sadly, as you’ll be able to see within the above desk, we will not count on that sort of pricing with WRX80 motherboards — there is a restricted variety of WRX80 motherboards out there to DIYers, and so they begin at $700. That is not stunning given the copious slathering of cost-additive PCIe 4.0 lanes and the required retimers. WRX80 costs prime out at $1,300, however two of the motherboards on AMD’s record aren’t out there but.
You may additionally must be cautious with motherboard choice — many distributors designed their motherboards across the previous-gen Threadripper Professional household, which wasn’t overclockable. As such, the Supermicro and ASUS WRX80 motherboards do not help overclocking. Given the comparatively poor choice, excessive pricing, and normal unavailability of many fashions, AMD and the motherboard makers have their work reduce out for them to make this platform extra accessible to DIYers.
Threadripper Professional relies on a lightly-modified EPYC Milan design, so that they transfer up from Zen 2 to the Zen 3 structure. The Threadripper Professional chips nonetheless prime out at an unimaginable 256MB of L3 cache on the highest-end fashions, however the cache is now a contiguous 32MB block for every eight-core cluster, bettering efficiency over the prior gen. In distinction, Xeon W-3300 tops out at a paltry 57MB. The chips additionally bear all the different advantages of Zen 3, like a 19% enhance in instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput.
The chips help AMD’s Professional Safety, Manageability, and Enterprise Prepared suites (18-month software program stability, 2-year chip availability), an space the place Intel’s competing chips are missing. AMD’s Professional Safety suite consists of the identical Safe Structure, Reminiscence Guard (reminiscence encryption with a slight efficiency penalty), and Safe Processor options because the prior-gen Threadripper Professional fashions, however AMD added Shadow Stack, a mechanism to counter management move assaults. In distinction, Intel’s Xeon W-3300 sequence would not have an enterprise-class function set.
