Intel’s Xeon 600 series is here, providing new competition for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series of workstation CPUs. The new processors, which were codenamed Granite Rapids-WS, are aimed at businesses involved in AI development, 3D rendering, data analysis, and other compute-intensive tasks. Intel is releasing 11 models with processor core counts ranging from 86 at the high end to 12 for the base model.
The node for these CPUs is Intel 3 (3nm), rather than the new 18A process. That means they missed out on Intel’s switch to the gate-all-around transistor structure that 18A uses. But with up to 86 Redwood Cove Performance cores and as much as 336MB of L3 cache, they’re intriguing. The Xeon 698X has a top frequency of 4.8GHz with Turbo Boost, from a 2.0GHz base clock. And it has 128 PCIe 5 lanes for speedy data transfer and multi-GPU support. All but the bottom three models have 128 PCIe lanes; the last three have 80 lanes.
The CPUs have eight memory channels and support DDR5 RDIMM memory in capacities up to 4TB. As Tom’s Hardware points out, MRDIMM support is new and available only on the higher-end models. Standard RDIMM memory supports up to 6400 MT/s, while MRDIMM supports up to 8000 MT/s, according to Intel.
Credit: Intel
The new CPUs have CXL 2.0 support for memory pooling and switching. Intel also added FP16 to the processor’s AI features. The Intel W890 chipset supports WiFi 7.
Intel plans to release the Xeon 696X ($5,599); 678X ($3,749); 676X ($2,499); 658X ($1,699); and the 654 ($1,199) in boxes. If you’re planning to build a workstation, these are your options; the rest will sell in bulk trays. You’ll need a Socket LGA 4710-2 motherboard with the aforementioned W890 chipset.
The Xeon 600 Series arrives as Intel approaches the one-year anniversary of Lip-Bu Tan taking the reins at Intel. Tan vowed that Intel would be an “engineering-focused company” as he set out to turn around Intel’s fortunes in a suddenly AI-driven industry.
Since then, Intel has seen its 18A process reach production, with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 processors now appearing in high-performance laptops. And the company seems to have some potentially big deals on the horizon, thanks in part to recent geopolitical changes. The Trump administration’s pressure on tech companies to manufacture chips on US soil may help Intel, given its US fabrication plants.