Sapphire Rapids 56-core Xeon workstation CPU is 47% faster than its predecessor

AaronK

Posts: 13   +0
In a nutshell: A benchmark of the upcoming 56-core Xeon W9-3495X workstation CPU was seen flexing its muscles in Geekbench. The chip achieved a multi-threaded score that is 47% higher than Intel's current Xeon Workstation flagship, the 32-core W-3375.

The benchmark result originated from @BenchLeaks, with the W9-3495X scoring 36,990 points in the multi-core stress test, and 1,284 points in the single core test. While the multi-core results are impressive, the single-core performance is an insignificant upgrade, just 6.6% faster than the Xeon W-3375. For the Xeon W-3375 Geekbench scores, we are averaging the chip's score across all the results uploaded in the Geekbench 5 browser.

The Xeon W9-3495X is an upcoming workstation CPU, featuring Intel's new Sapphire Rapids server microarchitecture. According to Tom's Hardware, this architecture represents a massive improvement over the previous generation Ice Lake hardware, with a 50% improvement in core counts -- going from 40 to 60 cores -- support for DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0, and support for other advanced features like the AVX-512 instruction set, DL Boost and AMX instructions.

For all intents and purposes, Sapphire Rapids is the server/workstation version of Alder Lake, utilizing the same Golden Cove performance cores. But unlike Alder Lake and Raptor Lake, Sapphire Rapids will not utilize a mixture of P cores and E cores.

Intel has already started to release server versions of Sapphire Rapids into the market, but is still preparing the workstation versions. Workstation models like the W9-3495X are meant for professionals asking for high performance computing in a normal ATX form factor. The platform will utilize W790 chipset motherboards, based on the LGA 4677 socket. The W9-3495X is the flagship part, and one of four SKUs that will support overclocking.

If these Geekbench 5 results are to be believed, the W9-3495X will be a substantial upgrade to Intel's previous generation Xeons thanks to the higher core counts yielding much higher multi-threaded performance. Just don't expect single-threaded workloads to benefit much from the newer architecture.

Sadly, we can't make straight comparisons with AMD's flagship Threadripper Pro 5995WX 64-core competitor and the W9-3495X results just yet, since the listed Geekbench benchmarks are all over the place. Some are significantly faster or slower than the W9-3495X, while others are almost the same. We must stress that all this information is based on just a single Geekbench 5 run, so take it with a grain of salt. We'll have to wait for an actual release and third-party testing to see how it really performs.

Permalink to story.

 
This looks little more than an act of desperation, after they lost to AMD in the server department first, and then they lost Apple, permanently. The market for Xeons only continues to shrink.
 
It is sad for Intel to see it disappearing from the servers market. Let's hope that in 4-5 years they will have something competitive against AMD and also to come back with better price/performance products, though it may be too late.
 
Last edited:
Back