By Mike McCarthy

After many years without a significant update to most major workstation offerings, we are finally seeing new technology about to hit the market. Intel’s recently released Sapphire Rapids server CPU technology, built on the “Intel 7” process, forms the basis for its new Sapphire Rapids workstation platform. These processors come in two tiers, the Xeon W-2400 processors with quad-channel DDR5 memory and up to 24 cores, and the Xeon W-3400 processors with 8-channel DDR5 memory and up to 56 cores.

The W-2400 Series
In my opinion, the Xeon W-2400 tier of processors is the most significant news, as it replaces the Core X line of products on the old X299 platform, which was originally introduced in 2017.  It maintains the existing quad-channel interface of the HEDT-class systems, but with the newer DDR5 technology. And it upgrades the PCIe interface two steps, from 3.0 to 5.0, quadrupling the bandwidth per lane and increasing the lane count to 64 total.

With AMD retiring its standard Threadripper line last year, this gives Intel the decisive upper hand in the HEDT market for the foreseeable future. AMD’s closest competitors are the Ryzen CPUs, which have up to 16 cores but are limited to dual-channel memory and have much less PCIe bandwidth. While Intel’s 13th generation Raptor Lake consumer CPUs also have 24 cores, they only have eight “performance cores,” while the rest are smaller “efficiency cores.”

The 24 cores in the W7-2495X are all performance cores, giving it 3x as many as the 13900K for roughly triple the price. The prices throughout the new lineup are relatively linearly consistent at about $80-90 per core. I feel like it used to be cheaper to buy in bulk a decade ago, in that a quad-core CPU didn’t cost twice as much as a dual-core, but then recently the higher core counts started coming at a steep premium. So I suppose linear scaling of price and core count seems fair.

The W-3400 Series
The Xeon W-3400 processors are also a welcome step forward, but it’s a smaller jump from existing offerings than the W-2400 series is. That’s because, with an intermediate W-3300 series released just over a year ago, this class of system already had more current options available.

I reviewed Boxx’s Apexx Matterhorn system just over a year ago, which is based on the Xeon W-3300 Ice Lake processors. The max core count with the new Xeon W-3400 chips jumps from 38 to 56. The DDR and PCIe bandwidths both bump up to 5th generation. And the PCIe lane count increases from 64 to 112.  These products directly compete with AMDs Threadripper Pro architecture, which supports eight channels of DDR4 memory and 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth.

We will have to wait until we have performance reviews before we will know how the new 3400 series chips compare to existing choices in the market. But Intel did provide some relative performance estimates compared to previous generations, and the biggest gains are anticipated in the area of 3D, as that is one of the most multithreaded and CPU-limited tasks. Editing is more I/O-based, so the gains for those users will be more about system bandwidth and component support than render time.

The W-3400 CPUs are priced at about $100 per core, slightly more expensive due to the multi-chip packaging and the extra memory and system bandwidth. While there is a 56-core model — the W9-3495X with a 350W power envelope — it will not be available via retail. DIY builders will be limited to 36 cores in the W9-3475X, rated at 300W. I recall there were performance issues in certain applications when exceeding 32 cores with Ice Lake (W-3300) systems, leading to better performance with the 32-core model than the 38-core option. It will be interesting to see how the CPUs that exceed 32 cores will fare in different applications this time around.

Both tiers are now divided into performance levels: W3, W5, W7 and W9. These roughly correspond to the existing “core” lineups (i3, i,5, i7 and i9), which many users will be familiar with on the consumer side of the market. W3 has single-digit core counts and DDR5-4400 memory. Moving to a W5–class chip jumps to double-digit cores and DDR5-4800 memory. W7 indicates core counts in the 20s, and W9 is for chips above that.

All of the new Sapphire Rapids CPUs will fit into the same LGA 4677 socket on new W790 chipset motherboards. The chipset supports up to 16 DIMM channels and eight SATA ports for hard drives, as well as 2.5GbE and Wi-Fi 6E. While the 2400 CPUs are based on a monolithic die, the higher core counts on the 3400 CPUs are made possible by linking together multiple separate chiplets with Intel’s new Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB). This process should allow scaling to even higher core counts in single large sockets in the future.

One feature that is missing from these new processors (and nearly all existing Xeons) is Intel’s Quick Sync media accelerator. This is what allows hardware encode and decode of HEVC and other video codecs on consumer systems. I am told that these CPUs are fast enough to do that with dedicated accelerators. And workstations usually have discrete GPUs, which also offer similar hardware acceleration now in many applications. So while that could have been a significant consideration for video editors two years ago, it shouldn’t make much difference now, especially when paired to a modern GPU.

HP Z Workstations
Some of the first systems to use these new technologies are HP’s soon-to-be-refreshed Z workstations. The Z4 Gen5 will be based on the 2400 series CPUs, offering up to 24 CPU cores, 512GB RAM and up to two full-sized GPUs. This is a serious step up from the existing peak of 18 cores and 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes. The Z6 line is getting a big change in that instead of being based on the server-level Xeon Scalable CPUs with support for a second CPU socket, the Z6 is now based on the single-socket 3400 architecture. And in a move I predicted last year, The Z8 Fury has gone away from dual-socket systems and now has a similar single-socket architecture.

For those who are convinced they need dual-socket performance, there will also be a “traditional” Z8 G5 variant with dual sockets, presumably based on the Sapphire Rapids dual-socket server architecture. But I expect there to be a rapidly diminishing number of customers as culture catches up with technology. (Dual-socket workstations will no longer be a status symbol when there are 100-plus-core CPUs in single-socket systems.)

In this case the Fury variant is clearly the top option, even with a single socket supporting twice the RAM and GPU expansion. It also offers a unique dual power supply system that can be used redundantly for uninterrupted operation, or in aggregate mode, to support high-power-draw configurations, such as quad GPUs.

HP Anywhere
HP advertises that the systems are optimized for Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, but the underlying hardware from Intel should fully support Windows 10 as well. The new HP systems will all have support for Thunderbolt 4 and the option of adding dual-10GbE interfaces. They will also fully support HP’s newest remote administration hardware, the HP Anywhere Remote System Controller. Available as either a PCIe card or an external box, it allows remote system control, out-of-band access, full control of system power, access to the BIOS and other deep-system access. This should help larger organizations better manage the workstations its remote workers are using, similar in some ways to how they manage their servers. The new hardware products will be compatible with older (and even non-HP) systems, but with a subset of functions because its access to the system won’t be as deep.

Another new feature of HP’s workstations is the option for front-mounted, hot-swappable, M.2-based NVMe drives. With up to four lockable bays, it can hold a vast amount of high-speed media storage, assuming money is no object. I do find it amusing that “sneakernet” is still a viable approach in certain cases in the modern world — although HP also pointed out that the other use case for removable drives is locking up your data in a safe at night. Admittedly, there is the potential for transfer workflows getting data from a remote shooting set, but those cases are becoming less frequent as the world becomes more connected.

At this point, Starlink should allow real-time dailies transfer from nearly anywhere in the world. But terabytes of source data get generated on-set these days and will eventually need to make it back to media servers, so removable SSDs can offer a convenient way to do that.

Conclusion
For most users, the extra PCIe bandwidth will go primarily toward NVMe storage and GPU processing. These new systems support more GPUs than previous generations, when dual graphics cards were considered the upper limit for most users. So while consumer GPU usage is going the way of CPU sockets — consolidating to single, powerful products with the demise of Crossfire and SLI — pro users commonly need more than two GPUs. The new HP Z8 systems support up to four full-sized GPUs, but other vendors will surely offer solutions supporting even more GPUs than that for smaller market segments.

One or more of Nvidia’s new Ada-based RTX6000 cards will be the highest end GPU of choice for most power users, but a variety of more budget-friendly Ampere options are also available, as well as some AMD-based options. And users can also configure systems with Nvidia’s ConnectX-6 SmartNICs for improved networking and collaboration support over 25/50GbE.

I have been waiting for the successor to the X299 platform for a long time. I had to replace my own dual-Xeon system last summer and went with an Alder Lake solution because I couldn’t imagine stepping back to PCIe 3.0 SSDs after experiencing smooth, uncompressed 8K playback. Admittedly, that consumer system meets most of my current needs, but a W-2400-based system would have futureproofed me for a long time to come. So I expect that this new architecture will provide a welcome performance boost to many users who have been waiting for faster workstations to become available. I look forward to seeing them hit the market two months from now.

Mike McCarthy is a technology consultant with extensive experience in the film post production. He started posting technology info and analysis at HD4PC in 2007. He broadened his focus with TechWithMikeFirst 10 years later.