The brand new 64-core AMD Threadripper Professional 5995WX and 32-core Threadripper Professional 5975WX are lastly obtainable at retail, breaking free from the confines of pre-built OEM techniques to contend for a spot on our listing of greatest CPUs for workstations. They’ve a tricky act to observe: AMD’s previous-gen Threadripper CPUs delivered a crushing blow to the entrenched Intel’s HEDT and workstation lineup, with the buyer fashions primarily muscling Group Blue out of the excessive finish desktop (HEDT) market solely whereas the Professional fashions relegated Intel to an also-ran within the workstation market.
However there’s an issue for lovers — 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 additionally dropping the section.
AMD says it can not make the extra reasonably priced non-Professional Threadripper fashions. As a substitute, 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 authentic Threadripper chips (and supporting motherboards) had been geared for HEDT, that means they got here with increased core counts and entry to extra reminiscence and PCIe connectivity than mainstream desktop PC chips. Nonetheless, pricing was nonetheless largely inside attain for lovers. 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 totally different pricing tiers though they had been based mostly on the identical underlying structure. AMD modifications that with the Threadripper 5000 WX-series, unifying the usual HEDT fashions with the skilled lineup, that 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 / Increase (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. Meaning 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 will pay $3,299 to step as much as the 32-core Threadripper Professional 5975WX, and $6,499 for the 64-core 5995WX, each representing huge markups over the prior-gen chips.
It does make some sense for AMD to maintain the 12- and 16-core fashions as OEM solely, on condition that Ryzen 5000 and the soon-to-be-launched Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 mainstream platforms already assist as much as 16 cores. Nonetheless, these platforms do not have quad-or octo-channel reminiscence or greater than 20 PCIe lanes, a standard purpose for lovers to step as much as HEDT. In contrast to the previous-gen Professional chips, the entire Threadripper Professional 5000 WX chips do assist core and reminiscence overclocking, although. That is a slight comfort prize, however only some motherboards assist the function.
All of which means that 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 mentioned, some purposes merely do not profit from 64 cores, so it is best to know your workload earlier than you pull the set off. Nonetheless, 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 will 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 the entire connectivity of its dearer counterpart. This chip gives 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 by way of 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 by way of 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 / Increase (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 quicker as a result of 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 the entire cores are totally saturated, however the assist 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.
Apart from the quad-channel Ryzen Threadripper 3000 chips, the entire above AMD and Intel processors assist 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 may see, AMD barely undercuts Intel’s steered 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 assist the 5000 collection chips after a BIOS replace. The LGA4094 socket (aka Socket sWRX8) is bodily equivalent to the previous-gen Threadripper client and EPYC information middle platforms, so coolers are additionally appropriate. Nonetheless, the socket options totally different pin assignments: AMD enabled some pins to assist extra reminiscence channels and PCIe lanes than can be found on the previous Threadripper client chips and disabled sure pins used to assist a number of sockets on EPYC platforms.
Here is how Threadripper has progressed over time:
| Codename | 12 months | Structure | Socket | Chipset | Fashions | |
| Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Collection | Whitehaven | 2017 | Zen 1 | SP3r2 / TR4 | X399 | 1950X / 1920X / 1900X |
| Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Collection | Colfax | 2018 | Zen+ | SP3r2 / TR4 | X399 | 2990WX / 2970WX / 2950X / 2920X |
| Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Collection | Fortress Peak | 2020 | Zen 2 | sTRX4 | TRX40 | 3990X / 3970X / 3960X |
| Ryzen Threadripper Professional 3000WX Collection | Fortress Peak WS | 2021 | Zen 2 | sWRX8 | WRX80 | 3995WX / 3975WX / 3955WX / 3945WX |
| Ryzen Threadripper Professional 5000WX Collection | Chagall WS | 2022 | Zen 3 | sWRX8 | WRX80 | 5995WX / 5975WX / 5965WX / 5955WX / 5945WX |
AMD Threadripper WRX80 Motherboards
| Motherboard | Value |
| 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 may see within the above desk, we will not anticipate that form of pricing with WRX80 motherboards — there is a restricted variety of WRX80 motherboards obtainable to DIYers, they usually begin at $700. That is not shocking given the copious slathering of cost-additive PCIe 4.0 lanes and the mandatory retimers. WRX80 costs prime out at $1,300, however two of the motherboards on AMD’s listing aren’t obtainable but.
You will 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 assist overclocking. Given the comparatively poor choice, excessive pricing, and basic unavailability of many fashions, AMD and the motherboard makers have their work lower out for them to make this platform extra accessible to DIYers.
Threadripper Professional is predicated on a lightly-modified EPYC Milan design, in order 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, enhancing efficiency over the prior gen. In distinction, Xeon W-3300 tops out at a paltry 57MB. The chips additionally bear the entire different advantages of Zen 3, like a 19% enhance in instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput.
The chips assist 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 contains 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 collection would not have an enterprise-class function set.
