News Intel's Next-Gen SPR-WS Platform Pictured: Supermicro's X13SWA-TF

[Admin]

Supermicro's X13SWA-TF get pictured and detailed.

Intel's Next-Gen SPR-WS Platform Pictured: Supermicro's X13SWA-TF : Read more

 

[cyrusfox]

The long awaited return of the high-end desktop (HEDT) from Intel?
Is it coming back to life after it was killed by all the core increases done on the consumer line(4 cores to 16 or 8+16)? Will be interesting to see how the they price these chips. History of HEDT saw high end chip prices up to $2k (7980XE release late 2017 18 cores skylake). AMD has stopped adding more cores for 3 generations now(3950,5950,7950 top at 16 cores). Also intel after Rapture lakes appears to be hitting pause on more cores as well (meteor lake rumors saying only 6+16(P=e) design, a decrease from current raptor 8+16 config). Likely a good time to reinvigorate the workstation MOAR core platforms.

Excited to hear more about this and see competition reenter this space especially with the death of threadripper non-pro.

 

[slash3]

The long awaited return of the high-end desktop (HEDT) from Intel?
Is it coming back to life after it was killed by all the core increases done on the consumer line(4 cores to 16 or 8+16)? Will be interesting to see how the they price these chips. History of HEDT saw high end chip prices up to $2k (7980XE release late 2017 18 cores skylake). AMD has stopped adding more cores for 3 generations now(3950,5950,7950 top at 16 cores). Also intel after Rapture lakes appears to be hitting pause on more cores as well (meteor lake rumors saying only 6+16(P=e) design, a decrease from current raptor 8+16 config). Likely a good time to reinvigorate the workstation MOAR core platforms.

Excited to hear more about this and see competition reenter this space especially with the death of threadripper non-pro.

You'll need to keep waiting - this board is aimed squarely at TR Pro. No OC, 2DPC and RDIMM support on eight memory channels, IPMI, multiple 10GbE and full 22110 M.2 accommodation.

 

[thestryker]

It's entirely possible that a proper HEDT board would still support 2DPC, but it would be 8 slots and forego support for 8 ch memory.

It sadly makes sense that the first boards are squarely aimed at the TR Pro segment since SPR will be available before a Zen 4 TR Pro. AMD has also had availability problems in this segment with the last two releases so Intel could easily be making OEMs guarantees AMD couldn't match either way.

The original HEDT market has also effectively not existed since the launch of TR 3000 so I'd imagine it would be very hard to measure how many consumers would care as businesses have largely been forced to move on.

 

[bit_user]

The long awaited return of the high-end desktop (HEDT) from Intel?

If you're talking about non-Xeon HEDT, then I doubt it. I think there haven't been any roadmap leaks of non-Xeon processors on a socket bigger than LGA 1700.

If you mean to include Xeons, then Intel never left. There was an Ice Lake Xeon W generation that didn't grab much attention, because Ice Lake wasn't terribly impressive, especially in the realm of single-threaded performance.

AMD has stopped adding more cores for 3 generations now(3950,5950,7950 top at 16 cores).

AMD's version of HEDT was the non-Pro ThreadRippers, which went up to 64 cores.

after Rapture lakes appears

🕴​

LOL. After Rapture Lake, the competition will be Left Behind?

🤣

Excited to hear more about this and see competition reenter this space especially with the death of threadripper non-pro.

This article has a slide with the specs of the upcoming CPUs for this socket:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-roadmap-leaks-raptor-lake-refresh-hedt-replacement-in-2023

Eh, here you go:

​

​

As for pricing, I'd guess the W-2400 range will probably start around $700 and the W-3400 will probably top out around $7k. Could be less, depending on what AMD does with ThreadRipper.

 

[bit_user]

You'll need to keep waiting - this board is aimed squarely at TR Pro. No OC, 2DPC and RDIMM support on eight memory channels,

Where do you see "No OC"? Is that based on the VRM comments? And where does it say about RDIMM support?

 

[brandonjclark]

I have a hardon for SuperMicro boards, admittedly. None of the flash, all of the manliness you could want.

 

[thestryker]

Huh? It has 8 DIMM slots. Either it's for the W-2400 series, which have only 4 memory channels and therefore it must support 2 DIMMs per channel, or it's aimed at the W-3400 series, which goes up to 56-cores w/ 8-channel memory and is exactly aimed at TR Pro.

My guess is that it's a quad-channel board, based on the comments about the VRM. The W-2400 line has a base power of 225 W, whereas the W-3400 line has a base power of 350 W. You'd think a 350 W workstation board would have a beefier VRM.

The board posted here definitely has 16 memory slots and the spec sheet says 8ch before it talks about the lower spec using 8 slots and 4ch.

 

[bit_user]

The board posted here definitely has 16 memory slots

Oops, I was probably counting slot pairs and forgot to divide by 2.

and the spec sheet says 8ch before it talks about the lower spec using 8 slots and 4ch.

What spec sheet? Since these were leaked photos, I figured there wouldn't be specs on it, yet.

 

[bit_user]

I have a hardon for SuperMicro boards, admittedly. None of the flash, all of the manliness you could want.

I was recently browsing W680 boards and reassured to see Supermicro's X13SAE is good old PCB green.

X13SAE | Motherboards | Products | Supermicro

I'm not too sure about about "manliness", though. I do buy into some of the hype from brands like Asus, but my current Supermicro board has been virtually trouble-free.

That said, when I checked the customer reviews of that board a couple years later, it seems they had quality problems because there was a flurry of reviews citing serious problems. That was a while ago, so hopefully it's been sorted out. I'm almost definitely using them for my next motherboard.

 

[thestryker]

What spec sheet? Since these were leaked photos, I figured there wouldn't be specs on it, yet.

I missed it the first time through as well, but both images are together here just hit the right arrow on the motherboard image.

 

[truerock]

This specific Supermicro W790-chipset motherboard obviously isn't geared towards a HEDT gaming desktop PC. And, neither are the Intel Sapphire Rapids processors that are currently available to put on it.
.
But, it seems like the W790-chipset could be used for a HEDT gaming desktop PC if Intel provided a processor with less, but faster cores.

I have a 10 year old PC I have been waiting for years to upgrade. I'm going to see if W790-chipset provides the best direction for my requirements. I'm thinking an Intel Saphire Rapids processor with cores that could be boosted to 6Ghz would be great.

 

[bit_user]

This specific Supermicro W790-chipset motherboard obviously isn't geared towards a HEDT gaming desktop PC. And, neither are the Intel Sapphire Rapids processors that are currently available to put on it.
.
But, it seems like the W790-chipset could be used for a HEDT gaming desktop PC if Intel provided a processor with less, but faster cores.

Check out the tables I included in post #5. It looks like the Xeon W7-2475 and W7-2495 are decent candidates for prosumers. Yes, you give up a little clockspeed at the top end (TB Max speed of 4.8 GHz), but in exchange, you get either 20 or 24 P-cores. Also, I'm inferring from the "Unlocked" column that these models will indeed be over-clockable, which could indeed make them viable for high-end gaming.

In that same post, I linked their roadmap and it has no indication Intel will be releasing a separate, non-Xeon line of CPUs for HEDT. So, that's probably their best offer. Maybe they'll release some special top-binned SKUs, which they've done in the past, but those won't be cheap!

I'm thinking an Intel Saphire Rapids processor with cores that could be boosted to 6Ghz would be great.

That seems unlikely. First, I think these are Golden Cove cores (i.e. from Alder Lake), not Raptor Cove. That means they probably won't OC as high as the P-cores in Raptor Lake can. Second... well, CPUs with so many cores just tend not to OC as high.

 

[truerock]

Check out the tables I included in post #5. It looks like the Xeon W7-2475 and W7-2495 are decent candidates for prosumers. Yes, you give up a little clockspeed at the top end (TB Max speed of 4.8 GHz), but in exchange, you get either 20 or 24 P-cores. Also, I'm inferring from the "Unlocked" column that these models will indeed be over-clockable, which could indeed make them viable for high-end gaming.

In that same post, I linked their roadmap and it has no indication Intel will be releasing a separate, non-Xeon line of CPUs for HEDT. So, that's probably their best offer. Maybe they'll release some special top-binned SKUs, which they've done in the past, but those won't be cheap!


That seems unlikely. First, I think these are Golden Cove cores (i.e. from Alder Lake), not Raptor Cove. That means they probably won't OC as high as the P-cores in Raptor Lake can. Second... well, CPUs with so many cores just tend not to OC as high.

Thank you. Helpful insights.