Has Intel Abandoned the HEDT Market?

Weird setup with really thin tubing. Must be something new they are doing. I don't like how the tubes are coming out the side.
Rackmount/thin chassis. LTT and TechTechPotato have videos showing off some impressive liquid cooling setups of some Threadripper Pro workstations using these.
 
Weird setup with really thin tubing. Must be something new they are doing. I don't like how the tubes are coming out the side.
They have a top port version. This one is just for 1u type stuff.
ek-pro-cpu-wb-4677-nickel_acetal-top.jpg
 
A glimpse of the Christmas Tree pricing. Says its coming out March 31st 2023.

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There are two boards on Newegg for Preorder.

Asrock W790 WS
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162113

Asus Pro WS W790 ACE
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813119638

Man, the fact that these boards are ~$900 but are packed to the brim with actual tech shows how much of a rip off the motherboards are in the regular desktop space. Consumer AM5 and Z790 motherboards for $1K+ with half the featureset is just ridiculous. Yes, I know there are reasonably featured sub-$500 motherboards for both these chipsets. But considering that HEDT motherboards used to top out for ~$600 6-10 years and even accounting for inflation, the desktop MB space is insane.

I was planning on getting Zen 4/Zen 4X3D but the motherboard pricing and lack of features to justify it made me say screw it.

I'm hoping that with Intel re-entering the HEDT workspace, AMD will finally try to compete and actually support their upcoming Storm Peak non-pro Threadrippers for a while.

LTT did post a preview of sorts for the 56 core w3400 variant in an HP workstation with quad GPUs.

LTT - HP Workstation with Intel Xeon W3400 CPU
 
Man, the fact that these boards are ~$900 but are packed to the brim with actual tech shows how much of a rip off the motherboards are in the regular desktop space. Consumer AM5 and Z790 motherboards for $1K+ with half the featureset is just ridiculous. Yes, I know there are reasonably featured sub-$500 motherboards for both these chipsets. But considering that HEDT motherboards used to top out for ~$600 6-10 years and even accounting for inflation, the desktop MB space is insane.

I was planning on getting Zen 4/Zen 4X3D but the motherboard pricing and lack of features to justify it made me say screw it.

I'm hoping that with Intel re-entering the HEDT workspace, AMD will finally try to compete and actually support their upcoming Storm Peak non-pro Threadrippers for a while.

LTT did post a preview of sorts for the 56 core w3400 variant in an HP workstation with quad GPUs.

LTT - HP Workstation with Intel Xeon W3400 CPU
Yeah, these new W790 boards are pricey, but unlike MSI's Z690/Z790 GODLIKE boards (and to a lesser extent, Asus ROG Extreme/Apex tier boards), these actually look like they're worth the money with all those PCIe lanes ready to go rather than just having a giant sucker tax applied to a mainstream desktop platform because they're pitching it at rich gamers and extreme overclockers.

Now that Intel's finally quit dragging their heels on putting their old HEDT platform out to pasture, it's AMD's turn to make a Threadripper equivalent of EPYC Genoa (Storm Peak?) lest they start giving up market share again.

Maybe after a few years of heated competition, it'll drive the prices down on the new stuff enough that it won't be tempting to buy dated Zen 1/Naples 1950X/X399 setups for $350 just because more modern platforms with huge PCIe lane counts and out-of-band ECC support will immediately triple that cost, if not more.
 
DdR5 RDIMMs look expensive! I assume for 128GB and under regular udimms will still be fine?
 
DdR5 RDIMMs look expensive! I assume for 128GB and under regular udimms will still be fine?
It's RDIMMs only. DDR5 changed the physical compatibility vs. UDIMM.

Prices will come down. It's early adopter taxes, still.
 
It's RDIMMs only. DDR5 changed the physical compatibility vs. UDIMM.

Prices will come down. It's early adopter taxes, still.
If anything, RDIMMs will be cheaper in the long run when buying used, at least if you don't mind manually overclocking your RAM from JEDEC speeds should the platform support it.

Just wait for all those enterprises to start upgrading their servers and offloading all their lower-density RDIMMs on eBay - that's when you make your move.

Sure would've been nice if Threadripper/X399 supported those given its EPYC origins, but no, I gotta pay up for ECC UDIMMs, four of 'em! Nothing like spending $350-400 for just 128 GB of RAM...
 
If anything, RDIMMs will be cheaper in the long run when buying used, at least if you don't mind manually overclocking your RAM from JEDEC speeds should the platform support it.

Just wait for all those enterprises to start upgrading their servers and offloading all their lower-density RDIMMs on eBay - that's when you make your move.

Sure would've been nice if Threadripper/X399 supported those given its EPYC origins, but no, I gotta pay up for ECC UDIMMs, four of 'em! Nothing like spending $350-400 for just 128 GB of RAM...
And half the crap out there is RDIMM only these days
 
If anything, RDIMMs will be cheaper in the long run when buying used, at least if you don't mind manually overclocking your RAM from JEDEC speeds should the platform support it.

Just wait for all those enterprises to start upgrading their servers and offloading all their lower-density RDIMMs on eBay - that's when you make your move.

Sure would've been nice if Threadripper/X399 supported those given its EPYC origins, but no, I gotta pay up for ECC UDIMMs, four of 'em! Nothing like spending $350-400 for just 128 GB of RAM...

Right now on Ebay you can pick up 128 GB (4x 32) of DDR4 registered for $110 or so. UDIMMs are about 3,5x more :sad:
 
Th
Looks like the 24xx chips are starting to trickle in stock.

W5-2455X $1059.99 In Stock(Newegg) https://www.newegg.com/intel-xeon-w5-2455x-lga-4677/p/N82E16819118460
W5-2465X $1579.14 In Stock(3rd Party) https://www.newegg.com/intel-xeon-w5-2465x-lga-4677/p/N82E16819118458
W7-2475X $2058.69 In Stock(3rd Party) https://www.newegg.com/intel-xeon-w7-2475x-lga-4677/p/N82E16819118456
W7-2495X $----.-- Out of Stock https://www.newegg.com/intel-xeon-w7-2495x-lga-4677/p/N82E16819118454
Third party and that seems expensive for what you get…
 
yeah, not sure if newegg had some then ran out or if newegg is still waiting on their shipment.
 
I was just going to post this. I am looking for the higher end 56 core but I might just wait till Emerald Rapids if shit is taking this long
 
I can see some on provantage but their pricing is a little higher than newegg. The zeta is also listed the 6400 4x16 kit is 550.
 
I'll be honest here - given the early results from Puget, I'm not sure why this exists. It's... not looking amazing. It's competitive with Zen 3 Threadripper Pro - but we're getting Storm Peak this fall!

Prices on the W7 chips have come down - but they're still overpriced for what you get it seems... a bit torn on this release.
 
I'll be honest here - given the early results from Puget, I'm not sure why this exists. It's... not looking amazing. It's competitive with Zen 3 Threadripper Pro - but we're getting Storm Peak this fall!

Prices on the W7 chips have come down - but they're still overpriced for what you get it seems... a bit torn on this release.
I just bought a new car so I'm passing on it personally lol.
 
I just bought a new car so I'm passing on it personally lol.
Yeah. I've got an X299 and a sTRX4 that I'd like to upgrade - but this isn't enough of a jump for either given the cost. Just not worth it.
 
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I decided to pass as well. Might circle back when emerald rapids comes out and see if perf is higher or price is cheaper and get in on it. A buddy of mine made the decision easier when he offered his EVGA SR3, 3175x, 96g of GSkill Trident Z, and a EK block and Noctua air cooler for a price i couldnt refuse.
 
Hell yes! I'm still looking for a Dominus extreme - but those are a bitch to find.
 
I'll wait for Emerald Rapids as well, cause I just picked up an EVGA X299 FTW k, with an Intel i9-10980XE, for less than what I built my ASUS X99 with an i7-6950X for last fall. For data analytics this X299 with the 10980XE is pretty impressive., 48 pcie lanes and 256GB of memory...all good for now. A lot going on now finally with HEDT.
 
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Interesting... How long would a system on this platform take to boot up? Also, what kind of cooler is compatible with this socket? Those cpus look huge...
 
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Boot time would probably be dependent on which kind of board you bought and for at least the first start the amount of memory, but would otherwise be anywhere from a minute to...several. A lot of time is spent in starting each of the independent devices on board (adds up on server stuff), going through the network stack, etc. On my home server, using a regular Z77 board, POST takes a few minutes to go through its own BIOS as well as one each for the HBAs and 4 port NIC PXEs. I'd expect something like the Asus ACE board to be the fastest being more geared towards enthusiasts rather than professional workstations/servers, and disabling unused features would streamline things. Once POST is over, I'm sure that Optane drive you have installed for a boot device will do the rest rather quick. After all, why skimp on storage after dropping all that other cash?

There are always server socket coolers available from the big companies. Noctua showed off a U14S with 2 fans cooling a 700W OC 3495X without throttling (I'd like to see some independent verification of that, though) and has other options. AIOs that work on Threadripper (and Skylake-SP/Icelake-SP) have cold plates large enough for the socket and just need an appropriate adapter kit (Enermax did this with a 360). Personally, I'd love it if Arctic made a version of their Liquid Freezer II for the socket, especially in their very awesome 420mm. There are already custom watercooling blocks available, of course (Alphacool, for one). And lastly, if you really hate yourself and are tired of all this nonsense about being able to hear, Dynatron and others have the active 1U and 2U+ screamers and passive options for rackmount chassis-based cooling.
 
Interesting... How long would a system on this platform take to boot up? Also, what kind of cooler is compatible with this socket? Those cpus look huge...
Grebuloner answered all of that pretty well, but the brief answer is likely going to be "30 seconds to a few minutes on an enthusiast/prosumer board, 5+ minutes on an HPE or Dell EMC server and it'll sound like a jet taking off the whole time".

More RAM installed naturally increases boot time from having to test the entire usable range and go through memory training, at least on first boot. Subsequent boots on consumer platforms usually just go with what worked before, cutting down on a lot of that testing time.

More devices with option ROMs/firmware of any sort (usually drive controllers/HBAs and NICs) means more time spent loading those ROMs, as well as artificial "hit F-key to configure settings" delays so you have time to react and adjust the device ROM's settings if needed. Reducing the delays or outright disabling the device will speed things up.
 
Noctua also had a "Next Generation Threadripper" D15-style cooler at their booth. GN Steve slipped up a little in his video and unintentionally confirmed it was coming before he even read the display card.
 
Noctua also had a "Next Generation Threadripper" D15-style cooler at their booth. GN Steve slipped up a little in his video and unintentionally confirmed it was coming before he even read the display card.
We’ve pretty much known it was coming for a few months now. The questions have been twofold:

1. Is it true HEDT, with mixed price points, or a pure workstation/almost server chip like Sapphire Rapids (especially since the sapphire rapids boards are pretty much just server kit with slightly better coloration)? Also SR didn’t have great clocks for the lower core parts.

2. What’s the brand? Threadripper, or Threadripper pro?

I’m hoping we have a delineation between TR and TR Pro again. I expect it’ll all be workstation class only though, and starting at 2k plus.
 
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