Intel's new workstation chips look to smash AMD's Threadripper, but Xeon W9-3595X refresh appears on Geekbench with underwhelming performance figures

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The new W9-3595X is slower than the outgoing W9-3495X — at least according to this specific Geekbench 6 result.

5th Generation Xeon Emerald Rapids CPU
5th Generation Xeon Emerald Rapids CPU (Image credit: Intel)

Update - 1/31/24 1:50 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the W9-3495X had 58 cores. The story has been updated to reflect that the W9-3495X has 56 cores, not 58.

Rumors of a W-3500 series HEDT refresh are apparently legitimate. A new Geekbench 6 listing was spotted by Benchleaks on X (formerly Twitter), featuring benchmark results of a mysterious new Xeon HEDT part: the Xeon W9-3595X (with 60 cores). The new chip is, however, slower than its predecessor, the W9-3495X (with 56 cores) in both single- and multi-core benchmarks — but at least now we know that a potential W-3500 Fishhawk Falls refresh is on the horizon.

The 60-core W9-3595X scored 1,611 points in the single-core benchmark and 17,118 points in the multi-core benchmark. Intel's W9-3495X was 22% quicker in the single-core test, with 2,088 points, and 9% faster in the multi-threaded benchmark, with 18,872 points.

It is a shame that the newer part is slower than its predecessor in this particular benchmark, but it is obvious that the W9-3595X spotted in Geekbench 6 is a prototype of some sort. Geekbench 6 recorded a peak CPU clock frequency of just 2.884GHz, which explains the performance disparity. The W9-3495X has a maximum-rated boost clock of 4.8GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0 — twice the frequency of what the W9-3595X achieved.

(Image credit: Geekbench)
Swipe to scroll horizontally
CPUsSingle-CoreMulti-Core
Xeon W9-3595X 60-core1,61117,118
Xeon W9-3495X 56-core2,08818,872

Regardless, the new Geekbench 6 result does point to a Fishhawk Falls refresh for Intel's outgoing HEDT workstation platform. We first heard rumors of this refresh several months ago, for the W-3500 series as well as a new W-2500 series. The leaks regarding the W-2500 series, in particular, noted that the series would be gaining two additional cores, higher clocks, and more cache, to better differentiate the W-2500 from the W-2400 series.

We haven't seen any noteworthy spec leaks for the W-3500 series until now — apparently the W-3500 series will receive a similar update. The W9-3595X seen in the Geekbench 6 listing has 60 cores (vs. the W9-3495X's 56 cores) and more cache.

The minute spec bump shows that Intel is desperately trying to stay competitive in the HEDT space. With the launch of AMD's new Threadripper 7000 series and 7000WX Pro CPUs several months ago, Intel has been completely outmatched — primarily from a core count disadvantage. The top chip in AMD's mainstream Threadripper 7000 series lineup, the 7980X, has 64 cores — six more cores than the W9-3495X, which is aimed at workstation builds. AMD's workstation-focused flagship, the 7995WX, features a whopping 96 cores and 129 threads.

Four additional cores won't do much to alleviate Intel's current issues, but it's better than nothing.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • The new chip is, however, slower than its predecessor, the W9-3495X (with 58 core) in both single- and multi-core benchmarks
    The W9-3595X seen in the Geekbench 6 listing has 60 cores (vs. the W9-3495X's 58 cores) and more cache.
    Two additional cores won't do much to alleviate Intel's current issues, but it's better than nothing.

    W9-3495X has 56 cores, NOT 58. So a total of 4 cores difference. Correct the info in the article, including the table/chart as well.

    It is a shame that the newer part is slower than its predecessor in this particular benchmark, but it is obvious that the W9-3595X spotted in Geekbench 6 is a prototype of some sort.

    Why is it a shame ? This is a very early engineering sample, so don't expect the performance to be at par with any final silicon chip. This is normal. Also, more importantly, clock speeds in the Geekbench log seem to range from 4.1-4.5 GHz, so there is definitely still some tuning to go in place.

    ALSO, the next-gen Xeon Workstation lineup isn't expected to be a very huge upgrade over existing chips. These are just "Refresh" chips. And they are also compatible with existing LGA 4677 socket mobos such as the ASUS Pro WS W790-ACE model this particular chip was tested in the leak.

    Comparison, Xeon W9-3595X vs Xeon W9-3495X:
    60 Cores / 120 Threads vs 56 Cores / 112 Threads (roughly +7% Increase)
    120 MB L2 Cache vs 112 MB L2 Cache (+7.12% Increase)
    112 MB L3 Cache vs 105 MB L3 Cache (+6.7% Increase)
    AMD's workstation-focused flagship, the 7995WX, features a whopping 96 cores and 129 threads.

    That's 192 threads, not 129 !
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    Ah yes Geekbench 6 the absolute best test for these CPU...(extreme sarcasm)
    Reply
  • emike09
    I'm half tempted to finally switch over to AMD. My first CPU was an Athlon X2, been with Intel ever since. Currently rocking an i9-10920X on X299, OC'd to 4.8GHz. X299 was and is an incredible platform that delivered massive performance and expandability at a respectable price. But it's getting a bit old, still on PCI-e 3.

    I'm just not really convinced Intel or AMD's new workstation platforms justify the very steep cost for the performance I'd gain. Sure, it's faster, but I'd be looking at $3000 for a new CPU, Mobo, and RAM with the AMD 7960X while not gaining all that much.

    As a comparison for Intel, my 2019 12-core i9-10920X gets a score of 1705 on single core and 12058 on multi-core in GeekBench, vs the 1611/17118 score on the w9-3595X, a 60-core CPU 5-years newer than mine. I know it's an engineering sample and I know Geekbench isn't the best way to benchmark systems like these, but it is a benchmark regardless. Extremely disappointing progress, the only thing that's progressing is price $$$$. That thing's going to be around $6k for a CPU!?! I bought my 10920x for $650. And the power consumption is insane. I max out around 200w on mine. 350w TDP is ludicrous.

    I think I'll wait and see what happens next year.
    Reply
  • endocine
    These refreshed workstation parts aren't based off of Emerald Rapids, but a rework for Saphire Rapids? Are you sure about that?
    Reply
  • ace6558966
    The top chip in AMD's mainstream Threadripper 7000 series lineup, the 7980X, has 64 cores — six more cores than the W9-3495X, which is aimed at workstation builds. AMD's workstation-focused flagship, the 7995WX, features a whopping 96 cores and 129 threads


    7980x... 8 more cores....7995wx 96core/192 threads...
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    emike09 said:
    I'm half tempted to finally switch over to AMD. My first CPU was an Athlon X2, been with Intel ever since. Currently rocking an i9-10920X on X299, OC'd to 4.8GHz. X299 was and is an incredible platform that delivered massive performance and expandability at a respectable price. But it's getting a bit old, still on PCI-e 3.

    I'm just not really convinced Intel or AMD's new workstation platforms justify the very steep cost for the performance I'd gain. Sure, it's faster, but I'd be looking at $3000 for a new CPU, Mobo, and RAM with the AMD 7960X while not gaining all that much.

    As a comparison for Intel, my 2019 12-core i9-10920X gets a score of 1705 on single core and 12058 on multi-core in GeekBench, vs the 1611/17118 score on the w9-3595X, a 60-core CPU 5-years newer than mine. I know it's an engineering sample and I know Geekbench isn't the best way to benchmark systems like these, but it is a benchmark regardless. Extremely disappointing progress, the only thing that's progressing is price $$$$. That thing's going to be around $6k for a CPU!?! I bought my 10920x for $650. And the power consumption is insane. I max out around 200w on mine. 350w TDP is ludicrous.

    I think I'll wait and see what happens next year.
    Going to a Threadripper 7960X would give you double the threads AND at least 30% higher IPC.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    If these specifications are accurate it's unfortunate that the workstation parts aren't going to get any of the increased cache some of the server parts did. I doubt the pricing on the W-3500 series will be any different than the W-3400 series is, but the W-2500 series has a chance to be lower priced. Curious when Intel will actually talk about these parts as there are new server and desktop parts coming later this year and I'd imagine they would want this release to steer clear of those.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    It's too bad that Aaron can't math and Toms can't proof and edit Aarons articles before posting them.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    emike09 said:
    And the power consumption is insane. I max out around 200w on mine. 350w TDP is ludicrous.
    The i9-10920X has just 12 cores... divided by 250 that's ~17W per core
    350w divided by 60 cores is 6W per core, your CPU is almost at 3 times as much power per core.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    emike09 said:
    with the AMD 7960X while not gaining all that much.
    According to whom? The GB6 scores for it are like 2,822/19,461 (Windows).

    emike09 said:
    my 2019 12-core i9-10920X gets a score of 1705 on single core and 12058 on multi-core in GeekBench, vs the 1611/17118 score on the w9-3595X, a 60-core CPU 5-years newer than mine. I know it's an engineering sample and I know Geekbench isn't the best way to benchmark systems like these, but it is a benchmark regardless.
    Why are you even looking at the score for the ES CPU, when you can just look at the w9-3495X and be reasonably certain the new one will be faster? We know they're both based on Sapphire Rapids, so the new version should probably just be a slight overclock.

    As for the existing CPU, you can take the article's numbers (2088/18,872), but I have no idea where they got those. If you look at the GB6 online results browser, there are plenty of scores above (and below that). I see a cluster for Dell workstations around 2193/18854, and that's not even the highest score (I ignore the outliers, since they're probably overclocks - also, try to compare within the same OS).

    emike09 said:
    Extremely disappointing progress, the only thing that's progressing is price $$$$.
    As you said, GB6 is pretty horrible for such a system. See if you can find some Xeon W-2400 series benchmarks, from an actual review of one of those workstations.

    emike09 said:
    That thing's going to be around $6k for a CPU!?! I bought my 10920x for $650. And the power consumption is insane. I max out around 200w on mine. 350w TDP is ludicrous.
    Then get a 2400-series. The w9-2495X has 24 cores and a base power of 225 W. Also, lower platform cost, since it supports only 4 memory channels.

    P.S. you never said why you need/want a more powerful machine.
    Reply