Intel's upcoming Xeon Granite Rapids workstation lineup leaks, poised to challenge AMD Threadripper with $8,300 86-core flagship — retailer lists prices ahead of CES launch, starts at $540

Intel is gearing up to announce its next-gen workstation Xeon lineup at CES 2026 in just a few weeks. These processors will be part of the Granite Rapids-WS family, going head-to-head with AMD's Threadripper. Even though they're yet to be announced, retailer listings have started to pop up, revealing preliminary prices that put Granite Rapids-WS in a seemingly healthy spot against the competition. However, do be aware that early retail listings can be inaccurate, though this batch does seem to be in line with expectations.

There are 11 models in total spotted by @momomo_us, which lines up with a previous leak citing the same number of SKUs. The cheapest CPU here is the Xeon 634, coming in at just $541.04. It features 48 MB of L3 cache with a 2.7 GHz base frequency, as mentioned in the listing, and, once again, the lineup leak from last month corroborates that.

The core count is unknown, but based on the existing Granite Rapids server lineup, we could be looking at an offshoot of the Xeon 6349P, a 6-core part. There's no direct comparison on AMD's side; the Threadripper PRO 9945WX is the closest reference, the lowest-spec Shimada Peak SKU with just 12 cores.

Things get a lot more interesting on the high-end, with the Xeon 698X. Previously, we thought this could be a 128-core part, given it's based on the Xeon 6980P, but the latest reports indicate it has 86 cores, which would put it behind AMD's top dog, the Threadripper PRO 9995WX, which features 96 cores. If current speculation holds true, this would be another generation in which Intel lacks core-parity with the Red Team in the HEDT segment.

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The Xeon 698X has 336 MB of L3 cache with a 2.0 GHz base frequency and was listed at $ 8,294 — which isn't bad, since the 9995WX costs $11,699 and even the last-gen Threadripper PRO 7995WX is $10,000. Now, those are 96-core SKUs against an 86-core SKU, but that's the closest comparison we have.

To round out the collection, the midrange Xeon 654 was listed for $1,300, and it is the processor we know the most about, as it has appeared on Geekbench before. The listing mentions 72 MB of L3 cache and a 3.1 GHz base clock, which is close enough to that Geekbench run, so this data is likely valid.

We're looking at an 18-core SKU here with 36 threads, which puts it next to the 16-core Threadripper PRO 9955WX, which AMD sells for $1,649, and that CPU has a smaller 64 MB cache pool. Both offerings have a 350W TDP; however, those numbers remain identical across both lineups.

Granite Rapids-WS will be compatible with the W890 platform with Intel's E2 socket featuring 4,710 LGA pins, which is what enables that 350W power limit we mentioned. We've also added a table below if you're interested in looking at the most up-to-date details for every Xeon 6 GNR-WS processor, including the prices from today. CES is right around the corner, so we'll know official specs soon enough.

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