Intel Announces Xeon W-1200 Processor Line, Comet Lake Wears a Suit

[btarunr]

Intel today announced the Xeon W-1200 line of socket LGA1200 processors aimed at enterprises, workstations, and small-scale server builds. These processors are based on the 14 nm "Comet Lake-W" microarchitecture, and are differentiated from the 10th generation Core "Comet Lake-S" processor family in featuring ECC memory support, vPro support on select SKUs, and the UHD P630 integrated graphics solution. These processors will be supported on motherboards based on the Intel W480, W470, and possibly Q470 chipsets. The processors also introduce Turbo Boost Max 3.0 to this segment with select GPUs. Thermal Velocity Boost is available on only the top SKU.

The lineup is led by the 10-core/20-thread Xeon W-1290P, clocked at 3.70 GHz, with 5.20 GHz max boost frequency, and 20 MB of L3 cache. This SKU also features 5.30 GHz TVB and 4.90 GHz all-core TVB. This is followed closely by the Xeon W-1270P, an 8-core/16-thread part with 3.80 GHz nominal and 5.10 GHz boost frequency, and 16 MB of L3 cache. The W-1250P 6-core/12-thread chip is next in line, with its 4.10 GHz nominal, 4.50 GHz boost, and 12 MB L3 cache. All P-extension SKUs feature generally high clock speeds, and 125 W TDP. Positioned right below these are the non-P SKUs, with their 80 W TDP, and lower clock-speeds.



The W-1290 10-core part ticks at 3.20 GHz with 5.10 GHz TBM3 clocks, and 5.20 GHz TVB. The W-1270 does 3.40 GHz with 5.00 GHz TBM3, and 4.70 GHz all-core Turbo. The W-1250 offers 3.30 GHz nominal, and 4.40 GHz all-core boost. There's also the super-efficiency W-1290T 10-core/20-thread part, with 1.90 GHz nominal, 4.70 GHz Turbo Boost Max 3.0, no TVB, and 3.80 GHz all-core Turbo, with a stellar 35 W TDP. The processors in this series put out 16 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes for PEG; while pairing them with the W480 chipset yields 40 total platform PCIe gen 3.0 lanes. We are awaiting pricing details.

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[Jism]

80watts of TDP ? that is the base clock(s) yes. Come'on. Someone should tap Intel for that on the fingers. Misleading advertising.

 

[Daven]

80watts of TDP ? that is the base clock(s) yes. Come'on. Someone should tap Intel for that on the fingers. Misleading advertising.

We actually have a problem knowing what kinds of workloads use which CPU resources for how much power. The myriad number of workloads cause modern CPUs to range in thread count, clock frequency and power consumption. Its very hard nowadays to know how many cores/threads you need and how much power/cooling is necessary for those core/threads to operate at the highest frequency. And the only way to quantify any of this is for tech reviewers to get much more creative beyond simple benchmarks and bar graphs.

 

[evernessince]

We actually have a problem knowing what kinds of workloads use which CPU resources for how much power. The myriad number of workloads cause modern CPUs to range in thread count, clock frequency and power consumption. Its very hard nowadays to know how many cores/threads you need and how much power/cooling is necessary for those core/threads to operate at the highest frequency. And the only way to quantify any of this is for tech reviewers to get much more creative beyond simple benchmarks and bar graphs.

It's not nearly as complicated as you make it seem. CPU power draw should be rated using a worst case scenario, full utilization with the most intensive instructions possible. Plenty of reviewers manage to do this. After all, it's up to the buyer to decide what his system is going to be doing, putting out a number that only shows a best case scenario is simply misleading.