An interesting official Intel support document has been uploaded for public viewing—a PDF with the title of "Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel VROC) for Windows" mentions Fishhawk Falls Refresh (FHF-R) within its August 2023 release notes. FHF-R seems to make reference to an upcoming platform revision, rather than a refresh of a CPU lineup. The codename "Fishhawk Falls" was linked to 4th Gen HEDT Sapphire Rapids workstation counterparts late last year. The notes do refer to "Sapphire Rapids workstation-based platforms" in two places, so this could align with previous rumors of SR-R arriving early next year.

The latest discovery perhaps has Fishhawk Falls Refresh associated with 5th Generation Xeon Scalable "Emerald Rapids" processors. These workstation-oriented CPUs are predicted to launch as part of new Xeon W-2500 and Xeon W-3500 products lines. Intel and its board partners could be working on a revision of associated W790 chipset motherboards. Mainboard leaks have AMD's Threadripper 7000-series of workstation processors placed as the main competition going into 2024.

Intel's Sapphire Rapids CPUs are designed to represent the company's finest work for the server/enterprise and high-end desktop processor (HEDT) sector. According to Wccftech, we have an idea of the launch date and availability of the HEDT Sapphire Rapids Workstation counterparts, codenamed Fishhawk Falls. The Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS CPU and W790 motherboard unveil should happen on the 7th week of 2023, which means the 12th Feb - 18th Feb launch window. For availability, April of 2023 is scheduled to meet the needs of the upcoming HEDT clients. With a declining HEDT market, Intel is in no rush to deliver the CPUs, with priority being the server Sapphire Rapids designs.

As a reminder, the HEDT models should come with up to 56 cores and 112 threads, 105 MB of L3 cache, 350 W TDP, and 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. For memory, the platform support 8-channel DDR5-4400 (1DPC) / DDR5-4800 (2DPC) configurations with a capacity of up to 4 TB.

Intel's high-end desktop (HEDT), usually reserved for workstation and enterprise applications, is due for an update, and the company is readying an entire family of updated products. Today, we found a leak of what appears to be an Intel Sapphire Rapids design made for desktops. Called Xeon W5-3433, the CPU appears in the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark database. It carries a configuration of 16 cores and 32 threads and is equipped with 32 MB of L2 cache and 45 MB of L3 cache. Having 2 MB of L2 cache per core suggests that the design is not an Alder Lake variation. This specific SKU is clocked at 1.99 GHz, meaning an early engineering sample.

The Sapphire Rapids HEDT platform is codenamed FishHawk Falls. Intel is supposed to offer Alder Lake-X processors with higher core counts and the FishHawk Falls. Both will be running on the same W790 chipset; however, the Sapphire Rapids implementation will carry more cores in a Xeon package designed for professionals. There was an Ice Lake-X Xeon processor called Xeon W-3335 with 16 cores and 32 threads, meaning that the leaked Xeon W5-3433 is its direct successor.