Chinese tech tipster Enthusiast Citizen (ECSM) has posted on Bilibili about future Intel product refreshes with a rough timeline spanning from late to 2023 to early 2024. We have been hearing a lot lately about Team Blue's Raptor Lake Refresh, with reports from this week suggesting that this lineup will be the last to sport Team Blue's traditional naming scheme—as 14th Gen Core. ECSM claims that Raptor Lake Refresh-K SKUs are due for launch this October, and non-K units will follow them a month or two later. Team Blue will likely be happy to keep LGA 1700 and 1800 sockets alive for another generation.

ECSM also brings up seemingly new information with an alleged Sapphire Rapids Refresh lined up for early 2024—suggesting that updated HEDT Xeon W2500 and W3500 series processors are incoming. The Intel W790 chipset should be able to run this rumored replacement lineup. ECSM's proposed product roadmap also presents wholly new product ranges including Meteor Lake offerings, albeit with desktop MTL-S SKUs cancelled—mobile-oriented Meteor Lake-H seems to be alive and well with an alleged Q4 2023 launch window. Finally Arrow Lake-S is predicted to launch in the final quarter of 2024 or early 2025—so we will likely have to wait another year and a half for upgraded Intel mainstream desktop SKUs.

When Intel announced the appearance of the 4th generation Xeon-W processors, the company announced that the clock multiplier was left unlocked, available for overclockers to try and push these chips even harder. However, it was only a matter of time before we saw the top-end Xeon-W SKU take a chance at beating the world record in Cinebench R23. The Intel Xeon W9-3495X SKU is officially the world record score holder with 132,484 points in Cinebench R23. The overclocker OGS from Greece managed to push all 56 cores and 112 threads of the CPU to 5.4 GHz clock frequency using liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling setup. Using ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE motherboard and G-SKILL Zeta R5 RAM kit, the OC record was set on March 8th.

The previous record holder of this position was AMD with its Threadripper Pro 5995WX with 64 cores and 128 threads clocked at 5.4 GHz. Not only did Xeon W9-3495X set the Cinebench R23 record, but the SKU also placed the newest record for Cinebench R20, Y-Cruncher, 3DMark CPU test, and Geekbench 3 as well.

A leaked chipset block-diagram for the upcoming Intel W680 chipset platform sheds light on a possible major change in the way Intel sells workstation-grade processors. The Socket LGA1700-based W680 motherboards will support 12th Gen Core processors for Workstation, and the company makes no mention of the Xeon-W series. Tech enthusiast Wild Cracks points to a possibility we agree with—that Intel is upcycling the Xeon-W series to premium workstation-grade processors, possibly derived from the enterprise-segment silicon, such as the upcoming "Sapphire Rapids," and away from being just a client "Alder Lake" processor with ECC memory support enabled when paired with a W680 chipset motherboard.

If this theory holds true, then the Xeon W (2-channel memory platform) could make way for the "W" brand extension for 12th Gen Core processors. At this point we don't know how the "W" is used, whether it's something along the lines of "Core W9-12900" or "Core i9-12900W." The former sounds more plausible, as "12900W" could have a negative connotation with regards to its power. In terms of connectivity, the W680 offers much of what the top Z690 does, except x8/x8 multi-GPU support. The diagram doesn't give out any information about CPU overclocking support, although memory overclocking support is very likely.

Intel is packing a slightly improved stock heatsink-fan (HSF) cooling solution with some of its higher-end 10th generation Core desktop and select Xeon-W processors. The cooler, while nowhere close in size or weight to the TS15A, features a slightly thicker heatsink with a copper core, compared to the one included with lower-end parts such as the i5-10400. This heatsink's primary material is black anodized aluminium, with a copper core. The fan's cable is now black sleeved, instead of being a loose bunch of four ketchup-and-mustard wires. The hub of the fan, which usually had a white or blue label with ugly regulatory markings, now has a solid grey sticker with just the Intel logo.

There are no performance numbers, but the cooler looks physically similar to the copper core coolers Intel used to include with some of its oldest LGA115x processors, such as "Lynnfield" and " Sandy Bridge," capable of handling 95 W TDP. Intel is including the cooler with the Core i9-10900, the i9-10900F, i7-10700F, i7-10700; and Xeon W-1290, W-1270, and W-1250 boxed processors in the DIY retail channel.

Intel today unveiled its latest lineup of Intel Xeon W and X-series processors, which puts new classes of computing performance and AI acceleration into the hands of professional creators and PC enthusiasts. Custom-designed to address the diverse needs of these growing audiences, the new Xeon W-2200 and X-series processors are targeted to be available starting November, along with a new pricing structure that represents an easier step up for creators and enthusiasts from Intel Core S-series mainstream products.

Intel is the only company that delivers a full portfolio of products precision-tuned to handle the sustained compute-intensive workloads used by professional creators and enthusiasts every day. The new Xeon W-2200 and X-series processors take this to the next level, as the first high-end desktop PC and mainstream workstations to feature AI acceleration with the integration of Intel Deep Learning Boost. This offers an AI inference boost of 2.2 times more compared with the prior generation. Additionally, this new lineup features Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which has been further enhanced to help software, such as for simulation and modeling, run as fast as possible by identifying and prioritizing the fastest available cores.

In a response to AMD's current uptake in the consumer, HEDT and server markets with its vertical slice of the Zen architecture, Intel has started rebranding their products and image, changing product names and placement in a bid to increase the "freshness" factor of its offerings. E5 and E7 Xeons are gone, with the introduction of a metallic naming scheme: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum are now Intel's Xeon products, and Xeon-W takes the spot as Intel's workstation-oriented product stack. They do this by being - essentially - a conversion of Intel's Core i9 X299 family of processors towards the professional market with inclusion of professional-geared features. And as is usual with Intel, a new chipset - C422 - is needed in order for these to properly function.

The new Xeon-W product family will still make use of the LGA 2066 socket, bringing with them ECC and vPro support. The Xeon-W CPU family will feature 4 to 18 cores, support up to 512GB of ECC RDIMM/LRDIMM memory, support dual 512-bit FMAs, and peak clocks of 4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz Turbo. All the parts will support 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the processor,and CPUs in the Xeon-W stack are rated at 140W TDP: with exception of the quad cores, which come in at at 120W. Xeon-W processors only support Turbo Boost 2.0, instead of their Core i9 counterparts' Turbo 3.0.