The lineup for Intel's upcoming Xeon W-2500 series has leaked, and ostensibly, it's largely a refresh of the current generation W-2400 series based on Sapphire Rapids, albeit with a few extra cores enabled. This is apparently the company's response to AMD's upcoming Threadripper 7000 workstation CPUs, which is certainly going to be a powerhouse.
The leak comes courtesy of Yuuki Ans on X (formerly Twitter), and it details the full lineup for the W-2500 series. It seems that every SKU on the list has two more cores, more cache, and higher clock speeds than its W-2400 counterpart. These CPUs seem to still only have four memory channels and 64 PCIe 5.0 lanes, however.
This is allegedly all Intel is planning for Xeon W in the near future, as the leaker said he had no knowledge of a hypothetical W-3500 refresh, which they theorized either doesn't exist or is delayed. The leaker also claimed Emerald Rapids (which is to Sapphire Rapids what Raptor Lake was to Alder Lake) may not come to Xeon W at all. Both claims stand in contrast to an earlier leak that projected a W-2500 and W-3500 series based on Emerald Rapids.
Performance-wise, this doesn't seem to be a huge overhaul for Intel. The fastest member of the W-3400 series is the w9-3495X, and it offers just 56 cores compared to the Threadripper 7980X's allotment of 64 cores. The Threadripper Pro 7995WX comes in at a whopping 96 cores, though it commands a much higher price than both the 7980X and w9-3495X. The leaked w7-2595X with its 26 cores can, at best, compete with the 24-core 7960X.
However, Intel's strategy here does seem sound because the W-2500 series ducks beneath Threadripper 7000 instead of trying to compete directly with it. Threadripper 7000 starts at $1,499 with the 7960X, while the W-2400's cheapest CPU is $359. The W-2500 could even come with a price cut to bring the w7-2595X in line with the 7960X. Plus, Intel has AMD beat on PCIe 5.0 lanes, as the non-Pro Threadrippers offer only 48 lanes, while even the lowest-end W-2400 (and now W-2500) CPUs come with 64.
Intel's return to HEDT happened just under a year ago, and it seems Xeon W is once again in dire straits. Ideally, Intel would have some CPU it could throw out to counter Threadripper 7000, but it doesn't seem that CPU exists yet. At the very least, Intel can focus on the low-end segment of HEDT CPUs, which AMD doesn't really compete in at the moment.
