Intel introduces much cheaper Xeon W-2200 CPUs with higher clock speeds

Intel comes with eight Xeon W-2200 CPUs. The processors are based on the current Xeon W-2100 series, but have, among other things, a higher clock speed. Also, the prices of the high-end models have almost halved. The processors will be on the market in October.

The new Xeon W CPUs are the workstation counterpart to Intel’s Cascade Lake-X CPUs. The Xeon CPUs are broadly the same, but offer support for ECC RAM up to 1TB, while the Cascade Lake-X supports a maximum of 256GB RAM without ECC. The new Xeon W CPUs support socket LGA2066, but cannot be used with X299 motherboards. Instead, a motherboard with C422 chipset is needed.

Intel comes with the Xeon W-2295, among other things. This CPU has eighteen cores with hyperthreading and will cost $1333. The previous model, the Xeon W-2195, cost 2553 dollars at release. This equates to a price reduction of approximately 48 percent. In addition, the new model has a higher clock speed. The new CPUs do have a higher TDP. The Xeon W-2195 had a TDP of 140W, but the W-2295 has a TDP of 165W.

The Intel Xeon W-2200 CPUs also offer support for more RAM. The Xeon W-2100 series supported a maximum of 512GB of ram, where the new CPUs can use up to 1TB of ram. Also, the maximum supported native ram clock speed has been increased from 2666 to 2933MHz. The new Xeon W CPUs also have an integrated Deep Learning Boost, which should lead to faster AI inference compared to Xeon W-2100 CPUs. This means that AI can apply learned skills more quickly to new data.

Intel is currently lowering the prices of many CPU models. The aforementioned Cascade Lake-X series will have a price per core that is half that of its predecessor. Intel also lowered the prices of processors without integrated GPUs this week. It appears to be a response to increasing competition from AMD, which will launch new Threadripper CPUs and a mainstream 16-core CPU in November. Last month, Intel stated that its CPUs provide better “performance per dollar” than Threadripper, after which the company lowered the prices of its CPUs.