AMD's new Threadripper chips clobber anything Intel is doing right now

AMD is doubling down on its Threadripper range with new offerings featuring its Zen 5 architecture. Although Threadripper never went away, its future for high-end desktops (HEDT) was uncertain for a couple of generations, as AMD refocused the brand on professional workstations with the Threadripper Pro range. Now, however, HEDT has its footing. In addition to Threadripper Pro chips reaching up to 96 cores, AMD announced a new range of Threadripper processors targeting HEDT, which can reach up to 64 cores, at Computex.

AMD doubles down on HEDT with Threadripper 9000

Intel hasn't released an HEDT processor in several generations

If you're familiar with AMD's Threadripper range, none of the specs you can see in the tables above should come as a surprise. There's a 64-core, 32-core, and 24-core option for the HEDT range that compromises the core lineup, while the Threadripper Pro range scales up to 96 cores and down to just 12 cores. The cores and clocks aren't what's interesting here, though. It's the Zen 5 architecture that we've already seen in action in everything from the Ryzen 5 9600X to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

In particular for these workstation chips, the fact that Zen 5 supports AVX-512 instructions with a full 512-bit data path. Although AMD supported AVX-512 on its Zen 4 offerings, it split the data across two 256-bit paths. A dedicated 512-bit data path massively accelerates applications that leverage AVX-512 instructions, which show up much more commonly in workstation applications than they do in consumer apps.

Outside AVX-512, these Threadripper chips come with a few platform advantages. They support PCIe 5.0, as do consumer Zen 5 chips, but come with support for up to 128 PCIe lanes. In addition, the chips support up to eight channels of DDR5-6400 memory with ECC support. Although AMD isn't using its gaming-focused X3D branding, AMD is packing in the cache with its Threadripper 9000 range. On the HEDT range, you get up to 256MB of L3 cache on the flagship Threadripper 9980X, while on the Pro range, the cache scales up to 384MB on the Threadripper Pro 9950WX.

AMD hasn't shared pricing details for the Threadripper 9000 range yet, but you can expect them to be expensive. The current-gen Threadripper 7980X runs $5,000, and that's before any potential impacts from the trade situation in the US. As for the Threadripper Pro range, you'll likely find them in workstations from brands like Lenovo and HPE. AMD says the range will start rolling out in July, but it has yet to provide any firm release dates.

If you're looking to upgrade a HEDT, there's good news on compatibility. Threadripper 9000 chips use the same sTR5 socket as Threadripper 7000 chips, and AMD says they'll be backwards compatible with the TRX50 chipset.