AMD Launches Threadripper Pro CPU to Counter Intel Xeon

In July 2020 AMD announced Ryzen Threadripper PRO, a workstation version of its Threadripper processors aimed squarely at Intel's Xeon workstation chips. It offered up to 64 cores together with the features professional buyers expect from a workstation part: eight memory channels with support for very large memory capacities, 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0, and platform security and manageability. Lenovo's ThinkStation P620 was announced as the first workstation built around it. This post reports the launch as it stood in July 2020.

Image courtesy: PC Mag

Key takeaways

• Announced in July 2020 as AMD's first Threadripper aimed at professional workstations rather than enthusiast desktops.
• Up to 64 cores and 128 threads, based on the Zen 2 chiplet design shared with EPYC Rome.
• Eight DDR4-3200 memory channels with support for up to 2 TB per processor, double the channels of standard Threadripper.
• 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes for GPUs, storage and networking.
• Launched first in Lenovo's ThinkStation P620, a direct challenge to Intel Xeon W workstations.

The announcement

AMD is finally bringing a workstation-class processor to challenge Intel Xeon with its Ryzen Threadripper Pro. The pro version of AMD's multicore powerhouse Threadripper processors, with up to 64 cores, incorporates essentials like support for massive amounts of memory and board-level security, critical for uses which move loads of sensitive data, ranging from aerospace visualisation to Hollywood video editing and CGI rendering. More here.

The launch line-up

Model	Cores / threads
Threadripper PRO 3995WX	64 / 128
Threadripper PRO 3975WX	32 / 64
Threadripper PRO 3955WX	16 / 32
Threadripper PRO 3945WX	12 / 24

All four share the same platform features: eight-channel DDR4-3200, up to 2 TB of memory, 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes and AMD PRO security and manageability features. Clock speeds and prices varied by model and are best checked against AMD's own product pages.

How it compared with standard Threadripper

Feature	Threadripper 3000 (HEDT)	Threadripper PRO 3000WX
Maximum cores	64	64
Memory channels	4	8
Maximum memory	256 GB (as published at the time)	2 TB
PCIe 4.0 lanes	Up to 88 usable from CPU and chipset (as published at the time)	128
Registered ECC memory	Not officially supported	Supported
Target buyer	Enthusiasts and creators	Corporate and professional workstations

Why it mattered

Workstation buyers in engineering, media and science want memory capacity, I/O and manageability as much as raw core count. Standard Threadripper already led on cores, but its four memory channels and consumer platform kept it out of many corporate fleets. Threadripper PRO closed those gaps and came through a major workstation vendor, which is how most such machines are bought. Lenovo said the ThinkStation P620 would ship in September 2020; launch reports listed the P620's own memory limit as 1 TB, lower than the processor's 2 TB ceiling.

For chip designers the launch is also a neat example of chiplet economics: the same compute dies used in EPYC server processors could be repackaged into a workstation product with little new silicon.