Intel's Xeon 696X CPU has leaked out, offering up to 64 cores on the Granite Rapids Workstation platform & up to 4.6 GHz clocks.

A brand new Intel Granite Rapids Xeon Workstation CPU has leaked out, the Xeon 696X, which is one of the top SKUs within the next-gen workstation stack. This is the third chip that has leaked out within the stack, with the other two being the Xeon 698X and the Xeon 654 .

In terms of specifications, the Xeon 696X is going to be an unlocked SKU with 64 cores and 128 threads. The chip will be based on the Redwood Cove P-Core architecture with a base clock of 2.20 GHz & boost clocks of up to 4.60 GHz. The chip features 336 MB of L3 cache and 128 MB of L2 cache, plus it has a TDP of 350W.

For comparison, the current flagship Xeon workstation CPU is the Xeon W9-3595X, which is part of the Sapphire Rapids-WS lineup. The chip features 60 cores, 120 threads, 112.5 MB of L3 cache, a 2.0 GHz frequency at base and 4.8 GHz frequency at boost. The chip has a rated TDP of 385W and can sip up to 462W at its maximum turbo speeds.

The Intel and tested across various benches. It was featured on the AdLink AXE-7400GRW, which is a 4U Rack designed for Granite Rapids CPUs. AdLink is also offering Sapphire Rapids 4U racks, so this is going to be their next-gen update. The platform features an undisclosed amount of memory, but we do get to see some nice benchmarks.

The Xeon 696X CPU scored 12,389.50 Mpix/s points in the Processor Multi-Media benchmark. Compared to the Xeon W9-3495X, which is a 56-core part and scores 8463.41 Mpix/s, this is a 46% increase in multimedia performance.

We also added a 64-core Threadripper "Zen 4" to the mix, and you can see the difference is very small, while the Zen 5-based Threadripper with the same core count totally dominates and sits on a different tier entirely. This is just one benchmark, and doesn't paint the full picture.

In the overall CPU score, the Threadripper 7985WX edges out the Xeon 696X, and the lead over the W9-3495X falls back to 20%.

The extra cache and higher clock speeds should deliver some good numbers on the new Xeon Granite Rapids Workstation platform, but as we have said before, pricing & competitive value will be the ultimate decider for Granite Rapids-WS on whether they turn out to be a decent platform for workstation users or not.

Intel Granite Rapids "Xeon Workstation" CPU Family (Preliminary):

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