AMD releases Threadripper Pro CPUs

AMD has announced its new AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro Processor line-up, offering up to 64 cores and 'unrivalled' bandwidth, having been built with professional workstations in mind. 

Notably and before anyone gets too excited, the processors will only be available as part of pre-built systems and there won't be any connected consumer motherboards launched, so this isn't a launch to entice the average consumer. Instead, this is a step forward in AMD's plans to compete with Intel at every stage. 

In a statement, senior vice president and general manager for AMD Client business unit, Saeid Moshkelani said, "AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO Processors are purpose-built to set the new industry standard for professional workstation compute performance." He continued, "the extreme performance, high core counts and bandwidth of AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors are now available with AMD PRO technology features including seamless manageability and unique built-in data protection."

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro based workstations promise to be the first pro workstation to support PCIe Gen 4 along with also supporting up to 2TB memory in 8-channel. Four new Threadripper Pro chips have been introduced. 

There's the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3995WX with 64 cores, 128 threads, and a base clock of 2.7GHz and boost clock of 4.2GHz, Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX with 32 cores, 64 threads, and a base clock of 3.5GHz and boost clock of 4.2GHz, Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3955XWX with 16 cores, 32 threads, and a base clock of 3.9GHz and boost clock of 4.3GHz, and the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3945WX with 12 cores, 24 threads, and a base clock of 4GHz and boost clock of 4.3GHz.

All offer 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes, the aforementioned 2TB of RAM (supporting unbuffered DIMMs, registered DIMMs and Load Reduced DIMMs). The 64-core version will be built with eight CCD units, each offering eight cores, while the 32-core version has four eight core CCDs, and the 16-core version has two eight core CCDs and the 12-core variant provides two six-core CCDs. The processors use a new sWRX8 socket. 

Alongside the processor announcement also came news that the first 64 core Pro workstation system is coming from Lenovo. It'll be available in the Autumn and it's called the ThinkStation P620. It's powered by the Threadripper Pro 3995WX7. It offers up to two Nvidia Quadra RTX 8000 graphics cards, 10-gigabit ethernet, a maximum installed memory of 512GB of DDR4/3200 and a 1,000 watt power supply. There's also room for up to four 3.5-inch drives and four M.2 slots for alternative storage too.

It's an exclusive deal between AMD and Lenovo with other PC builders set to launch similar units further down the line once the deal expires. AMD didn't say when that would be. 

It also didn't say anything about the chances of Threadripper Pro chips being available at retail with the suggestion being that they will remain a pre-built option only.