AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000WX “Storm Peak” Only by Q3-2023

AMD won’t release its Ryzen Threadripper 7000WX “Storm Peak” workstation processors any time before September 2023, suggests a reliable source with AMD leaks. The push to Q3 probably has to do with giving AMD enough “Zen 4” CCD volumes to ship high-margin EPYC “Genoa” server processors first, before the company can turn its attention to the HEDT and workstation markets.

While all indications are that AMD give the “Zen 4” Threadripper a similar treatment this generation as it did with the “Zen 3,” by confining it to the workstation segment with only Threadripper 7000WX SKUs that could be OEM-exclusives before crawling their way to the retail market; the source has an interesting theory, that the company could even target the client HEDT market with these chips. The company will also adequately segment the Threadripper 7000WX SKUs apart from EPYC “Genoa” processors.

For starters, the 7000WX “Storm Peak” series could ship with a narrower 8-channel (16 sub-channel) DDR5 memory interface, compared to the 12-channel (24 sub-channel) DDR5 interface of EPYC “Genoa.” The alleged client HEDT Threadripper 7000X series SKUs, on the other hand, could feature a 4-channel (8 sub-channel) DDR5 interface, which would still end up double those of the Ryzen 7000 “Raphael” and 13th Gen Core “Raptor Lake-S” processors with their 2-channel (4 sub-channel) DDR5 interfaces. Similarly, the 7000WX chips allegedly get the full 128-lane PCIe Gen 5 interface, while the 7000X HEDT chips get a narrow 64-lane PCIe Gen 5 interface.

Whether AMD even launches client HEDT SKUs will depend largely on what Intel does in this segment. There are rumors that the company could release HEDT SKUs based on a variant of “Sapphire Rapids” with a slimmer I/O feature set than Xeon Scalable processors (fewer PCIe Gen 5 lanes, no CXL, etc).