AMD “Zen 4” Based Ryzen Threadripper “Storm Peak” Surfaces with 96-core/192-thread Config

AMD will build “Zen 4” based Ryzen Threadripper processors in an attempt to meet competition from Intel, which is rumored to launch HEDT processors of its own based on “Sapphire Rapids.” While Intel’s chip tops out at 60-core/120-thread and has a constellation of task-specific hardware-accelerators, AMD will arm its processors with raw CPU core-count, going as high up as 96-core/192-thread. The company has assigned the codename “Storm Peak” for these chips.

The Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series “Storm Peak” processor engineering samples surfaced on the Einstein@Home user database. As many as three OPNs have surfaced, “AMD Eng Sample: 100-000000884-21_N” and “AMD Eng Sample: 100-000000884-20_Y,” which are 96-core/192-thread; and the “AMD Eng Sample: 100-000000454-20_Y,” which is 64-core/128-thread. “Storm Peak” is likely just a variation of EPYC “Genoa,” geared for higher frequencies.

How AMD sells these chips is a whole different story. The company skipped the client-HEDT market entirely for its “Zen 3” based Ryzen Threadripper 5000 series, and only targeted the workstation-HEDT market under the “WX” brand extension. The expectation now is that it could do something similar, by making Ryzen Threadripper 7000WX series SKUs that are initially sold exclusively through pre-built workstation manufacturers such as Lenovo, with a retail-channel launch expected some 6 months afterward.

Even as a workstation-only processor, “Storm Peak” has some jaw-dropping I/O specs that could include 12-channel DDR5 memory (24 x 40-bit sub-channels); and up to 160 PCI-Express Gen 5.0 lanes, which can connect up to 10 graphics cards at full x16 bandwidth; or a heap of PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe SSDs and other high-bandwidth devices. AMD is expected to develop an exclusive chipset and CPU socket for these processors, which could be a variation of SP5.