Latest Pro 5000 WX series good for AI, engineering, maybe metaverse?

AMD introduced its Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX family today, which could be useful for building code, running specialist high-end software, and developing artificial intelligence on the desktop.

The microprocessors, which each have up to 64 CPU cores and 128 hardware threads, are said to be workstation class, and can be combined with multiple discrete graphics cards if you need the oomph, display capacity, or to render 3D scenes.

The Threadripper Pro 5000 WX, code-named Chagall, uses AMD's Zen 3 architecture, and succeeds the Zen-2-based Threadripper Pro 3000-series launched in 2020. The new components are made using a 7nm process, are based on the Epyc Milan data center family, have 128 lanes of PCIe 4, and talk to DDR4 RAM via eight channels.

The downside: the processors do not feature AMD's latest Zen 3+ CPU design, which appeared in the Ryzen 6000 series of laptop chips introduced this year. Those Zen 3+ components are made using a 6nm process.

The top-end Threadripper Pro 5000 offering, the 5995WX, has 64 cores with a base clock frequency of 2.7GHz, which can be boosted to 4.5GHz. AMD claimed the components execute more instructions per clock tick than their predecessors though it did not provide hard numbers to demonstrate actual generational improvements.

The chip family has a maximum 256MB of L3 cache per device, which is the same as the 3000 series though packaged differently. The processors support shadow stacks, which aim to thwart ROP-type exploits; Intel has a similar mechanism. The chips also include Microsoft's Pluton technology, which so far is only being gradually embraced by the PC industry.  

Lenovo will be among the first PC makers to ship a workstation with an AMD 5000WX-series chip. Updated ThinkStation P620s will arrive later this month; today's P620s have the Threadripper Pro 3000 series. Other system builders and integrators are due to get the silicon from March 21.

"The latest ThinkStation P620 boasts the next-generation of AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000WX-Series processor, offering up to 25 per cent performance improvement over the previous generation," Lenovo gushed.

The new Threadripper Pro has metaverse virtually written all over it. The specs are suitable for high-end virtual-reality applications – think engineering and design work – in a virtual space Facebook thinks will be our future environment for fun, commerce, and employment.

AMD is also working with software developers to optimize their professional suites for the silicon: we're talk applications such as those from Solidworks, PTC, and Autodesk. Finally, AMD today announced the Radeon Pro W6600X GPU for Mac Pro machines. ®