4th Gen Intel Xeon W9-3495X – It’s a monster

1. Introducing the 4th Gen Intel Xeon W9-3495X2. Testing and Performance - the set-up3. Cinebench R23 and Blender v34. Handbrake, 7-Zip and Memory Bandwidth5. Gaming tests at 1440p6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Closing Thoughts

Before we started testing for this review we deliberately tempered our hopes. After all, we are effectively dealing with the P-cores from seven 12th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 CPUs in a very large package, and that sounds like a very curious combination. Even so, we were shocked to see a CPU power draw of 495W at a mere 2.9GHz and this is especially true when you consider the W-3400 family of CPUs are officially rated at 350W.

Our takeaway is that 4th Gen Xeon can easily run at higher clock speeds, however the brutal power draw is a major limitation. We have to hope the Emerald Rapids update will move things in the correct direction and after that Granite Rapids on the Intel 4 process should make further progress on power efficiency. The obvious point is that AMD is a moving target and Intel has an obligation to hit its targets and deliver on its promises.

Pros:

• Impressive performance from the high core count models.
• The price is competitive with AMD.
• CPU temperatures are icy cold.

Cons:

• Clock speeds are held back by the high power draw.
• The power draw is far too high compared to AMD.
• Sapphire Rapids has suffered delay after delay.

KitGuru says: Intel has returned to HEDT but we need improvements from their 5th Gen technology later this year.

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