btarunr … and is preparing a new line of processors targeting that niche of the market, which uses MacPro desktops and media production workstations using HEDT processors, but needs a bit of "reliability."

eowli i guess i'm not the only one with questions....

What exactly is the purpose of this release?, what gains will this processor have over, say a "normal" xeon?

creative profesionals who dont use mac pros already use xeons, where is the market for these processors? will they be cheaper than a normal xeon with similar specs?

to me this just looks like a modern 2699v3,



i hope they will be attractive in some way, they look cool. just dont see a reason :/

RejZoR I guess Ryzen will be good after all :)

chaosmassive explain this Professional usage of CPU for me, as per my understanding :

Xeon intended for workstation/server

Core/Pentium/Celeron for average user



is there any kind of special processor that I dont aware of?

If there's any truth to this, it's about bloody time! Pro users have been neglected for far too long, even though they are a profitable segment.There are great selections for server uses among Xeons, and even workstations which only need many "slow" cores, like:Xeon E5-2630 v4 10 cores, 2.2 GHz (3.1 GHz boost), 85W, $667Which offers fantastic performance per dollar and watt, and two of these offers a massive 20 cores.But many professional users still need a decent clock speed, since many workloads scales better on many fast cores than many slow cores. This includes video encoding, rendering (both ray tracing and OpenGL based), CAD, compute etc.The current options are too sparse:i7-6800K 6 cores, 3.4 GHz (3.8 GHz boost) $434 - Great value, but too few cores.i7-6900K 8 cores, 3.2 GHz (4.0 GHz boost) $1089 - Great performance per core, but too expensive.i7-6950X 10 cores, 3.0 GHz (4.0 GHz boost) $1723 - Great performance per core, but way too expensive.Xeon E5-2687W v4 12 cores, 3.0 GHz (3.5 GHz boost) $2141The rumors of Xeon Gold sounds nice, I would love a CPU of ~3 GHz (~4 GHz boost) with more cores, and I'm willing to pay ~$1500 for a such CPU, if it justifies the price for professional use.If the specs are roughly true, quadruple L2 cache per core would require a redesign of the cache hierarchy, which would mean that Intel planned this ~2 years ahead of release, so that can't be a reaction to Ryzen in any way. More L2 cache will improve IPC, but why cut down on the L3? There's hardly any point with both L2 and L3 if the L3 is so small. I would rather spend those transistors on more L3, giving the CPU ~100 MB of L3 cache.As a note, the "trashcan" MacPros are hardly used by pros any more, due to outdated configurations and extremely overpriced hardware. But there are too few affordable non-custom options out there, so it would be refreshing to see Intel actually focusing on this market segment. Perhaps finally the market can move beyond thinking a quad core is a proper workstation.It may not appeal to you, but for we professionals can't simply get enough fast cores.Hopefully yes, but these beasts wouldn't compete with Ryzen, but rather Opteron versions of Zen.See above, there are almost no Xeons for workstation use, but plenty for various server uses.