The company celebrates five years of innovation in the workstation segment with its new Ryzen Threadripper PRO “Shimada Peak” processors and doubles down on extreme performance in AI and content creation.
Five years after revolutionizing the workstation market with the launch of the first AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO processors, the American company marks its establishment as a leader in the high-performance professional segment with the upcoming release of the new 9000 WX series, codenamed Shimada Peak, based on Zen 5 architecture. Scheduled for late July, this launch signifies a new chapter for a processor lineup that has redefined what professional users expect from a modern workstation.
From Disruptors to Industry Leaders: The Birth of Threadripper PRO
The path to professional success began in 2017 with the debut of the Ryzen Threadripper line, initially targeting the HEDT (High-End Desktop) segment. Unlike the traditional approach of integrating few cores into monolithic designs, AMD opted for a modular architecture based on chiplets, which allowed scaling the number of cores without penalizing per-core performance or exponentially increasing manufacturing costs.
With the release of the Threadripper 1950X, featuring 16 cores at a competitive price, AMD set new standards. The company actively engaged with software developers, content creators, OEM manufacturers, and enterprise clients, identifying an unmet demand for workstations with more cores, increased memory capacity, and features tailored to enterprise environments.
This led to the creation of the Ryzen Threadripper PRO family in 2020, which not only doubled the number of memory channels (to eight) and supported ECC but also reached up to 64 cores in a single CPU, vastly surpassing competition at the time, which limited processors to 28 cores.
Architecture, PCIe 4.0, and PRO Technologies
The Threadripper PRO 3000WX series introduced support for PCIe 4.0 and enterprise features like AMD PRO Manageability, AMD Secure Processor, and AMD PRO Business Ready certification, positioning AMD as a serious contender in professional and mission-critical environments.
Adopting a chiplet architecture with CCD (Core Chiplet Die) modules and a common I/O die interconnected via Infinity Fabric enabled AMD to scale up to configurations with 64 and 96 cores within a single CPU. This radically transformed fields such as 3D animation, architectural simulation, industrial design, and more recently, AI workloads.
The impact on the ecosystem has been tangible: tools like 7-Zip have begun optimizing their engines to leverage CPUs with over 64 threads, reflecting a new reality where multi-core performance is no longer a rarity but a necessity.
Zen 5 and the 9000 WX Series: The Best Is Yet to Come
The new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9000 WX series, based on the Zen 5 microarchitecture, offers substantial improvements over its predecessor. Notable updates include:
– Support for DDR5-6400, increasing memory bandwidth by 23% over the previous generation.
– Enhancements in AVX-512 instructions, crucial for AI workloads, rendering, and scientific simulation.
– Compatibility with the latest professional GPUs like NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, reinforcing its focus on cutting-edge creative and industrial environments.
Internal testing with applications like ComfyUI and diffusion models based on FLUX demonstrated that the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX delivered significantly higher performance compared to reference configurations with Intel Xeon W9-3595X processors, strengthening AMD’s position as the preferred choice for design, animation, and generative AI professionals.
From Architecture to Creativity: A Revolution in Every Sense
From architects working with large-scale BIM models to animators generating photorealistic scenes in real-time, professional users have found in Threadripper PRO a tool capable of turning ideas into reality without compromise. Premier OEMs such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo have adopted these processors in their most powerful workstations, democratizing access to high performance.
As AI-based tools and generative workflows become standard across creative sectors, AMD positions its processors as the perfect canvas for this new era. Their combination of abundant cores, multiple PCIe lanes, high bandwidth, and enterprise reliability promises to continue driving innovation over the next decade.
Five years after their inception, Ryzen Threadripper PRO has not only fulfilled its promise but has raised the bar for the workstation market. With the upcoming 9000 WX series, AMD appears ready to continue leading the evolution of professional performance, now built on Zen 5 as the new foundation for bold ambitions.
via: amd