Intel’s Xeon W9-3495X “Sapphire Rapids” is currently the fastest multi-threaded CPU in the workstation segment, but it also consumes an incredible amount of power when overclocked.
Intel’s flagship Sapphire Rapids CPU, the Xeon W9-3495X, draws nearly 2000W of power when overclocked
The Intel Xeon W9-3495X is a giant chip that offers 56 Golden Cove cores, 112 threads, 112 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes, 105MB cache, and all of that in a 420W MTP package that can draw over 1000 watts when running. overclocking . We’ve already seen several overclocking demos of the chip where it reached power peaks of 1100W to 1400W, but the most recent overclock demo by ASUS in-house overclocker Elm0r saw power peaks of almost 2 kilowatts, the highest ever recorded for a CPU. .
The overclocking demo was held at ASUS headquarters, using a configuration consisting of Intel Xeon W9-3495X CPU, ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE motherboard, 8 G.Skill ZETA R5 DDR5 DRAM, and two power supplies. Superflower Leadex 1600W power supply. Being session overclocked, it means LN2 cooling was used to tame this powerful chip with all 56 cores clocked at 5.5 GHz. Even at these overclocking speeds, the CPU ran at temperatures of -91.8 C (-133 .2F).
When it comes to power consumption, the CPU jumped to an incredible 1881 W, which is very close to the 2 kilowatt barrier. Currently, there is no CPU or even GPU that can achieve this much power during an overclocking session. Even the GALAX GeForce RTX 4090 HOF OC LAB edition graphics card, which uses dual 16-pin connectors, can only absorb just over 1000W of power when pushed to a hefty 3.7GHz+ overclock.
Regardless, while Elm0r couldn’t break the current world record for the Intel Xeon W9-3495X in Cinebench R23, reaching nearly 2000W of power is a feat in itself. The CPU scored 132220 points while the current world record is 132484 points in Cinebench R23. It shows that Sapphire Rapids can handle some very high power numbers and still run very stable, but that doesn’t mean anything good in terms of efficiency.
News sources: Hardwareluxx, Videocardz, Techpowerup
