Here comes Intel's New Year gift, and it's a performance beast! That's right, the brand-new Xeon 600 series workstation processor, codenamed "Granite Rapids-WS," has officially arrived, ready to succeed the previous Xeon W series.

This time, Intel not only introduced a new manufacturing process (Intel 3) and a new architecture (Redwood Cove+), but also revamped the entire product line strategy.

In the past, Intel liked to divide workstation processors into "Mainstream" and "Expert" categories, making users overthink their professional identity. Now, they've simplified things—just group them all under the "Xeon 600" banner, straightforward and no-nonsense.

Launched a total of 11 models at once, you can think of them as six "performance beasts" with an "X" suffix that allow for free overclocking (such as the 698X, 696X, etc.), and five more "mainstream champions" that focus on stability (like the 656, 654, etc.). Suffering from choice paralysis? Not here—it's just a game of budget versus needs.

This time, the flagship, the Xeon 698X, is undoubtedly a "behemoth." It adopts a dual-compute chiplet design, packing a whopping 86 cores and 172 threads inside, with a massive 336MB of L3 cache. Although the base clock is conservatively set at 2.0GHz, the max turbo boost can reach 4.8GHz, and the key point is that overclocking is fully unlocked—meaning enthusiasts will have plenty to tinker with.

Its "second-in-command," the 696X, also boasts 64 cores and 128 threads. Models from 48 cores down to 24 cores use a different chiplet (HCC), while those with 20 cores or fewer rely on a more compact chiplet (LCC). Intel has truly mastered the art of "combo meals" this time.

The performance boost is substantial. With power consumption remaining unchanged, the 86-core 698X delivers approximately 9% higher single-core performance compared to the previous-generation 64-core flagship, while the multi-core performance leap reaches an astonishing 61%! It's like going from a one-on-one fight to leading an entire squad into battle—the efficiency is on a whole different level.

But a powerful processor alone isn't enough—it needs a capable platform to match. The new W890 chipset plays the role of the "perfect partner," offering a whopping 128 direct PCIe 5.0 lanes (plenty of room for expansion cards), support for 8-channel DDR5-6400 memory, and a maximum capacity of up to 4TB.

Even more exciting is its support for the faster DDR5 MRDIMM memory, with speeds reaching up to 8000MT/s—data throughput that can be described as a "highway."

So, how well does this combo perform in real-world scenarios? The results are nothing short of impressive.

Intel paired its flagship 698X with ASUS's Pro WS W890E-SAGE SE motherboard, shattering 10 benchmark records on the authoritative HWBOT platform—from Geekbench to Y-Cruncher, none were spared.

Additionally, it claimed the top spot in 10 other global benchmark tests, including the well-known Cinebench R23. In short, it "dominated the leaderboards" across various benchmarking tools, and the title of performance king is firmly secured for now.

Finally, here's the much-anticipated release information. Intel plans to start selling these new processors through branded PC manufacturers, system integrators, and retail channels from late March 2026.

For those who prefer DIY builds, popular models like the 696X (64-core), 678X (48-core), 676X (32-core), 658X (24-core), and 654 (18-core) will be available as standalone boxed retail units. Friends looking to upgrade their workstations can start budgeting and warming up their wallets.