A week ago, AMD unveiled its most powerful CPUs, the HEDT and workstation Threadripper and Threadripper Pro 7000. Two platforms with WRX90 and TRX50 chipsets were also released with them, but it looks like there could be a third type of boards for these CPUs, with a chipset labelled Pro 695. What it’s supposed to be, however, is very unclear. Or perhaps, on the contrary, seemingly clear but contradictory on closer inspection.
Various sources have noted that the extended specs for Threadripper Pros on AMD’s website (here, for example, for the 64-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX) list three platforms among the chipsets supporting these processors – the expected WRX90 and TRX50 (Threadripper Pro can also be fitted into these cheaper boards) platforms and then something new: a chipset labelled Pro 695. This chipset is not among the chipsets supported by the common non-Pro Ryzen Threadripper 7000X (the 64-core 7980X model).
There has been speculation that this platform could deliver what WRX90 does not, namely the ability to run a dual processor (2S) system with Threadripper Pros and up to 192 cores / 384 threads. However, the question is whether something like this is even possible within the pin count envelope of the sTR5 socket and its lower number of contacts compared to the SP5 socket for the Epyc 9004s which offer 2S capabilities. Thus, it’s probably best to take this possibility of a 2S Threadripper Pro with a grain of salt, as there is no evidence for its possibility outside of this speculation.
Ironically, it’s pretty easy to guess what silicon the Pro 695 will use physically – AMD has virtually all its chipsets based on the same silicon, and so this too is likely to be a derivative of the Promontory 21 chip on which the B650(E) southbridge is based, as well as the X670(E), which are the two of these dies in series. Even the labelling implies that the Pro 695 chipset is another of the 600 series chipsets.
Read more: AMD X670, X670E, B650 and AM5 chipsets for Zen 4: PCIe 5.0 and other connectivity in detail
Oversight on the website and actually an AM5 platform chipset?
This designation is fitting the AM5 platform chipsets and we wouldn’t be surprised if the Pro 695 wasn’t designed for Threadripper Pro at all with AMD merely listing in their specs mistakenly by accident – their web site has had incorrect data in the spec listings quite often. There is already a very similarly named “PRO565” (or Pro 565?) product among chipsets for the AM4 platform, which is perhaps a modification of the B550 chipset designed for workstation or “business” PCs with AM4 Ryzen Pro processors, supporting various management and security features. It is used by ASRock B550M-HVS SE or Lenovo ThinkCentre M75 computers, for example.
It would make sense for the Pro 695 chipset to simply be a continuation of this product (derived from the B650 or X670 chipset) this time for boards designed for the newer AM5 socket Ryzen Pro processors. It being listed among the Threadripper platforms may be, as has said before, a simple mistake.
On the other hand, the scenario that AMD is validating such chipset for both the AM5 platform and sTR5 socket boards for Threadrippers is probably not completely out of the question. AMD’s chipsets are basically just I/O extenders sitting on a PCI Express 4.0 ×4 interface, and there’s a lot of flexibility in their use, as shown by the serial connection of the X670 chipset or how it is actually possible to put half of it on an PCIe expansion card. It’s possible that the Pro 695 or PRO695 chipset has some special purpose, for example it could be targetted at boards intended for the embedded sector (ECC memory support could be among the platform’s capabilities), and AMD could have decided to cover both of these different platforms (Ryzen Pro processor boards and Threadripper processors boards) with a single southbridge, as unusual as that sounds.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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