AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 7000 (Storm Peak) and 7000 Pro series, which will fight for a spot on the list of best CPUs for workstations, will arrive on November 21. However, someone has benchmarked the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX, the 64-core SKU, in Geekbench 6, allowing us to see how it stacks up against the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX (Chagall) and Xeon Platinum 8490H (Sapphire Rapids) processors.
The 5nm Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX replaces the existing 7nm Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX. Hence, the Zen 4 monster retains the 64-core, 128-thread configuration. Besides the architecture upgrade, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX has higher clock speeds. AMD has tuned the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX's base and boost clock to 3.2 GHz and 5.1 GHz, respectively. That's an 18.5% improvement on the base clock and 13.3% on the boost clock compared to the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX. The cache system is slightly different because Zen 4 doubles the L2 cache, so the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX has twice as much L2 cache as the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX. The L3 cache is left unchanged at 256MB.
The upgrades come at a cost, which is reflected in the TDP. While the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX has a 280W TDP, AMD has bumped it up to 350W on the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX. Therefore, the latter can draw up to 25% more power. Other Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX improvements include PCIe 5.0 and DDR5-5200 support over the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX's PCIe 4.0 lanes and DDR4-3200 memory.
Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX Benchmarks
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Processor
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score
Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX
2,599
24,780
Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX
2,033
20,105
Xeon Platinum 8490H
1,842
16,308
For comparison, we're using this Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX submission since it's one of the better results, and the tests were performed with a similar version of Geekbench 6 on a similar version of Windows 11 Pro 64-bit. The only Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX submission is the one unearthed by Benchleaks. Meanwhile, this Xeon Platinum 8490H submission somewhat matches the criteria.
Regarding generational uplift, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX delivered 27.8% higher single-core performance than the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX. The multi-core performance delta was a bit lower at 23.3%, but still pretty impressive.
Compared to the Xeon Platinum 8490H, the flagship Xeon Sapphire Rapids SKU, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7985WX exhibited up to 41.1% higher single-core performance and around 51.9% greater multi-core performance.
As we've previously witnessed with the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX, consumer workloads aren't the best benchmarks for workstation-grade processors. While these brief showings of strength in benchmarks like Geekbench 6 are an okay preview, we should wait for proper reviews before we can say who is faster than who and by how much.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
TR 7985WX performance "pretty impressive"?
I don't think so with higher clocks, larger L2 cache and of course the 70W extra powerdraw.
If this cpu had shown these numbers at the same TDP (280W) as the previous gen then I would find it impressive.
This is to me more like a refresh of the older gen TR CPU.
Only PCIe 5 instead of PCIe 4 and that's about it.
TR 7985WX performance "pretty impressive"?
I don't think so with higher clocks, larger L2 cache and of course the 70W extra powerdraw.
If this cpu had shown these numbers at the same TDP (280W) as the previous gen then I would find it impressive.
This is to me more like a refresh of the older gen TR CPU.
Only PCIe 5 instead of PCIe 4 and that's about it.
Yes and no.
Power usage per core actually came down for 7995 (7995wx is 3.65 (350/96) vs 5995wx 4.38 (280/64)). Depending on how these are being used that may actually save on cooling (and maybe power if TDP and power draw are close). In a cloud VM environment for example, 2 7995wx's would be the same as running 3 5995wx's (700 watts vs 840 watts of TDP).
This however isn't true for the rest of the lineup. The 5975 and the 7975 have the same core count with a higher TDP for. It does seem as if the performance gains do largely come from clock ramp and core expansion.
TR 7985WX performance "pretty impressive"?
I don't think so with higher clocks, larger L2 cache and of course the 70W extra powerdraw.
If this cpu had shown these numbers at the same TDP (280W) as the previous gen then I would find it impressive.
This is to me more like a refresh of the older gen TR CPU.
Only PCIe 5 instead of PCIe 4 and that's about it.
It doesn't have higher power draw. The TDP changing doesn't mean much of anything. If TDP was equated with power draw, you would have to also think the different core count SKUs all have the same power consumption despite the huge range in varying core counts. That's not the case.
JamesJones44 said:
Yes and no.
Power usage per core actually came down for 7995 (7995wx is 3.65 (350/96) vs 5995wx 4.38 (280/64)). Depending on how these are being used that may actually save on cooling (and maybe power if TDP and power draw are close). In a cloud VM environment for example, 2 7995wx's would be the same as running 3 5995wx's (700 watts vs 840 watts of TDP).
This however isn't true for the rest of the lineup. The 5975 and the 7975 have the same core count with a higher TDP for. It does seem as if the performance gains do largely come from clock ramp and core expansion.
The gains come from the same place as the gains from Ryzen 5800X to Ryzen 7800X. Somewhat improved architecture, improved manufacturing process node (both of which together allowed for higher frequencies), higher cache, faster RAM, etc. None of this is new stuff. We already saw how much of an improvement Zen4 CPUs brought to the table with the Ryzen 7000 lineup and with the new EYPC CPUs this year as well. The only thing "new" about it is letting HEDT/workstation users have it with overclocking support.
