Disassembled And Excited
...and even after the case splits open, we still have not reached the object of our desire. But we have learned one thing: Threadripper is like a shellfish that refuses to come out of its shell.
There isn't an AiO cooler as one of the recent rumors claimed, but there are a few other goodies. The manual sits atop the Threadripper-branded Torx driver you'll need for the socket. It also acts as a torque wrench to ensure you don't over-tighten the socket fasteners. There'sa watercooling adapter nestled in the Styrofoam, as well.
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It Takes Some Work...
After another turn to the left, we finally reach the nectar-sweet center. We can finally see Threadripper in the flesh (er, silicon) after the orange insert pops free from the rear of the inner package. AMD gets an A+ for presentation.
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The Eye Of Sauron
Ryzen's home looks like an old-school CRT television displaying the Eye of Sauron. The iris gazes down on the stickers and documents that came in the box. We don't mention packaging in CPU reviews because it's usually so boring, but AMD has changed the game. Every item is well thought out and designed to the point of being a collector's item. Of course, AMD hopes to sell millions of these packages, so resale value won't be high. It'll sure look good on a mantel or shelf, though.
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The Hockey Puck
We popped off the metal clamp, which took some doing, then removed the black outer casing to finally reveal the Threadripper 1950X sitting snugly in its hockey-puck-like casing. A tug on the tab lifts the processor up, and then you slide it out of the case at an angle.
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And There It Is
The carrier frame has a nice little orange arrow in the corner, just like most common processors. That'll help make sure you insert the processor correctly into the carriage tray, but it's pretty hard to mess up with the new design. The frame stays attached to the processor when you slip it into the socket, so it must be somewhat heat resistant. But how much heat does Ryzen Threadripper generate? We'll get to that in the review.
For most, the bright orange carrier frame and processor will head straight to the motherboard's socket, but we've got a few other ideas.
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Who Is The Greatest?
AMD's Ryzen Threadripper wins the "battle of the biggest" against Intel's Skylake-X, but who is the real heavyweight?
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The Weigh In
We stripped the processors down and threw them on the scale (but not soaking wet). In the blue corner, we find the Intel Core i9-7900X, the summer heavyweight champion. With a total of 61.4 grams (~2.2 oz.), he seems to have missed his weight class by a little bit. Perhaps the heat has gotten to him.
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Heavyweight In The Red Corner
The 134.9 gram (~4.76 oz.) giant from the red corner is more than twice as heavy as the reigning high-end desktop champion. This raises a few questions. Heavier, in this case, doesn't mean more expensive, but does it mean faster? We're certainly going to find out.
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Full Frontal
The Threadripper 1950X's dimensions are almost gigantic (it has to be to fit the word "Threadripper" on there, after all).
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LGA To The Extreme
AMD's Ryzen Threadripper snaps into the 4,094-pin TR4 LGA (Land Grid Array) socket. Skylake-X's socket is puny in comparison, with just 2,066 pins, which is a little more than half the size of AMD's TR4 behemoth.
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