Far Cry Primal, Rise of the Tomb Raider & The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Far Cry Primal
Far Cry Primal will not load when it detects more than 20 threads, so you have to flip the "Legacy" toggle and reboot to reduce the number of threads active on Threadripper. Disabling SMT also reduces the thread count, so you can play the game using our Local/SMT Off configuration.
This game's Dunia Engine 2 tends to perform better with SMT disabled anyway, so it's surprising to see AMD's Game mode take the lead.
Interestingly, Core i9-7900X offers the best average frame rate, but suffers some frame time disturbance at the beginning and end of our benchmark, while Threadripper provides a smooth experience in both configurations. The overclocked Threadripper Game mode configuration also offers the best 99th percentile measurement.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider was once a less-than-ideal showcase of Ryzen's capabilities. But a recent patch fixed most of the CPU family's issues.
Creator mode trails at stock settings, but takes the lead among AMD's Threadripper processors after some overclocking. An overclocked -7900X can push to 150 FPS in this title, so a graphics bottleneck isn't the easy answer. There is almost no variation between the leading Threadripper configurations, indicating that some other limitation is affecting our results. In either case, the overclocked Threadripper's 99th percentile measurements are within range of the -7900X, and the processors do not suffer any significant hitching or stuttering.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
A graphics bottleneck looms during the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt benchmark, but it also allows us to examine performance during a heavy scene transition at the beginning of our jog through the woods. Both Game and Creator modes stutter noticeably during this sequence, while the Local/SMT configuration doesn't stutter as badly. The Local/SMT Off setting also experiences some variance toward the test's end.
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