Ryzen Threadripper 2 (2990WX and 2950X) Review: AMD Unleashes 32 Cores
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Page 1:Introduction
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Page 2:Architecture, NUMA & Game Mode
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Page 3:Ryzen Master, Motherboards & Test Setup
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Page 4:VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation
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Page 5:Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III
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Page 6:Far Cry 5, GTA: V & Hitman
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Page 7:Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2
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Page 8:Office & Productivity
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Page 9:Rendering, Encoding & Compression
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Page 10:Workstation - Graphics
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Page 11:Workstation - Compute
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Page 12:Cooling, Clock Rates & Power Limits
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Page 13:Power Consumption
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Page 14:Final Analysis
Rendering, Encoding & Compression
Rendering
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Threaded workloads remain an uncontested strength of AMD's Zen-based processors and their hefty core counts. Many of these workloads stress the memory subsystem, which reduces the advantage of the Threadripper 2990WX’s hefty core count due to accesses from the remote memory controllers.
The Ryzen line-up dominates the multi-core Cinebench and POV-Ray tests, but the 2990WX only provides a 35% speed over the 2950X in the POV-Ray benchmark. In light of its 100% increase in cores, that doesn’t represent the best scaling possible. The 2990WX provides a 66% performance improvement in the Cinebench score.
Corona also scales well as the Threadripper 2990WX unleashes the full might of its 64 threads. Intel’s processors still hold the per-core advantage in the single core POV-Ray and Cinebench tests, but its easy to see that AMD’s multi-die design can help offset that advantage with extra cores in threaded workloads.
Encoding & Compression
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Our threaded compression and decompression tests work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. This workload benefits heavily from threading, but either memory throughput or poor software scaling is holding the 29990WX back from realizing
its potential in the compression test. Threadripper 2950X, which comes with two die outfitted with directly-attached memory controllers, offers a nice boost over its predecessor at stock settings. The Core i9-7980XE reigns supreme in this test, which could be due to its single monolithic die and mesh architecture that facilitates much higher bandwidth to the cores. In contrast, the decompression test highlights the 2990WX’s devastating performance when the cores are properly fed.
y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes pi using AVX instructions, is a great test to measure Threadripper 2’s AVX performance. Intel’s Core i9 employs two 256-bit AVX FMA units per core that operate in parallel, whereas Ryzen's Zen architecture divides 256-bit AVX operations across two FMA units per core. That means the 2990WX’s two extra die bring much more AVX performance to the table, provided you can feed the data-hungry AVX operations. The 2990WX nears the top of the chart, but scaling is sub-optimal compared to the 2950X, which has half the AVX units. This could again fall back on poor memory subsystem performance, which hinders some applications.
That same story plays out in Handbrake. AMD said during its briefings that Handbrake is cache dependent and doesn’t utilize cores fully, thus yielding a smaller performance boost than expected. The Handbrake x265 test, which uses a heavier distribution of AVX instructions than the H264 test, yields a minimal performance advantage for the 2990WX compared to the 2950X. We think that memory access plays a larger role in this result than sub-optimal software scaling.
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- Introduction
- Architecture, NUMA & Game Mode
- Ryzen Master, Motherboards & Test Setup
- VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation
- Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III
- Far Cry 5, GTA: V & Hitman
- Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2
- Office & Productivity
- Rendering, Encoding & Compression
- Workstation - Graphics
- Workstation - Compute
- Cooling, Clock Rates & Power Limits
- Power Consumption
- Final Analysis
Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX
Ryzen Threadripper 2950X
Socket
TR4
TR4
Cores / Threads
16 / 32
16 / 32
*And nothing else.
Despite all the fan-fare, it seems the 7980xe actually remains the best processor when overclocked overall.
Lastly for gaming, it's still 8700K or 8086 as best, with the 2700x from AMD being the best when you factor gaming and some multi-threaded stuff, while being very competitive price wise.
The 2990wx on the other hand is a slight let down. Too bad they could not get the scaling down between the dies like they did with Threadripper 1. But I have read that was going to be an issue. Maybe AMD did not want the 2990wx to cannibalize their Epyc market.
With that being said, the 2990wx is still a modern marvel of technology, even more so when you consider the price. Only couple of years ago a CPU with less than a third of the cores cost just as much.
Competition sure is grand!
MOD EDIT: watch your profanity
Seem to me that you are mistaking best of both work with jack of all trade. No one who takes rendering seriously would want to sacrifice the performance for gaming. For that price, they may as well grab a 1950X. Sure you lose in gaming, but gain a huge jump in rendering. Also, I don't know about Microcenterbut it's still 1k on Amazon while 1950X is $850. 7900X is like a really really bad choice lol.
dont just look 2990wx,, the TR 2950X is best of all around CPU, if you want compare price to performance, in gaming 2950x is more or less equal 8700k in minimum FPS and only lose 3 to 10 FPS Average FPS,, in Multithreaded work 2950x blow anything in that price range including 7900x,, read again the article
One thing for sure is the next generation TR on 7nm will really help the 32 cores setup since it will probably use only a single Infinity Fabric Link and direct memory access, but I understand how much more expensive that CPU would have been and not really for that much more performances after all in what the intended field of work is.
In most cases, PBO will have less than 1% difference in performance than overclocking the CPU to 4.15. They provided Intel overclock information because they already had those OCs from previous reviews. Just like they showed the OCs from 1st gen Threadripper parts.
It takes a long time to conduct a thorough review, let alone 2 products and it is not like they have had this chip for a month. It probably came in last week when the unboxing videos were released. Then there was also the part where they said that they would have a more in depth article about overclocking performance.
For POV-Ray lower scores (times) are better. That means that a 100% core increase should theoretically reduce (improve) time by 50%. If we look at the actual time reduction of 35%, we get 0.35/0.5 = 70% of max theoretical scaling. In Cinebench, where higher scores are better, we would expect a 100% improvement in score but only get 66%, meaning we only get 66% of max theoretical scaling. The scaling in POV-Ray is actually slightly better than in Cinebench.
<Mod Edit- Watch the Language>
So where's this 2950x review that is supposed to compare the different modes it runs in?
Probably because manual overclocking on Zen+ based Ryzen CPUs is pointless unless all your important applications are heavily threaded.
Since a manual overclock and voltages are decided on a fully threaded workload, it results in comparatively bad performance - lower than stock - in lightly threaded applications (on Zen+ with its advanced boosting). The Threadripper processors have such a high number of cores that the performance deficit is exacerbated.
Instead of overclocking manually, on Zen+ you should instead enable PBO, then lower the CPU voltage using offset. This lowers temperatures and power use, allowing the CPU to boost even higher.