AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX Review: 24 Cores on a Budget

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26 Comments

Shadow Of War and Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

  • Middle-earth Shadow of War - FPS - 1920x1080, DirectX11 Ultra
  • Middle-earth Shadow of War - FPS - 1920x1080, DirectX11 Ultra
  • Middle-earth Shadow of War - FrameTimeoB - 1920x1080, DirectX11 Ultra
  • Middle-earth Shadow of War - AvFPSoB - 1920x1080, DirectX11 Ultra

Shadow of War leans heavier on graphics resources than host processing, so we don't see large deltas between the fastest and slowest CPUs. The same observation applies to our experiments with Creator mode, Dynamic Local Mode, and Game mode. 

Project CARS 2

  • Project CARS 2 - FPS - 1920x1080, DirectX12 Ultra Detail
  • Project CARS 2 - FPS - 1920x1080, DirectX12 Ultra Detail
  • Project CARS 2 - FrameTimeoB - 1920x1080, DirectX12 Ultra Detail
  • Project CARS 2 - AvFPSoB - 1920x1080, DirectX12 Ultra Detail

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect frame rates. If you’re gaming in Creator mode, the Dynamic Local feature serves up a big speed-up. But the standard Game mode still offers the best performance.

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX
$1300Amazon

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Summary
  1. The Value-Oriented WX-Series Option
  2. Dynamic Mode, Overclocking and Test Setup
  3. VRMark, 3DMark, AotS: Escalation and Dawn of War III
  4. Far Cry 5, GTA: V and Hitman
  5. Shadow Of War and Project CARS 2
  6. Office and Productivity
  7. Rendering, Encoding and Compression
  8. Workstation Compute and Graphics
  9. Power Consumption
  10. Temperatures
  11. Final Analysis
About the author
Paul Alcorn & Igor Wallossek

Paul Alcorn is a Senior Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage and enterprise hardware.

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26 comments
Comment from the forums
    Your comment
  • Peter Martin
    Threadripper and Cake or Death!

    I'll have the Threadripper please.
    Very well! Give him Threadripper!

    This would be ideal for me, but it is pricey for now.
  • richardvday
    New = Pricey
    Always going to be that way
  • Peter Martin
    yeah. i can wait... lol, still, I need one.
  • 1_rick
    Basin Falls may be soldered, but considering that the solder in the 9000-series doesn't seem to do as much as people had hoped, we should be prepared for there not to be a lot of OC headroom.
  • kinggremlin
    If you can't afford it, you don't need it. Anyone who can make actual use of this CPU is using it in a business which is generating the money necessary to pay for it.
  • g-unit1111
    264688 said:
    If you can't afford it, you don't need it. Anyone who can make actual use of this CPU is using it in a business which is generating the money necessary to pay for it.


    Exactly, if I were in a business to generate content I would take the 24 core TR4 CPU over the 18 core Intel equivalent for less money any day of the week. Not everything is made to play games on it.
  • Peter Martin
    who are you to determine my needs?
  • Dorian Kunch
    Why he is the internet IT god, bow to it it it it one one one one
    Give it the Threadripper.
    Give it!
  • mellis
    Looks like the I9-9900K is the best bang for the buck.
  • Peter Martin
    I would be able to make some money with that for sure. fine, now where is that business plan?
  • Wes006
    The article states "AMD's XFR (eXtreme Frequency Range)" but it should be "AMD's XFR (Extended Frequency Range)".

    Source: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/sense-mi
  • PaulAlcorn
    1708139 said:
    The article states "AMD's XFR (eXtreme Frequency Range)" but it should be "AMD's XFR (Extended Frequency Range)". Source: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/sense-mi


    Good eye, fixed!
  • Kaz_2_
    get out intel they using this to win share and profit from gamer. Threadripper will be best of both world. what else intel can pull ? no reason to let intel win all the games because they doesnt help competition in the further run. If they win you wont find any cheap cpu in the next 5 years
  • mustafa.technet
    something, intel has solved a problem in CPU design amd did not, it is getting it cool enough for long time high frequency. It is why it could run seamlessly for hours... AMD has problem in high frequencies. AMD uses twice amount of resources in smaller cores, Intel is very monolithic package, so, runs the same performance in different workloads..
    Intel has bigger cores, but less sillicon, because it is one thread execution in parallel, so, in very high # of threads (benchmarks only), amd is winner...

    Thanks!
  • mustafa.technet
    Intel i9 9900k is impressive reminds me of i7 7700k... in real workloads, this beast beats no matter who is against it......
  • mitch074
    Some benchmarks show that threadripper 2970/2990 work much better under Linux. At one time this website also ran these tests, but not anymore.
  • Lasselundberg
    why or why 1080P gaming results...people buying threadrippers are not gonna sit behind a 1080P monitor....
  • bobba84
    Threadripper is an incorrect name for it, it's crap performance per thread.
  • antonvantov
    Really Winer in theese review is - Rizen 7 2700X.
  • muffindell66
    Threadripper isn't designed for gaming, so why test it for gaming?
  • carl_heinz
    Why everyone is praising the new threadripper with its lousy performance?!!! I need to check the graphs again and read the conclusion to see what I really missed!!!
  • Olle P
    Some observations:
    * In the last set of graphs the "Compression" and "Decompression" graphs are mixed up and should be the other way around. (Ryzen is much better at decompression than it is at compression.)
    * It's a pity that the Core i9-7920X isn't in there. That's the only relevant Intel offering at this price point.
    * While the 2970WX can draw >400W when overclocked, it's marginally less power hungry than i9-7900X at stock settings.

    517105 said:
    Looks like the I9-9900K is the best bang for the buck.
    Not for any of the work the TR is intended for.
  • agello24
    in a multitasking multicore world, the last think i would expect a reviewer to put in a review is anything dealing with "single core" performance.
  • TerryLaze
    678997 said:
    in a multitasking multicore world, the last think i would expect a reviewer to put in a review is anything dealing with "single core" performance.


    Multitasking means you are running multiple tasks,some of those might be single core tasks.
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