AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX Review: 24 Cores on a Budget
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Office and Productivity
Test Notes
We tested all Threadripper processors in Creator mode during our application benchmarks.
Web Browser
The Krakken suite evaluates JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. Like most Web browser workloads, single-threaded performance reigns supreme.
AMD's second-gen Threadripper line-up goes a long way to improve the performance of lightly-threaded workloads, but Intel still leads in these tests.
Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX lags the 2990WX in our Krakken benchmark, but automated overclocking functionality does deliver a solid improvement. Meanwhile, there's little to no improvement in the lightly-threaded Krakken from enabling Dynamic Local Mode. This feature does seem to help in MotionMark and WebXPRT.
Productivity
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The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem.
Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX benefits from Dynamic Local Mode at stock clock rates, but still trails the 2990WX right out of its box. Interestingly, the 2920X and 2950X yield the best performance from any Threadripper CPU. Other desktop processors like the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i9-9900K fare well, too.
Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Again, mainstream processors offer the best value in these types of applications.
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The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized. Unfortunately, the Dynamic Local Mode doesn't benefit all applications. It doesn't necessarily hurt performance, either. The 2% delta between our stock 2970WX falls within UL's 3% threshold for run-to-run variability with PCMark 10.
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Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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Peter Martin Threadripper and Cake or Death!Reply
I'll have the Threadripper please.
Very well! Give him Threadripper!
This would be ideal for me, but it is pricey for now. -
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.Reply -
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.Reply -
g-unit1111 Reply21441427 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. -
Dorian Kunch Why he is the internet IT god, bow to it it it it one one one oneReply
Give it the Threadripper.
Give it! -
Peter Martin I would be able to make some money with that for sure. fine, now where is that business plan?Reply