VRMark, 3DMark, AotS: Escalation and Dawn of War III
We tested the Ryzen Threadripper processors in Game Mode, per AMD's suggestion, halving (or quartering) the available execution cores. Company representatives tell us this facilitates optimal performance in games. Any mention of PBO in the charts indicates that we used AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive, an automatic overclocking feature that wrings out maximum performance based upon our platform's power delivery and cooling capabilities.
Gaming performance is measured at 1920x1080, minimizing graphics bottlenecks. Naturally, as you step up to higher resolutions, the differences between processors shrink.
VRMark, 3DMark
We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.
The 18C/36T Core i9-9980XE fares well at its stock settings. But given the Core i9-7960X's position just behind, it's clear that these tests don't scale linearly based on core count.
AMD's Ryzen Threadripper chips land quite a ways down our charts. With that said, we did test in AMD's recommended Game Mode.
Intel’s processors take the lead in VRMark, largely due to their impressive per-core (a mixture of frequency and IPC) performance. The Core i9-9980XE benefits from a slightly higher single-core 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost 3.0 frequency compared to the -7980XE, which tops out at 4.4 GHz.
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a computationally intense title that normally scales well with thread count.
Core i9-9980XE takes the lead in our Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation benchmark, though we only recorded an average 0.6 FPS gain over the Core i9-7980XE. The -9980XE also posts similar frame time percentiles, suggesting that the bumped-up frequency provides little real-world advantage in this title.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III
The Intel Core i9-9900K takes a commanding lead, while AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX with PBO active is competitive with competing high-end desktop CPUs.
Meanwhile, the -9980XE scores a 6.8 percent gain compared to its predecessor, the -7980XE. That outcome isn't surprising given this title's heavily-threaded nature.
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