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AMD Threadripper 2 review

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The 2nd generation AMD Threadripper chips have arrived boasting up to 32 cores and 64 threads and outstanding processing power, but do you need it? Find out in our full review.
AMD is fearlessly dragging the CPU market forward across all of their product lines weather Intel likes it or not. The latest stride comes in the shape of their 2nd generation Threadripper which boasts an incredible level of performance even when compared against Intel’s Core i9 series.
While this series of CPUs are some of the fastest and most powerful to ever be commercially released, and are even priced relatively reasonably with that in mind, these chips provide far more power than 99% of PC users will ever require.
This release is just another step in the ever evolving battle between Intel and AMD, and with AMD producing several impressive releases this year alone, it will be very interesting to see what comes out of Intel’s camp next.
Note: Benchmark results come via our colleagues at PCWorld .
The second generation Threadripper series comes in four seperate models that can be seen below.
This generation is split into two different product lines that are aimed at two separate demographics.
The ‘WX’ series are the two most powerful in this generation and are aimed squarely at people and organisations that require enormous amounts of processing power. Scientific research, feature film special effects, mass content creation and anything else that require your CPU to crunch and process a large amount of data.
The flagship 2990WX excels in this area, with an astounding 32 cores and 64 threads providing power that has only really been seen by server level CPUs until this point.
This is contrasted by the ‘X’ series which holds the two smaller second generation Threadrippers in it’s line, said to be aimed at ‘Gamers and Enthusiasts’. While smaller is perhaps not the correct word as the 2920X has 12 cores and 24 threads, with the 2950X having 16/32 respectively, these processors are going to be huge overkill for any gaming rig. Even if you plan to stream your content online while playing, which famously puts a heavy toll on your CPU, these chips will barely blink at that request.
Much like with its more consumer focused Ryzen chips, AMD has made several improvements to the ‘Zen’ architecture when taking it into ‘Zen+’. They’ve done a lot of work tinkering, refining and coaxing additional performance improvements out of the structure to increase the speed and efficiency of the chip, while still allowing the new chips to be backwards compatible onto older motherboards.
These improvements include:
That’s right, much like with first generation Ryzen motherboards being able to happily house second generation processors, a first generation board housing the TR4 socket will be able to run a second generation Threadripper just as happily. You’ll just need to update the UEFI/BIOS which you can do using the ‘BIOS Back’ features, allowing you to update the board’s BIOS using a USB.
However, this does come with a few caveats. The older boards might struggle a little more with the overclocking side of things particularly when concerning the 24 and 32 core versions of the chip due to the substantial 250W power draw.
These benchmarks were generated on the 2990WX in an MSI MEG X399 Creation motherboard. The OS was the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and 32GB of DDR3/2933 RAM, with a Founders Edition GTX 1080 handling the graphics. The system ran from a Kingston HyperX Savage SSD and was cooled with an Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 cooler with a cold plate that even managed to cover the massive Threadripper chip. The fan on the cooler was set to maximum speed.
Below you’ll find a handy table where we have collated the benchmark results for the Threadripper 2990WX. Our colleagues over at PCWorld were kind enough to send us their results for this analysis, with Gordon Mah Ung responsible for the extensive testing.
From the numbers above we can draw some definite and generally unsurprising conclusions that are represented very well by the Cinebench CPU Multithread score.
The 2990WX, as you would expect from its specs in comparison to the other CPUs on the chart, completely blows everything else out of the water when it comes to pure grunt and computing power. It leaves everything else in the dust when a program directly asks the CPU ‘How much power can you give me?’
While this isn’t surprising it’s still quite something to see the size of the gap between the 2990WX and the rest of the CPUs on display.
Moving into the Cinebench Single Thread run, the results are also fairly predictable. Intel still has the edge when it comes down to single core performance due to the boost clock on their 8700k spooling all the way up to 4.7Ghz, meaning that for anything requiring just a couple of cores Intel is still going to win out.
As you move through the benchmarks, the results for the Blender, Corona Renderer, V-Ray Render and POV-Ray tests all follow the same pattern. The pure power of the Threadripper completely eats the tasks set before it, leaving the i9-7980x far behind in its tracks.
This does come to a stop however when you see the benchmarks for Premiere Pro 2018. While some programs will happily make use of all the cores on your CPU, those that are limited to fewer cores or perhaps just not designed to take advantage of all the available power on offer will start to favour the Intel processors. We found similar results when running Handbrake, with the new Threadripper sitting roughly even with Intel’s 10 core offering.
However, who said you can only run a single multi-threaded application at once? Take my hand and follow me into the world of running multiple multi-threaded applications at the same time, the sort of thing that makes your i5 and i7 processor want to hide behind the sofa in terror.
The very last benchmark shows the result of running the Blender AND Premiere Pro 2018 tests at the same time, measured in seconds. We can see the Threadripper pulling far ahead of the i9 once again, as that raw additional core count starts to weigh in.
The 2990WX has a TDP of 250 and a socket power of 250 watts which it will reach extremely rapidly the moment you put it under any considerable load. You will need to make sure the CPU well supplied with power and nice and cool, although perhaps not quite as cool as you were expecting with this sort of performance.
The results showed temperates of around 45 degrees with the Enermax Liqtech cooler so you’re not going to need a man in a hazmat suit with a fire hose to keep this thing cool. The optional $99 ‘Wraith Ripper’ heat sink showed similar cooling performance too, showing that AMD is continuing their excellent own brand aircooling on from the Ryzen 2 series of stock coolers.

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