Review of AMD Threadripper 2990WX 32 cores HEDT processor

AMD Threadripper 2990WX Review
ocworkbench 3 Oct 2018

2018 is definitely the year for AMD. Since 2017, it has been pressurising it’s competitor head to head with more cores and threads for it’s desktop processor. Not only did AMD reign in the desktop, the war is brought to the HEDT workstation class processors.

At Computex 2018 Taipei, AMD showcased the 32 cores processor and within months, the ThreadRipper 2990WX is already on the shelf retailing at USD 1799.

The ThreadRipper 2990WX has a TDP of 250W, 32 core / 64 threads processor. It has a base frequency of 3 GHz and a boost frequency of 4.2 GHz. It support Quad Channel DDR4 and supports both Precision Boost 2 and Extended Frequency Range 2. Both Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 now operates across any number of cores and threads to give it even better overall performance.

Scalability in the “Zen” architecture starts with the CPU Complex (CCX), a natively quad core module. Each CCX has 64K L1 I-cache, 64K L1 D-cache, 512KB dedicated L2 cache per core, and 8MB L3 cache shared across cores. Each core within the CCX may optionally feature SMT for additional multi-threaded capabilities.

A die will contain 2 CCX and in the case of the ThreadRipper 2990WX, it has 4 Die with a total of 8 CCX and each CCX contain 4 cores. That makes it a total of 32 cores.

The 32 core Threadripper 2990WX has Dies 0 and 2 as IO Dies providing 32 PCIe lanes and two memory channels. The Die 1 and 3 are compute die without local PCIe or DRAM access. Die 1 and 3 has to access the PCIe via the Infiniity Fabric (red in colour).

[nextpage title=”System setup”]

Our test setup comprises of the following

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32 cores , 2950X, 1950X- USD 1749
ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme X399 motherboard USD 537.58
Samsung 860 EVO 256 GB with Windows 10 version 1809 mounted on ASUS ROG DIMM2
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB driver 24.21.13.9924 USD 247.86

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
ASUS ROG CrossHair HERO
16 GB DDR4-3200
Kingston Hyper X 250 GB SSD

Intel Core i9-7900X, Core i9-7980XE
ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme LGA2066 DDR4
32 GB DDR4-3200
Kingston Hyper X 250 GB SSD

The final setupSetting up the system is pretty straightforward but it is always good to have the manual ready. The ASUS board has 8 DIMM slots and another so called DIMM2 which right next to the power connector. That is designed like a DIMM slot but it is actually meant for the mounting the Samsung 860 EVO. To get Quad DDR4 working, it is also important to insert the 4 DIMMs into the right socket, otherwise you would only be getting half the memory performance or it may not boot. The manual wasn’t very clear as it labels the DIMM slots which they could have labelled it using colour code.

The Enermax Liquid cooler fits nicely on the CPU socket. The good news is that you don’t need to use torx to screw it tight. The usual Philips head screw driver will suffice.

The DDR4 modules are AMD certified to run at CAS 14 DDR4-3200. For easy configuration, on the ASUS board, we used the AOCP configuration.

Enermax 240 LIQTECH AIO liquid cpu cooler

4 x 8GB G Skill Flare X DDR4-3200 modules

[nextpage title=”AMD Ryzen Master with creator and gaming mode”]

AMD Ryzen Master

AMD Ryzen Master shows the 32 cores which you can manually adjust the clock individually or all cores at the same time. By default, the cores are runing in non-legacy mode. If you enable legacy mode by selecting 1/2 (16 cores) or 1/4 (8 cores), these modes works better for some of the applications that don’t really take advantage of multi cores (> 4). It is interesting to observe that certain benchmarks performs better in legacy mode.

There is also a Creator Mode and a Game mode which basically gives you a quick press and go solution. Creator mode enables all cores and control mode is set to AUTO.

Game mode only enables 8 cores and Precision Boost Overdrive is enabled that somewhat “overclocks” the cores automatically. Precision Boost Overdrive auto boost the performance through parameters :

SoC Power (“PPT Limit”): measured in watts, the amount of power the CPU can draw before boost levels off
VRM Current (“TDC Limit”): measured in amps, the amount of current we let the motherboard deliver to the CPU before boost levels off
Temp (°C): measured in degrees Celsius, the temperature the CPU can reach before boost levels off

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – Cinebench R15 and SiSoft Sandra 2018″]Cinebench R15

Cinebench is a commonly used benchmark in CPU tests. The test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral “No Keyframes” animation by AixSponza).

This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 256 processor threads.

This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

The system is in content creation mode (default) which enables all 32 cores. The system scores 5140 CB which is way higher than the other Ryzen Threadripper. With manual overclocking of all cores to 4 GHz, it attained a score of 6052.

The Intel Core i9-7980XE scores 3348 which is 53% slower than the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX. If we were to compare it with the overclocked score of 6052, The overclocked 2990WX leads by a whopping 80.76%

Running it in gaming mode reduces it to a 8 core processor, turning it to be on par to a Ryzen 7 2700X scoring 1773 CB. With 16 cores running, it scored 3253 CB.

Sisoft Sandra 2018 SP1b Titanium Overall Processor Score

SiSoft Sandra is a commonly used benchmarking tool in modern computing. The overall processor score stresses the CPU with workloads including Multimedia, Cryptography, Financial Analysis, Scientific Analysis, Image processing etc.

Again, we see it leading all the at 17.04. As oc at 4 GHz resulted in a system hang, we omitted the results in the chart below. Nevertheless, a score of 17.04 is way higher then it’s first generation and surpassed that of Intel Core i9-7980XE by 3.47%

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks Blender 2.79b and PovRay”]Blender v2.79b BMW model Benchmark

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. It comes with a BMW model in it’s benchmark directory which can be used for speed comparison.

The time taken to render the scene is recorded for comparison.

Starting from the PC desktop champion of 4 minutes 24 secs and all the way down to 2 minutes 22 secs on the Intel Core i9-7980XE. The AMD ThreadRipper 2990WX is at least 1 minute faster than the Intel counterpart. With overclocking in place, running all cores at 4 GHz works and score well at 1 min 14 secs

PovRay Benchmark

PovRay is another benchmark which is commonly used for testing CPU speed.  From the chart, it can be easily seen that ThreadRipper 2990WX leads all the way, be it the 2950WX. The closest is probably the Core i9-7980XE which only scores 6670.2.

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks PCMark10 and 3DMark FireStrike”]

PCMark 10

3D Mark Firestrike Physics test

So what about the Fire Strike Physics test. It looks like we met the same issue as PC Mark 10. The AMD ThreadRipper 2990WX scores much lower as it runs 32 cores 64 threads. Interestingly, the 2950X does better at 87.02 fps. The Intel Core i9-7980XE took the score of 79.43 fps.

Using the Ryzen Master, we half the amount of cores to 16 and tada, the performance shot up to 89.83 fps.

[nextpage title=”Gaming performance”]Gaming performance

As most games are not meant to handle higher core and threads, the gaming mode in AMD Rzyen Master comes into play for the causal gamer using the processor.

Here is a list of games and performance test done by AMD comparing default, 8 core and 16 core gaming mode.

[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion

The performance of the AMD Threadripper 2990WX has shown itself to be very formidable competitor to the Intel counterpart. In performance, it has beaten the Core i7-7980XE.

Currently the AMD Ryzen ThreadRipper 2990WX retails for USD 1749 and the Intel Core i7-7980XE USD 2004. That is almost USD 250 difference.

In terms of motherboard, the ASUS ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME (AMD) retails for USD 537.58 , ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme LGA2066 DDR4 (INTEL) retails for USD 634.97.

Considering the rest of the other components to almost equivalent price, the pricing of the  AMD Threadripper with a 32 core is cheaper than the Intel counterpart with only 18 cores. Put it another way, you get more cores for USD 200 less if you go for the AMD solution.

HEDT are meant for more specific work and may not be that suitable for gaming. This is confirmed with the benchmarks we did earlier. Running it at 8 cores or 16 cores sometimes can boost the performance. The same would apply for the other HEDT processors too.

In Conclusion, AMD has shown it, delivered it and has outdone it’s competitor in terms of core count. It is only a matter of time we see a under 10nm design which will lower the TDP of the processor. Other than the 2950X, AMD is going to deliver a 24-core Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX, or experience the astounding processing power for gamers and enthusiasts with and a 12-core Ryzen Threadripper 2920X. Available worldwide Oct 29.

We give the AMD Threadripper 2990WX our Gold Award.