The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1920X Review: CPUs on Steroids
by Ian Cutress on August 10, 2017 9:00 AM ESTRocket League
Hilariously simple pick-up-and-play games are great fun. I'm a massive fan of the Katamari franchise for that reason — passing start on a controller and rolling around, picking up things to get bigger, is extremely simple. Until we get a PC version of Katamari that I can benchmark, we'll focus on Rocket League.
Rocket League combines the elements of pick-up-and-play, allowing users to jump into a game with other people (or bots) to play football with cars with zero rules. The title is built on Unreal Engine 3, which is somewhat old at this point, but it allows users to run the game on super-low-end systems while still taxing the big ones. Since the release in 2015, it has sold over 5 million copies and seems to be a fixture at LANs and game shows. Users who train get very serious, playing in teams and leagues with very few settings to configure, and everyone is on the same level. Rocket League is quickly becoming one of the favored titles for e-sports tournaments, especially when e-sports contests can be viewed directly from the game interface.
Based on these factors, plus the fact that it is an extremely fun title to load and play, we set out to find the best way to benchmark it. Unfortunately for the most part automatic benchmark modes for games are few and far between. Partly because of this, but also on the basis that it is built on the Unreal 3 engine, Rocket League does not have a benchmark mode. In this case, we have to develop a consistent run and record the frame rate.
Read our initial analysis on our Rocket League benchmark on low-end graphics here.
With Rocket League, there is no benchmark mode, so we have to perform a series of automated actions, similar to a racing game having a fixed number of laps. We take the following approach: Using Fraps to record the time taken to show each frame (and the overall frame rates), we use an automation tool to set up a consistent 4v4 bot match on easy, with the system applying a series of inputs throughout the run, such as switching camera angles and driving around.
It turns out that this method is nicely indicative of a real bot match, driving up walls, boosting and even putting in the odd assist, save and/or goal, as weird as that sounds for an automated set of commands. To maintain consistency, the commands we apply are not random but time-fixed, and we also keep the map the same (Aquadome, known to be a tough map for GPUs due to water/transparency) and the car customization constant. We start recording just after a match starts, and record for 4 minutes of game time (think 5 laps of a DIRT: Rally benchmark), with average frame rates, 99th percentile and frame times all provided.
The graphics settings for Rocket League come in four broad, generic settings: Low, Medium, High and High FXAA. There are advanced settings in place for shadows and details; however, for these tests, we keep to the generic settings. For both 1920x1080 and 4K resolutions, we test at the High preset with an unlimited frame cap.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G Performance
1080p
4K
ASUS GTX 1060 Strix 6G Performance
1080p
4K
Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury 4G Performance
1080p
4K
Sapphire Nitro RX 480 8G Performance
1080p
4K
With Ryzen, we encounted some odd performance issues when using NVIDIA-based video cards that caused those cards to significantly underperform. However equally strangely, the issues we have with Ryzen on Rocket League with NVIDIA GPUs seem to almost vanish when using Threadripper. Again, still no easy wins here as Intel seems to take Rocket League in its stride, but SMT-off mode still helps the 1950X. The Time Under graphs give some cause for concern, with the 1950X consistently being at the bottom of that graph.
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Pekish79 - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Vraybench 1.0.5SanX - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
*** AMD, make 2-chip mobos for upcoming multicore wars, you will double your profit from this at no cost for you +++vicbee - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Off subject: Having just read the article about nVidia's meteoric rise in profits, some of which directly attributed to high end "gamers" video cards purchased expressly for coin mining, I wonder if it and AMD are going to manufacture CPU's and GPU's specifically for that purpose and how that will affect the price of said parts...Avro Arrow - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Hi Ian, thanks for doing this article. It's important to see all possible outcomes because in the real world, anything is possible. I do have one question that has be puzzled. Why do you say that Threadripper only has 64 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes when it's been reported several times by everyone, including official AMD releases (and also including by you) that it has 64? I thought it might be just a typo but you state it in several places and in all of your specs. This is not a new thing so is there something about Threadripper that we don't know?HotJob - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Could someone explain to me what a "2P" system is from the competition section of the article?coolhardware - Saturday, August 12, 2017 - link
"2P" system = two processor system, i.e. a system with two physical CPU sockets and two CPUs installed.In the past a 2P (or 4P) system was really handy to get more cores especially back when 1 core, 2 core, and eventually 4 core CPUs were high end. In the consumer realm, way back, the Pentium II was the first 2P system I ever built and people even did it with Celerons as well:
http://www.cpu-central.com/dualceleron/
the Opterons were also fun for dual or quad processor systems including some SFF options like the ZMAX-DP socket 940 system.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N...
Now fast forward with ThreadRipper already available at Amazon and NewEgg
http://amzn.to/2wDqgWw (URL shortened)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N...
I do not think I will ever be building a 2P or 4P system again!!!
:-)
rvborgh - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
hi Ian,i think the Cinebench 11.5 benchmarks are incorrect for both ThreadRippers. ThreadRipper is almost equivalent to my Quad Opteron (48 core) system which scores 3229cb on R15... and 39.04 on Cinebench 11.5. if i downclock all cores to approximately 2.9 GHz i end up with around 3000cb in R15 and in the 36 range point range for 11.5.
The fact that you are only scoring in the 18 range makes me wonder if you had the Threadripper set in some mode where it was only using 8 out of the 16 cores. Can you verify this... please? Thanks :) i would think you should see scores in the 36 range with 11.5.
Other than this minor detail... great article.
PS: i've had the same issues with software not liking NUMA on my quad opteron system as well... Cinebench especially does not like it.
Tchamber - Saturday, August 12, 2017 - link
Hi, Ian. Thanks for the review. As usual it was in depth and informative. I'm in the middle of building a 1700x system now based on your review. I wanted to say you handle all the nay-Sayers, gloomy Gusses and negative Nacies with aplomb! I think most people's own slant colors how they see your reviews. I appreciate the consistency of what you do here. I took a look over at Ars, and they could be called AMD shills for all the positive things they say... Keep it up!Tchamber - Saturday, August 12, 2017 - link
P.S.I loved your Kessel Run reference, it tied in nicely with your Yoda quote.
B3an - Saturday, August 12, 2017 - link
Too many plebs complaining about a lack of 3D rendering benches. The fact is a 16 core CPU is still much slower than GPU's at rendering. I'll be getting a 1950X but it wont even be used for rendering when i know for a fact that my two GPUs will still be much faster with things like Blender. Even a single high-end GPU will still easily beat the 1950X at these tasks.Seems like immature moron fanboys are crying over this stuff because they just want to see AMD at the top of the charts.