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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imaheadcase - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
So you lost respect for a website based on how they word titles of articles? I think you don't understand advertising at all. lolIf you want to know a website that lost respect, look at HardOCP and you know why people don't like them for obvious reasons.
Alexey291 - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
No offence but HardOCP is far more respectable than what we have in ATech these days.But that's not hard. AT website is pretty much a shell for the forum which is where most of the traffic is. I'm sure they only so the reviews because 'it was something we have always done'
Johan Steyn - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
You may not understand how wording is used to convey sentiments in a different way. That is what politicians thrive on. You could for instance say "I am sorry that you misunderstood me." It gives the impression that you are sorry, but you are not. People also ask for forgiveness like this: "If I have hurt you, please forgive me." It sounds sincer, but it is a hidden lie, not acknowledging that you have actually hurt anybody, actually saying that you do not think that you did.Well, this is a science and I cannot explain it all here. If you miss it, then it does not mean it is not there.
mikato - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
I thought I'd just comment to say I understand what you're saying and agree. Even if a sentence gives facts, it can sound more positive one way or another way based on how it is stated. The author has to do some reflection sometimes to catch this. I believe him whenever he says he doesn't have much time, and maybe that plays into it. But articles at different sites may not have this bias effect and it can be an important component of a review article."Intel recently announced that its new 18-core chip scores 3200 on Cinebench R15. That would be an extra 6.7% performance over the Threadripper 1950X for 2x the cost."
These 2 sentences give facts, but sound favorable to Intel until just the very end. It's a subtle perception thing but it's real. The facts in the sentences, however, are massively favorable to AMD. Threadripper does only 6.7% less performance than an announced (not yet released) Intel CPU for half the cost!
Here is another version-
"Intel recently announced that its new 18-core chip scores 3200 on Cinebench R15. So Threadripper, for half the cost of Intel's as-yet unreleased chip, performs only 6.7% slower in Cinebench."
There, that one leads with Threadripper and "half the cost" in the second sentence, and sounds much different.
Johan Steyn - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
HardOCP and PCPer is more respected in my opinion. Wccftech is unpredictable, sometimes they shine and sometimes they are really odd.mapesdhs - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
I've kinda taken to GamersNexus recently, but I still always read AT and toms to compare.Ian.
fanofanand - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
WCCFtech is a joke, it's nothing but rumors and trolling. If you are seriously going to put WCCFtech above Anandtech then everyone here can immediately disregard all of your comments.Drumsticks - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Fantastic review In. I was curious exactly how AMD would handle the NUMA problem with Threadripper. It seems that anybody buying Threadripper for real work is going to have to continue being very aware of exactly what configuration gets them the best performance.One minor correction, at the bottom of the CPU Rendering tests page:
"Intel recently announced that its new 18-core chip scores 3200 on Cinebench R15. That would be an extra 6.7% performance over the Threadripper 1950X for 2x the cost." - this score is for the 16 core i9-7960X, not the 7980XE.
Drumsticks - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Ian*. Can't wait for the edit button one day!launchcodemexico - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Why did you end all the gaming review sections with something like "Switching it to Game mode would have made better numbers..."? Why didn't you run the benchmarks in Gaming mode in the first place?