The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1920X Review: CPUs on Steroids
by Ian Cutress on August 10, 2017 9:00 AM ESTCPU Web Tests
One of the issues when running web-based tests is the nature of modern browsers to automatically install updates. This means any sustained period of benchmarking will invariably fall foul of the 'it's updated beyond the state of comparison' rule, especially when browsers will update if you give them half a second to think about it. Despite this, we were able to find a series of commands to create an un-updatable version of Chrome 56 for our 2017 test suite. While this means we might not be on the bleeding edge of the latest browser, it makes the scores between CPUs comparable.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
SunSpider 1.0.2: link
The oldest web-based benchmark in this portion of our test is SunSpider. This is a very basic javascript algorithm tool, and ends up being more a measure of IPC and latency than anything else, with most high-performance CPUs scoring around about the same. The basic test is looped 10 times and the average taken. We run the basic test 4 times.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1: link
Kraken is another Javascript based benchmark, using the same test harness as SunSpider, but focusing on more stringent real-world use cases and libraries, such as audio processing and image filters. Again, the basic test is looped ten times, and we run the basic test four times.
Google Octane 2.0: link
Along with Mozilla, as Google is a major browser developer, having peak JS performance is typically a critical asset when comparing against the other OS developers. In the same way that SunSpider is a very early JS benchmark, and Kraken is a bit newer, Octane aims to be more relevant to real workloads, especially in power constrained devices such as smartphones and tablets.
WebXPRT 2015: link
While the previous three benchmarks do calculations in the background and represent a score, WebXPRT is designed to be a better interpretation of visual workloads that a professional user might have, such as browser based applications, graphing, image editing, sort/analysis, scientific analysis and financial tools.
Overall, all of our web benchmarks show a similar trend. Very few web frameworks offer multi-threading – the browsers themselves are barely multi-threaded at times – so Threadripper's vast thread count is underutilized. What wins the day on the web are a handful of fast cores with high single-threaded performance.
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Vorl - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
the answer to both of you is that "this is a High end PC processor, not a workstation CPU, and not a server CPU. That was clearly covered at the start of the article.If you want raw number crunching info, there will be other sites that are going to have those reviews, and really, maybe anandtech will review it in that light since it really is such a powerful CPU in another review for server stuff.
Also, there is a LOT of value in having a standardized set of tests. Even if a few tests here and there are no longer valuable like PDF opening, the same tests being used across the board are important for BENCH. you can't compare products if you aren't using the same tools.
Unfortunately AMD is ahead of the curve currently with massive SMP being given to normal consumers now at a reasonable price. It will take a little time for dev's to catch up and really make use of this amazing CPU.
With the processing power in a CPU like this imagine the game mechanics that can be created and used, For those of us that are more interested in making this a reasonably priced workstation/server build for VMs etc, cool for us, but that isn't where this is being marketed, and it's not really fair to jump all over the reviewer for it.
Zstream - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Utter rubbish. This CPU is designed for a workstation build. Some a product labeled Xeon is a workstation CPU, but this isn't?mapesdhs - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Yeah, TR doesn't really look like something that's massively aimed at gamers, it has too many capabilities and features which gamers wouldn't be interested in.pm9819 - Friday, August 18, 2017 - link
AMD themselves call it a consumer cpu. Is Intel paying them as wellLolimaster - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
It's a HEDT/workstation, a year ago people called Workstation a dual Xeon 8 cores, which a sole 1950X replicates.Intel draws a line not supporting ECC, AMD supports ECC in all their main cpu's server or not all the way back to Athlon 64.
16cores/32threads, ECC, 64 pci-e lanes, upgrade path to 32cores/64threads with zen3. Smells Workstation to me.
Another thing is server cpu's which EPYC is, with features tailored to it, like a massive core count with low clock speeds to maximize efficiency and damn expensive mobos without any gamerish gizmo, just think to put on building without looking at net. TR can do a bit of that too, but optimized to an all around performance and budget friendly.
Ian Cutress - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Dan sums it up. Some of these tests are simply check boxes - is it adequate enough.Some people do say that an automated suite isn't the way to do things: unfortunately without spending over two months designing this script I wouldn't have time for nearly as much data or to test nearly as many CPUs. Automation is a key aspect to testing, and I've spent a good while making sure tests like our Chromium Compile can be process consistent across systems.
There's always scope to add more tests (my scripts are modular now), if they can be repeatable and deterministic, but also easy to understand in how they are set up. Feel free to reach out via email if you have suggestions.
Johan Steyn - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
Ian, I understand that you see them as checkboxes, but this is not a normal CPU John doe is going to buy. It has a very specific audience and I feel you are missing that audience badly. I guy that buys this to use for rendering or 3Dstudio Max, is not going to worry about games. Yes, it would be a great bonus to also be OK at it. Other sittes even did tests of running rendering as well as play games at the same time. TR shined like a star against Intel. This is actually something that might happen in real life. A guy could begin a render and then while waiting, decide to play a game.I would not buy TR to open pdf's, would I?
Ian Cutress - Thursday, August 10, 2017 - link
No, but you open things like IDEs and Premiere. A PDF test is a gateway test in that regard with an abnormally large input. When a workstation is not crunching hard, it's being used to navigate through programs with perhaps the web and documents in tow where the UX is going to be indicative of something like PDF opening.Lolimaster - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
Including useless benchs not only you waste target audience time, you too having to write and upload images from that useless benchs instead of making the article more interesting.How about a "the destroyer for HEDT/Workstion", a typical productivy load + some gaming, out of a sudden people will get TWICE the cpu resources, they can do things they couldn't before on the same machine.
They could get a dual socket mobo with 2x10c Xeons paying the hefty premium with pathetic clock speeds if they wante to game a bit while doing work, TR fixed that, with mass consumer type of gaming performance while reducing the multicore costs by more than half (cores counts + ECC support without paying intel tax).
Lolimaster - Friday, August 11, 2017 - link
And that audience few months ago was limited to do their productivity thing with 6-8 cores or 10 paying the huge intel tax, probably they couldn't game without hurting other things and had a 2 secondary PC for killing time.With TR and the massive 16 core count they can finally do all of that off a single PC or focus the entire powerhorse when they need (leaving things do work during their sleep).