The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores
by Ian Cutress on August 6, 2018 9:00 AM ESTX399 Motherboards: The MSI X399 Creation
For the motherboard situation, AMD clarified that all motherboards on the market today will be able to run the new 250W processors. The differences will be in how well each motherboard will be able to overclock, with AMD citing that the newer models and revisions should perform better, given that they were built with a higher power rating already in mind. Boards like the X399 Creation should also help in pushing the first generation Ryzen Threadripper.
Box. Has board inside.
As noted back at Computex, the MSI X399 Creation is a very visually busy motherboard. Lots of angles, and lots of shades of grey. I know it is customary in some Asian languages and magazines to be very dense, and this is kind of what that looks like. Most of the time I prefer a simpler, elegant design. This design does not scream elegance.
The key headline for this motherboard is the power delivery. MSI has put 16 phases on the processor, and another three for "uncore" portion of the chip, or as AMD calls it, the SoC. In order to fit them in, the DRAM slots are slightly further down than average, but it also allows MSI to put in a larger heatsink, which also connects to the heatsink near the rear panel of the board.
In case you forget the name: Creation.
Storage on the motherboard comes in two forms: eight SATA ports, and seven M.2 drives. That is not a typo: MSI has enabled this motherboard with seven M.2 slots. Three come from on the board, and are found under the chipset heatsink. Here are two of them:
The other four comes from an add-in PCIe card. We also saw this at Computex, and it uses a dual-slot design. It looks like a GPU:
But inside are four M.2 slots, with thermal pad on the heatsink to assist with cooling.
MSI states that this was built specifically with Threadripper in mind, so I’m going to annoy our SSD reviewer, Billy Tallis, to hand over a few more drives.
Also on the board is an extensive rear panel, with USB 3.1 ports, USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi:
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blppt - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
R15 is very well multithreaded, not the ideal indicator of real-world performance, so would we really expect an 8700K to dominate a 2600X in an ideal multithreaded benchmark?mapesdhs - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Cinebench as a benchmark may be reaching EOL, unless they update it again somehow. See:https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/815405-cinebe...
A better test in some ways would be c-ray, as LTT mentions, since it can scale to hundreds of threads no problem.
Ian.
eastcoast_pete - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Yes, every company puts their best foot/benchmark forward. The 7920/40/60 (all x) chips from Intel will still have a serious advantage in any application that can really utilize AVX 512, as that provides a huge performance boost. Unfortunately (for Intel), using AVX 512 also makes their chips run really, really hot (might be time for Intel to invest in some better thermal solutions for their pricey chips). Ultimately, it still boils down to: What are using your workstation for?virpuain@gmail.com - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Like winrar ??? lelDug - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Yes! All day long, every day. :) I can't stop using it! Have to compress everything!Midwayman - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
I have no legitimate use for 32 cores, but Hrrrrrgggghhhhhh. Fully torqued for that many cores.HStewart - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
I would rather have fewer stronger cores than more weaker cores.The Hardcard - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Even if it was barely more than half the cores that are less than 15 percent stronger? Come on, even your 35-year-old scalar, nonpipelined processor with no branch prediction will quickly tell you that you will be far behind on nearly every workstation task.Make a list of the top 15 reasons people who actually do work and could use a high-end workstation to take care of business. Now question: will the Core i9-7980XE be faster atany single one?
DigitalFreak - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
People here, and on most tech sites for that matter, keep thinking of these processors in terms of gaming. That's obviously not what they're designed for.drajitshnew - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
@digitalfreak It is quite correct & true. Even three 1st gen threadripper was not marketed for pure gaming-- more towards content creaters and those who want to stream games professionally.On an other note I have reduced going to the sister site "Tom's " because Anandtech has a less FPS centric editorial outlook.