The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores
by Ian Cutress on August 6, 2018 9:00 AM ESTEnough Jibber-Jabber, Show Me the Money Chips
All-in-all, the new chips look a lot like the old ones:
AMD sampled us the 2990WX and the 2950X for our launch day review. Both of these CPUs are coming out in August, first with the 2990WX on the 13th, and then with the 2950X on the 31st.
On the rear, there are slightly different component arrangements to account for the different dies that are active:
2990WX (left) and 2950X (right)
The packaging is certainly different, with AMD taking into account the public's commentary about the packaging from the first generation. My only feedback to AMD on this is to make the new CPU packaging stackable – as a reviewer having these chips around un-stacked is an organizational nightmare.
Also in the box is a Torx screwdriver for the socket and an Asetek water cooler bracket, as with the first generation.
If we add some EPYCness to the mix, there’s a pretty pattern. Here are 172 cores of Zen:
AMD also bundled two motherboards with the press kits: a second revision of the ASUS X399 Zenith Extreme, with a new VRM cooling kit, and the MSI X399 MEG Creation, the 19-phase monster seen at Computex.
At first, Summer wasn’t interested.
Then she had a sniff.
Now they are good friends. I think. (ed: Ian, if you kill that processor with static electricity, I will end you)
A side note about stacking. The processors do kind of stack on their own.
But this isn’t an advised strategy.
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Sttm - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
The lack of an edit button strikes me again.smilingcrow - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Don't buy a new sports car either because in 12 months time it will have depreciated and there may be faster models. ;)TR2 pricing goes much higher than TR1 so who knows how much TR3 chips will cost next year and how many cores they will have.
These are for hobbyists when not bought for work and some hobbies are expensive if you aim high.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Car analogies don't work very well in this situation as the car industry is relatively slow to change compared to even the maturing and subsequently slowing pace of CPU development.rahvin - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Until they spin the silicon and you can buy it it's not real, ask anyone that's been expecting Intel 10nm processors. Process tech is likely to stall out very soon if it hasn't already because they have hit the quantum limits on the transistor which have been frozen at 16nm for years.What I'd be more worried about going forward is all the exploits Intel is suffering with Spectre class timing attacks, we're already up to Spectre variant 11 now and Intel has been vulnerable to every variant and AMD has only been partially vulnerable to a few of them. I personally believe this is the strongest reason to migrate away from Intel until they can get some viable silicon that's not vulnerable to every possible timing exploit.
Gothmoth - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
from what i hear from a friend who does hardware vlogging.... the TR2 are great update and the benchmark numbers he saw are very good. the turbo with good cooling is higher than on paper and we will not be dispapointed when the benchmakrs go live around 15/16 of august.cpuaddicted - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
The price of 2950 in the first table is listed as 849$ whereas every where else is mentioned at 899$. Please correct.BB-5F-96-D7-AE-26 - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Just forget about the AMD TR 1950X...mikk - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Pathetic paper launch from AMDtsk2k - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Which canon lake chips are you testing Ian?The 8121U?
CaedenV - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
250W CPU?!?!?! That is epic!forget about cooling the processor... how do you keep your room cool when you are running an oven 24/7?
Still, seriously cool tech coming from AMD. Happy to see them back in action!