The AMD Threadripper 2990WX 32-Core and 2950X 16-Core Review

171 Comments

View All Comments

• MattZN - Monday, August 20, 2018 - link

  If its idling at 80-85W that implies you are running the memory fabric at 2800 or 3000MHz or higher. Try running the fabric at 2666MHz.
  
  Also keep in mind that a 2990WX running all 64 threads with a memory-heavy workload is almost guaranteed to be capped out by available memory bandwidth, so there's no point overclocking the CPU for those sorts of tests. In fact, you could try setting a lower PPT limit for the CPU core along with running the memory at 2666... you can probably chop 50-100W off the power consumption without changing the test results much (beyond the difference between 3000 and 2666).
  
  It's a bit unclear what you are loading the threads with. A computation-intensive workload will not load down the fabric much, meaning power will shift to the CPU cores and away from the fabric. A memory-intensive workload, on the otherhand, will stall-out the CPU cores (due to hitting the memory bandwidth cap that 4 memory channels gives you), and yet run the fabric at full speed. This is probably why you are seeing the results you are seeing. The CPU cores are likely hitting so many stalls they might as well be running at 2.8GHz instead of 3.4GHz, so they won't be using nearly as much power as you might expect.
  
  -Matt

• XEDX - Monday, August 20, 2018 - link

  What happened to the Chromium compile rate for the 7980XE? On it's own review posted on Sep 25th 2017, it achieved 36.35 compiles per day, but in this review it dropped all the way down to 21.1.

• jcc5169 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link

  Intel Will Struggle For Years And AMD Will Reap The Benefits-- SegmentNext https://segmentnext.com/

• SWAPNALI - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link

  nice place here thanks alot for this information please do more post here
  <a href="http://clash-of-royale.com/">play clash of royale</a>

• Relic74 - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link

  Regardless of the outcome, I went ahead and bought the 32 Core version. As I run SmartOS, an OS designed to run and manage Virtual Machines, I decided to go this route over the Epyc 24. My setup includes the new MSI MEG X399, 32 Core TR, 128GB DDR4 RAM, 3x Vega Frontier (used, $1000 for all three, no one wants them but I love them), 1 X Nvidia Titan Z (used for only $700, an amazing find from a pawn shop, did not know what he had, had it marked as an XP). Storage is 2 x 1TB Samsung 970 Pro in Raid 0 and 5x 8TB SATA in Raid 5 with 8GB of cache on card.
  
  The system is amazing and cost me much, much less than the iMac Pro I was about to buy. Now though, I can run any OS in VM, including OSX, with a designated GPU per VM and cores allocated to them. This setup is amazing, SmartOS is amazing, I have stopped running OS's with every application installed, Instead I create single purpose VM's and just install one or maybe two applications per. So for instance when I'm playing a game like DCS, a fantastic flight simulator, only has DCS and Steam installed on the VM. Allowing for the best performance possible, no, the lost of any performance by running things in VM are so minuscule that it's a none issue. DCS with the Titan V runs at over 200 FPS at 4K with everything turned to their max values. I have to actually cap games to my gaming monitors 144Hz refresh rate. Not only that but I can be playing the most demanding game their is, even in VR, while encoding a media file, while rendering something in Blender, while compiling an application, all tasks running under their own VM like a orchestra of perfection.
  
  Seriously, I will never go back to a one OS at a time machine again, not when SmartOS exists and especially not when 32 Cores are available at your command. In fact, anyone who buys this CPU and just runs one single OS at a time is an idiot as you will never, ever harness it's full intention as no one single application really can at the moment or at least not to the point where it's worth doing it.
  
  Most games dont need more than 4 cores, most design applications can't even use more than 2 cores, rendering applications use more of the GPU than CPU, in fact the only thing that really tasks my CPU is SmartOS that is controlling everything but even that doesn't need more than 6 cores to function perfectly, heck, I even had it at 12 cores but it didn't utilize it. So I have cores coming out of the yin-yang and more GPU's than I know what to do with. Aaaaahhhh poor, poor me.
  
  This computer will be with me for at least 10 years without ever feeling that I need an upgrade, which is why I spent the money, get it right the first time and than leave it alone I say.
  
  Oh and the memory management for SmartOS is incredible, I have set it up where if a VM needs more RAM, it will just grab it from another that isn't using it at the moment, it's all dynamic. Man, I am in love.
  
  Anyway.....

• Phaedra - Sunday, March 3, 2019 - link

  Hi Relic74,
  
  I enjoyed reading your lengthy post on the technical marvel that is SmartOS and the 32 Core TR.
  
  I am very much interested in the technical details of how you got SmartOS to work with AMD hardware. Which version of SmartOS, Windows, KVM (or BHYVE) with PCI passthrough etc?
  
  I am in the process of preparing my own threadripper hyper computer and would love some advice regarding the KVM + PCI passthrough process.
  
  You mention gaming in a VM so I assume that you used a Windows 10 guest via KVM with PCI passthrough?
  
  The following says SmartOS doesn't support KVM on AMD hardware: https://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/SmartOS+Techn...
  
  Did you build the special module with amd-kvm support:
  https://github.com/jclulow/illumos-kvm/tree/pre-ep...
  or
  https://github.com/arekinath/smartos-live
  
  I would appreciate any insight or links to documentation you could provide. I am familiar with Windows/Linux/BSD so you can let me have the nitty-gritty details, thanks

• gbolcer - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link

  Curious why virtualization disabled?

• Ozymankos - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link

  Your tests are typical for a single core machine which is laughable
  please try to download a game with steam,play some music,watch tv on a tvtuner card,play a game on 6 monitors or 8 or 4 ,do some work like computing something in the background(not virus scanners,something intelligent like life on other planets)
  then you shall see the truth

• intel352 - Thursday, July 18, 2019 - link

  Old article obviously, but wth, numerous benchmark graphics are excluding 2950x in the results. Pretty bad quality control.

• EthanWalker28 - Monday, February 24, 2020 - link

  If you are looking for custom writing firm to help you out with your academic writing issues, then you have just found the right one. Now, you don’t have to worry about getting a failing mark simply because you have been accused of plagiarizing someone else’s work. Check this <a href="https://ewriters.pro/" rel="nofollow">ewriters.pro</a> Order essay online staying 100% safe and confidential.