The AMD Threadripper 2990WX 32-Core and 2950X 16-Core Review
by Dr. Ian Cutress on August 13, 2018 9:00 AM ESTHEDT Benchmarks: Web and Legacy Tests
While more the focus of low-end and small form factor systems, web-based benchmarks are notoriously difficult to standardize. Modern web browsers are frequently updated, with no recourse to disable those updates, and as such there is difficulty in keeping a common platform. The fast paced nature of browser development means that version numbers (and performance) can change from week to week. Despite this, web tests are often a good measure of user experience: a lot of what most office work is today revolves around web applications, particularly email and office apps, but also interfaces and development environments. Our web tests include some of the industry standard tests, as well as a few popular but older tests.
We have also included our legacy benchmarks in this section, representing a stack of older code for popular benchmarks.
WebXPRT 3: Modern Real-World Web Tasks, including AI
The company behind the XPRT test suites, Principled Technologies, has recently released the latest web-test, and rather than attach a year to the name have just called it ‘3’. This latest test (as we started the suite) has built upon and developed the ethos of previous tests: user interaction, office compute, graph generation, list sorting, HTML5, image manipulation, and even goes as far as some AI testing.
For our benchmark, we run the standard test which goes through the benchmark list seven times and provides a final result. We run this standard test four times, and take an average.
Users can access the WebXPRT test at http://principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/
WebXPRT 2015: HTML5 and Javascript Web UX Testing
The older version of WebXPRT is the 2015 edition, which focuses on a slightly different set of web technologies and frameworks that are in use today. This is still a relevant test, especially for users interacting with not-the-latest web applications in the market, of which there are a lot. Web framework development is often very quick but with high turnover, meaning that frameworks are quickly developed, built-upon, used, and then developers move on to the next, and adjusting an application to a new framework is a difficult arduious task, especially with rapid development cycles. This leaves a lot of applications as ‘fixed-in-time’, and relevant to user experience for many years.
Similar to WebXPRT3, the main benchmark is a sectional run repeated seven times, with a final score. We repeat the whole thing four times, and average those final scores.
Speedometer 2: Javascript Frameworks
Our newest web test is Speedometer 2, which is a accrued test over a series of javascript frameworks to do three simple things: built a list, enable each item in the list, and remove the list. All the frameworks implement the same visual cues, but obviously apply them from different coding angles.
Our test goes through the list of frameworks, and produces a final score indicative of ‘rpm’, one of the benchmarks internal metrics. We report this final score.
Google Octane 2.0: Core Web Compute
A popular web test for several years, but now no longer being updated, is Octane, developed by Google. Version 2.0 of the test performs the best part of two-dozen compute related tasks, such as regular expressions, cryptography, ray tracing, emulation, and Navier-Stokes physics calculations.
The test gives each sub-test a score and produces a geometric mean of the set as a final result. We run the full benchmark four times, and average the final results.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1: Core Web Compute
Even older than Octane is Kraken, this time developed by Mozilla. This is an older test that does similar computational mechanics, such as audio processing or image filtering. Kraken seems to produce a highly variable result depending on the browser version, as it is a test that is keenly optimized for.
The main benchmark runs through each of the sub-tests ten times and produces an average time to completion for each loop, given in milliseconds. We run the full benchmark four times and take an average of the time taken.
3DPM v1: Naïve Code Variant of 3DPM v2.1
The first legacy test in the suite is the first version of our 3DPM benchmark. This is the ultimate naïve version of the code, as if it was written by scientist with no knowledge of how computer hardware, compilers, or optimization works (which in fact, it was at the start). This represents a large body of scientific simulation out in the wild, where getting the answer is more important than it being fast (getting a result in 4 days is acceptable if it’s correct, rather than sending someone away for a year to learn to code and getting the result in 5 minutes).
In this version, the only real optimization was in the compiler flags (-O2, -fp:fast), compiling it in release mode, and enabling OpenMP in the main compute loops. The loops were not configured for function size, and one of the key slowdowns is false sharing in the cache. It also has long dependency chains based on the random number generation, which leads to relatively poor performance on specific compute microarchitectures.
3DPM v1 can be downloaded with our 3DPM v2 code here: 3DPMv2.1.rar (13.0 MB)
x264 HD 3.0: Older Transcode Test
This transcoding test is super old, and was used by Anand back in the day of Pentium 4 and Athlon II processors. Here a standardized 720p video is transcoded with a two-pass conversion, with the benchmark showing the frames-per-second of each pass. This benchmark is single-threaded, and between some micro-architectures we seem to actually hit an instructions-per-clock wall.
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Eastman - Tuesday, August 14, 2018 - link
Just a comment regarding studios and game developers. I work in the industry and 90% of these facilities do run with Xeon workstations and ECC memory. Either custom built or purchased from the likes of Dell or HP. So yes, there is a market place for workstations. No serious pro would do work on a mobile tablet or phone where there is a huge market growth. There is definitely a place for a single 32 core CPUs. But among say 100 workstations there might be a place for only 4-5 of the 2990WX. Those would serve particles/fluids dynamics simulation. Most of the workload would be sent to render farms sometimes offsite. Those render farms could use Epyc/Xeon chips. If I was a head of technology, I would seriously consider these CPUs for my artists workflow.ATC9001 - Wednesday, August 15, 2018 - link
Another big thing which people don't consider is...the true "price" of these systems is nearly neck and neck. Sure you can save a couple hundred with AMD CPU, but by the time you add in RAM, mobo, PSU, storage etc....you're talking a 5k+...Intel doesn't want AMD to go away (think anti-trust) but they are definitely stepping up efforts which is great for consumers!
LsRamAir - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link
We've been patient! Looked at all the ads multiple times for support to. Please drop the rest of the knowledge, Sir! "Still writing" on the overclocking page is nibblin' at my patience and intrigue hemisphere.Relic74 - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Yes of course there is, I have one of the new 32 core systems and I use it with SmartOS. A VM management OS that could allow up to 8 game developers to use a single 32 Core workstation without a single bit of performance lost. That is as long as each VM has control over their own GPU. 4 Cores(most games dont new more than that in fact, no game needs more that), 32GB to 64GB of RAM (depending on server config) and an Nvidia 1080ti or higher, per VM. That is more than enough and would save the company thousands, in fact, that is exactly what most game developers use. Servers with 8 to 12 GPU's, dual CPUs, 32 to 64 cores, 512GB of RAM, standard config.You should watch Linus Tech Tips 12 node gaming system off of a single computer, it's the future and is amazing.
eek2121 - Saturday, August 18, 2018 - link
You are downplaying the gaming market. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. Nothing niche about it.HStewart - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
I agree with you - so this mainly concerning "It's over, Intel is finished"Normally I don't care much to discuss AMD related threads - but when people already bad mouth Intel, it all fair game in my opinion.
But what is important and why I agree is that it not even close. Because the like it or not, PC Game industry which primary reason for desktop now is a minimal part of industry now - computers are mostly going to mobile - and just go into local BestBuy and you see why it not even close.
Plus as in a famous WW II saying, "The Sleeper has been Awaken". One is got to be blind, if you think "Intel is finished" I think the real reason that 10nm is not coming out, is that Intel wants to shut down AMD for once and for always. I see this coming in two areas - in the CPU area and also with GPU - I believe the i870xG is precursor to it - with AMD GPU being replace with Artic Sound.
But AMD does have a good side to this. That it keep Intel's prices down and Intel improving products.
ishould - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
"I think the real reason that 10nm is not coming out, is that Intel wants to shut down AMD for once and for always." This is actually not true, Intel is having *major* yield issues with 10nm, hence 14nm being a 4-year-node (possibly 5 years if it slips from the expected Holiday 2019), and is a contributing factor for the decline of Intel/rise of AMD.HStewart - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
I not stating that Intel didn't have yield issues - but there is 2 things that should be taking in account - and of course Intel only really knows1. (Intel has stated this) That all 10nm are not equal - and then Intel's 10nm is closer to competition's 7nm - and this is likely the reason why it taking long.
2. Intel realizes the process issues - and if you think they are not aware of competition in market - not just AMD but also ARM then one is a fool
ishould - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
I agree they were probably being too ambitious with their scaling (2.4x) for 10nm. Rumor is that they've had to sacrifice some scaling to get better yields. EUV cannot come soon enough!MonkeyPaw - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
I highly highly doubt that Intel would postpone 10nm just to “shut down AMD.” Intel has shareholders to look out for, and Intel needs 10nm out the door yesterday. Their 10nm struggles are real, and it is costing them investor confidence. No way would they wait around to win a pissing match with AMD while their stock value goes down.