The AMD Threadripper 2 CPU Review: The 24-Core 2970WX and 12-Core 2920X Tested
by Ian Cutress on October 29, 2018 9:00 AM ESTHEDT Performance: Office Tests
The Office test suite is designed to focus around more industry standard tests that focus on office workflows, system meetings, some synthetics, but we also bundle compiler performance in with this section. For users that have to evaluate hardware in general, these are usually the benchmarks that most consider.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
PCMark 10: Industry Standard System Profiler
Futuremark, now known as UL, has developed benchmarks that have become industry standards for around two decades. The latest complete system test suite is PCMark 10, upgrading over PCMark 8 with updated tests and more OpenCL invested into use cases such as video streaming.
PCMark splits its scores into about 14 different areas, including application startup, web, spreadsheets, photo editing, rendering, video conferencing, and physics. We post all of these numbers in our benchmark database, Bench, however the key metric for the review is the overall score.
PCMark seems to be around standard for almost every processor, except the 9900K where the 5.0 GHz really pushes the performance.
Chromium Compile: Windows VC++ Compile of Chrome 56
A large number of AnandTech readers are software engineers, looking at how the hardware they use performs. While compiling a Linux kernel is ‘standard’ for the reviewers who often compile, our test is a little more varied – we are using the windows instructions to compile Chrome, specifically a Chrome 56 build from March 2017, as that was when we built the test. Google quite handily gives instructions on how to compile with Windows, along with a 400k file download for the repo.
In our test, using Google’s instructions, we use the MSVC compiler and ninja developer tools to manage the compile. As you may expect, the benchmark is variably threaded, with a mix of DRAM requirements that benefit from faster caches. Data procured in our test is the time taken for the compile, which we convert into compiles per day.
Our compile test is a healthy mix of a variable threaded workload, and we can see that the 2950X and the 9900K are the best performers here. However the 2920X, at $649, or the 2700X, are the best bang-for-buck performers here.
3DMark Physics: In-Game Physics Compute
Alongside PCMark is 3DMark, Futuremark’s (UL’s) gaming test suite. Each gaming tests consists of one or two GPU heavy scenes, along with a physics test that is indicative of when the test was written and the platform it is aimed at. The main overriding tests, in order of complexity, are Ice Storm, Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike, and Time Spy.
Some of the subtests offer variants, such as Ice Storm Unlimited, which is aimed at mobile platforms with an off-screen rendering, or Fire Strike Ultra which is aimed at high-end 4K systems with lots of the added features turned on. Time Spy also currently has an AVX-512 mode (which we may be using in the future).
For our tests, we report in Bench the results from every physics test, but for the sake of the review we keep it to the most demanding of each scene: Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike Ultra, and Time Spy.
Graphics engines still have trouble scaling up the cores, even with the latest models, due to a lack of proper memory bandwidth. The large TR2 chips don't have the right balance of cores to memory to be able to compete.
GeekBench4: Synthetics
A common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench 4 is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.
I’m including this test due to popular demand, although the results do come across as overly synthetic, and a lot of users often put a lot of weight behind the test due to the fact that it is compiled across different platforms (although with different compilers).
We record the main subtest scores (Crypto, Integer, Floating Point, Memory) in our benchmark database, but for the review we post the overall single and multi-threaded results.
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schujj07 - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
You would be far to limited with RAM to run 60 VMs on that system. I've got 80 on dual Dell 7425's with dual 24 Core Epycs and 512GB RAM and I'm already getting RAM limited.Again I wouldn't install ESXi on these. Use Win 10 and Workstation for your test/dev and you will have a more agile system. If you don't need it for testing that day you still have Windows. FYI I'm VMware Admin.
Ratman6161 - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
All depends...in my home lab environment (which lets me test things at will and do whatever I want as opposed to at work where even the lab is more locked down) . For me, the Threadrippers would be great...but extreme overkill. I actually use old FX8320's which I bought when they were dirt cheap and DDR3 RAM was cheap too. The free version of ESXi works fine for me too. For my purposes the threadrippers would be really cool but more expensive than they would be worth.Icehawk - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
I would love one of these high cores boxes for our test lab, using W10 and VM on my desktop is very limiting for me (work rig is 7700 & 32gb) - one of these would let me put plenty of resources onboard. Currently my lab runs off a G6 Dell server which is totally fine but if I could get myself a new, personal, lab I'd want a TR rig since it can host a lot more RAM than Intel's option.odrade - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - link
Hi I completely agree with you.With security enhancement moving to sandbox/VM (Application Guard, Sandboxed Defender in 19H1) virtualization scenario will be more prevalent beyond developper or test scenarios.
One major disappointment is that after 12+ months since GA there is no support for nested virtualization for TR/TR2 ?, Ryzen ? Epyc ?.
This issue seems to be general and not limited to hyper-v (KVM, etc..).
This is strange since EPYC made is way through Azure or Oracle Cloud catalog.
During Ignite 2018 there was a demo with an EPYC box (VM or Server).
Regards G.
GreenReaper - Wednesday, October 31, 2018 - link
You could ask for HyperV over here:https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/295047-...
But such features are often buggy in their initial implementations:
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/vme-broken-on-amd-ryze...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8ljgph/has_t...
It wouldn't surprise me if they ran into too many problems to want to push out a solution. And Intel has had issues here too - most recently L1 Terminal Fault relating to EPT:
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/understanding-l1-te...
If people buy enough of them, and there is a performance benefit or it otherwise becomes a feature differentiator, support will doubtless be developed. Chicken and egg, I know.
odrade - Monday, November 5, 2018 - link
Hi,Thanks four your inputs.
This feature is handy if you want to build advanced lab scenarios while preserving your work environment or avoid the hassle to use dual boot.
Maybe this feature will be enabled with the 2019 Epyc / TR iteration.
And if the the socket and compatibility promises is kept by AMD refreshing
my setup will do it and put those extra pcie lanes to use (upgrading storage as well).
At least the 7mm process will help to kept the power compatibility in line.
Regards G.
Blindsay - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
For the chart on the last page, the "12-core Battle" it would be interesting to see a "similar price battle" of like the 9900k vs 7820X vs 2920X. I suspect the 9900k would hold up rather well especially once it returns to its SRPmapesdhs - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
A battle for what? If it's gaming, get the far cheaper 2700X and using the difference to buy a better GPU, giving better gaming results by default (some niche cases at 1080p, but in general the 9900K is a poor value option for gaming, except for those who've gone the NPC route into high refresh displays from which there's no way back, ironic now NVIDIA has decided to move backwards to sub-60Hz 1080p with RTX).Blindsay - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
Definitely not for gaming lol. It is for a home server (unraid)PeachNCream - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - link
That's a lot of compute for a home server. Home servers (outside of those used for the development of professional skills or to test software outside of a setting where there are office usage policies) serve very limited useful purposes. They're mainly a solution looking for a problem or just fun to mess around with. I have an old C2D E8400-powered desktop PC with 8GB of RAM that I just recently put online as a local file, media, and internal web server connected via a cheap TPLink PCI (non-e) wifi card. There's nothing that the kids and I have done to it yet that brings it anywhere close to its knees. Even streaming videos from it to three other systems at once is a non-issue and all of those files are stored on a single 1TB 5400 RPM 2.5 inch mechanical HDD. TR is extreme overkill for a toy server at home. Literally any old scavenged desktop or laptop can act as a home server.