The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X Review: 24 and 32 Cores on 7nm
by Dr. Ian Cutress, Andrei Frumusanu & Gavin Bonshor on November 25, 2019 9:05 AM ESTTest Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |
| AMD TR3 | Threadripper 3970X Threadripper 3960X |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme (BIOS 0601) |
| CPU Cooler | Thermaltake Riing 360 CLC |
| DRAM | Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 8x8 GB DDR4-3200 |
| GPU | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 2TB |
| OS | Windows 10 1909 |
For our motherboards, we are using the latest firmware. It should be noted that our Intel tests do not have the latest Intel security updates for JCC and others, as the motherboard vendors for the models we used have not implemented them yet.
The latest AMD TR3 benchmarks were run by Gavin Bonshor, while I attended Supercomputing in Denver last week. Unfortunately both Intel and AMD decided to sample processors before the annual trade show conference, with launches only a couple of days after the show finished. As a result, our testing has been split between Gavin and myself, and we have endeavored to ensure parity through my automated testing suite.
Also, our compile test seems to have broken itself when we used Windows 10 1909, and due to travel we have not had time to debug why it is no longer working. We hope to get this test up and running in the new year, along with an updated test suite.
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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yeeeeman - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
What is so surprising? It has better ipc and the multi threading efficiency is better than hyper threading in Intel. Hence the result.realbabilu - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Wish Goto Openblas optimize Blas on Windows this AMD processor for floating point calculation (especially AVX) otherwise Intel MKL that optimized for Intel processor only is used by most FEA industry like Ansys, Abaqus, Nastran. To get all juice out,it need optimized on how much size cache it got.M O B - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Can anyone find these actually for sale anywhere? These reviews look great, but I'm not here for a paper launch.wishgranter - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
My Quad Xeon 4880 @2,5 Ghz ( 60 cores - 120 Threads ) + 1,5 TB RAM is on same performance as the TR3 3970x !!! at least on Corona Benchmark for now..rahvin - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
And for consolation you're using about 10X as much power. I bet it costs $20 a day to have that monster on.|Tubbs| - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Would have liked to see some visual studio code compile benchmarks. Our developers could use some faster machines imo.TEAMSWITCHER - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
I'm pretty sure AMD doesn't allow them... They want to skew the benchmark in their favor as much as possible. If you want to play with free hardware .. you have to agree to these things. It would be great if there was a site that didn't play these games... But.. The allure of "free stuff" drives the motivations of everyone in Tech News business.upanddown - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
I'm pretty sure you've already seen these VC benchmarks? Looking forward for the link to it.Xyler94 - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Sites like anandtech usually don't benchmark things like VB code and such. It really has nothing to do with AMD or Intel telling them what to benchmark, it has everything to do with giving a general idea of a processor's performance.When looking at reviews, you should go to the ones who you know benchmark those titles you want. There's not a lot of demand to do VB Code stuff, so no one does it really.
As an aside, Intel suggested reviews don't use Cinebench R15/20 because "It isn't realistic", but it runs on Maxon Cinema 4D, a real and widely used in the professional scene rendering application that studios like Disney and Pixar could use (I don't know if they do). But because no consumer would use such a thing, Intel said don't use it. So would AMD be in the wrong for suggesting not using VB Code? Yes, because Intel shouldn't dictate what reviews use either.
rahvin - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Oh please. Butt hurt much?There was a developer studio just a week ago that published benchmarks for switching out just one of their compilation boxes to a Ryzen 3700 and it smoked the other boxes they had by about 40%.