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 ESTConclusion: History is Written By The Victors
I have never used the word ‘bloodbath’ in a review before. It seems messy, violent, and a little bit gruesome. But when we look at the results from the new AMD Threadripper processors, it seems more than appropriate.
When collating the data together from our testing, I found it amusing that when we start comparing the high-end desktop processors, any part that was mightily impressive in the consumer space suddenly sits somewhere in the middle or back, holding its lunch money tightly. While the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X and the 8-core Intel i9-9900KS enjoy a lot fun in the consumer space, when Threadripper rolls up, they are decidedly outclassed in performance.
AMD has scored wins across almost all of our benchmark suite. In anything embarrassingly parallel it rules the roost by a large margin (except for our one AVX-512 benchmark). Single threaded performance trails the high-frequency mainstream parts, but it is still very close. Even in memory sensitive workloads, an issue for the previous generation Threadripper parts, the new chiplet design has pushed performance to the next level. These new Threadripper processors win on core count, on high IPC, on high frequency, and on fast memory.
Is the HEDT Market Price Sensitive?
There are two areas where AMD will be questioned upon. First is the power, and why 280 W for the TDP? Truth be told, these are some of the most efficient desktop cores we have seen; it's just that AMD has piled a lot of them into a single processor. The other question is price.
Where Intel has retreated from the $2000 market, pushing its 18-core CPU back to $979, AMD has leapfrogged into that $1999 space with the 32-core and $1399 with the 24-core. This is the sort of price competition we have desperately needed in this space, although I have seen some commentary that AMD’s pricing is too high. The same criticism was leveled at Intel for the past couple of generations as well.
Now the HEDT market is a tricky one to judge. As one might expect, overall sales numbers aren’t on the level of the standard consumer volumes. Still, Intel has reported that the workstation market has a potential $10B a year addressable market, so it is still worth pursuing. While I have no direct quotes or data, I remember being told for several generations that Intel’s best-selling HEDT processors were always the highest core count, highest performance parts that money could buy. These users wanted off-the-shelf hardware, and were willing to pay for it – they just weren’t willing to pay for enterprise features. I was told that this didn’t necessarily follow when Intel pushed for 10 cores to $1979, when 8 cores were $999, but when $1979 became 18 cores, a segment of the market pushed for it. Now that we can get better performance at $1999 with 32 cores, assuming AMD can keep stock of the hardware, it stands to reason that this market will pick up interest again.
There is the issue of the new chipset, and TRX40 motherboards. Ultimately it is a slight negative that AMD has had to change chipsets and there’s no backwards compatibility. For that restriction though, we see an effective quadrupling of CPU-to-chipset bandwidth, and we’re going to see a wide range of motherboards with different controllers and support. There seems to be a good variation, even in the initial 12 motherboards coming to the market, with the potential for some of these companies to offer something off-the-wall and different. Motherboard pricing is likely to be high, with the most expensive initial motherboard, the GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Extreme, to be $849. Filling it up with memory afterwards won’t be cheap, either. But this does give a wide range of variation.
One of the key messages I’ve been saying this year is that AMD wants to attack the workstation market en mass. These new Threadripper processors do just that.
The Final Word
If you had told me three years ago that AMD were going to be ruling the roost in the HEDT market with high-performance 32-core processors on a leading-edge manufacturing node, I would have told you to lay off the heavy stuff. But here we are, and AMD isn’t done yet, teasing a 64-core version for next year. This is a crazy time we live in, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
AMD Third Generation Ryzen Threadripper
Price no object, the new Threadripper processors are breathing new life into the high-end desktop market. AMD is going to have to work hard to top this one. Intel is going to have to have a shift its design strategy to compete.
Many thanks to Gavin Bonshor for running the benchmarks, and Andrei Frumusanu for the memory analysis.
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Xyler94 - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Gotta love the "But what about this" with you fanboys.Did AMD beat Intel to the X86-64 Race? Yes
Did AMD beat Intel to the 1Ghz Race? Yes
Did AMD beat Intel to the true dual-core arc? Yes
Does AMD still continue to innovate and bring us better products, despite their peanut funding compared to Intel, while Intel just tries to weasel their way through the market? Of course. Do you honestly believe if TR3 wasn't so amazing, that Intel would have reduced their 18 core part to 1k out of the goodness of their heart? If you think that, you're more of a fanboy than I thought.
It is still known as AMD-64 today, because AMD found the way to do both 32bit and 64bit X86 at the same time, and Intel has to license that tech from AMD. Without AMD, Intel would not be releasing 8 core CPUs today. The reason for their shortages isn't really due to high demand, it's due to varying demand of their products. the 6-8 core silicon is different from their 4 core ones, and they needed to manufacture separate LCC and HCC core i9/Xeons, further hogging their supply chain. And there's also the fact the 9900k is also a legitimately great CPU, so people want it, further hurting the supply chain. Intel did this to themselves due to years of complacency, so I don't feel bad at all.
blppt - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
"Did AMD beat Intel to the X86-64 Race? Yes"They didn't beat Intel to anything---Intel was going with IA64, never going with x64, Then AMD threw a MASSIVE wrench into those plans, lol. Intel was forced to then copy AMD64 with EMT64 when Itanium flopped.
But make no mistake---if AMD didn't create x86-64, Intel wouldn't have either. We'd all be running Itaniums and Itanium clones.
Qasar - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
actually, for the most part, the industry didnt want ia 64, it would me a redo of most, if not all of the software just to use it, before they could even use it, with AMD64, you could keep using existing 32 bit software, and transition of 64 bit, when you can, or wanted to. amd just found a better, and quicker way to 64 bit then when intel was trying to cram down every ones throats."
But make no mistake---if AMD didn't create x86-64, Intel wouldn't have either." and chances are, we could be still using 32 bit cpus, as i said above, most, if not all of the industry didnt want to have to re compile all of the software we used then. and wasnt itanium slower then x86 over all ?
ahh yep.. it was slower : " By the time Itanium was released in June 2001, its performance was not superior to competing RISC and CISC processors. " from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-64
Qasar - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
would me a redo of most = would mean a redo of mostblppt - Monday, December 2, 2019 - link
One of the big reasons Itanium/IA-64 failed was that its "backwards compatibility" (i.e. x86 emulation) was much slower than the native x86 cpus out at the time.So, while they wouldn't need to redo all that x86 software, it wasn't exactly speedy while emulating.
To take full advantage of the IA64 architecture, yes, they would need to rewrite a lot of software, but it would have *run* without a rewrite.
And that's where x86-64 stepped in. 64 bit memory addressing, perfect x86-32 performance at a lower price.
But Intel was never going to create x64 by themselves unless the new EPIC/VLIW IA64 hit some kind of performance brick wall, or people just kept coding to x86 anyways (which Itanium would run, but slowly).
Bear in mind that part of the reason it was slow in 2001, x86 and Power had been extensively optimized compilers for a decade (or more for x86) and IA64 was in its nascent stages. Since it was never adopted by the mass public (include home users, etc), development of IA64 never came close to the level of development and optimization of x86.
Qasar - Tuesday, December 3, 2019 - link
either way you look at it, it seems AMD is doing more to move the cpu farther, then intel does. AMD seems to be the one that innovates, while intel sleeps. i know some who is a fan of intel, will refute this, but think about it... AMD improves the cpu, and moves it forward, while intel stagnates and stifles it..eva02langley - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Desktop and HEDT is not Intel business anymore. Just a matter of time for server and laptop to eat the same bullet.eek2121 - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
I wouldn't say that AMD fans are wrong. Look at AMD's revenue years ago vs today. Do you think the growth came out of thin air? No, AMD is eroding Intel's marketshare. It hasn't begun to show yet, because the last reported earnings did not include Zen 2 eating into things. More and more people are buying AMD, and as long as AMD continues to execute as they have (and even more so: they have to get into bed with OEMs), Intel will gradually begin to suffer. They already HAVE suffered. Drastic price reductions on their highest end parts.eek2121 - Monday, November 25, 2019 - link
Oh and I should add that Intel is in a lot more markets than AMD. In addition, Intel actually does a ton of fab work for other companies. Intel makes networking cards, storage, and much more. So in translation: Revenue is meaningless. Intel does not have endless amounts of cash to throw at creating new CPUs, GPUs (which are coming out in 2021), and chipsets. What matters is marketshare. For Intel, it's shrinking.tygrus - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
AMD have taken market share from Intel but it's not uniform across all markets. Fancy brand names, servers and ultra notebooks are still dominated by Intel and where the end-user isn't making a choice. Enthusiasts using a local store to select parts & assemble are a small market that have swung to AMD.