The 64 Core Threadripper 3990X CPU Review: In The Midst Of Chaos, AMD Seeks Opportunity
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on February 7, 2020 9:00 AM ESTAMD 3990X Against $20k Enterprise CPUs
For those looking at a server replacement CPU, AMD’s big discussion point here is that in order to get 64 cores on Intel hardware is relatively hard. The best way to get there is with a dual socket system, featuring two of its 28-core dies at a hefty $10k a piece. AMD’s argument is that users can consolidate down to a single socket, but also have better memory support, PCIe 4.0, and no cross-memory domain issues.
| AMD 3990X Enterprise Competition | |||
| AnandTech | AMD 3990X |
AMD 7702P |
Intel 2x8280 |
| SEP | $3990 | $4450 | $20018 |
| Cores/Threads | 64 / 128 | 64 / 128 | 56 / 112 |
| Base Frequency | 2900 | 2000 | 2700 |
| Turbo Frequency | 4300 | 3350 | 4000 |
| PCIe | 4.0 x64 | 4.0 x128 | 3.0 x96 |
| DDR4 Frequency | 4x 3200 | 8x 3200 | 12x 2933 |
| Max DDR4 Capacity | 512 GB | 2 TB | 3 TB |
| TDP | 280 W | 200 W | 410 W |
Unfortunately I was unable to get ahold of our Rome CPUs from Johan in time for this review, however I do have data from several dual Intel Xeon setups that I did a few months ago, including the $20k system.
This time with Corona the competition is hot on the heels of AMD's 64-core CPUs, but even $20k of hardware can't match it.
The non-AVX verson of 3DPM puts the Zen 2 hardware out front, with everything else waiting in the wings.
When we add in the AVX-512 hand tuned code, the situation flips: Intel's 56 cores get almost 2.5x the score of AMD, despite having fewer cores.
Blender doesn't seem to like the additional access latency from the 2P systems.
For AES encoding, as the benchmark takes places from memory, it appears that none of Intel's CPUs can match AMD here.
For the 7-zip combined test, there's little difference between AMD's 32-core and 64-core, but there are sizable jumps above Intel hardware.
Verdict
In our tests here (more in our benchmark database), AMD's 3990X would get the crown over Intel's dual socket offerings. The only thing really keeping me back from giving it is the same reason there was hesitation on the previous page: it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from AMD's own 32-core CPU. Where AMD does win is in that 'money is less of an issue scenario', where using a single socket 64 core CPU can help consolidate systems, save power, and save money. Intel's CPUs have a TDP of 205W each (more if you decide to use the turbo, which we did here), which totals 410W, while AMD maxed out at 280W in our tests. Technically Intel's 2P has access to more PCIe lanes, but AMD's PCIe lanes are PCIe 4.0, not PCIe 3.0, and with the right switch can power many more than Intel (if you're saving 16k, then a switch is peanuts).
We acknowledge that our tests here aren't in any way a comprehensive test of server level workloads, but for the user base that AMD is aiming for, we'd take the 64 core (or even the 32 core) in most circumstances over two Intel 28 core CPUs, and spend the extra money on memory, storage, or a couple of big fat GPUs.
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extide - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
"All the Threadripper 3000 family CPUs support a total of 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU, and another 24 from the chipset (however each of these use four of them to communicate with each other)."I thought they bumped the CPU <--> Chipset connection up to 8 lanes on this platform. Is that a typo or am I confused?
Slash3 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
You are correct.Valantar - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Great review, love the broad perspective and testing across different OSes! An error though: "All the Threadripper 3000 family CPUs support a total of 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU, and another 24 from the chipset (however each of these use four of them to communicate with each other" - this is wrong for TRX40; the CPU and chipset both have 8 PCIe lanes dedicated to communication that do not count in the total. Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15121/the-amd-trx40...dwade123 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Terrible performance scaling from 32 cores to 64 cores. Even prosumers won’t benefit much from that many cores. And the price tag... Ouch. 3000 series will be the worse selling Threadripper easily.RSAUser - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Scaling looks pretty good, take the clock speed difference into account and a little bit extra fo thread spawning and control, and it looks like a good 80%+ scaling for most multi threaded tasks.FunBunny2 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
" games have not included software renderers for ~two decades."clearly, only those with embarrassingly parallel problems will benefit from these sorts of chips. and, by embarrassingly parallel one means intra-application, and not just lots o innterWeb sessions.
FunBunny2 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
oops. not the right quote: "3000 series will be the worse selling Threadripper easily."Kjella - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Obviously this particular processor is a low volume product, but they needed a workstation platform between AM4 and Epyc and since it's a halo product of a server chip it probably didn't cost AMD much to add it to the lineup. The biggest clue is probably that there's no 3980X, they're not fleshing out the lineup just making one extreme processor for bragging rights.But I wouldn't underestimate the number of people who can say "You're paying me >$100k/year to do this, if I'm 5% more efficient with a $4k processor it's worth it". They exist even though they're obviously not a mass market it's not just to showboat. That's on top of the PR value.
FunBunny2 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
"You're paying me >$100k/year to do this,"at some point even the self-absorbed CEO class will realize that lots of those folks are engaged in non-producing overhead tasks. somethings are just not worth the costs saved.
monkeydelmagico - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
I think it's really cool that Ian got to set the price on this chip. Kudos.