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 Prosumer CPUs
The first set of consumers that will be interested in this processor will be those looking to upgrade into the best consumer/prosumer HEDT package available on the market. The $3990 price is a high barrier to entry, but these users and individuals can likely amortize the cost of the processor over its lifetime. To that end, we’ve selected a number of standard HEDT processors that are near in terms of price/core count, as well as putting in the 8-core 5.0 GHz Core i9-9900KS and the 28-core unlocked Xeon W-3175X.
| AMD 3990X Consumer Competition | ||||||
| AnandTech | AMD 3990X |
AMD 3970X |
Intel 3175X |
Intel i9- 10980XE |
AMD 3950X |
Intel 9900KS |
| SEP | $3990 | $1999 | $2999 | $979 | $749 | $513 |
| Cores/T | 64/128 | 32/64 | 28/56 | 18/36 | 16/32 | 8/16 |
| Base Freq | 2900 | 3700 | 3100 | 3000 | 3500 | 5000 |
| Turbo Freq | 4300 | 4500 | 4300 | 4800 | 4700 | 5000 |
| PCIe | 4.0 x64 | 4.0 x64 | 3.0 x48 | 3.0 x48 | 4.0 x24 | 3.0 x16 |
| DDR | 4x 3200 | 4x 3200 | 6x 2666 | 4x 2933 | 2x 3200 | 2x 2666 |
| Max DDR | 512 GB | 512 GB | 512 GB | 256 GB | 128 GB | 128 GB |
| TDP | 280 W | 280 W | 255 W | 165 W | 105 W | 127 W |
The 3990X is beyond anything in price at this level, and even at the highest consumer cost systems, $1000 could be the difference between getting two or three GPUs in a system. There has to be big upsides here moving from the 32 core to the 64 core.
Corona is a classic 'more threads means more performance' benchmark, and while the 3990X doesn't quite get perfect scaling over the 32 core, it is almost there.
The 3990X scores new records in our Blender test, with sizeable speed-ups against the other TR3 hardware.
Photoscan is a variable threaded test, and the AMD CPUs still win here, although 24 core up to 64 core all perform within about a minute of each other in this 20 minute test. Intel's best consumer hardware is a few minutes behind.
y-cruncher is an AVX-512 accelerated test, and so Intel's 28-core with AVX-512 wins here. Interestingly the 128 cores of the 3990X get in the way here, likely the spawn time of so many threads is adding to the overall time.
GIMP is a single threaded test designed around opening the program, and Intel's 5.0 GHz chip is the best here. the 64 core hardware isn't that bad here, although the W10 Enterprise data has the better result.
Without any hand tuned code, between 32 core and 64 core workloads on 3DPM, there's actually a slight deficit on 64 core.
But when we crank in the hand tuned code, the AVX-512 CPUs storm ahead by a considerable margin.
We covered Digicortex on the last page, but it seems that the different thread groups on W10 Pro is holidng the 3990X back a lot. With SMT disabled, we score nearer 3x here.
Luxmark is an AVX2 accelerated program, and having more cores here helps. But we see little gain from 32C to 64C.
As we saw on the last page, POV-Ray preferred having SMT off for the 3990X, otherwise there's no benefit over the 32-core CPU.
AES gets a slight bump over the 32 core, however not as much as the 2x price difference would have you believe.
As we saw on the previous page, W10 Enterprise causes our Handbrake test to go way up, but on W10 Pro then the 3990X loses ground to the 3950X.
And how about a simple game test - we know 64 cores is overkill for games, so here's a CPU bount test. There's not a lot in it between the 3990X and the 3970X, but Intel's high frequency CPUs are the best here.
Verdict
There are a lot of situations where the jump from AMD's 32-core $1999 CPU, the 3970X, up to the 64-core $3990 CPU only gives the smallest tangible gain. That doesn't bode well. The benchmarks that do get the biggest gains however can get near perfect scaling, making the 3990X a fantastic upgrade. However those tests are few and far between. If these were the options, the smart money is on the 3970X, unless you can be absolutely clear that the software you run can benefit from the extra cores.
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dwade123 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Fact is most x399 owners can't afford the new TR. Only ones defending these shady prices are lowly AM4 users who love the brand to death. Therefore, overpriced.Makaveli - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
lol the same X399 owners that were buying $500 motherboards?Can't afford this?
Do you even know what you are talking about?
dwade123 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Another AM4 pleb trying to present X399 users. Most sold TR models were under $1k. TR 3000 series starts at $1500. Try again at shilling.Korguz - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
dwade123 , sounds like you are happy paying intel for its cpus before Zen was released :-) the tables have turned and amd has the better cpus, and all of a sudden, its wrong to charge prices like this ??deksman2 - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
This threadripper isn't necessarily targeted at mainstream consumers but rather small businesses and studios for content creation (such as VFX companies) - just like now, VFX companies went for 32 cores TR (most 'regular consumers' went for maybe 16 core/32 threads if they could afford it).And on that note... just who from the regular consumer market is able to afford $20,000 Xeon to begin with?
The Xeon's are 5x more expensive in comparison.
So, on a cost scale alone, which CPU do you think would be more accessible?
The Xeon's or 3990x?
Also, as the article points out, the software is having problems with scaling beyond 32 cores properly to begin with.
So, most 'regular consumers' who can afford TR will likely go for the 32 core/64 thread version from the Zen 2 family (whereas VFX companies and small businesses would transition to 3990x once the software catches up).
MattZN - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
Shady prices? Buying a system with similar capabilities just 2 years ago would have cost me $40,000.-Matt
Spunjji - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
dwade123 is a Trump supporter; logic has no place in its world view.Korguz - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link
ahh so how about those that were defending intels prices before zen came out ?? going by what you said, those cpus were also overpriced ??? fact is, most couldnt afford the prices intel was charging for its higher end chips... its funny how it seems when intel does something its ok.. but when amd does the same, its wrong....MattZN - Friday, February 7, 2020 - link
I think you are taking a rather expansive license with your use of "most". A better way to think about it is... who actually *needs* a system this big? I would guess that most of the people you are thinking about don't actually need a 3990X system for what they do. Not really.Not to mention that actually utilizing a 64-core/128-thread CPU fully would also require commensurate amounts of ram. For our needs, which are mostly bulk-compiles, 2GB/thread is required which is $1400 worth of memory just by itself (for 256GB worth of EUDIMMs).
$4000 + $1400 + storage... yah, it adds up. At that point nobody is going to be crying over a $500 motherboard.
-Matt
Spunjji - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
Ableist slurs scattered amidst a nonsensical rant?Check.
Strawmanning anyone who disagrees?
Check.
Referring to anyone not buying top-of-the-range gear as a "peasant"?
Check.
Oh boy, it's a troll! Hooray! :|