AMD Threadripper 3970X Review

erek

erek

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We're comparing the best high-end CPUs of 2019. As we close 2019, we're finally able to start recapping the best high-end CPUs in the HEDT class of parts. This year, HEDT expanded to include a "budget" $750 16-core CPU -- the R9 3950X -- and a similarly affordable 3900X 12-core CPU. Now, with AM4 launches behind us, the Threadripper 3970X and 3960X are coming out to contest the Intel Core i9-10980XE. The 3970X is on bench for review in this video (our 3960X review will follow shortly). Our focus is on finding the best CPUs for video editing and rendering, 3D modeling and animation, Photoshop, and compression and decompression, but with information on overclocking, power, thermals, and gaming along the way. AMD vs. Intel battles are as old as the industry, and with the two companies both launching new HEDT CPUs on the same day, we get to test whose offers the best value for workstation applications. This comparison tests the 3970X vs. 10980XE, 3950X, 3900X, 2990WX, 1950X, and just about every other CPU that's nearby.

 
PeaKr said:
Anand's Take (are they still legit?). Holy Schnikes that's a lot o' cores.
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Yeah, they’re still legit and it seems AMD has taken a fat steamy one all over Intel with their new Threadrippers, and a 64 core version will be out next year. They need to lay this kind of smack down on NVIDIA cuz NVIDIA desperately needs to be Spartan-kicked off their pedestal.
 
Has anyone announced a launch date for these yet? Closest I can find for the trx40 motherboards is now Dec 2nd.
 
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PeaKr said:
Anand's Take (are they still legit?). Holy Schnikes that's a lot o' cores.
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I loved the intro to the conclusion:
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.
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:ROFLMAO:
 
There's something weird going on with Intel/AMD stock. AMD is annihilating Intel and yet they are getting downgraded whilst Intel getting upgraded.
 
thesmokingman said:
There's something weird going on with Intel/AMD stock. AMD is annihilating Intel and yet they are getting downgraded whilst Intel getting upgraded.
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Intel is actually supplying their partners and AMD is 'releasing' new products without stock?

The market is more optimistic on Intel continuing to deliver to their customers than that AMD will?

Benchmark numbers are not unit sales or revenue -- guess which stock prices are derived from ;)
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Intel is actually supplying their partners and AMD is 'releasing' new products without stock?

The market is more optimistic on Intel continuing to deliver to their customers than that AMD will?

Benchmark numbers are not unit sales or revenue -- guess which stock prices are derived from ;)
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you're right, intel has a clear advantage when it come to stock.

they've been selling the same cpu for 4 years.

they better be good at making them.
 
There less difference between TR and Epyc than Intel's desktop (and even rare enthusiast) lines and their datacenter (Xeon) lines.

So, it's not that Intel doesn't make "good stuff", it's just they aren't pulling that stuff down into their desktop line, and in a way, you can't blame them. But, because of what AMD is doing, it might force that issue (time will tell). AMD on the desktop side has made huge swipes at Intel marketshare. I'm not sure what's happening on the server side (the margins Intel really cares about), but if that's getting to 20% marketshare for AMD, that's the biggest loss Intel's ever seen on that side. And the Intel beast can get really really angry (vengeful). But, I'm not seeing that from Intel right now, so maybe it's not to that point yet? Some might say it's because AMD it too far ahead, but those of us that have been around to see what Intel does when AMD claims to be "far ahead" knows what Intel is capable of.

Interesting times (pass the popcorn).
 
thesmokingman said:
There's something weird going on with Intel/AMD stock. AMD is annihilating Intel and yet they are getting downgraded whilst Intel getting upgraded.
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where do you see Market Analysts downgrading AMD's Stock price and Upgrading Intel's Stock price?
 
Master_shake_ said:
you're right, intel has a clear advantage when it come to stock.

they've been selling the same cpu for 4 years.

they better be good at making them.
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They've actually had to apologize for stumbling on 14nm production. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a unit advantage over AMD, who must compete for fab space at TSMC against a number of far larger companies like Apple.
 
erek said:
where do you see Market Analysts downgrading AMD's Stock price and Upgrading Intel's Stock price?
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Its reported all over if you have an investment account, like inside yer etrade/tdw etc. Also note the massive sell off of AMD and massive buys on Intel. It doesn't compute lol.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
They've actually had to apologize for stumbling on 14nm production. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a unit advantage over AMD, who must compete for fab space at TSMC against a number of far larger companies like Apple.
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so they are making the same cpu again is the point you're dancing around.

it's ok to say it.
 
thesmokingman said:
Its reported all over if you have an investment account, like inside yer etrade/tdw etc. Also note the massive sell off of AMD and massive buys on Intel. It doesn't compute lol.
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but AMD stock price is going up

upload_2019-11-25_16-7-10.png
 
thesmokingman said:
Dude, you can't see jack with a stock price. You don't invest huh? It's the sell volume/etc that is of interest. There are massive swaths of red all over AMD today.
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i wonder why, is it because of the forbes article promoting Intel?
 
erek said:
i wonder why, is it because of the forbes article promoting Intel?
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I'm starting to think something hinky is going on. Intel and their chickenshit embargo date on the 10980xe, the massive downgrade of AMD, and Intel's upgrade its like some weird brew going on.

*lol, one of the reasons for Intel's upgrade cited one of Intel execs buying 5mil worth of shares, facepalm.
 
cjcox said:
There less difference between TR and Epyc than Intel's desktop (and even rare enthusiast) lines and their datacenter (Xeon) lines.

So, it's not that Intel doesn't make "good stuff", it's just they aren't pulling that stuff down into their desktop line, and in a way, you can't blame them. But, because of what AMD is doing, it might force that issue (time will tell). AMD on the desktop side has made huge swipes at Intel marketshare. I'm not sure what's happening on the server side (the margins Intel really cares about), but if that's getting to 20% marketshare for AMD, that's the biggest loss Intel's ever seen on that side. And the Intel beast can get really really angry (vengeful). But, I'm not seeing that from Intel right now, so maybe it's not to that point yet? Some might say it's because AMD it too far ahead, but those of us that have been around to see what Intel does when AMD claims to be "far ahead" knows what Intel is capable of.

Interesting times (pass the popcorn).
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This isn't quite true. Intel can't put 28c/56t and higher core count CPU's on the desktop as the clocks those Xeon parts use would be too low for many desktop applications which don't benefit from the additional threads. As it is, processors like the Xeon Platinum 9282 have a TDP of 400w. That's at a base clock of 2.60GHz and boost clocks of only 3.8GHz. If Intel were to raise the clocks to sufficient levels, the damn things would burn up. 14nm is holding Intel back big time. If Intel could bring more cores to the desktop and compete with TR3, it would.

CPU design cycles take years. Due to Intel's manufacturing problems with its 10nm and 7nm process nodes, it's unable to react to AMD right now. That's why you aren't seeing Intel get "vengeful" as you put it. It can't.
 
thesmokingman said:
*lol, one of the reasons for Intel's upgrade cited one of Intel execs buying 5mil worth of shares, facepalm.
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An executive buying in?

Yeah, that should raise investor confidence.

thesmokingman said:
I'm starting to think something hinky is going on. Intel and their chickenshit embargo date on the 10980xe, the massive downgrade of AMD, and Intel's upgrade its like some weird brew going on.
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The 'hinky' is between your ears ;)
 
Bought Amd again at 17 last year- what’s the problem? A little profit taking is all we are seeing. It’s gotten ahead a bit and needs to consolidate as well. Wall Street is still in the “show me the money” phase with Amd.
 
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thesmokingman said:
There's something weird going on with Intel/AMD stock. AMD is annihilating Intel and yet they are getting downgraded whilst Intel getting upgraded.
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Almost always happens. AMD can release a record financial result and the stocks go down usually.
 
Dan_D said:
This isn't quite true. Intel can't put 28c/56t and higher core count CPU's on the desktop as the clocks those Xeon parts use would be too low for many desktop applications which don't benefit from the additional threads. As it is, processors like the Xeon Platinum 9282 have a TDP of 400w. That's at a base clock of 2.60GHz and boost clocks of only 3.8GHz. If Intel were to raise the clocks to sufficient levels, the damn things would burn up. 14nm is holding Intel back big time. If Intel could bring more cores to the desktop and compete with TR3, it would.

CPU design cycles take years. Due to Intel's manufacturing problems with its 10nm and 7nm process nodes, it's unable to react to AMD right now. That's why you aren't seeing Intel get "vengeful" as you put it. It can't.
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Memories of "can't" back in the early 2000's. New high end TR consumes about 460W under some load.
 
cjcox said:
Memories of "can't" back in the early 2000's. New high end TR consumes about 460W under some load.
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Yes, but a theoretical 28c/56 thread Intel HEDT CPU at the types of clocks they need to compete with Threadripper would be way beyond 460w. As it is, the 18c/36t 10980XE test system pulled 617w @ 4.7GHz just running Cinebench R20's multi-thread test. Add another 10c/20t onto that and "can't" becomes the operative word.
 
Dan_D said:
Yes, but a theoretical 28c/56 thread Intel HEDT CPU at the types of clocks they need to compete with Threadripper would be way beyond 460w. As it is, the 18c/36t 10980XE test system pulled 617w @ 4.7GHz just running Cinebench R20's multi-thread test. Add another 10c/20t onto that and "can't" becomes the operative word.
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Maybe you're right. I don't suppose you would want to make a wager on your position... let's say 1 year out?
 
Like the Iris Pro desktop CPUs from Intel years ago. Cool... but what? Did they make like 5 of them in total?
 
cjcox said:
Maybe you're right. I don't suppose you would want to make a wager on your position... let's say 1 year out?
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If they are still stuck at 14nm, it's not going to change. If Intel has 10nm as a viable process and an architecture to go on it that can be scaled up to 28c/56t or more at reasonable clocks, then they'll be back in business. I have no doubt Intel is trying its hardest to do exactly that.
 
Dan_D said:
If they are still stuck at 14nm, it's not going to change. If Intel has 10nm as a viable process and an architecture to go on it that can be scaled up to 28c/56t or more at reasonable clocks, then they'll be back in business. I have no doubt Intel is trying its hardest to do exactly that.
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The only question is how many +es they'll need to get there.
 
You just have to remember how far ahead AMD was with the dual core (up to 8 sockets). Much bigger success then than now btw. Didn't last long. But long enough for datacenters to do full conversions and later regret it (lots of regret). I'd love to see AMD "win" so to speak (can't truly happen though, that's built-in to the "arrangement"). I'm just not going to total "stan" on this. Is Intel completely asleep? We'll see.
 
cjcox said:
You just have to remember how far ahead AMD was with the dual core (up to 8 sockets). Much bigger success then than now btw. Didn't last long. But long enough for datacenters to do full conversions and later regret it (lots of regret). I'd love to see AMD "win" so to speak (can't truly happen though, that's built-in to the "arrangement"). I'm just not going to total "stan" on this. Is Intel completely asleep? We'll see.
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yeah i'd love to see them put intel back in their place but i also think it's bad for the industry as a whole to have another athlon x2 era again or the last 10 years where it was just intel.. we've already seen what that has caused with all the security issues. if for some reason AMD takes 99% of the server market and some one finds one security flaw in AMD's hardware poof we're right back at square one all over again and that's not good. there always needs to be options whether it's consumer or the enterprise market.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
yeah i'd love to see them put intel back in their place but i also think it's bad for the industry as a whole to have another athlon x2 era again or the last 10 years where it was just intel.. we've already seen what that has caused with all the security issues. if for some reason AMD takes 99% of the server market and some one finds one security flaw in AMD's hardware poof we're right back at square one all over again and that's not good. there always needs to be options whether it's consumer or the enterprise market.
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I agree- I think that Intel has gotten bit by their own success here a bit. It's not like the mitigations being applied n software and in successive releases are that hard to implement or, when designed around, even pose a design problem; it's that academia (and professional 'security' researchers) are ever more focused on finding any way to attack infrastructure, that the stuff that Intel's engineers literally didn't see as a problem because it's so difficult to attempt to exploit is now biting them in the ass.

Needless to say, security has evolved quite a bit since Skylake was on the drawing board. And to quote one of my favorite TV binges, "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again".

The biggest issue is that security circumvention is no longer the primary domain of script kiddies, professional hackers (of all allegiances), and superpowers- it's now the every-day fencing match between individuals, small businesses, enterprises, and nation states of all sizes.

And it affects all classes of hardware, from your smart speakers to stealth spy planes, and all types of software from blogging frameworks to operating system kernels.

Here, in addition to AMDs world-class luck of having a decent architecture and a process to produce it on while Intel is on year five of flubbing their process progression, AMD also happened to be designing their CPU with newer workloads like AI, newer computing paradigms like prolific cloud computing, and more advanced threats from all angles to shape their design decisions.
 
Meeho said:
The only question is how many +es they'll need to get there.
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It's only a matter of time now. Intel has to be careful as rushing an architecture to market at 10nm just to get back on track could be problematic if it ends up flawed. Intel's had some pretty epic flaws in its chips over the years without rushing to market or without even having any competition to speak of. At the time of the Pentium FDIV bug, Cyrix and AMD weren't credible threats to the Pentium.
 
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