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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msroadkill612 - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link
It has long puzzled me, that debate seems premised on unchangeable software, when of course few things are more readily changed.To say little software uses 128 threads is hardly surprising, when it is such a large increase to an unprecedented level.
Even if the extra threads have limited current utility, surely they are nice reserve resources to have as a likely upgrade path.
nt300 - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link
You need to bring the Cores to market to push software developers into utilizing such horse power. Intel won't do that, because they rather overcharge for very little where as AMD has the upper hand and can add as many cores as possible. More Cores is where AMD can compete in, on top of providing a much better micro architecture.msroadkill612 - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
my fault not making my point better - this is but one example of the mindset i refer to. "current benchmarks show x better than y, so buy x", even when y has far better fundamentals and its a very dynamic ecosystem.PCIE 4 gpu is a current maddening example. It is barely mentioned when comparing a multi year life span product (nvidia vs navi on x570) for an ecosystem clearly headed for exceeding current gpu cache levels.
dwade123 - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
64 cores of uselessness is only good for servers. There ain't gonna be time for future software to make use of 128 threads either because tomorrow's software will shift to the GPU for AI and superior performance.msroadkill612 - Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - link
You mean like "nobody needs more than 4 cores"?Never say never.
nt300 - Sunday, February 9, 2020 - link
Once again AMD demonstrates aggressive innovation & technological advancements. Now that a set of ZEN engineers moves over onto the RTG, can't wait to see how well they fair with the RDNA2 enhancements.Redstorm - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
It blows me away as a technologist that you tested this on Windoz, Unlock the potential with a true performance OS like Linux29a - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
It blows me away that you consider yourself an expert but use the term Windoze. I bet you use M$ too.msroadkill612 - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
Intuitively, turning off SMT seems an attractive option for many - for now anyway. For an extra $2k, you turn 64 threads into 64 cores, avoid some software issues & presumably get better utility from expensive memory.Silma - Monday, February 10, 2020 - link
Can we still categorize a processor purchase as "Enthusiast" when it costs $3,990 ?Especially when the only reason to purchase it is 3D rendering?
I don't think so. We need a new category and it's probably "Pro 3D renderer".