AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processors 7970X and 7980X in a short test

Advertisement

AMD revealed the technical specifications of the Threadripper 7000 series and its workstation relatives on October 19th. Tests of the CPUs for high-end desktops (HEDT) can be published on November 20th. Despite some difficulties with DHL delivery, the two thick variants found their way to the c’t test laboratory, i.e. the AMD Threadripper TR 7980X with 64 Zen 4 cores (list price of 4999 US dollars plus taxes) and the 32 cores 7970X for $2499. We can already present some measured values, the full test will follow in an upcoming issue of c’t and soon on ct.de.

You can read all the technical details about the Threadripper processors in our earlier article, here are just the key technical details: The Threadripper 7000 are close relatives of the Epyc 9004 server processors and rely on AMD’s well-known Zen 4 chiplet technology up to 12 cache compute dies (CCDs) and one I/O die (IOD). The HEDT versions have 24, 32 or 64 cores, the workstation versions with 12 to 96 cores. The Threadripper 7000 have four, the workstation versions have eight memory channels for DDR5-5200 and rely on Registered DIMMs. The Threadripper 7000 for the HEDT have up to 48 usable PCIe 5.0 lanes to connect fast peripherals such as SSDs, network or accelerator cards.

For the test, in addition to the processors, AMD also provided us with the Asus mainboard Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI with the sTRX50 socket, the NZXT Kraken 360 water cooler and four RDIMM bars from GSkill with a 6400 EXPO profile. For the Threadripper 7970X and 7980X, we installed a fresh Windows 11 on a Samsung SSD 980 Pro and initially ran both as best we could (more on that later) with factory settings, i.e. without overclocking.

In contrast, Intel’s rarely available Xeon w9-3495X with 56 cores had to assert itself on a comparably equipped Asus Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE. Unfortunately, the Xeon w7-3465X, which is more comparable in price to the Threadripper 7970X, was not available to us for the test.

AMD Threadripper 7000 for high-end desktop model cores/threads price level 3 cache base/turbo clock 7980X 64 / 128 4999 US dollars (plus taxes) 256 MB 2.5 / 5.1 GHz 7970X 32 / 64 2499 US dollars (plus taxes) 128 MB 3.2 / 5.3 GHz 7960X 24 / 48 1499 US dollars (plus taxes) 128 MB 3.2 / 5.3 GHz All: TRX50 platform, socket sTR5; TDP 350 watts, 4 × DDR5-5200 RDIMM (1 DPC), up to 88 usable PCIe lanes (including 48 PCIe gen5). Overclocking for RAM and CPU possible, WX CPUs can also be overclocked on HEDT boards.

Measurements with obstacles

AMD’s Threadripper 7000 is said to reach a peak of up to 5.3 gigahertz under load on a single CPU core. However, our models clocked at up to 5.65 gigahertz despite us deactivating the automatic overclocking functions. According to AMD, this was probably because the single-core limit is permanently increased to the value we measured as soon as an OC function such as the EXPO memory profile is activated. Not even a BIOS reset helped because our kit had already been pre-tested and was already in operation.

We therefore swallowed the 5.65 gigahertz toad for this measurement, which, as I said, only affected single-core tests. The RDIMM memory kit offers DDR5-6400 as an OC option, but the stored JEDEC profile, i.e. the only option without overclocking, is only DDR5-4800 – and we chose that for the first test without overclocking.

When we measured the memory transfer rate, Intel’s offering beats both Threadripper 7000 and achieves 201 instead of around 141 GB/s. On the one hand, this is because all processors use the same DDR5 speed level and, on the other hand, because the Xeon w-3400 have eight memory channels – which AMD only grants to the workstation versions of the new Treadripper. When it comes to latency, AMD’s chiplet conglomerates perform significantly better at 87 to 117 ns – Intel’s Xeon distributes the memory controllers across its four individual chips, while at AMD they are located centrally in the IOD.

Unlike AMD Zen 4 and Intel’s own desktop processors, Intel’s Xeon w3400/2400 processors each have two AVX512 units per CPU core. Therefore, when measuring pure computing power, the Xeon can just about keep up with the stronger of the two Threadrippers, even though it has fewer cores. In the end, Intel has 4372 to 4488 Gflops of double-precision floating point numbers (AMD) in the Ubuntu shell protocol.

Almost 100,000 Cinebench points

In our other benchmarks, AMD’s Threadripper also performs very well compared to the Xeon w9-3495X. Especially in Cinebench 2024, AMD’s 32-core is already around 12 percent ahead of Intel’s Xeon with 3527 to 3140 points because the latter has to significantly reduce its clock speeds when using AVX code. The 64-core Threadripper 7980X is far ahead with 5493 and a 75 percent lead.

In Cinebench R23, the Threadripper 7980X almost reached the 100,000 point mark: 99,016 points were displayed in the results screen at the end. With 64,582 points, the 7970X still achieved six percent more than Intel’s Xeon and the Threadrippers were also just ahead in the single-threading rating, which is traditionally dominated by Intel.

Full employment: The Threadripper 7980X performs well in Cinebench 2024 with all cores.

The fact that this performance is not a measurement error is also confirmed by the results in 7-Zip 23.01, where the large Threadripper is 63 percent faster than Intel’s Xeon and the smaller one is still 10 percent. AMD also flexes its muscles when it comes to 3D rendering with Blender and can clearly pull ahead in the classroom scene with 76 to 112 seconds. In the more complex Lone Monk scene, the 7980X is still 77 seconds faster than the w9 with 461 seconds. 3495X.

Further results, also under Ubuntu, as well as values ​​with overclocked memory will be available in our upcoming test in the magazine and on ct.de.

(csp)

To the home page
#AMDs #Ryzen #Threadripper #processors #7970X #7980X #short #test