Amd threadripper 2990wx overclock: Overclocking: 4.0 GHz for 500W

In general, if the company released only this pair, the event would still be interesting for many. But at AMD, it was decided to go further and not be limited to a simple evolutionary improvement of familiar products. In addition to this, they staged a small revolution, announcing immediately the Ryzen Threadripper 29 processors70WX and 2990WX. The first one already includes 24 cores and will be on sale (in October) at a price of around $1299, while the second one is already available — for $1799, but for 32 cores. Note that Intel offers to buy the Core i9-7980XE for $1999, where there are “only” 18 cores, so the gap has increased even more.

Technically, however, there is nothing revolutionary in these processors — they, like Epyc, combine four processor dies. True, the platform has remained the same — and its limitations too. As a result, in the WX line, the cores are also unequal: only half of them have “own” memory, and for the rest, its entire volume is “foreign”. In such a situation, distributing threads across cores and crystals is a task too complex for a typical operating system scheduler to easily handle. Yes, and you still need to be able to find the appropriate load in the desktop system. Actually, that’s why the company still positions only the X-series as solutions for enthusiasts and gamers, and offers WX to content creators and developers. And then not for everyone, perhaps 🙂

You won’t have to worry about cooling the processors of the top family (as mentioned above), but the «very top» has its own nuances: the TDP value for the four-chip Ryzen Threadripper has been increased from 180 to 250 W. Moreover, Epyc also fit into 180 W due to operation at lower frequencies, but this option is undesirable for WX — otherwise, in too many scenarios, these processors would begin to lag significantly behind both their cheaper counterparts and Core i9. Therefore, the WX frequencies correspond to processors for the AM4 and X-series, and the user has to think about what to do with a quarter of a kilowatt of thermal power.

This is far beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of air coolers, but matches the capabilities of the new Wraith Ripper (designed by Cooler Master and priced at $100). However, the company itself notes that the performance of the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX paired with the GSO will be higher (or, if you like, the «air» cooler will «slow down» the processor a little), so we tested this model in two versions: with » water» and with «air».

And the cooler itself is quite interesting, although it won’t fit in any case — which, again, makes the ZSO preferable. But on an open stand it looks impressive, it is beautifully illuminated, it works quietly even at maximum load — in general, there is an alternative to dropsy. Complete or not — let’s check it with tests, at the same time evaluating where which of the new processors will be most useful.

Test stand configuration

Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX
Kernel name	Pinnacle Ridge	Summit Ridge	Pinnacle Ridge	Pinnacle Ridge
Production technology	12 nm	14 nm	12 nm	12 nm
Core frequency, GHz	3.7/4.3	3.4/4.0	3.5/4.4	3.0/4.2
Number of cores/threads	8/16	16/32	16/32	32/64
L1 cache (total), I/D, KB	512/256	1024/512	1024/512	2048/1024
L2 cache, KB	8×512	16×512	16×512	32×512
L3 cache, MiB	16	32	32	64
RAM	2×DDR4-2993	4×DDR4-2666	4×DDR4-2933	4×DDR4-2993
TDP, W	105	180	180	250
Number of PCIe 3. 0 lanes	20	60	60	60
Price *	ask prices	ask prices	$899	$1799

^* For the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X and 2990WX, the recommended price is given at the time of the announcement, since these processors have not yet gone on sale in Russia.

As mentioned above, modifications on «cut down» crystals will be available in the fall, so the main characters of today’s testing will be the «flagships» of the X and WX lines. With them, in general, everything is clear: the X line became an evolutionary development of the first generation based on an updated microarchitecture, and two more crystals were added to the WX line, but “not connected” to the periphery, unlike Epyc, which allowed them to keep compatibility with last year’s platform.

We need Ryzen Threadripper 19 results for comparison50X (formerly the fastest) and the usual «desktop» Ryzen 7 2700X — to understand how (and when) the choice of a more expensive platform is justified. Moreover, compared to last year, such a comparison has become more relevant: the 1800X was originally only half the price of the 1950X, and in the modern pair the difference has become three times cheaper — the 2950X is only slightly cheaper than its predecessor, but the company had to adjust the prices for Ryzen 7 much more significantly over the year .

Processor	Intel Core i7-8700K	Intel Core i9-7900X	Intel Core i9-7960X	Intel Core i9-7980XE
Kernel name	Coffee Lake	Skylake-X	Skylake-X	Skylake-X
Production technology	14 nm	14 nm	14 nm	14 nm
Core frequency, GHz	3.7/4.7	3.3/4.3	2.8/4.2	2.6/4.2
Number of cores/threads	6/12	10/20	16/32	18/36
L1 cache (total), I/D, KB	192/192	320/320	512/512	576/576
L2 cache, KB	6×256	10×1024	16×1024	18×1024
L3 cache, MiB	12	13. 75	22	24.75
RAM	2×DDR4-2666	4×DDR4-2666	4×DDR4-2666	4×DDR4-2666
TDP, W	95	140	165	165
Number of PCIe 3.0 lanes	16	44	44	44
Price	ask prices	ask prices	ask prices	ask prices

The reason for this was the appearance last fall of the Core i7-8700K, which is also useful to us today — as the maximum performance level on the mainstream Intel platform. However, the main products of this company in today’s comparison will be representatives of the HEDT line, and three at once. AMD also compares its new products with two: Core i9The -7900X formally competes with the 2950X (and it will be harder to do this, it should be noted, than with the 1950X), and the i9-7980XE competes with the 2990WX. On the other hand, such a comparison is correct only due to price equality, and even then not quite — Threadripper initially has a small head start with this approach. Therefore, we added the i9-7960X to the list of test subjects, which is slightly cheaper, and in terms of the number of cores, it is exactly equal to 1950X/2950X.

Otherwise, the configurations were roughly the same: the same SSD, video card and 8 GB of memory per channel (i.e. 16 GB for LGA1151/AM4 and twice as much for HEDT platforms). The memory frequency is standard for Intel and Ryzen 7 solutions, but slightly increased for Threadripper. This was also done during the tests of the first generation: we used DDR4-2933 for all AMD processors, although they only supported DDR4-2666 by default. Now DDR4-2933 has become standard, but since we used modules designed for 3200 MHz, we chose this frequency. In principle, this can not be considered overclocking at the present time — as the latest tests of motherboards have shown, the current versions of AGESA allow the memory to «live normally» even at 3. 5+ GHz. True, this is much less sense than it is commonly believed in some circles 🙂

Testing methodology

The technique is described in detail in a separate article. Here we briefly recall that it is based on the following four pillars:

• iXBT.com performance measurement method based on real applications of the 2017 sample

Processor Power Test Methodology

• How to Monitor Power, Temperature, and Processor Load During Testing
• 2017 Game Performance Measurement Methodology

Detailed results for all tests are available as a complete results spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel 97-2003 format). Directly in the articles, we use already processed data. This is especially true for application tests, where everything is normalized relative to the reference system (AMD FX-8350 with 16 GB of memory, GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card and Corsair Force LE 960 GB SSD) and grouped by computer application areas.

True, we refuse to play tests at the moment. Although AMD claims that the X-series processors are good for gamers and enthusiasts, we still tend to think that gamers are best suited … good graphics cards 🙂 However, they are still not so “good” that they lack even the cheapest processors from today’s testing. However, when testing according to the updated methodology, we will consider this issue, since the games have been updated there. And how these games work on the GTX 1070 with processors of different levels — we have long and well known. Actually, today we are primarily interested in comparing processor performance, and we want to compare it with as many other models as possible, so we use last year’s test method: a very large database of results has been accumulated on it. And in the planned final material, of course, it will be impossible to do without the new Ryzen Threadripper.

iXBT Application Benchmark 2017

If the older Core i9s were able to at least match the 1950X in performance, but at a significantly higher price, then the family update returned the confrontation to where it started a year ago (when the i9-7900X was the fastest of the supplied). But the results of the 2990WX in this case are not inspiring — formally, these are tasks «for him», but in fact, such a number of threads of a program for domestic purposes, it seems, cannot «digest» normally; which agrees well with the pair 7960X/7980XE. On the other hand, even in this (not the most convenient) position, the processor still keeps at the level of both Intel’s top solutions and the first generation Ryzen Threadripper. Especially if you don’t feel fear of LSO: even the best «air» cooler specially designed for such solutions limits performance a little. However, AMD warned about this honestly and in advance, so we have no complaints against the company — it’s just impossible to deceive the laws of physics.

That’s where the 32 cores can unfold to their full potential — so it’s here. Moreover, against the background of the fact that 29The 50X is not too far ahead of the 1950X (so the main improvements in it are clearly related to the turbo mode at part load), and a little behind the top Core i9, but lagged behind. But the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX handles the latter jokingly; single left . The result could have been even better if it weren’t for Blender, where performance was only on par with the old 12-core 1920X. What, however, we were ready for — as already mentioned at the beginning, NUMA in some programs may not present such surprises. Especially in the case of such «asymmetric» models, where sometimes it is better to let parts of the cores idle than to load them with work.

For a long time, working with video was considered the domain of multi-core solutions, but modern ones have already become too multi-core. However, it makes sense to buy one of the HEDT processors for solving such problems. But only one — Ryzen Threadripper 2950X, which not only turned out to be the fastest in this group of tests, but also noticeably (that is, so that it can be seen with the naked eye) broke away from mass solutions. And the 2990WX generally copes with its direct competitors — that is, it is no worse than the top Core i9. It’s just (like them) too expensive to be worth considering — especially since the cheaper 2950X is also faster.

The case when the Core i7-8700K is the best. Or (from AMD products) Ryzen 7 2700X. No — of course, they are not the fastest here, but in order to get at least 10% -15% more, you will have to pay at least three times more. So not worth it. Unless, of course, these are the main loads — because if you need to work with both photos and videos, then Ryzen Threadripper 2950X is already interesting: both there and there the fastest; albeit to a slightly different degree.

The task parallelizes perfectly, and is divided into many absolutely independent parts — again the case when the 2990WX can shine with its eggs … cores. Disproportionately to the price, of course, the older models of Intel processors are even worse with this.

And this is the worst scenario for the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX: working with memory is just important, and with all cores. In fact, in such cases, it is desirable to limit their number: having loaded only one crystal with work, we would get results at the level of 2700X — much higher. Two — can be even a little faster. But the «auxiliary» cores only slow things down. And by the way, the loss of 29 is also curious50X to its predecessor — despite the higher memory frequency.

We had high hopes for this group of tests — almost like rendering. To some extent, they were justified, but not in the «general standings» such for 2990WX was badly spoiled by the heterogeneity of the programs included in the group. In particular, he performed very well in LAMMPS and NAMD, but even lost in FFTW … Ryzen 5 1400. But this is understandable: the application not only scales well across cores, but is also strongly «tied» to the performance of the memory system, i.e. e. is a priori «NUMA-unstable». The “dual-crystal” Ryzen Threadripper (most likely Epyc as well) have no problems, since all cores are equipped with “their own” memory, but representatives of the WX line have half of the cores without it, so performance only drops from their use.

And in Matlab 2700X, 2950X and 2990WX, for example, showed almost identical results up to measurement error. From which two conclusions can be drawn. First, there is practically no scalability of the program beyond 16 computation threads (everything is very good up to this limit). Secondly, the second generation Ryzen Threadripper clearly takes into account the shortcomings of the first — 1950X, for example, the test in this program performed a little slower than 1800X. Now, multi-chip assemblies at least try not to lose to their «basic» relatives, even in uncomfortable conditions.

The general alignment is predictable. Above, we saw not so many scenarios in which the 2990WX overtook the 2950X — accordingly, it fell behind in the overall result. True, it overtakes any Core i9 anyway — even with this approach. Moreover, it overtakes even with the use of air cooling — the transition to “water” (as promised) increases performance a little more. But in general, the processors of the WX line can be classified as «desktop» only very, very conditionally — to a lesser extent, even, than X or Core i9for LGA2066. For two reasons. First, not all applications scale to at least 4-8 threads. We, however, practically do not have such, but “breaking” by 32 are definitely there. And here there are only 32 cores — there are 64 threads. Accordingly, it is very difficult to load them with work. And the second reason is NUMA, which is also “not liked” by many desktop programs. Moreover, due to a slightly asymmetric architecture, these processors suffer from this problem the most — some of the cores can «walk» to the periphery only through «foreign» crystals with appropriate delays. And okay, when completely to the periphery — this also applies to memory. So processors have their own specifics and are justified in certain niches. Not because they may “not win” against cheaper models — they may even lose. But if there are tasks for them, and it is possible to ensure their constant flow, this is an excellent solution. Only, rather, for servers, not workstations, so that AMD does not approve 🙂 In fact, this is a slightly cheaper version of the “single-socket” Epyc for a cheaper infrastructure. Peripheral restrictions will not affect everyone, since 128 GB of memory and 60 PCIe lanes cover a huge number of user needs. Higher performance (due to higher clock frequencies) and lower price — on the contrary, everyone will notice. At the same time, it is clear that the goal is not intracompany competition, but increased pressure on systems with two Xeon Silvers. Or self-assembled “number crushers” on the Core X-series, of course — here the new AMD line has no drawbacks at all.

Ryzen Threadripper 2950X, in turn, is just the undisputed leader in the desktop segment. Of course, not at the level of an office or a gaming system there — although it can handle such loads no worse than others, it is redundant for such an application. But when you need high performance for (still) reasonable money, there are practically no competitors.

In any case, this is true if we talk about «pure» performance. But there are other important parameters — to which we turn.

Energy consumption and energy efficiency

Of course, not everything is so good here — but not that horror-horror . It can be seen that the 2950X has not become worse than its predecessor, and it is quite comparable with solutions for LGA2066. In general, nothing has changed here compared to last year, and the absence of bad news is already good news. As for the WX line, this is a new peak — in a bad sense of the word. In absolute terms, there is nothing so terrible (video cards consume even more), but for the market of single-socket systems, such values ​​were not typical before. And this, we note, despite the fact that in most of the scenarios we used, the processors did not work with full efficiency, and we did not even touch on overclocking (which, as usual, is possible). In general, you need to be extremely careful with overclocking: the fact that new processors are fully compatible with any TR4 boards is a plus to some extent… line, and new products will already be designed for the increased appetite of the WX line, but last year’s boards will not necessarily be ready for this. Yes, of course, they had a “margin of safety” in order for some Ryzen Threadripper 1950X could work not only in normal mode, but also during overclocking — only the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX will “gobble up” a large part of this reserve even in normal mode.

By the way, you can see that the «deterioration» of cooling does not really reduce the 2990WX’s appetites — in contrast to the performance, which, it would seem, «drained» noticeably, which we observed in the tests above.

However, this drop in consumption still exists, and in relative terms it turns out to be more significant, so from the point of view of energy efficiency, the AMD air supercooler has a positive, not negative effect 🙂 after all, a solution “tailored” for maximum performance in specific loads. And here is the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X is not bad, it can outperform even desktop solutions for AM4 in efficiency, and it is clear why: Threadripper uses the best crystals, selected ones. What happens when scrap recycling is used, we observed on the example of younger models: Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X with their energy efficiency indicators of 1.27 and 1.05 look good only against the background of “construction equipment” for FM2 + / AM3 + (≈0, 6 points and below), but even 2990WX lose. Yes, and Skylake-X results are not radically better — but these processors are both more expensive and slower (at the same time!).

In general, if you need an energy-efficient solution — a direct road to mass platforms, or even to low-power BGAs. The «hut» HEDT has its own «rattles» that just need to be taken into account.

Total

I would like to thank AMD for the clear division of models into families: after all, WX are very specific solutions that need to be provided with the appropriate load and appropriate cooling. This is also understandable at a price that turned out to be funny: when there was no competition on the market, some buyers were indignant at the sudden increase in the price of Intel “extremals” from $ 999 to $1569 (at the time of the release of the first ten-core Core i7), and as soon as competition appeared, both companies … cheerfully began to offer «desktop» processors for two thousand dollars, and they seem to have nothing to argue with 🙂 Yes, AMD is cheaper — but only on 10%. On the other hand, seriously speaking, previously the level of performance provided by the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX or Core i9-7980XE could only be obtained using multiprocessor systems. And there prices are “terrible”, and problems with load distribution are more serious than on TR4, and power consumption has been measured in hundreds of watts for a very long time. So in this regard, there is a benefit from competition.

As for the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X, it’s enough to overtake any LGA2066 solution in most cases. Therefore, it does not seem so expensive at all — quite the contrary. And in comparison with the immediate predecessor, he fell in price, and not only became faster. And budget-conscious users can wait until the fall and buy 12 AMD cores for the price of eight Intel cores—and only slightly more than AMD’s eight slower cores just a year ago.

All in all, after the upgrade and expansion of the product range, the position of the TR4 platform on the market is almost unique. Yes, it is not for everyone — even the X series, not to mention the WX. Yes, there are certain nuances that have to be taken into account. But at the same time, it has no direct competitors — neither among Intel developments, nor among previous AMD platforms. To be honest, we even find it difficult to say when was the last time something like this was observed on the market. Unless the release of dual-core Athlon 64 X2 for the already existing Socket 939 was somewhat similar. So now the only thing that confuses: will the company be able to surprise customers with something next year? The question is not idle — after such and such 2017 and 2018 🙂

3DNews Technologies and IT market. Overclocking news and system performance measurements… Overclocked Ryzen 9 5950X overtakes Ryzen …

The most interesting in the reviews

11/24/2020 [19:24],

Nikolai Khizhnyak

For most users, the overclocking potential of the processor is not a predetermining factor in the purchase. Continuous operation of the chip at frequencies exceeding those declared by the manufacturer leads to a decrease in its service life. But with each new generation of processors released, many enthusiasts can’t resist testing the chips to their limits. The release of Ryzen 5000 chips was no exception.