AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX Unboxing

[snowhiker]

Short AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX Unboxing post with pics courtesy of Hard|OCP.

Youtube video here.

This bad boy is a 32 core, 64 thread CPU w/80 MB of cache memory. 3.0 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost clocks.

The 2950X is 16c/32t w/40 MB cache. 3.5 GHz base, 4.4 GHz boost clock.

 

[Handruin]

I'd love to build a rig with this but can't really justify it for any real purpose.

 

[jtr1962]

I'd love to build a rig with this but can't really justify it for any real purpose.

I'm glad AMD one-upped Intel here but I totally agree. I can't envision any scenario where most home users would need even a fraction of the computing power this chip offers. Even for most power users this chip is gross overkill. It's evidently for things like a powerful workstation or a server. For home use 4 cores is sufficient for most people. Now if AMD offers an APU in this package, that would be good news. You can probably have 8 cores, a very powerful GPU, and maybe 4GB of HBM all in one package.

Other than for bragging rights, for most people this chip seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Of course, that might not be so as VR becomes mainstream. Once computing power is available developers eventually take advantage of it.

 

[Handruin]

Most VR constraints I've read about are related to GPUs, not CPUs to keep frame rates high enough to have a fluid experience without inducing motion sickness. Even as we get closer to real-time ray tracing for graphics that's typically offloaded to GPUs. The most I'd be able to take advantage of 32 cores would be for rendering movie files into H.264/H.265 but even then, I can't imagine I'd be using all 32 cores to 100%.

I am glad they're building this CPU though. I like that it exists and it's possible to get one even if it's not fiscally practical.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm glad it exists also. Generally, products like this foreshadow what may be mainstream a few years down the road. Remember there was a time when many thought 4 cores were overkill and would never be needed. Eventually software caught up. It'll probably be much the same here. However, I still think using the same package for a super APU along the lines I described would make more immediate sense. I can see a big market for that right now in that such a chip might let even hard-core gamers ditch graphics cards.

 

[Handruin]

I still don't think software has caught up with multiple cores. There have been some improvements but there isn't any kind of leap happening here that I've seen. We've seen people move to a more containerized environment but that's typically in a server and enterprise environments. Certain applications for model rendering and media processing have improved but outside of that I haven't seen great improvements.

I don't agree entirely with packaging a high powered APU in with a CPU like this. It's rare for me (and others) to upgrade a CPU in a given system that has been built...however people will upgrade a GPU over time (I've done it multiple times over the years). If I get a GPU packaged in with my CPU, I'm paying a premium for it and it'll eventually become useless when I decide to upgrade that down the road. This Threadripper chip is already a 250W TDP and I wouldn't want to add more heat to that. The market of people who want to push these CPUs with overclocking may not even want the GPU in there adding to the heat they have to manage.

Where I can see the packaged APU is in laptops and that is already happening with Intel and AMD and in some higher-end enterprise workstations. Most people are very unlikely to upgrade those components in a given laptop so I'd be fine with having them packaged together. I don't see hard core gamers ditching graphics cards for some time. I'm not a hard core gamer and I still want to replace graphics cards over time.

 

[LunarMist]

I'd rather have fewer cores and higher frequency. 250W is nuts.

 

[sechs]

I'd rather have fewer cores and higher frequency. 250W is nuts.

They're making a 16-core and 12-core just for you.

 

[LunarMist]

They're making a 16-core and 12-core just for you.

I'm not buying any CPUs until all the security nonsense with the meltings and spectres patches is resolved.

 

[Chewy509]

I'm not buying any CPUs until all the security nonsense with the meltings and spectres patches is resolved.

IIRC, you'll be waiting 2-3 years for Meltdown to be solved on Intel (since there is a 3-4yr development cycle), and for Spectre, well who knows when there will be CPU mitigations in place as new Spectre like attacks are cropping up on a regular basis?

 

[Newtun]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...you-guessed-it-a-speculative-execution-attack