When AMD launched the Ryzen processors and they seem to beat or match their Intel counter parts in almost every test, proving to us that AMD is back and they are not playing games anymore. The entire Ryzen line of processors seems to take centre stage as Intel fumbles about trying to release newer processors that that hoped would put them back on top but was met with no response from customers as they were still cheering on the Ryzen processors. However, Intel was always a thorn in AMD’s side and because of that AMD decided that enough is enough and released the biggest and fastest consumer grade processor ever made, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper.
The model that we did our review on is the 1950X, the Threadripper that has 16 core and 32 threads and a base clock speed of 3.4GHz with a Turbo clock speed of 4GHz, making it a very good contender when it comes to multi threaded processors and applications. However, you will have to get an equally powerful power supply because this monster has a TDP of 180W and it is also recommended that the power supply used is pure power to ensure there is no voltages issues or dips in performance. With that aside let’s take a look at what we are using to test out this beast.
Processor: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 16-Core, 3.4GHz (4GHz Turbo)
Cooling: Thermaltake Floe Riing 360 TT Premium Edition (provided by AMD)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme (provided by AMD)
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz 8GB x4 (provided by AMD)
SSD: Plextor 240GB
HDD: Seagate SSHD 2TB 7200RPM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Founders Edition
Power Supply: Cooler Master G750M
Chassis: Cooler Master Test Bench v1.0
AMD has also provided the AMD Ryzen Master, a software to further enhanced the Threadripper by assigning profiles to it depending on if you are gaming or doing creative work on it. The Game Mode will disable 8 out of the 16 cores to run games which AMD claims will allow the games to perform better as most games are not able to utilize more than 8 cores. In Creator Mode, all the cores are enabled which will allow for applications to make use of the 32-threads that the Threadripper can offer. As a heads up, benchmarks that are not gaming related will be using the Creator Mode while game benchmarks will be using the Game Mode. We have also included our previous benchmark of the i7 processor, the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 3 to give you a rough understand the difference in performance in hopes that it will help you pick the right processor for you.
3D Mark
As you can see when it comes to our 3D Mark test, the performance of the Threadripper was not as impressive as we initially assumed it would be. The processor seems to come in very close with the Ryzen 7 1700. In its defense, this benchmark is testing the full capabilities of the entire system and not only the processor making it a test of how good the system can perform when it comes to high-intensity gaming applications.
Handbrake 4K to 1080p Encoding
If you thought that the performance of the Ryzen 7 was impressive the Threadripper had the easiest time encoding a 4K video as it completed it just over 2 minutes which is thanks to the use of the cores and threads.
7-Zip
Another application that will use the full power of the processor and of course, the Threadripper just shrugged it off and had a score that made the other processors look away in shame. Never will you have to worry about compressing or decompressing huge files as it is just an everyday job for the Threadripper.
Cinebench R15
I always say that Cinibench can make your processor cry but in the case of the Threadripper, this champion took a few hits but still managed to prove a point that it can handle whatever you plan to throw at it scoring the best out of all the others and will tell you “Is that your best shot?”
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated
When it comes to a test of everyday computing, the Threadripper does not shine very bright as the Ryzen 7 is very close on its tail, but it still manages to push through when it needs to but it is still not as good as the Core i7 processor.
In addition to that, we have also included the PCMark 10 test which is the latest software from PCMark for the sake of comparison and it does perform better here. In the future, we are moving over to PCMark 10 for other component tests.
Thermals
The Threadripper is a huge processor with many cores, so it’s no surprise that its idle temperature is at 36 degrees and on load it’s at 71 degrees which is still much better compared to the Ryzen 3 but do note that it is using liquid cooling to keep the temperatures down, which is something we recommend to all of you that want to get a Threadripper.
Now we move over to the gaming benchmark, which most of you are probably interested to look at. Spoiler alert, it is not as impressive as you think.
Gaming Benchmarks
Don’t get me wrong, but the Threadripper will easily perform on games, as all of the benchmarks here are the test done on these games running at the highest graphics settings possible in 1080p. All the frames we get are well above 60 frames but it still comes in very close with the Ryzen 3 and 7. When it came to Gears of War 4, it blazed past all the others mainly because the game is more CPU demanding rather than graphics, something that the Threadripper does not choke on as seen in the other CPU intensive benchmarks
