AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX and 2920X Reviews: Massive Performance But Do They Beat Intel?

We're a few months down the line from Threadripper's first anniversary and AMD can be pretty proud of what it achieved with this unexpected addition to the high-end desktop CPU market. Letting the new 32-core Threadripper 2990WX and 16-core 2950X take the limelight, AMD has finally released their siblings and the final pieces to the second generation Threadripper product stack - the Threadripper 2970WX and 2920X.

The two new CPUs sit alongside their counterparts with the 2970WX offering 24 cores instead of the 32 offered by the 2990WX. However, the rest of the specifications are identical - they both offer 4.2GHz maximum boost and 3GHz base frequencies along with 64MB L3 cache and a 250W TDP.

The 12-core Threadripper 2920X only lacks 100MHz on the boost frequency compared to the 16-core Threadripper 2950X, with the same 3.5GHz base frequency and 32MB/L3 cache, so the biggest differences across the range is still core count.

They compare favorably to Intel's high-end desktop CPUs too. Intel's top-end desktop CPU is the Core i9-7980XE, which costs the best part of $2,000, yet only has 18 cores compared to 24 for the Threadripper 2970WX, which costs $700 less. Meanwhile, the $649 price tag of the Threadripper 2920X sees it shave $350 off the price of Intel's Core i9-7900X, which has two fewer cores. However, Intel might have a small trick up its sleeve in the form of the Core i9-9900K, which outperformed the Core i9-7900X in a few tests in my review and given it costs less than the Threadripper 2920X and has a lower platform cost with cheaper boards and memory, it could offer some competition, at least if you're not looking to make use of the 64 PCI-E lanes offered by AMD's X399 platform or quad-channel memory.

Performance

I used MSI's MEG X399 Creation motherboard to test the new Threadripper CPUs, along with 32GB 3,000MHz Corsair Vengeance RGB memory, a Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD and a Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Edition graphics card. I used Nvidia's 399.24 driver, which fixed a bug that hindered performance on the WX-series Threadripper CPUs, boosting performance by up to 50% as you can read here. AMD has also released a new version of Ryzen Master - it's overclocking software, which introduces a dynamic local memory access mode. I haven't used this for all testing as it proved a bit hit or miss, but I have re-run a few benchmarks using it. I should also add that not all CPUs will appear in all benchmarks as I haven't had time to test them all, plus many mainstream CPUs simply aren't relevant when we're dealing with workstation class workloads.

Content creation and rendering

The Threadripper 2970WX follows in the footsteps of the 2990WX, enjoying a huge lead over the more expensive Core i9-7980XE in POV-Ray, with a decent boost once I'd overclocked it to 4.1GHz too. It was also twice as fast as the Core i9-7900X. The 2920X meanwhile offered some decent gains over its predecessor and was much faster than the Core i9-7900X.

Blender was a similar story, although once overclocked the Intel Core i9-7980XE did match the 2970WX, but that's hardly relevant given the latter is a huge amount cheaper. The 2920X saw some competition from the Core i99-7900X here too, but only when the latter was overclocked.

Cinebench loves cores and threads so unsuprisingly the Threadripper WX-series CPUs come top here and again, the 2970WX is a long way ahead of Intel's 18-core flagship - gaps not really closed by overclocking the Core i9-7980XE either. Interestingly, the Core i9-9900K is snapping at the heels of the 2920X, especially at stock speed.

AMD has certainly improved single-threaded performance compared to first generation Threadripper, but it still lags behind Intel here, with both the Core i9-7900X and Core i9-7980XE offering sizeable advantages.

The highly popular Premier Pro shows some decent returns from the Threadripper 2920X but it's matched by the Intel Core i9-9900K, which isn't a great result for AMD given that CPU is cheaper and also has a much lower platform cost. Once again, the WX-series CPUs aren't competitive here and I should add that AMD's dynamic local access mode didn't help either.

HandBrake also didn't see an improvement from the new dynamic memory access mode, with the 2970WX still underperforming given its core count and Intel seeing scaling all the way up to the Core i9-7980XE which comes top.

Gaming

World of tanks is a GPU-bound game but there are still some differences here with Intel's gaming prowess offering a few extra frames per second.

Interestingly Far Cry 5 seems to prefer higher frequencies as even the Core i9-7900X languishes mid-table here, alongside the Threadripper-2920X. However, the 2970WX was a long way back.

Deus Ex was a similar story to Far Cry 5 with some noticeable variation between the CPUs, but its the WX-series that comes off worst, with the Threadripper 2920X and 2950X seeing some gains from overclocking putting them at the top of the graph.

Power consumption

Power consumption has never been a strong point of Threadripper and you'll certainly need a large all-in-one liquid cooler to deal with the 2970WX, especially if you want to overclock it. I managed 4.1GHz using 1.41V, which saw the power consumption hit 695W under full load. while the 2920X managed 4.1GHz with 1.425V, drawing a maximum 449W.

The impact of dynamic local memory access mode

The WX series has some limitations, namely its reliance on its high-speed interconnect Infinity Fabric when it comes to allowing two of four active dies on each WX-series CPU to access the rest of the system. Only two dies have direct access, for example, to the memory bus and while in some tasks this has little impact, in mainstream applications such as games and some content creation, it can mean you'll see much lower performance if the cores on those dies are utilized. In version 1.5 of Ryzen Master introduced today, AMD adds Dynamic Local Mode, which forces applications to make use of cores that have direct memory access before those that don't.

This is only available with WX-series CPUs, but while I wasn't able to test the 2970WX in all benchmarks in this mode I ran through HandBrake, Adobe Premier Pro, Deus Ex and Far Cry 5 to see what impact it had. To start with, Deus Ex showed a definite improvement as you can see below, with the minimum frame rate rising from 44fps to 50FPS.

Far Cry 5 also benefitted, with the minimum frate rate increasing from 41fps to 46fps with 4fps added to the average frame rate too.

However, it didn't help all benchmarks. HandBrake's medeocre result with the Threadripper 2970WX wasn't improved at all and neither sadly was Adobe Premier Pro. It's a useful feature to have, though, although it does require installing Ryzen Master. Clearly, a more integrated solution could benefit AMD here so it will be interesting to see what it comes up with for third generation CPUs as well as how it impacts other software that I wasn't able to test in time for the launch today.

Conclusion

I could probably cut and paste my 2990WX and 2950X review conclusion here as it would read very similarly. The 12-core Threadripper 2920X offers excellent value compared to Intel's HEDT CPUs, especially the Core i9-7900X, which it beats convincingly in every test that focusses on multi-threaded performance, either in performance terms or value or both. However, there are a few instances of Intel's Core i9-9900K squaring up to the 2920X. For instance in Adobe Premier Pro the two CPUs are evenly matched, meaning if you primarily dabble in video creation and gaming, the 9900K is a far better option as it's cheaper, faster in games and performs similarly in Premier Pro, while it isn't a million miles away in Cinebench either. The Threadripper 2950X is still the CPU to go for if you want the best performance in software such as Premier Pro, being much cheaper than the Core i9-7980XE, but not too far off in terms of performance and in a different league to anything Intel has with 10 cores and below.

The Threadripper 2970WX is a trickier proposition. Even with the boost provided by Ryzen Master's new dynamic local access mode, it's still much slower in games and many mainstream applications. This leaves it in much the same position as the 2990WX, despite additional gains from Nvidia driver gaming bug fixes for the WX-series; it's only worth considering if you'll be using the likes of Cinebench, Blender or POV-Ray. Here it offers incredible value, although you'll see lower frame rates if you also use that system for games.