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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX Review

4.0
Excellent
By John Burek
& Tom Brant
December 12, 2018

The Bottom Line

With a whopping 24 cores, AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX is a killer CPU for digital creators running demanding, cutting-edge applications that wind up all the threads they can get.

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Pros

  • Count 'em: 24 cores, 48 threads.
  • Superb value for software that scales well with more threads.
  • Excellent multi-core, multi-threaded performance.
  • Compatible with existing X399 motherboards.

Cons

  • Relatively low base clock speed.
  • Single-threaded performance occasionally behind other elite-level CPUs.
  • Fewer memory access modes than Threadripper X-series.

In between a Hollywood special effects studio and a PC gamer's lair lies a middle ground of architects, freelance photographers, and many other creative professionals who need PCs that won't rob them of too many billable hours while they wait for their creations to render. Large Hollywood studios have the budget and IT support for a fleet of Intel Xeon-powered workstations, and hardcore gamers might build their own rigs around a gaming powerhouse like the Intel Core i9-9900K. But that middle ground has few options. Luckily, one of them is the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX ($1,299). This elite consumer processor, one of four in the second-generation Threadripper family, offers enough cores, threads, unlocked flexibility, and wallet-friendliness to serve as an excellent brain for digital creators seeking processing muscle for the latest and greatest apps without spending a fortune.

Count 'Em: Two Dozen Cores

With 24 cores and 48 threads, the Threadripper 2970WX is unmistakably intended for multi-threaded workloads like 3D rendering and video encoding. This is not the chip for you if you want to run just everyday office applications, or older programs that can only take advantage of a single core. One of the biggest clues to the Threadripper 2970WX's singular focus on highly threaded workflows is its base clock speed of 3GHz, which is actually lower than the Threadripper 2950X's 3.5GHz. That chip, which is also $400 cheaper, is arguably the gaming sweet spot in the second-generation Threadripper lineup.

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Rounding out that lineup are other two chips. The least expensive of the four is the $649, 12-core Threadripper 2920X, which has the same base clock speed as the Threadripper 2950X but fewer cores and threads. (A review of that model is in the works.) At the top end, there's the 32-core, 64-thread Threadripper 2990WX. PC Labs hasn't reviewed it yet, but the 2990WX's specs make it clear that it's only suited for people who want the absolute most cores and threads that Threadripper can offer, regardless of how much it costs. As a result, it's overkill for most PC-building enthusiasts, both in terms of raw compute power and price.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 6

The Threadripper 2970WX, though, is far more compelling for value-seeking creative pros, both in relation to its Threadripper siblings and similar Intel chips. In fact, there really isn't a similar Intel chip. The closest analogue is the 16-core, 32-thread, $1,699 Core i9-7960X. It's more expensive, and it has fewer cores and threads, as well as a lower base clock speed of 2.8GHz. While Intel's lineup of high-end desktop (HEDT) chips is a bit more extensive than AMD's four current-generation Threadrippers, the prices and features are clearly out of sync. Intel's next step up is the $2,000, 18-core Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition and the spanking-new Core i9-9980XE Extreme Edition. (PC Labs will be serving up a review of the latter soon.) It's a beastly chip, but it's still "short" on cores compared with the top-of-the-line Threadripper 2990WX.

Ultimately, being short in the specs department doesn't matter all that much if the CPU can hold its own when it comes to how it handles the CPU-intensive workloads that you typically perform. Since every creative professional has different workflows and apps, a chip's relative strengths and weaknesses are far more important when you're spending more than $1,000 on one as the core of a production workstation or scientific PC versus the $100 or $200 for the CPU that powers a typical consumer desktop PC.

AMD Threadripper 2

PC Labs' tests indicate that the fewer-core Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition actually outperforms the Threadripper 2970WX in several key ways, including offering slightly higher performance on older apps that aren't optimized for multiple CPU cores and threads. (We'd expect the Core i9-9980XE to ring up similar results.) But if you're investing in cutting-edge software to go with your brand-new Threadripper build, the Threadripper 2970WX will likely serve you well, and it's significantly less expensive. Before we delve into performance benchmark results, it's worth taking a brief side trip into what makes the Threadripper tick to see why it's such a unique chip.

Joining Dies: Threadripper Structure

Part of why the Threadripper 2970WX has an uncommonly high ratio of price to cores and threads is because of the unique architecture it shares with the rest of the Threadripper lineup. Essentially, AMD fused two ordinary Ryzen CPUs together to form the Threadripper platform. The result is a giant CPU—far larger than any in Intel's core lineup. It requires its own chipset, called X399, and there is an expanding ecosystem of motherboards, coolers, and other equipment that support X399.

In fact, we tested the Threadripper 2970WX with the same Asus ROG X399 Zenith Extreme motherboard and Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360 liquid cooler that we used to test all other Threadripper chips we've reviewed. A BIOS update was all the motherboard required to recognize the 2970WX. Luckily, all X399 boards support USB flashback, which means you can update the BIOS from a file installed on a USB stick, instead of having to boot up with a different CPU first.

As for the chip architecture itself, fusing two ordinary Ryzens together means that the Threadripper chips have a total of four dies fused together, each one supporting an equal number of cores. How many cores depends on each chip. The Threadripper 2920X and 2950X have their cores crammed onto two of the four dies, which means in order to take full advantage of the Threadripper's large CPU footprint, you have to step up to the 2970WX or the 2990WX, each of which has all four dies occupied.

Besides cutting down on manufacturing costs, the four-die arrangement results in a unique method for accessing memory. Two of the dies on the Threadripper 2970WX are directly connected to two memory channels and 32 PCI Express (PCIe) lanes for connecting to add-in cards like graphics cards, Wi-Fi radios, and the like. The other two dies are present purely to add computing muscle, and must send their memory and PCIe requests to the other dies first using a mesh interface that AMD refers to as "Infinity Fabric."

AMD Ryzen Threadripper (Chip Back)

The Infinity Fabric is capable of passing memory instructions around the die at an impressive 25GBps (with a 1,600MHz memory clock speed), but it's still not ideal if you're running an app that performs best when each of the cores and threads it's running on has direct memory access. Many games fall into this category, and as a result the 2970WX can thwart some titles at lower screen resolutions, where the CPU performance is most noticeable.

The Threadripper 2920X and 2950X offer a workaround for this problem, since both of their dies have direct memory access. If you switch them to AMD's alternate Gaming Mode using AMD's Ryzen Master tweaking app (the default mode is known as Creator Mode), you can prevent the operating system from issuing instructions that run on one die but use memory connected to another, essentially forcing each instruction to run on a die directly connected to memory.

This is impossible with the 2970WX, since two of its four dies have no memory directly attached to them. So AMD has devised another workaround specific to the 2970WX and 2990WX. A new mode, called Dynamic Local Mode, forces instructions from apps that benefit from local memory access to run on just the parts of the chip directly connected to memory. Like Gaming Mode, it attempts to keep threads and their memory contents together, but it does not change the operating system's ability to see all the dies. The silver lining is that it's much easier to activate, since it doesn't require a reboot the way Gaming Mode with local memory access does. (More on all of this in a bit.)

Threadripper: All the Lanes

Many of the best ancillary features about Threadripper chips can be found on all of them—AMD doesn't limit the most powerful or cutting-edge options to the top-of-the line Threadripper 2990WX. This means support for basic technologies that every cutting-edge CPU should have, such as USB 3.1 Gen 2 and PCI Express NVMe for lightning-quick storage.

It also means future-proof niceties like 64 PCI Express lanes. You will probably never use all 64 lanes, but if you plan to install two graphics cards and two PCI Express SSDs, you'll occupy 40 lanes and have plenty of leftovers for future add-ins. This arrangement would be tighter, or in some cases impossible, on an Intel Core X-Series chip and its current X299 platform. The lane count can vary with these chips, depending on which one you install. For example, the Core i9-7960X supports 44 lanes, whereas the Core i7-7820X supports just 28.

All of the Threadripper chips also come with a potentially major downside for videographers and photographers with Thunderbolt 3-compatible external storage. Since Thunderbolt 3 was until recently an Intel-exclusive technology, Ryzen chips don't support it. This could result in a significant time bottleneck if you need to offload a lot of 4K footage from an external Thunderbolt 3 drive.

Building a Threadripper PC

Installing a Threadripper CPU is a unique process because of its large size, but it's one we've written about extensively with other Threadripper reviews. You'll find a detailed installation guide with images in our Threadripper 1950X review. If you have an older liquid cooler like the Thermaltake one we used, the process is identical. If not, you'll want to pair our guide with the instructions from your cooler manufacturer.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 2

In addition to the Threadripper 2970WX, Asus X399 Zenith Extreme, and Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360, our testbed includes the following components:

PART/MANUFACTURER

MEMORY

G.Skill Flare X DDR-3200 (two 16GB kits)

BOOT DRIVE

Samsung SSD 970 EVO (500GB/M.2)

HARD DRIVE

Seagate 4TB Desktop HDD ST4000DM000

CHASSIS

Mean:IT 5pm

POWER SUPPLY

Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W

VIDEO CARD

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition

Performance Testing

And so, onward to our charts. On the Intel side, in terms of price, Team Blue's 10-core Intel Core i9-7900X ($999) and 16-core Core i9-7960X ($1,699) are going to be this Threadripper's chief last-generation competition. (We haven't had the opportunity to test the 12-core Core i9-9920X, the closest Intel price analogue in its current-gen "Skylake X" line, at $1,200.) Of course, we dropped in the luxe-level Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition ($1,999.99 at Newegg) (Intel's previous-gen flagship 18-core part) and are in the process of testing the Core i9-9980XE Extreme Edition (that chip's ticked-up successor; both are right around $2,000 at this writing) for a look at the top end of the Intel line and, in fact, the entire HEDT market.

Looking back to the previous AMD generation, we're also charting in the Threadripper 1950X (the forebear to the 2950X) and the Threadripper 1920X, AMD's step-down 12-core model. (The Threadripper 2920X, which we are also testing, is the successor to that one.) There is no direct AMD antecedent to the Threadripper 2970WX.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 5

Finally, we're also looping in the two top-end chips in Intel's and AMD's "mainstream" lines. The Core i9-9900K is the current head honcho for Team Blue on its mainstream socket, and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X ($210.00 at Amazon) is the top dog in the new second-generation Ryzen line. The Core i9-9900K is an eight-core/16-thread chip, as is the top-end Ryzen 7 2700X featured here.

On thread-hungry tests and tasks, the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i7-9900K won't stand a chance against the 24-core/48-thread Threadripper 2970WX. The 16-core Core i9-7960X, however, should be in the same league as the Threadripper parts (for the most part) given its pricing, while we expect the 18-core Core i9-7980XE to be the Intel alpha dog here in tasks that gobble up cores and threads.

That said, the Core i9-7980XE (and its successor Core i9-9980XE) both have a suggested price of $1,999, more than twice that of the top Threadripper chip, and the former hasn't budged much from that rarified price spot since its debut in 2017. That's a lot of extra moolah, and for less cores. Let's see if it's worth it.

Cinebench R15

First up in our testing regimen: Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test. Cinebench is a fully threaded test that's one of the best at-a-glance measures of a task making use of all available processor cores and threads. In practice, many applications, even pro applications, can't leverage all threads as well as Cinebench can, but this horsepower trial shows the top potential of the chip, using the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image.

Along with the usual test that makes use of all available cores, we've mapped in the single-core results here, to get a sense of how AMD's new chip fares with single-threaded workloads.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

With a score of 4,203, the Threadripper 2970WX blows away the competition on the all-cores test, as it should: It simply has the most cores by far. All else being equal, this result suggests that any app whose performance scales with the sheer number of cores available to it increases will love this chip. In the real world, however, all else is rarely equal, and many apps that can accomplish core-dependent tasks like 3D rendering also perform other functions that are more reliant on clock speed, memory, GPU performance, and other factors besides the number of CPU cores.

The Threadripper 2970WX's performance on the single-core Cinebench test is nearly the exact opposite. Its score of 168 is near the bottom of its peer group, with only the first-generation Threadripper 1950X recording a lower score, by a whisker (167). Of particular note on the single-core Cinebench test: The Intel chips consistently outperform their AMD competitors. The Core i7-7960X achieved a score of 191, while the high-clocked Core i9-9900X recorded 218.

iTunes 10.6 Conversion Test

For an example of why the single-core Cinebench test matters in the real world, consider our iTunes conversion test. It uses an old version of Apple's music management app (10.6) that isn't optimized for many-core CPUs.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

As with the single-core Cinebench test, the Threadripper 2970WX took longer than the Core i7-7960X. Interestingly, the 2970WX's time of 1 minute and 52 seconds was also slightly longer than the Threadripper 2950X's time, due in part to the latter's higher clock speed, which can improve single-thread performance.

Handbrake 0.9.9

This is a time-consuming test of video-crunching capabilities. Handbrake, a commonly used utility for converting videos from one format to another, benefits from having lots of cores and threads at your disposal. In this test, we use a nice, big hunk of near-4K video to see how the chips perform with a sustained task of this kind, as the CPU has plenty of time during the render to heat up and, potentially, throttle. We tasked the CPUs to convert a 12-minute-and-14-second .MOV file encoded in H.264 (the showcase short film Tears of Steel, at a resolution of 3,840 by 1,714) into a 1080p MPEG-4 video…

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

The Handbrake results should reflect the results of the similar Cinebench all-cores test, and they mostly do: Most of the Threadripper CPUs and the two highest-core-count Intel Core chips finished the task in approximately 4 minutes, compared with more than 5 minutes for the rest of the Intel lineup. A notable anomaly is the 2970WX's time of 5 minutes and 11 seconds.

POV-Ray 3.7

Next up, using the "All CPUs" setting, we ran the POV-Ray benchmark, which challenges all available cores to render a complex photo-realistic image using ray tracing. After that, again to get a sense of how the chips handle single-core performance, we ran the same benchmark using the "One CPU" setting.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

This test also mirrors the Cinebench results, and here the 2970WX is again the fastest on the all-cores test. The Single CPU test, meanwhile, heavily favors the Intel chips, with the Core i9-7960X and Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition finishing in 10 minutes on the mark, versus the 2970WX's time of 11:03.

Blender 2.77a

Blender is an open-source 3D content-creation program that can be used to design and create visual effects, animation, and 3D models for use in video games or 3D printing. We open a standard test file (it's of a flying squirrel) and time how long the test processor takes to finish the render.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

There's just a 2-second difference between the Core i7-7960X and the Threadripper 2970WX on this test. Notably, the 2970WX and the 2950X both took 21 seconds to complete the render, suggesting that the additional cores weren't as big a factor in this Blender trial as in other multithreading-optimized situations.

7-Zip 16.04 Benchmark

Last, we fired up the popular 7-Zip file-compression software and ran its built-in compression and decompression benchmark, which is another useful test of a CPU's multi-core abilities. Operations of this kind are very CPU-intensive, and the 7-Zip program is fully threaded.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

As you'd expect given the previous multi-core benchmark results, the 2970WX performed very well, with a class-leading score of 90,024. The Core i9-7960X's score of 78,689 is not far behind, but the rest of the Intel chips—with the exception of the Core i9-7980XE—were well behind, around the 50,000 mark.

Overclocking the 2970WX

AMD provides a downloadable app, Ryzen Master, for system monitoring and overclocking, as well as toggling between Creator and Game Modes, which we mentioned earlier in brief. You can use Ryzen Master to tweak clocks and voltages from within Windows, versus the usual BIOS-level approach.

We found that the Auto setting of the Precision Boost Overdrive feature (the auto-optimization feature) didn't do much in our case. In our manual trials, though, we bumped the voltage to 1.2V and tweaked upward in 25MHz increments from the base clock to 3,800MHz on all cores. (The software allows for 25MHz up-steps.) We found the best balance at that setting; the system was stable, and Cinebench shot up to a score of 4,624, up from 4,203, an improvement of 10 percent. On our sample, going much beyond either setting locked up the system, or throttled performance.

With the right cooling hardware in place (a 360mm liquid cooler, in our case) and some persistence, you may find the same or similar overhead to exploit here. That said, overly aggressive overclocking is best left to the pros. Overclocking, per AMD and a message right in Ryzen Master, does void your warranty. So if you care about the longevity of your $1,000-plus processor, stay at or stick close to stock speeds—again, unless you're an overclocking vet with a solid cooler.

Gaming Performance: The 1080p Dip 2.0

With the first generation of Threadripper chips, one Achilles' heel (really, more of an Achilles' bunion or hangnail than anything, given its relative import) was the chips' slight suppression of frame rates in some games at relatively "low" resolutions with high-end video cards. The main issue was at 1080p (1,920 by 1,080); gaming at that common resolution with a high-end card like the GeForce GTX 1080 or GeForce GTX 1080 Ti would show some reduced frame rates versus other chip families from AMD and Intel. Our testing, and testing from many outlets, bore this out.

Now, on a philosophical level, if you're spending this much on a CPU and its supporting platform (X399 mainboard, quad-channel memory), and a high-end video card, then we suspect you should probably be pushing more pixels on a higher-resolution monitor. That said, 1080p is a popular gaming resolution, favored by competitive gamers with high-refresh-rate screens. So, like we did with earlier Threadripper chips like the 1950X and 2950X, we ran some anecdotal tests with our same GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition card to see what kind of improvements have been made.

Of note, as mentioned earlier, Threadripper has both a Creator Mode and a Game Mode that you can switch between using the Ryzen Master software. Creator Mode is enabled by default, and it offers the best performance for tackling tasks that like lots of threads. Game Mode disables a number of cores, in concert with a "Legacy Compatibility Mode," the number of cores supressed depending on the chip; in the 2970WX's case, it can go into "1/2" or "1/4" mode, reducing the active core count to 12 or six, respectively. Isolated games or applications will not run properly or at all with all 24 cores active; this feature gives you a workaround.

What's actually happening under the hood is complicated. But AMD says across the 75 or so games it tested with this generation of the chip, Game Mode offered a roughly 5 to 10 percent improvement in some titles, with the effect and variability ranging from game to game. Some games prefer more cores; others benefit more from less latency.

Given the mostly under-10-percent difference between the two modes, though, unless you're a frame-rate stickler, you may want to just leave Creator Mode enabled. The only issue with that approach is that you may run into the occasional game that won't launch without some cores disabled, which will require enabling Game Mode. (That didn't happen among nine recent AAA game titles that we launched, to see what would happen; our sample set all launched flawlessly.)

At 4K (3,840 by 2,160), we saw no significant variance among all of the recent high-end CPUs; all were within 2 or 3 frames per second of one another on the six test games we tried, signaling that the CPUs weren't the bottleneck; the limitations were around the GeForce GTX 1080 video card's ability. So we then shifted all of our testing to 1080p.

1080p Testing

First, we fired up Rise of the Tomb Raider in DirectX 11 mode at the game's Very High detail preset and ran the built-in benchmark. The Threadripper 2970WX turned in an average frame rate of 113 frames per second (fps) in Creator mode. That's within a few frames of what we saw in the past with the various Intel Core X solutions.

We then shifted over to a few games that we had tested using the same GeForce GTX 1080 video card with the Core i7-8700K. Rise of the Tomb Raider, on the game's High detail setting, showed big deltas between the Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX (in Game Mode) and the Core i7-8700K, tested under both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. (In our DX11 trial, we saw 111fps on the Threadripper versus 143fps with the 8700K.) Same with the game Far Cry Primal; 98fps in Game Mode on the Threadripper versus 138fps on the i7-8700K platform. The variance did not apply in every game, however. For example, in Tom Clancy: The Division, we saw 105fps (2970WX) versus 108fps (8700K), a margin-of-error deficit.

The main takeaway is that if you really want the best possible gaming performance specifically at 1080p resolution, above all else, and the core/thread count is a distant second concern, you're in the wrong review. Opt for a chip with fewer cores and higher clocks, like the Core i7-8700K.

But otherwise, this is mostly a non-issue. Both the Threadripper and Core X chips deliver high enough frame rates to satisfy all but the most discerning high-fps game junkie, and the kind of buyers with the money and need for a Threadripper platform ought to have graduated to a 1440p or 4K panel (and matching video card) by now. And at 4K resolution, it doesn't matter; the video card's the issue, not the CPU.

A Quick Check of DLM

That said, we were curious about Dynamic Local Mode. So did a systematic run through seven games, new and older. Testing solely at 1080p, we tried each at the elevated settings preset indicated below, in turn in Game Mode with Dynamic Local Mode active, then with it inactive. Here's what we saw, with all figures in frames per second...

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX (Gaming Tests)

We also mapped in what we saw with the same games, with the same video card, using the Threadripper 2950X in Game and Creator Modes. In sum: Switching Dynamic Local Mode on and off with Game Mode had no discernable effect on frame rates at 1080p. And comparing these numbers with the Game Mode numbers from the 2950X also did not show much variance. Most of the ups and down between the Threadripper 2970WX and 2950X in Game Mode can be attributed to test-to-test variances, clock-rate differences, and driver updates between the times the tests were run.

The 2970WX: Filling a Killer Niche

At first glance, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX appears to follow a familiar pattern that has applied to most of AMD's recent high end chips. It's an excellent platform on which to run cutting-edge software that has a limitless appetite for cores and threads. The drawback is that it's not quite as adept as its Intel competitors at running single-threaded apps, and it may also be a bottleneck in running certain game titles at 1080p resolution. Again, though, we'll reiterate: You shouldn't be looking at a $1,000-plus CPU if you're worried about single-core performance or gaming at relatively "low" 1080p. AMD's and Intel's top-end mainstream-platform chips will serve you just as well for much less.

The obvious takeaway from these performance results is that the 2970WX's sphere of proficiency limits its appeal among gamer-first users. They would be better suited to building a system around a cheaper Threadripper chip, a 2000-series Ryzen 7, or the Intel Core i9-9900K or Core i7-8700K. On the other hand, if you intend to use the 2970WX for the purposes AMD built it, such as CPU-intensive rendering or multimedia tasks that don't require each processing thread to have direct memory access, it's in a class by itself. Nowhere else can you find this many cores or threads for $1,299, which makes it an excellent value.

If you're a proficient tinkerer, you can eke even more value out of your Threadripper build by seeking out a fitting cooler, motherboard, and other components and tweaking the chip to extract the maximum performance from them using the Ryzen Master utility. The possibilities here make the Threadripper 2970WX a go-to chip for tweak-minded creative pros working on their next PC build to maximize multithreaded performance. But even if you don't want to go that extra overclocking mile, at stock settings the 2970WX is a beastly chip for the money that fills a gap in the market between Intel's flagship chips and AMD's second-gen 16-core Threadrippers. And in the process, it creates its own category of late-model CPU: one for value-minded extreme power users.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX
4.0
Pros
  • Count 'em: 24 cores, 48 threads.
  • Superb value for software that scales well with more threads.
  • Excellent multi-core, multi-threaded performance.
  • Compatible with existing X399 motherboards.
View More
Cons
  • Relatively low base clock speed.
  • Single-threaded performance occasionally behind other elite-level CPUs.
  • Fewer memory access modes than Threadripper X-series.
The Bottom Line

With a whopping 24 cores, AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX is a killer CPU for digital creators running demanding, cutting-edge applications that wind up all the threads they can get.

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About John Burek

Executive Editor and PC Labs Director

I have been a technology journalist for almost 30 years and have covered just about every kind of computer gear—from the 386SX to 64-core processors—in my long tenure as an editor, a writer, and an advice columnist. For almost a quarter-century, I worked on the seminal, gigantic Computer Shopper magazine (and later, its digital counterpart), aka the phone book for PC buyers, and the nemesis of every postal delivery person. I was Computer Shopper's editor in chief for its final nine years, after which much of its digital content was folded into PCMag.com. I also served, briefly, as the editor in chief of the well-known hardcore tech site Tom's Hardware.

During that time, I've built and torn down enough desktop PCs to equip a city block's worth of internet cafes. Under race conditions, I've built PCs from bare-board to bootup in under 5 minutes.

In my early career, I worked as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of "Dummies"-style computer guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I'm a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York University's journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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About Tom Brant

Deputy Managing Editor

I’m the deputy managing editor of the hardware team at PCMag.com. Reading this during the day? Then you've caught me testing gear and editing reviews of laptops, desktop PCs, and tons of other personal tech. (Reading this at night? Then I’m probably dreaming about all those cool products.) I’ve covered the consumer tech world as an editor, reporter, and analyst since 2015.

I’ve evaluated the performance, value, and features of hundreds of personal tech devices and services, from laptops to Wi-Fi hotspots and everything in between. I’ve also covered the launches of dozens of groundbreaking technologies, from hyperloop test tracks in the desert to the latest silicon from Apple and Intel.

I've appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news.

Before I joined the tech-journalism ranks, I wrote on topics as diverse as Borneo's rain forests, Middle Eastern airlines, and Big Data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, I also have a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University.

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