It was recently reported that AMD's Threadripper 3990X might not manage to give full performance on Windows 10 Pro. Based on early reviews done by Anandtech and others, it appeared that Windows 10 Pro was splitting 3990X's 128 threads into two groups of 64 each, impacting the performance (more details here).
As a result, higher editions of Windows 10 like Windows 10 Pro for Workstations and Windows 10 for Enterprise seemed to be the answer along with Linux.
AMD says Threadripper 3990X isn't better on Windows 10 Pro for Workstations or Enterprise
AMD, however, insists that the company does officially recommend Windows 10 Pro or Linux to get the most performance out of AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. The company adds that the "higher editions" do not offer any additional performance benefits.
AMD says that the company is conducting its tests to further confirm, but this remains its official recommendation. Here is the complete statement that a company spokesperson sent to us (emphasis is ours):
We wanted to clarify that AMD officially recommends Windows 10 Professional or Linux for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. Higher editions/versions of Windows 10 confer no additional performance or compatibility benefits to the processor.
We do understand that this suggestion has been made in some articles, and our team is presently testing this further, but this is the official recommendation.
As we had reported during the initial coverage, some had commented that Microsoft's latest update Windows 10 Pro has already resolved this issue since the operating system is technically able to support 128 cores. The Windows 10 Pro build 18362.592 (or later) is officially recommended by AMD for benchmarking Threadripper 3990X. The earlier reviews may have been conducted on build 18362.476 or earlier, resulting in slowdowns.
Again, a higher edition of Windows 10 wouldn't have deterred those who would want to invest in 3990X, but if it was a problem for you, AMD has confirmed it shouldn't be. Just install the latest updates for your operating system and you should be good to go.
