AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X

The new king of high-end desktop.

Ah, Threadripper, where do we begin? That mad assortment of core complexes, intricately stitched together, was enough to revolutionize the high-end desktop segment last year, rattling Intel to its very bones. AMD truly was onto a winner with its Infinity Fabric, and it provided much-needed proof that multi-die packages are certainly the way forward.

So here we are with second-gen Threadripper 2. 12nm transistors, architectural adjustments, memory optimizations, and — more importantly — a bigger product stack. The big question: Is it worth the upgrade? Let’s get to that.

First up, there’s the platform. Given the nature of how Threadripper operates, being essentially a run-off, cut-down, consumer-grade variant of AMD’s EPYC server chips, the majority of the I/O lies directly on the processor. There are 64 PCIe lanes tied to the processor, meaning that apart from managing networking, USB and audio, the chipset has very little to do. Because of that, we’re still on the X399 platform; the only thing current owners need do is update the BIOS. For new owners, if the motherboard box doesn’t have a “Threadripper II ready” sticker on it, you’ll have to flash the BIOS by hand. Fortunately, we’ve been told that most of the X399 boards will operate and flash the BIOS without having a processor installed at all. Simply download the BIOS file on to a USB stick, plug it into the BIOS update slot, follow the manual’s instructions, and bang, you’re good to go.

The second thing you’ll notice is the new product stack. Threadripper has now been split into two categories: the X series, aimed at enthusiasts, gamers, streamers, and amateur content creators; and the WX series, aimed at more premium content creators, CAD CAM developers, and those who will benefit from more cores. What you’re left with is essentially four brand new products: the 12-core 2920X (RRP TBC), the 16-core 2950X at $1,369 (reviewed here), the 24-core 2970WX (RRP TBC) and the juggernaut that is the 32-core 2990WX at $2,699.

The difference between X and WX is mostly down to the number of dies incorporated into the chip, and how they access memory. In the X’s case, there are two dies with access to two memory channels each. In the WX’s case, there are four dies in total, but only two can access the memory directly; the other core complexes have to send their memory requests through the original two dies, which increases latency. Additionally, with four dies per chip, the Infinity Fabric only has a maximum bandwidth of 25GB/s.

But back to the original question: Is Threadripper+ worth it? Unfortunately, it’s in one of those “it depends” brackets. We’ll let the benchmarks do the talking here, as there’s a lot to cover. If you need more cores, the 2990WX and 2970WX are the place to be. For those already on the 16-core parts, however, there’s very little reason to plump up for the newer chip, as performance is well within a 5–10% margin, memory latency has improved, power draw is comparable, and in-game performance slightly more consistent, but apart from that, the impressive nature of this processor is the same. What has changed, however, is the price. At $1,369 for a 16-core chip on a now more mature platform, that’s darn tempting.