Intel Core i9-7980XE
Be careful what you ask for. You might just get it...
SO IT IS WITH Intel’s new Core i9 megachips. For years, we’ve been begging Intel to cut the crap and launch some really exciting CPUs that properly push the boundaries of performance. After all, Intel’s Xeon server chips have offered huge core counts well beyond its desktop lines for years.
Then Intel suddenly revealed plans for chips with up to 18 cores and, somehow, there was skepticism. It seemed like a cynical ploy to undermine the impact of AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processors. That notion was only enhanced by the fact that Intel announced the new manycore models without revealing detailed specifications. Knee jerks all around, in other words.
But we’re far beyond rumored spec sheets now. Today, we have the Core i97980X, the $2,000 daddy of them all, in our dirty paws. And what a monster it is. The 18 cores and 36 threads you already knew about. To those you can add a base clock of 2.6GHz, a Turbo speed of 3.4GHz, and a TurboMax of 4.4GHz. If that 2.6GHz figure looks pretty puny, in practice the actual operating speeds of these new many-core chips are quite complex. They involve a sliding scale that starts with that preferred-core 4.4GHz, and gently tails off to 3.4GHz with all 18 cores heavily loaded, albeit with the proviso that the AVX floating point engines aren’t maxed out. In that scenario, speeds will be lower, though it’s not clear how much.
In between, there’s a number of intermediate frequencies that come into play when several cores are loaded, but not all 18. For instance, with between 5 and 12 cores under load, you can expect a frequency of 3.9GHz. Whatever, from all of this there are two take-homes. First, forget about that modest-looking 2.6GHz. Nearly all the time, this is, at worst, a 3.4GHz chip. Second, when the core counts get this high, even the seemingly simple question of how fast a CPU runs becomes complicated.
Elsewhere, the specs look as beefy as you’d expect. The 7980XE, of course, slots into Intel’s LGA2066 socket, hooks up to four DDR4 memory DIMMs, and supports quad-channel frequencies up to 2,666MHz. You also get 1.375MB of L3 cache memory per core for a grand total of 24.75MB, plus 44 PCI Express lanes directly into the chip. That latter figure is, perhaps, the only area where the 7980XE looks a little lightweight versus its AMD Threadripper nemeses. Those AMD CPUs pack 64 lanes.
What Threadripper can’t do—not even the top 16-core model—is match the 7980XE’s stellar all-around performance. Doubters, prepare to suck it up. This CPU flies. It hammers the AMD competition in single-threaded tests. Intel’s cores are still the best in the business in stand-alone terms. But the contest in multithreaded workloads isn’t such a given, what with AMD’s clever modular approach using two CPU dies to Intel’s monolithic architecture. But, in the end, Intel owns it all.
The 7980XE sails straight past the Ryzen 7 1950X’s 3,012 points in Cinebench to record 3,331 points. Similarly, it’s ahead at 41fps to 38fps in x265 video encoding. In Fry Render, the gap is even bigger, with the Intel chip completing the test in 64 seconds to AMD’s 85.
As for games, the headline benchmark results don’t tell the whole story. Intel’s architecture doesn’t need any complicated game modes, and it doesn’t suffer from stutter in some titles, like AMD. It’s comfortably the better option for gamers. As if all that wasn’t enough, the 7980XE is an overclocking beast. We got it running at 4.4GHz on all 18 cores, at which speed it clocked a crazy 4,284 points in Cinebench, not to mention over 500W power draw at the wall. In short, this is easily the fastest and finest CPU in history. As well it should be for 2,000 bucks.
Intel Core i9-7980XE
MORE CORES Epic all-round performance; much better overclocking headroom than expected.