AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X Performance
Here is a quick look at the CPU-Z.
For those who enjoy Windows 11 task manager shots, here is the 128-thread processor there. It is a bit fun to think that you can have a few threads at 25-35%, more in the 10-20% range, and yet still only be at 2% utilization.
Since I know lots of folks like Cinebench, even though we focus on Linux performance, let us get to that.
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X Cinebench
In our original AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X Review, we used the same ASUS Pro WS TRX50 SAGE WIFI motherboard and did an out-of-the-box Cinebench R23 test. As a result, we wanted to at least give this a shot with the new part to see the generational 64-core improvement.
That is roughly an 18% performance boost out of the box. Putting that into core terms, this would be like having a 75-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series part.
Although we still mostly use R23, the Cinebench R24 score was 6291 whereas the 7980X in a similar platform is just under 5500.
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X Linux Performance
In our AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X Review, we had done many workstation reviews almost back-to-back. We used the Lenovo ThinkStation P7 with the Intel Xeon w9-3495X as our baseline.
Updating a bit with the w9-3595X and the new Threadripper 9980X, and you can see the performance deltas:
Overall, we saw a solid 15% to 25% improvement. The AVX-512 had been a strong suit of the Xeon series, but with the Zen 5 update, AMD really closed the performance gap on that front, and the performance is now great.
Next, let us get to the platform side of the system.
Still better… Yeah, if you’ve got the money for it. I suspect almost nobody will have this kind of money, so these probably won’t sell very many units. Just my hunch, though.
AMD’s Zen 5 desktop parts were initially released with MSRPs that led to swift price cuts and bundle deals to prop up weaker than expected sales. AMD’s RDNA 4 consumer GPUs were initially released with MSRPs that led to swift price ‘rebates’ and weaker than expected sales (AMD actually lost market share to nvidia in the consumer GPU space).
AMD’s Epyc and Instinct parts can be priced at levels where hobbyists don’t purchase them new, because they are obviously intended for enterprise use where budgets are much larger.
So which category is AMD trying to put the Threadripper line-up in? I think it would be reasonable for the high core count Threadrippers to be in the ‘can be priced such that they are targeted at enterprise budgets’ category and the low core count Threadrippers to be in the ‘should be priced such that they are targeted at hobbyist budgets’ category. But unfortunately, it seems that even the low core count Threadrippers are way too expensive.
For many tasks memory bandwidth is the bottleneck. Apple targeted three marketing niches with their M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max processors, each having roughly double the bandwidth of the previous. The Ryzen, Ryzen Threadripper and Ryzen Threadripper Pro WX follow the same memory-bandwidth-doubling pattern for x86 desktops.
While number of PCIe lanes and core counts also vary, it would be interesting to see a head-to-head comparison between the Apple and AMD lineups focusing on memory bandwidth and how that affects different types of computing applications.
I want this for my workstation so badly. With the sheer amount of computation I and need processing power this will help push me over the edge to get one at least before the year is out. I’ll drop down to the lower 9970x pro as i need to still buy RAM for this beast.
This will last me for the next 3 years to make my accountant happy :D
This Threadripper 9980X and 9970X article seems very price/performance focused, which is excellent, but a couple of paragraphs mentioning the (for example) EPYC 4585PX, would be better.
That processor is only $700 (with half the performance and a third the cost, with half the power consumption). A savings great enough to pay for the whole system, along with the three R9700s.