AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X & 7970X Review: Revived HEDT Brings More Cores of Zen 4
by Gavin Bonshor on November 20, 2023 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- HEDT
- ThreadRipper
- Zen 4
- Threadripper 7000
- TRX50
Threadripper 7000 vs. Threadripper 3000: Generational Improvements
Looking at how the latest AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series processors compare against the previous Threadripper 3000 series, we are essentially testing apples against apples (or older apples). Both sets of Threadripper CPUs share the same core/thread counts, including the 7980X and 3990X, which both have 64C/128T, albeit being Zen 4 vs Zen 2, given AMD didn't launch non-Pro SKUs for the 5000 series. The same can be said with the 7970X and 3970X, which are both 32C/64T chips.
All four of the AMD Ryzen Threadrippers hit a max power in line with their rated TDPs, including 280 W for the 3000 series and 350 W for the 7000 series.
In 3DPM V2.1, it's worth highlighting that AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series doesn't support AVX 512/AV2 workloads. Given that AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series does, it means that performance in comparison is much higher as expected in this benchmark.
In Dwarf Fortress, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series CPUs (7980X and 7970X) run much faster in this benchmark than the 3000 series. In the larger of the three tests, the 7980X is around 39% faster than the 3990X, showing that Zen 4 versus Zen 2 is very beneficial.
In Factorio, both the Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series chips perform similarly here, although are around 30% faster than the 3000 series.
Looking at CineBench R23 single-threaded performance, there are substantial gains going from Zen 2 to Zen 4, as expected. In the CineBench R23 multi-threaded benchmark, we can see that even the Threadripper 7970 (32C/64T) is 10% faster than the 3990X, which is a 64C/128T part. The Ryzen Threadripper 7980X decimates the other three chips with a gain of 71% over the previous generation chip with the same core/thread count.
While our WinRAR 5.90 benchmark is quite sensitive to memory performance, the Threadripper 7970X beats the 7980X, while both are marginally ahead of the Threadripper 3000 series chips.
Overall, as we can see regarding rendering and simulation performance, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 chips are both vastly superior to the 3000 series chips. It does have to be said that Threadripper 7000 is two generations of cores ahead of the 3000 series (Zen 4 vs Zen 2), as AMD didn't launch non-Pro 5000 series SKUs. Users looking to update from the Threadripper 3000 series platform for HEDT will certainly see benefits across the board opting to elect for Ryzen Threadripper 7000.
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tamalero - Tuesday, December 5, 2023 - link
One of the most common issues of AMD is sketchy performance and stability with non samsung chips.If you ram had hynix or similar chips..it would usually not post at the advertised max speed.
As soon I moved to Samsung chips in all my AMD builds, all problems went away.
JRF68 - Tuesday, December 12, 2023 - link
Just unlucky. Should RMA the mb. Asus imho, is still the best for HEDT whether AMD or Intel.clsmithj - Sunday, December 31, 2023 - link
I have a 3960X Threadripper on a MSI TRX40 Creator, and a 2990WX Threadripper on a MSI X399 MEG Creation board.Both system use 4 sticks of Kingston 64GB (16GB x 4) DDR4 3200 dual rank memory (HyperX Predaor/Fury) that worked fine at their C16 3200 MT XMP rate.
I used DRAM Calc app and managed to get the RAM of my 3960X to run stable at gear 1 C16 3800 MT with UCLK=MCLK set 1900Mhz.
The ZEN2 CPU is definitely capable of this high memory OC. I've watch Buildzoid clips of him showing how with ZEN2 TR it can go even higher than 3800.
My ZEN+ 2990WX I have running at Gear 1 C16 DDR4-3466 speed, and I checked ZenTimings that revealed its UCLK=MCLK is at 1733Mhz.
The high memory clocking is doable you do need a good motherboard, but I always observed the TRX40 boards having a fast amount of decent boards with high amount of VRM phases.
It was the X399 boards that only had a total of two good boards, which was either the MSI MEG Creation or the ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme.
thestryker - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
Where have you seen JEDEC compliant 6400 RDIMMs? The highest I've seen is 5600.Rοb - Wednesday, November 29, 2023 - link
Here: https://www.anandtech.com/show/18988/teamgroup-unv... and https://www.anandtech.com/show/21129/micron-introd...demu - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
I was able to run my 3960X with G.Skill Trident Neo 4x16GB 3600CL16 (B-die) at 3600CL14 and/or 3766 CL16 (Asus ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming) for weeks without any problems.Broke down the processor about two months ago. Touched accidentally USB-A -port with an USB-C -cable and the processor no longer booted (or booted and went trough all but the last POST test and then stuck - tried two different MB) :(
Put all components into a new 5800X3D system and got 4x16GB memory to work @3600CL16.
Now considering the new 7960X.
Makaveli - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
So looks like the difference between your system Demu and Teamswitcher is you paired it with high-quality memory.Which is no surprise and it's why I never go cheap on memory.
meacupla - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
It's not about cheap or expensive, it's if you got Samsung B-die or not.I have G.Skill F4-3600C18-16GVK, and it only works at 3200 CL18. Why? because I was told it would be Samsung B-die, but it turned out to be SK Hynix, and the AM4 platform doesn't like working with anything other than Samsung B-die.
Makaveli - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
I have B-die and that is what I'm talking about when I said don't buy cheap memory. B-die = expensive but you get what you pay for and it just works. And you should have done your own research I would have caught the memory was Hynix before purchase.meacupla - Monday, November 20, 2023 - link
That's the thing though, I did do my research.