Even with the teething issues on TR, it's so worth it

Jesus... 2k for 2 more cores and 4 more threads ? Then basically 10% more performance ? >.> Intel dafuq man. To think people are gonna buy them just becasue

4.1GHz? Come on! That chip can definitely handle a 4.8GHz overclock.  Intel should have soldered these CPUs.

BTW, the stock Cinebench scores are just bad. @done12many2 Managed to get 3200 ish points with a 7920X at 4.8GHz.

@PCGuy_5960 Yeah, the chip probably can handle that OC, it's the motherboard that I'd be concerned about when overclocking that high And the power supply

Though I remember you mentioned that they used an ASRock board in their previous X299 benchmarks that you said was bad, this time it's the Aorus Gaming 9 so it should be fine, right?

The fact that you need to spend a lot more money to actually see any relevant performance gains (overclocking past 4,6-4,7GHz) makes this purchase a lot less compelling and viable, the 16C i9 is a better buy IMO because as we've seen, even some professional workloads don't scale beyond 32T and we can see the 16C part actually preforming better in some cases due to higher clock speeds.

In reality though... For 2k USD compared to a 16C 1950X for 1k USD is just a ridiculous price/performance gap and even the raw performance gap doesn't make the 18C 7980XE a viable option. A pretty useless product if you asked me

This obviously doesn't work that way, but you can have 32 Threadripper cores for the price of 18 X299 cores...

If you can cool it (properly), this chip is a beast, KitGuru managed to get 4400+cb at 4.6GHz:

TR is definitely better value, but if you want the best of the best, you have to pay for it

The problem is, you don't only have to pay a completely ridiculous amount of money for the 7980XE, you also need to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a motherboard, cooling setup, power supply and electricity - is it all worth the slight performance bump (and a decrease in some cases)?

As I said, if you want the best of the best, you have to pay for it. The 7980XE is the best of the best  

People who want the best of the best don't care about price/performance.

If you care about price/performance, get a 1950X or a 7920X/7940X. The 7980XE is terrible value and everyone knows that.

It's far from the best It's the fastest once you met (and paid for) all of the requirements necessary, but it's not the best and it sure as hell is not a good product considering all of its drawbacks & price...

But I agree, it is the fastest CPU you can buy

That's what I meant, best of the best in terms of performance 

Have you seen the 6.1GHz OC screenshots? I wonder if they ran Cinebench there, I'm so curious about SC and MC scores and whether it breaks 4,5K!

4.5K? You can probably do that with a delid and a custom loop.

At 6.1GHz it should be able to get 5870 points, but I doubt that it was stable enough to run Cinebench. 

I am really curious though, did the motherboard survive? lol

I just checked, the AORUS Gaming 9 board used in HW Unboxed costs 500$... The only one more expensive on pcpartpicker costs 650$ and it's the ASUS Rampage VI Extreme, I wonder if there are going to be even more "hardcore" boards released for overclocking HCC i9 chips

They did run Cinebench (at 5.7GHz). They got 5635cb