Threadripper vs i9-7900X

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

There is an interesting comparison between threadripper and the core i9-7900X as steve pointed out on hardware unboxed. In this comparison, threadripper beats the core i9-7900X in multicore benchmarks, but when it came to gaming performance, it didnt so well. In terms of the gaming benchmarks, the core i9-7900X pulled ahead of threadripper, however, in some games, threadripper was able to obtain the lead, but then fell behind. In terms of ram speeds, threadripper had two modes which was distributed mode, which was by defult and local mode. Local mode seemed to have improve threadripper's performance when it came to the gaming benchmarks, but only by a small margin. 

 

Threadripper definitely seems to pull ahead when it came to the multicore benchmarks, but it didnt do so well in the gaming benchmarks. In terms of the clockspeeds between the two, the core i9-7900X definitely has the advantage of obtaining higher clock speeds. On one side note, threadripper can achieve a 4.2GHz turbo clock with XFR enabled. I think that in conclusion, threadripper beats the core i9-7900X in terms of the multicore benchmarks and the core i9-7900X beats threadripper when it came to the gaming benchmarks. 

 

Threadripper would be the better choice for content creators who need quick render times for rendering high quality footage and the core i9 would be better for gaming and maybey some light content creation.

 

 

[genexis_x]

Threadripper is NOT meant for gaming after all, it's for those who need a capable yet affordable HEDT CPU

 

If you want gaming just go for Ryzen 1600 or 1700, maybe Intel 7700K or 7900X

Edited August 12, 2017 by ZM Fong

[porina]

13 minutes ago, TheBeastPC said:

Which processor do you think is better when it comes to multicore performance and gaming performance. 

Prioritise your use case and buy for that. There is no one best solution for everything. TR is good enough for general gaming even if it isn't best. 

[DarkSmith2]

Sad there isnt a product out that really suites the needs of streamers, obviously you want to play games on a very High competitive level as a Streamer it generates viewers.

 

If you want to play competitively and therefore need very high FPS in games (144hz/240hz gaming) and also want to stream in letz say 1080p60fps with slow x264 OBS preset you are pretty much screwed. Because a more or less "custom slow preset" is required to stream in 1080p/60fps on twitch even if you are partnered, you are getting restricted to 9000kbps upload speed where the fidelity of the stream suffers hugely from beeing to far away from the 0,1BPP thumbrule with an f.e. Very Fast preset.

 

Therefore streamers are still forced to use a dedicated Streaming PC or stream in 720p60fps which a 4C/8T CPU is more then capable of with 6000kbps upload. Neither Threadripper nor x299 have or will change this. Both lack behind in gaming performance quite a bit.

[dfg666]

4 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Threadripper is NOT meant for gaming after all

 

 

 

Any CPU is MEANT for gaming. Just how cost effective it is up to that individual/party that will invest in such a product.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I frankly cannot see "good choice for gaming" alongside any X299 or X399 CPU...

I appreciate the effort GN puts into these things, but ultimately all-encompassing tests across the board aren't that meaningful for niche platforms - and that's what HEDT has always been. I mean, yes, in the days of forced 4-core limits in the consumer platform and dual-freaking-cores for desktop PCs, I could see a lot more people on HEDT - except for pricing. But with Ryzen out, Coffee Lake coming, and the "feature explosion"^TM in X299-X399, the HEDT is really something only worth considering for very specialized use. And for that, one or two test in what you actually plan to do is all that matters.

 

3 hours ago, porina said:

Prioritise your use case and buy for that. There is no one best solution for everything. TR is good enough for general gaming even if it isn't best. 

Definitely. If you are going to drop $1K on a CPU, let alone what the matching hardware costs, you better get accurate information on perfomance in what you actually plan to do. Sadly,m this isn't always easy to obtain. I wish someone would set up online test benches you could remotely access and run code. Although I think it's still easy to guess the best value for me, if I want to figure out pure performance comparisons only I'm usually left wondering by the usual benchmarks.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I frankly cannot see "good choice for gaming" alongside any X299 or X399 CPU...

There is that overlap zone though... I went with 7800X as you get 6 cores and can still overclock into high 4.x GHz, for not much incremental cost over a 7700k/Z270 arrangement. It might not be as good as 7700k for pure clock and average fps, but there may or may not be some additional value in the cores when it comes to minimums. I dunno if anyone has done that testing. (that it was something new to play with may also have been a significant factor...)

 

Similarly on the AMD side, the 1900X is listed pretty close to 1800X. That buys you more ram channels and all the PCIe lanes you can throw multiple GPUs at. I wouldn't rule them out entirely, even if they're niche of a niche.

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

(...)

 

I guess I just don't value gaming enough to go with anything except best value builds

Although I suspect Coffe Lake and Ryzen 7 could practically match the low core-count HEDTs for gaming, and easily surpass them in value. I see the advantages of HEDT, but I don't see them making a big difference in gaming, certainly nowhere near the price difference (since those features do matter in other contexts, and the price reflects that).

[done12many2]

2 hours ago, porina said:

There is that overlap zone though... I went with 7800X as you get 6 cores and can still overclock into high 4.x GHz, for not much incremental cost over a 7700k/Z270 arrangement. It might not be as good as 7700k for pure clock and average fps, but there may or may not be some additional value in the cores when it comes to minimums. I dunno if anyone has done that testing. (that it was something new to play with may also have been a significant factor...)

 

Similarly on the AMD side, the 1900X is listed pretty close to 1800X. That buys you more ram channels and all the PCIe lanes you can throw multiple GPUs at. I wouldn't rule them out entirely, even if they're niche of a niche.

 

It's the last 5 to 10% that always cost you the most money in everything that enthusiasts are involved in.  

 

While Skylake-X chips are indeed very expensive when compared to Threadripper parts, they do a much better job of handling the overlap that you speak of.  Higher IPC, combined with higher clockspeeds just makes x299 a better gaming option if you have the money to do so.  If not, no big deal because x399 is still very good too.  

 

Despite all this talk of x299 and x399 not being for gaming, they are damn sure marketed as such and there are plenty of us who want a machine capable of anything.  If I'm willing to spend money on a platform that can do both great, I don't see the ever common need of telling me that x299 or x399 wasn't meant to do that.   

 

As I wait for the Asus ROG Rampage VI Apex and the HCC SKY-X parts to arrive, I continue using my 5960x and 7700k.  The 5960x is running at 4.7 GHz and the 7700k is stock at the moment, but is stable at 5.3 GHz.  With that said, the 7700k remains the better of the two for daily use AND gaming whether it's stock or overclocked.  The 5960x is great in it's own ways, but the strong and faster individual cores of the 7700k make a noticeable difference with general tasks and most gaming.  

 

The 5960x is indeed better when I start throwing a few things into the equation, but that's rare and for 95% of the time the 7700k outshines the 5960x.  This is why I look forward to x299.  While it doesn't quite match the single-threaded performance of the 7700k when both are overclocked to their max, it's still close enough that I'll retain most of the benefits of the 7700k combined with more multi processing power than my 5960x.  

 

Lots of cores are great, but lots of strong fast cores are even better.  It's just the way it is.

[DarkSmith2]

31 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

Despite all this talk of x299 and x399 not being for gaming, they are damn sure marketed as such and there are plenty of us who want a machine capable of anything.  If I'm willing to spend money on a platform that can do both great, I don't see the ever common need of telling me that x299 or x399 wasn't meant to do that.   

Yea but there is a difference in "gaming" and "serious gaming". and for the later they arent capable enough. 60FPS Gaming on the other hand is also fine just with an i3 / r3 whatever or ebay 70$ i5 2500k... And thats where the threadripper gaming performance is... 5year old 4c/4t CPU...

[porina]

1 hour ago, done12many2 said:

Lots of cores are great, but lots of strong fast cores are even better.  It's just the way it is.

I want both Just like the good old days. Anyone old enough to remember the Abit BP6? I don't remember the exact year but Anandtech reviewed it in 1999. That was my first taste of more than one core per system, with a pair of Celerons running around 550 MHz. The last one I remember having was the Asus NCCH-DL. I had a pair of 2.4 GHz Prestonia Xeons in mine, and with a pin mod ran them at 3.2 GHz. They had HT too, so imagine the power for its day, I had 4 threads in 2004! Dual core didn't exist then.

 

I really wish they would bring back enthusiast level dual CPU boards. None of that locked down workstation/server stuff. I know multi-core negates a lot of the reasons for multi-socket, but essentially anything you can do in one socket, you can get double of with two. Simple as that.