Threadripper or i9?

[BootyDustBandit]

so I have noticed something for awhile and never really looked into the specifics of it but, here I am. So, why in the world should I get a 2000 dollar i9 9980XE when the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX is 300 dollars less and has similar or ever so slightly worse single core speed and nearly TWICE the multi core speed. 

Now, the reason I never looked into this before is because I think both are overkill for anything and theres no reason I would ever need one ever since my workstation needs can be handle by something as weak as an A10. On top of this theres the issue of the near 2000 dollar price tag on both of these which doesnt seem worth it when the now 500 dollar 9900k has plenty of cores/threads and pretty good performance all around with little sacrifice to single core or multicore speed so I don't have to choose. But that was about a year ago, now I have enough money to put into something a stupid as a TR 2990WX so why the hell not.

To my knowledge, heres the differences between the two processors

(i made a little chart cause why not)

Spoiler

I am very well aware that there is alot I missed here but thats why i'm here, cause I don't take everything into account or just lack the experience to comment on certain things

 

Here are a few extra things.

Since the threadripper is such a high watt CPU, more money needs to be put into a better PSU.

Oh yes, i forgot PCIE lanes.

2990WX has 60 and 9980XE has 44

both have 4 memory channels (if only the threadripper had 8, AMD y u do dis ;-;)

my reasoning for wanting 8 is pretty self explanatory, it would be much easier/cheaper to reach that 1TB of ram it "supports". (maybe with zen2 this will happen on a possible threadripper 3?)

(actually on that note, has anybody even gotten 1TB of ram into a threadripper system?)

getting off topic. (gross)

okay so which should I get for the best workstation performance? 

which should I get for gaming? 

and what should I get for best all around?

should I wait for zen2 to (probably) disappoint me just as the radeon VII did?

And which do you think is a favorite among the pc enthusiast community? I know that the 9980XE was labeled as a rebrand of the 7980XE so its got some flak simply just because of that and the pants splitte- I mean threadripper is much more popular as far as marketshare goes, even when compared to the 7980XE, but there have to be some other opinions out ther and I would definitely like to hear it.

 

(i'll probably do another post later today/tomorrow to talk about zen2 and what it may have in store for the threadripper and EPYC series of AMD CPUs)

 

 

Sources: (mostly so I don't make myself look like an idiot) (also made it a spoiler since its got 4 youtube videos in it)

Spoiler

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/zXNv6h,Kpw7YJ/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13124/the-amd-threadripper-2990wx-and-2950x-review

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13539/the-intel-core-i9-9980xe-review

https://ark.intel.com/products/189126/Intel-Core-i9-9980XE-Extreme-Edition-Processor-24-75M-Cache-up-to-4-50-GHz-

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-2990wx

 

 

 

 

[Origami Cactus]

Have you looked at how much the 9980xe draws when overclocking?

They both need a beefy PSU when overclocking, so you need to get a quality psu with either one, because as you know, intel tdp is without turbo clocks...

 

I would get a threadripper 2950x (or even the 2920x) right now, and a zen 2 threadripper cpu when they launch. Also get the best motherboard you can.

[BootyDustBandit]

2 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Have you looked at how much the 9980xe draws when overclocking?

They both need a beefy PSU when overclocking, so you need to get a quality psu with either one, because as you know, intel tdp is without turbo clocks...

 

I would get a threadripper 2950x (or even the 2920x) right now, and a zen 2 threadripper cpu when they launch. Also get the best motherboard you can.

yeah but with overclocking the i9 comes such little performance gain that it isn't worth it, I wouldn't be overclocking an i9 anyways if I got it since 9980XE overclocking is not worth the extra 100 dollars I would have to spend on a PSU to make it work.

(also there is an example of my inexperience, forgot about intel's TDP being like that)

[Firewrath9]

I'd get a X399 and something like a Gigabyte Designare EX or something along that price range

(that motherboard looks soooooooooooooooo good, i'm considering buying a i5-7640x on ebay, and the  x299 varient, just to look at the motherboard.

[BootyDustBandit]

8 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

I'd get a X399 and something like a Gigabyte Designare EX or something along that price range

(that motherboard looks soooooooooooooooo good, i'm considering buying a i5-7640x on ebay, and the  x299 varient, just to look at the motherboard.

it is a pretty nice looking board, though I like the Aorus lineup personally.

[mariushm]

Threadripper has a 250w TDP but the statement that you need to spend more money on psu is kind of false. It can run with a 650w PSU if you're not gaming.

Without overclocking, the whole system will peak below 400w in tests like Cinebench.

 

You can see here how it stays below 250w for the cpu alone : https://www.anandtech.com/show/13124/the-amd-threadripper-2990wx-and-2950x-review/12

And you can see on the next page that it gets to 500w when you overclock all cores to 4.0 Ghz : https://www.anandtech.com/show/13124/the-amd-threadripper-2990wx-and-2950x-review/13

 

The 9980xe uses up to 200w at stock frequencies and up to 380-400w when overclocked.So not much of a difference.

 

500w sounds like a lot, but it's around 500w/64= 7.8w per thread, while the Intel has 400w / 36 = 11w per thread ... and you can always overclock less, you'll get less than 500w at let's say 3.8 or 3.9ghz on all cores instead of 4+ ghz.

 

I would go with a 850w power supply, or something higher. But 850w would be enough.

 

Also while in theory Threadripper supports 1 TB of memory, it's only with special expensive memory. With regular DDR4 you're kinda limited to 32 GB per stick, so 8 sticks x 32 = 256 GB

 

[Madgemade]

59 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

I would get a threadripper 2950x (or even the 2920x) right now, and a zen 2 threadripper cpu when they launch.

This is what I would also recommend. Although I would just wait as I already have an acceptable system. We know that AMD is not that behind right now and we know that Zen 2 is coming out this year and that Intel has nothing new to go against it. So AMD will be ahead with Threadripper 3990X which is rumoured to be a 64 core CPU. As Zen 2 is 7nm we should also see better power consumption, although if Radeon VII is anything to go by it won't be a huge change, at least on the high core count chips.

 

8 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Also while in theory Threadripper supports 1 TB of memory, it's only with special expensive memory. With regular DDR4 you're kinda limited to 32 GB per stick, so 8 sticks x 32 = 256 GB

And that high capacity ECC RAM is not designed for high performance in the same way as gaming orientated consumer RAM.

[bimmerman]

If gaming is your primary concern, and you are so fussy that your enjoyment is tied to the FPS meter reading, do not buy either. Buy the "i9" 9900K or a cheaper variant.

 

If you want still-excellent gaming performance, but have a brain and don't care about FPS numbers (so long as the game plays well), buy a Ryzen 2700X or its variants.

 

If you will actually use them for work that pays you money, or are trying to do very specific tasks (eg lots of VMs, video, computation, etc) then consider the real i9 or threadrippers.

 

If you are a student in college who thinks an i9/threadripper makes sense because you do matlab and solidworks twice a week, realize that most folks get by just fine without them in industry. Your beer budget and future loan payment will thank you for 'settling' for something else.

[BootyDustBandit]

19 hours ago, mariushm said:

Also while in theory Threadripper supports 1 TB of memory, it's only with special expensive memory. With regular DDR4 you're kinda limited to 32 GB per stick, so 8 sticks x 32 = 256 GB

there have been 128GB DDR4 modules for awhile, not ECC either just standard DDR4. I think the issue of nobody throwing together enough into a gaming PC to get to 1TB is just that they aren't sold in kits so performance would take a HUGE hit, not to mention the ridiculous price of doing so, it would cost more than the whole rest of the PC.