when Intel launched the core i9 we got some cpus with legitimately great
performance like the 7900x that we reviewed but then we also got a bunch of
confusion uh we got the unnecessary kb lake x there was that whole thing with
the bootable CPU-based NVMe raid that
Intel still hasn't fully enabled on their desktop for fear of encroaching on
their lucrative xeon market to say it was
sort of disorganized would probably be an understatement
but that was yesterday today is all about a
new threat to xeon from Intel themselves again the core i9
7980xe extreme edition with 18 cores and
acclaimed teraflop of compute power it's
a true halo product a shining beacon of
the technology that will become affordable in the future and you can
have it today but it won't come cheap
and neither do Linus tech tips videos today's video is brought to you by
cyberpower's lineup of gaming desktops featuring Intel's seventh generation
core i7 processors check them out at the link below
so what's a high core count core i9 anyway
think of it this way it's like higher core count anything with more than the
last generation flagship 10 core is a
high core count so the core i9 7980xe
core is actually launching alongside a whole range of hcc chips the 16 core
core i9 7960x along with a 14 core and
12 core and okay real talk Intel
i love you guys but your naming scheme you guys are actually stepping on your
own mobile CPU model numbers
it's confusing anywho in terms of
features there's no real surprises here you've got your turbo boost 3.0 hyper
threading giving you up to 36 threads 44
pci express lanes etc all of these new processors are fully enabled with the
features that we've come to expect from a skylake x core i9 on the x299 platform
so what are we testing then aside from core counts and clock speeds
i'll tell you yes it's really just the core counts and
clock speeds but just doesn't do it just this because
this is more added horsepower than we've seen in one generation since the core
series began think about it last gen the best we had this side of
xeon was 10 cores on the i7 6950x and
the big reveal this year was supposed to be a new 10 core for about half its
price which we did get but this fully fleshed out lineup looks
like more than just a refresh it looks like a fresh more competitive Intel
i guess they didn't want another AMD sees a gap in the lineup and goes for it
scenario like with ryzen 7 which isn't to say though that AMD has nothing
competitive their ryzen threadripper 1950x also rocks almost as many cores at
16 with 32 threads while costing a cool
700 less could the new core i9s really justify
that much of a price gap to find out we grabbed hedt cpus from
team blue and team red and then for good measure a core i9 7900x and the 22 core
xeon e5 2699 v4 from last gen all of
them were specked out with otherwise identical hardware right down to the
cooler we'll begin with our productivity workloads which actually sees a pretty
significant performance difference between the core i9 and even the 22 core
xeon in 7zip and CPU mark while ASUS
real bench shows a predictable curve for the i9s in the image editing test but
finds them for some reason trailing threadripper here despite multiple
reruns to confirm smaller blender scenes like the bmw and
fishy cat see a slighter difference between the 16 and 18 core chips while
the more complex scenes like gooseberry and pavilion barcelona stretch things
out a bit more interestingly threadripper manages to
stay on Intel's heels here it generally outperforms its price competitor the
7900x thanks to its much higher core count but in a twist ending that
surprised no one it's lower per thread performance does hurt it in some cases
now while gaming isn't in any way the focus of this class of CPU or this video
we had to test it and honestly the results were as expected pretty
underwhelming the high core count core i9s pull out some early leads at 1080p
in deus ex but slip and rise of the tomb raider and then everything levels off at
4k for both titles the soul exception
out of our gaming tests then becomes counter-strike go which at both 1080p
and 4k shows a significant lead for team blue
synthetics meanwhile give a slight edge to team blue and 3dmark and unigine's
superposition see similar scores across the board
the most interesting thing about gaming on any of these is how thoroughly
trounced they all get by a core i7 for a fraction of the price in all but the
great equalizer 4k though this too should surprise no one maybe thermals
will be more interesting well actually looks like all of our processors stayed
nice and cool with an h115i but the
higher base clock of the 7960x actually put it closer to threadripper in that
department power consumption is also pretty straightforward more cores more
juice but with that said our threadripper platform in general seems
to pull fewer watts from the wall it should be noted here though that we
didn't test overclocks for this review since our x299 boards vrm well we don't
trust it to handle overclocking one of these for long
and believe it or not we don't purposely try to ruin our equipment around here
some preliminary readings though at 4.4 gigahertz have this CPU alone pulling
about 500 watts off the 12 volt rail so
you're gonna want to pair this beast with a top of the line board like a
rampage extreme and a heavy duty power supply in order to keep the juice
flowing i mean the wires get disquietingly warm at these kinds of
loads or you could just not overclock
so finally then value our weighted performance numbers put the newly
launching core i9 7980xc and 7960x at
the top of the performance heap but when we look at their pricing they do fall
behind due to their massive price tags
with that said price isn't the only consideration at this level it is likely
that these cpus will go into render machines and high-end workstations where
when you're deploying a lot of them at a time performance per watt is also an
important factor and while they still fall behind the difference is
predictably much less dramatic than price was
so what's the point of these products at all then because clearly they make no
sense for the average consumer or gamer that's true
but as long as you don't need ecc RAM support an hcc core i9 workstation is
going to be hands down the fastest you can buy with the capability to overclock
it if you're an enthusiast prosumer for truly xeon crushing raw performance
let's just hope though that you'll be using your new monster to generate
revenue for your business because uh otherwise the dent in your wallet versus
the performance might not be worth it compared to well Intel's own lower end
lineup or AMD's threadripper
speaking of ripping why don't you rip up your existing
contract with your mobile carrier because ting is the mobile carrier
that's focused on customer service and satisfaction first
don't speak to a robot get put through directly to a person if you have an
issue and pay only for what you use with the average ting bill coming in at only
23 bucks a month per device if you're stuck in a contract and you switch to
ting they'll cover 25 of your cancellation fee up to 75 bucks and they
have lowered mobile data rates now as well it's just ten dollars a gig beyond
the first gig so go check them out at Linus.ting.com
and try out their savings calculator to see if you'll save then when you sign up
use our link because you'll get 25 bucks in service credit or towards a new
device so thanks for watching guys thanks again
to ting for sponsoring this video and uh well if you guys didn't like this video
you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like
button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video
description also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this
one as well as our community forum which you should totally join