Previewing Intel's Threadripper 2 Killer??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,235 words · ~11 min read
0:00
So back at Computex, when Intel did that weird demo
0:03
on stage where they had this like,
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this like chilled liquid cooled 28 core
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overclocked processor,
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I don't think anyone could figure out
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what exactly it was they were trying to accomplish.
0:17
Even Intel themselves didn't seem to know what was going on
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because that same CPU, although not cooled by chilled liquid
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was actually on display the next day
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with their board partners like ASUS,
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only to be quickly yanked away
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and then we haven't heard anything about it since then,
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except for a leaked roadmap that seems to suggest
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that Intel is planning what appears to be
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a knee jerk reaction to AMD's 32 core Threadripper 2,
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a 28 core based on as far as we can tell,
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a similar platform to their existing Xeon Platinum.
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Now, I don't know what segment they're gonna target
1:01
with this, a workstation, enthusiast,
1:04
people with more money than brains,
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but whatever it is, I realized something.
1:09
We actually have in our hands,
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both the 32 core Threadripper 2
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and Intel Xeon Platinum 8180,
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which rumor has it will be very similar
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to the upcoming enthusiast chip,
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albeit without overclocking.
1:26
So today we are gonna put them
1:28
head to head as a preview
1:31
of the ultimate heavyweight showdown of CPUs
1:35
we're not sure who is going to buy.
1:37
And the whole thing is brought to you by Videoblocks.
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1:46
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1:57
So while Ivan puts the finishing touch
1:59
on our LGA 3647 bench over there,
2:02
I'm gonna walk you through what are otherwise
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as identical as we can get them to be.
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We can get them test rigs.
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So in here, we've got a Threadripper 32 core.
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We've got a Noctua 120 millimeter tower cooler.
2:15
We've got a Zenith Xtreme motherboard
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with what I believe is 32 gigs of RAM, 32 gigs, right?
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Yeah, it should be.
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And then we've got a GTX 1080, Samsung 840 Pro SSD,
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and an RM850i power supply.
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Now, bear in mind that any results
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that we show you guys for this guy
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have to be taken with a significant grain
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of salt because Intel will have at least, I think,
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a couple of months to tune the consumer version of this
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before you would ever be able to buy one.
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Not that most people would ever be able to buy one.
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Like, this is 10 grand.
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So we don't know how much or how little they're planning
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to slash the price compared to the Pro one,
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but like, it ain't gonna be cheap.
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So this guy right here has got same power supply,
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same cooler, sort of, except it's like a modified version
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that works with LGA 3647.
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Thank you, Noctua, for that.
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Thank you, Noctua, for sending that over.
3:07
We've got them both hooked up to power meters,
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and then it's running an ASUS Z11PA-U12.
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It's got the same GeForce GTX 1080 Founder's Edition,
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and then it is, of course, running a Xeon Platinum 8180.
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Now, the RAM, this is something that could affect our results,
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but we had to use what's compatible with our CPU.
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So this is DDR4-2666 ECC memory,
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the same stuff from our six workstations, one CPU project.
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Hey, it's done.
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Here we go.
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Is this broken?
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This CPU, what, what, what, what, what, what, what?
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Okay, adding another boulder-sized grain of salt
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to this whole experience is that this latest BIOS
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we just flashed no longer supports the 8180 CPU,
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probably, if I had to guess,
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because of its massive 205-watt TDP.
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So we're gonna have to go back in time to another BIOS
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in order to run our comparison.
4:11
And four hours later, we finally have the solution.
4:16
You know what?
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Screw it.
4:17
We're just gonna run our...
4:22
We're just gonna run the light of a thousand suns
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directly into Ivan's eyes.
4:27
Spawning into my soul.
4:28
Sorry about that.
4:29
Anyway, none of the BIOSes we tried worked,
4:32
and we downloaded, like, one of the earliest ones
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that should have been the same as what we had,
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and it was corrupt right off AC system.
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Whatever, it doesn't matter.
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Point is, we're just using our dual-socket board,
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with a single CPU,
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where the only real consideration performance-wise
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is we have to make sure we use a PCI Express slot
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that is connected to that socket.
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So everything's hunky-dory.
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This is effectively the same
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apples-ish to apples-ish comparison,
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and we are ready to go.
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So naturally, I'm sure the first thing you guys
5:01
are gonna wanna see after the task manager porn,
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56 threads on this one, 64 threads on this one,
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is probably gonna be Cinebench, right?
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It's gotta be Cinebench.
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Boom!
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Who will finish first?
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Wow, those are both super fast,
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but one of them looks a little faster.
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One of them looks a fair bit faster.
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Whoa!
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AMD is a good 20% ahead, which makes sense,
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because even though Threadripper 2's performance per clock
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is lower than Intel's Skylake architecture,
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they do have a core advantage,
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so they have four more cores, and watch this.
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We're gonna go ahead, we're gonna run the test again,
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and we're gonna have a look at what our clock speeds are
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while they're going.
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So you can see here, AMD is turboing up higher
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when you're hitting all the cores compared to Intel.
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So round one goes to the Threadripper 2990WX.
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Test number two, the V-Ray benchmark from Chaos Group.
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So we're running the CPU benchmark here.
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Here we go, our AMD processor is pinned,
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our Intel processor is pinned.
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AMD's looking pretty good here too, wow.
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And done.
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Okay, no matter which one of these things you buy,
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you're gonna be like going super fast,
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and three seconds doesn't seem like a lot of difference,
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but three seconds out of 30 is 10% faster for Threadripper 2.
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This is great.
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Tell us more about your gear.
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Are you overclocking?
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Is it liquid cooling or anything else ingenious
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for getting a performance boost?
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Does it show that every time?
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Or is it just when you're like bananas?
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Hey Anthony, you ever seen this in the V-Ray benchmark?
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It did it on both of these.
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I wonder if there's some kind of a threshold.
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Clearly that's a tailored message.
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Yeah.
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No, we're not doing anything ingenious,
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just spending lots of money.
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So for our blender test,
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we're going to be rendering the classroom scene.
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And this one will probably actually take a couple minutes.
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So we'll come back in just a moment here.
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Man, that's a lot of cores.
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It's beautiful.
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You can even just feel the heat coming off these things.
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This does seem like a good opportunity
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to remind you guys though,
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that this is not the actual product.
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This is just the closest thing that we have to it now.
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This is cool though,
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compared to that burn test we were running before,
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it's turboing much higher in real world applications,
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even though the usage is a hundred percent.
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So it looks like they might be detecting
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stress testing applications and throttling down.
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Anyway, so that's interesting to know.
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In terms of power consumption,
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this is one area where Intel's looking a little bit better.
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Our Threadripper 2 machine is pulling 380 watts
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from the wall.
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Remember, this is before we've even touched the GPU,
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and this is with no overclocking on either of them,
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because our Xeon won't overclock,
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whereas we don't know what Intel's planning to do
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with the real chip that's coming.
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And then Intel's pulling about 265 watts.
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It's crazy.
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They both feel like space heaters, you know?
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With the fans, even with these fans running at full speed,
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and these are nice fans.
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Oh boy, this is not looking amazing for Intel right now.
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Threadripper 2 already chewed through
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the first segment of the test, and I think it's done.
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Wow.
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Just under five minutes for Classroom,
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whereas Intel,
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we're at 515,
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and it hasn't even finished the initial render.
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545.
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I don't think I ever thought I would see it again.
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AMD's top of the line versus Intel's top of the line,
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and it just being a blowout.
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So that concludes the productivity segment of our testing,
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and now we're gonna do what neither Intel nor AMD
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is gonna be particularly stoked on.
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We're gonna fire up some games.
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So starting with CSGO.
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Well, if CSGO is anything to go by,
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Intel looks like they're gonna have a bit better of a time
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when it comes to gaming.
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With that said, CSGO is known to heavily favor
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Intel's current chips versus AMD's Zen-based chips.
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Oh boy.
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Average frame rate, 310.21
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versus 297.85.
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That doesn't seem right.
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Because in game-
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This was so much higher.
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Hex?
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I have an alibi.
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Yeah, I don't know what just happened there.
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There's like, there's no way.
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Okay, well take those results with even more salt
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than the rest of this video,
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because there's no way that's right.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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All right.
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Our test is done.
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We can go ahead and quit the game.
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Okay.
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So these are more like the numbers
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we were expecting to see in CSGO.
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That brings us to our-
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Our final game.
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Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
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How to benchmark on the same account
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with two PCs at once.
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You gotta do the Ethernet cable shuffle.
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It goes like this.
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Play game.
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Here we go.
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Now this is closer.
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This is really close.
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With all these character models,
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Intel is actually enjoying a pretty significant advantage.
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Average FPS, 100.
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Average FPS, 87.
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So, a significant advantage.
11:07
But it should be noted that a gaming advantage
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from one of these CPUs to the other
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is not particularly meaningful.
11:18
If you wanted to game,
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you would run out and you would buy a secondhand 7700K
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and overclock the snot out of it.
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Oh right, thermals.
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We're not done yet.
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So we already have a pretty good idea
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of what we're gonna see here,
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simply because the power consumption
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on Intel's platform was so much lower.
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Yeah, so this is consistent with what we saw before
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with Intel's cores coming in about five degrees lower.
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So there you have it, guys.
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I said it before, but it bears repeating.
11:48
Take everything you saw here with a grain of salt
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because we don't know what, if anything,
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Intel will change about the real product
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that they're supposedly coming out with.
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I mean, something like an increase
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to the all-core boost frequencies
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could make a significant difference
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to the results that we got today.
12:05
But what it looks like?
12:07
But what it looks like?
12:08
For now, is that for the first time in over a decade,
12:14
in a pure who's got the biggest wheelie competition,
12:18
because I don't know that we would necessarily
12:20
put a two-thumbs-up recommendation behind either of these,
12:24
depending on pricing,
12:26
AMD might have the bigger wheelie.
12:32
Who'da thunk it?
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