Intel’s 18 CORE EXTREME EDITION!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,513 words · ~7 min read
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when Intel launched the core i9 we got some cpus with legitimately great
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performance like the 7900x that we reviewed but then we also got a bunch of
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confusion uh we got the unnecessary kb lake x there was that whole thing with
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the bootable CPU-based NVMe raid that
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Intel still hasn't fully enabled on their desktop for fear of encroaching on
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their lucrative xeon market to say it was
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sort of disorganized would probably be an understatement
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but that was yesterday today is all about a
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new threat to xeon from Intel themselves again the core i9
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7980xe extreme edition with 18 cores and
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acclaimed teraflop of compute power it's
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a true halo product a shining beacon of
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the technology that will become affordable in the future and you can
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have it today but it won't come cheap
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and neither do Linus tech tips videos today's video is brought to you by
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cyberpower's lineup of gaming desktops featuring Intel's seventh generation
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core i7 processors check them out at the link below
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so what's a high core count core i9 anyway
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think of it this way it's like higher core count anything with more than the
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last generation flagship 10 core is a
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high core count so the core i9 7980xe
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core is actually launching alongside a whole range of hcc chips the 16 core
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core i9 7960x along with a 14 core and
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12 core and okay real talk Intel
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i love you guys but your naming scheme you guys are actually stepping on your
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own mobile CPU model numbers
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it's confusing anywho in terms of
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features there's no real surprises here you've got your turbo boost 3.0 hyper
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threading giving you up to 36 threads 44
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pci express lanes etc all of these new processors are fully enabled with the
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features that we've come to expect from a skylake x core i9 on the x299 platform
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so what are we testing then aside from core counts and clock speeds
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i'll tell you yes it's really just the core counts and
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clock speeds but just doesn't do it just this because
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this is more added horsepower than we've seen in one generation since the core
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series began think about it last gen the best we had this side of
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xeon was 10 cores on the i7 6950x and
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the big reveal this year was supposed to be a new 10 core for about half its
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price which we did get but this fully fleshed out lineup looks
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like more than just a refresh it looks like a fresh more competitive Intel
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i guess they didn't want another AMD sees a gap in the lineup and goes for it
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scenario like with ryzen 7 which isn't to say though that AMD has nothing
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competitive their ryzen threadripper 1950x also rocks almost as many cores at
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16 with 32 threads while costing a cool
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700 less could the new core i9s really justify
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that much of a price gap to find out we grabbed hedt cpus from
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team blue and team red and then for good measure a core i9 7900x and the 22 core
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xeon e5 2699 v4 from last gen all of
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them were specked out with otherwise identical hardware right down to the
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cooler we'll begin with our productivity workloads which actually sees a pretty
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significant performance difference between the core i9 and even the 22 core
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xeon in 7zip and CPU mark while ASUS
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real bench shows a predictable curve for the i9s in the image editing test but
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finds them for some reason trailing threadripper here despite multiple
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reruns to confirm smaller blender scenes like the bmw and
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fishy cat see a slighter difference between the 16 and 18 core chips while
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the more complex scenes like gooseberry and pavilion barcelona stretch things
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out a bit more interestingly threadripper manages to
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stay on Intel's heels here it generally outperforms its price competitor the
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7900x thanks to its much higher core count but in a twist ending that
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surprised no one it's lower per thread performance does hurt it in some cases
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now while gaming isn't in any way the focus of this class of CPU or this video
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we had to test it and honestly the results were as expected pretty
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underwhelming the high core count core i9s pull out some early leads at 1080p
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in deus ex but slip and rise of the tomb raider and then everything levels off at
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4k for both titles the soul exception
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out of our gaming tests then becomes counter-strike go which at both 1080p
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and 4k shows a significant lead for team blue
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synthetics meanwhile give a slight edge to team blue and 3dmark and unigine's
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superposition see similar scores across the board
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the most interesting thing about gaming on any of these is how thoroughly
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trounced they all get by a core i7 for a fraction of the price in all but the
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great equalizer 4k though this too should surprise no one maybe thermals
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will be more interesting well actually looks like all of our processors stayed
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nice and cool with an h115i but the
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higher base clock of the 7960x actually put it closer to threadripper in that
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department power consumption is also pretty straightforward more cores more
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juice but with that said our threadripper platform in general seems
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to pull fewer watts from the wall it should be noted here though that we
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didn't test overclocks for this review since our x299 boards vrm well we don't
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trust it to handle overclocking one of these for long
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and believe it or not we don't purposely try to ruin our equipment around here
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some preliminary readings though at 4.4 gigahertz have this CPU alone pulling
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about 500 watts off the 12 volt rail so
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you're gonna want to pair this beast with a top of the line board like a
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rampage extreme and a heavy duty power supply in order to keep the juice
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flowing i mean the wires get disquietingly warm at these kinds of
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loads or you could just not overclock
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so finally then value our weighted performance numbers put the newly
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launching core i9 7980xc and 7960x at
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the top of the performance heap but when we look at their pricing they do fall
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behind due to their massive price tags
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with that said price isn't the only consideration at this level it is likely
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that these cpus will go into render machines and high-end workstations where
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when you're deploying a lot of them at a time performance per watt is also an
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important factor and while they still fall behind the difference is
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predictably much less dramatic than price was
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so what's the point of these products at all then because clearly they make no
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sense for the average consumer or gamer that's true
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but as long as you don't need ecc RAM support an hcc core i9 workstation is
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going to be hands down the fastest you can buy with the capability to overclock
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it if you're an enthusiast prosumer for truly xeon crushing raw performance
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let's just hope though that you'll be using your new monster to generate
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revenue for your business because uh otherwise the dent in your wallet versus
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the performance might not be worth it compared to well Intel's own lower end
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lineup or AMD's threadripper
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