AMD Announces 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper Family, Launching November 25

[Tsing]

AMD has announced the world's most powerful desktop processors: 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper. Starting the core-happy party off are two SKUs, the 3960X and 3970X.

The Ryzen Threadripper 3960X is a 24C/48T processor with a boost frequency of 4.5 GHz and base frequency of 3.8 GHz. The total cache is 140 MB, and TDP is 280 W. It offers 88 PCIe 3.0 lanes (72 usable). The price is $1,399.

The Ryzen Threadripper 3970X is a 32C/64T processor with a boost frequency of 4.5 GHz and base frequency of 3.7 GHz. Its total cache, TDP, and usable PCIe 4.0 lanes is the same as the 3960X. The price is $1,999.

Both processors will be available on November 25, 2019.

In tandem with the launch of the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors, AMD unveiled a brand new Socket sTRX4, optimized for near- and long-term scalability of the Ryzen Threadripper platform. Offering 4X more bandwidth to the chipset compared to 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper, and up to 2.5X more available bandwidth than the competition for simultaneous peripherals like SSDs or GPUs2, 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper offers the ultimate HEDT platform without compromise.

 

[Zarathustra]

Sheesh.

Now I have a tough choice to make.

On the one hand, with Threadripper I get an OK number of PCIe lanes, and a bunch of cores I have no need clocked lower and at price point that is kind of nuts.

On the other hand with Ryzen I get a more rational core count, a more reasonable pricetag but a gimped number of PCIe lanes...

Why do reasonable numbers of PCIe lanes always have to be tied to unreasonable core counts?

Give Threadrippers PCIe lanes, with with an 8C/16T chip that is binned in the top few percent to clock as high as possible (4.8-5 Ghz) and I'd be happy. Having to choose tradeoffs between things I consider essential (max per thread performance, vs reasonable numbers of PCIe lanes) is so frustrating.

With all that said, I need to figure out how much this would cost me in total. $1399 for just the CPU is a bit hefty, but I am pretty sure the TR40x motherboards won't be cheap either. HAs anyone seen any pricing for them yet? I did some googling, and I can't find anything.

 

[Uvilla]

Well with a x570 motherboard you would have tons of bandwidth. Its might be less than TR, but is pcie4, which gives you double? Bandwidth than 3.0. I guess it would be a matter of choosing the x570 mobo that better suits you, and if you still need more fast storage I think you can get cards for that, or cards for more USBs if needed stuff like that.

 

[Strelok]

Well with a x570 motherboard you would have tons of bandwidth. Its might be less than TR, but is pcie4, which gives you double? Bandwidth than 3.0. I guess it would be a matter of choosing the x570 mobo that better suits you, and if you still need more fast storage I think you can get cards for that, or cards for more USBs if needed stuff like that.

That’s a typo, the new TR CPUs have 64 PCIE 4.0 lanes.

 

[Dan_D]

Well with a x570 motherboard you would have tons of bandwidth. Its might be less than TR, but is pcie4, which gives you double? Bandwidth than 3.0. I guess it would be a matter of choosing the x570 mobo that better suits you, and if you still need more fast storage I think you can get cards for that, or cards for more USBs if needed stuff like that.

X570 doesn't give you nearly as many PCIe lanes as Threadripper does. X399 and its successors allow for more storage out of the gate and the use of more add-in cards because they actually have enough lanes to make use of all the expansion slots. At least, better use of them anyway. You don't get 16 lanes for every slot of course, but you have a great deal more freedom about what you install in the system when going the HEDT route.

 

[Zarathustra]

Well with a x570 motherboard you would have tons of bandwidth. Its might be less than TR, but is pcie4, which gives you double? Bandwidth than 3.0. I guess it would be a matter of choosing the x570 mobo that better suits you, and if you still need more fast storage I think you can get cards for that, or cards for more USBs if needed stuff like that.

That's not how it works though.

PCIe gen 4 is great, but it only works if both the CPU/Motherboard and the expansion cards supports it. Otherwise the connection drops down to whatever previous gen the card supports.

A lot of my expansion cards are a gen2 8x Enterprise 10gig fiber Ethernet cards and SAS controllers. Having PCIe gen 4 does squat for my usage scenario as I don't have a single device that is gen4 compatible, and I probably won't have any for quite some time.