AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX Review

This is the most costly AMD Ryzen CPU you should buy, which as you may suspect can be the quickest and strongest Ryzen CPU presently in existence. Not even upcoming Zen 4 CPUs will change that, at the least not when speaking about core-heavy workloads.

The Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX is a 64-core/128-thread workstation CPU that is really been out within the wild for about 5 months now. AMD introduced and launched this monstrous CPU again in March, but it surely was out there for OEMs solely. Starting as we speak, the Threadripper Pro 5000 collection goes retail, that means now you can construct your individual insane workstation if in case you have sufficient cash, as a result of rattling are these items costly.

The base mannequin 24-core Threadripper Pro 5965WX is available in at $2,400, the 32-core 5975WX is $3,300 and the 64-core mannequin which we’re testing as we speak prices a cool $6,500.

Internally we have been utilizing the Threadripper 3970X and 3990X for video processing, all costly CPUs in their very own proper, however nonetheless cheaper than the Threadripper Pro 5000 fashions. The 3970X was $2,000, which is about 40% lower than the brand new mannequin, whereas the 3990X was conveniently priced at $3,990, as soon as once more ~40% lower than the newer Zen 3 model.

	Threadripper Pro 5995WX	Threadripper Pro 5975WX	Threadripper Pro 5965WX
Price	$6,500	$3,300	$2,400
Retail Release	August 8, 2022
Cores / Threads	64 / 128	32/64	24/48
Chiplets	8 x CCD – 1 x I/OD	4 x CCD – 1 x I/OD
Base Frequency	2.7 GHz	3.6 GHz	3.8 GHz
Max Turbo	4.5 GHz
L3 Cache	256 MB	128 MB
TDP	280 watt

If you are questioning why the ‘Pro’ fashions price a lot extra, it is as a result of they’re legitimately extra workstation oriented. For instance, you get twice as many PCIe lanes from the CPU, 128 versus 64 whereas the present AM4 desktop elements have 24 in whole, 16 for the first PCIe slot, 4 4 the first M.2 after which 4 connecting the chipset.

Another large distinction is reminiscence assist. Whereas AM4 processors assist dual-channel reminiscence, HEDT chips just like the 3970X and 3990X make the most of quad-channel reminiscence. However, the Threadripper Pro collection goes a step additional by supporting octa-channel reminiscence. That’s eight DDR4 reminiscence channels similar to it is supplied on Epyc server processors.

Essentially, the 5995WX that we’re testing as we speak is an overclocked Epyc 7713P, although the server CPU prices much less at round $5,000 but additionally clocks a lot decrease. Speaking of clock speeds, the 5995WX packs a base clock of two.7 GHz with a lift clock of 4.5 GHz, 22% greater than that of the Epyc equal. This chip consists of eight CCD’s and an I/O die, giving it 64-cores/128-threads with a beefy 256 MB L3 cache.

The 32-core/64-thread 5975WX options 4 CCD’s and an I/O die, clocks to at the least 3.6 GHz with the identical 4.5 GHz increase clock. Then the 24-core/48-thread 5965WX additionally packs 4 CCD’s and an I/O die, clocks no decrease than 3.8 GHz underload with a peak working frequency of 4.5 GHz and each the 24 and 32-core variations function a 128 MB L3 cache.

All three fashions assist 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes, 2TB of DDR4-3200 octa-channel reminiscence and a TDP of 280 watts. This means AMD has formally killed off the HEDT model of Threadripper and changed it with the workstation model known as Threadripper Pro. So what’s modified and why have they achieved this?

Simply put, demand for Threadripper did not justify a extra inexpensive model. It seemingly made sense again within the Zen and Zen+ days when mainstream desktop platforms topped out at 8 cores, however as we speak 16-core fashions just like the Ryzen 9 5950X do an excellent job of satisfying the wants of most energy customers.

Also again within the early days of Ryzen, AMD was desperately attempting to achieve market share in all segments, so providing compelling merchandise at as many worth factors as attainable made sense. Today although, AMD appears to dominate most fronts and with completely no HEDT competitors from Intel, it is not a section they should fiercely compete in, and for many high-end customers the Ryzen 9 5950X will suffice.

Now, relating to WRX80 motherboards your decisions are nonetheless fairly restricted with below a dozen fashions to select from. The boards which can be almost certainly to enchantment to our viewers embrace the Gigabyte WRX80 SU8 IPMI (cool title we all know), the Asus Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WiFi (an excellent cooler title), the Asrock WRX80 Creator, easy and to the purpose, we prefer it, after which the board we’ll be utilizing as we speak, the MSI WS WRX80, once more easy and to the purpose product title.

We might have had our choose of those WRX80 boards however we went with MSI for a couple of causes. We weren’t impressed with the look of the Asrock and Gigabyte boards, these VRMs look okay for inventory 280w utilization, however a late change by AMD has seen the Threadripper Pro 5000 collection assist overclocking, and this implies these boards will should be refreshed in the event that they need to correctly assist OC performance for elements just like the 5995WX.

Asus was additionally caught out by this late change and their board would not assist options reminiscent of PBO. So it will appear taking some further time paid off for MSI because the upcoming WS WRX80 board helps each auto overclocking within the type of AMD PBO in addition to handbook overclocking management and with an 11 direct part 105A design it is already setting information, pushing the 5995WX to an insane 5.15 GHz for a rating of 116142 factors in Cinebench R23, although please be aware we’re speaking a few LN2 overclock right here. The level being although that this VRM is sweet to deal with no matter you throw at it.

Having stated all that, sadly for this preliminary overview overclocking is off the desk, and the explanation why is a little bit of an unknown. MSI says my pre-production board was examined earlier than being despatched out, and that each PBO and handbook overclocking labored. However, after a number of BIOS updates and countless tinkering the OC options refuse to disclose themselves, and we won’t work out why.

MSI can be offering a second board and hopefully that permits us to overclock the 5995WX, however for now we’re caught with the inventory outcomes, which we have got to say aren’t half unhealthy. We’ve additionally included a configuration with the facility limits eliminated. For testing, Team Group supplied 4 kits of their Team T-Force XTREEM ARGB DDR4-3600 CL18 reminiscence, giving us 256GB in whole, although for stability the reminiscence was restricted to DDR4-3400, not 3600. We did not have eight reminiscence modules of the identical spec, so Team Group got here in clutch, making this overview attainable alongside MSI and AMD, in fact.

For comparability we have included the Threadripper 3990X which was examined on the MSI Creator TRX40 motherboard utilizing the identical Team T-ForceDDR4-3600 reminiscence at 3400. Then we’ve got a couple of desktop CPUs for comparability: a Ryzen 9 5950X examined with dual-rank DDR4-3200 reminiscence, and the Intel Core i9-12900K utilizing DDR5-6400 reminiscence. The graphics card used for all testing is the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. Let’s get into the info…

Benchmarks

Starting with Cinebench R23, as anticipated the 5995WX scores large with 66403 pts inventory. Then with the facility limits eliminated that rating crept up by 5% to 69581 pts. Interestingly, the 5995WX was simply 6% quicker than the 3990X, although this is not terribly shocking given the 5950X was solely round 9% quicker than the 3950X on this take a look at.

The single core features are extra spectacular, right here the 5995WX was 14% quicker than the 3990X, but additionally 9% slower than the 5950X and virtually 30% slower than the 12900K.

We’re solely an 8% enchancment within the 7-zip file supervisor decompression take a look at for the 5995WX over the 3990X. But this time eradicating the facility limits resulted in a barely extra spectacular 9% efficiency improve.

For code compilation work the 5995WX would not seem all that a lot quicker than the 3990X which is sensible because the 5950X was solely barely quicker than the 3950X. So for this form of workload the dearer Zen 3-based Threadripper processors in all probability aren’t definitely worth the premium.

The Corona benchmark is completed in virtually the clicking of the button when utilizing the 5995WX, taking simply 18 seconds. Still that meant it was 22% quicker than the 3990X, regardless of solely shaving 4 seconds off the completion time.

Another rendering benchmark is V-Ray and right here the 5995WX was 15% quicker than the 3990X, so not an enormous efficiency achieve, however about what we have come to anticipate for this form of workload.

Premiere Pro is of specific curiosity to video creators and it is the place Threadripper shines. We’ve bought extra to say about this which we’ll save for later within the overview, however for now let’s take a look at the Puget Systems benchmark outcomes.

Here the 5995WX was 28% quicker than the 3990X, which is a big efficiency benefit and this interprets into severe real-world enhancements. We imagine the elevated reminiscence bandwidth and improved single core efficiency is essentially chargeable for the efficiency features seen in Adobe Premiere.

For these of you utilizing Photoshop 2022, high-core depend CPUs are a waste for probably the most half. There is likely to be plug-ins that may make the most of extra cores for particular duties, however generally it is a frivolously threaded software and due to this fact greater clocked, greater IPC elements just like the Core i9-12900K are higher right here.

The final software benchmark is Blender Open Data and we’ll additionally take a look at energy utilization on this take a look at quickly. Once once more relating to rendering benchmarks the 5995WX is usually solely a bit of quicker than the older 3990X, right here we’re 7% extra efficiency, so nothing to jot down residence about.

System Power Consumption

Power consumption is just like the 3990X and it was attention-grabbing to see that eradicating the facility limits for the 5995WX did not see energy consumption spiral uncontrolled, in actual fact, we noticed little to no adjustments. It’s a disgrace we could not allow PBO or do any handbook overclocking, however that is one thing we will take a look at in future content material.

Gaming Benchmarks

Time for a couple of gaming benchmarks, simply because you may also need to recreation in your workstation, somewhat than use a wholly separate system for that. The 5995WX is spectacular in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, delivering barely extra efficiency than the 5950X and we’ve got seen this prior to now. The 3990X was quicker than the 3950X, for instance.

The Hitman 3 outcomes are a bit extra typical, the place the 5995WX was barely slower than the 5950X, a mere 3% decline in efficiency which meant it was nonetheless 18% quicker than the older 3990X.

Rainbow Six Extraction sees comparable margins to that of Hitman 3, the 5995WX was 4% slower than the 5950X, however 10% quicker than the 3990X. However, eradicating the facility limits allowed the 5995WX to match the 5950X.

The 5995WX was on par with the 5950X in Watch Dogs: Legion making it 15% quicker than the 3990X, however a lot slower than the 12900K.

We’re additionally comparable efficiency between the 5995WX and 5950X in Horizon Zero Dawn, that means the brand new 64-core processor is 17% quicker than its predecessor.

Cooling

If you are conversant in the Threadripper 3000 processors, then this new 5000 collection will not supply any surprises, it is principally the identical deal. The structure is way the identical and the facility consumption is way the identical, due to this fact the cooling necessities are about equal.

For this overview we used the be quiet! Silent Loop 2 360mm AIO with the be quiet! STRX4 mounting package. Like most AIO’s the Silent Loop 2 is not function constructed for the large Threadripper CPUs, as an alternative it was designed with LGA1200/1700 and AM4 processors in thoughts. So it would not precisely cowl your entire heatspreader of a Threadripper processor, but it surely will get most of it.

We did run into a problem with our construct because the Dark Base Pro 900 Rev 2 case was unable to suit the Silent Loop 2 360mm AIO on the highest of the case because the MSI WS WRX80 motherboard is just too huge, and in consequence we’ve got 4 sticks of reminiscence precisely the place the radiator must go.

This means we have been pressured to entrance mount the radiator which usually is not a problem, nevertheless the Silent Loop 2 water block is designed to solely be oriented in a single path with the be quiet STRX4 mounting bracket, and utilizing the proper orientation the tubes for the AIO merely would not attain with the radiator entrance mounted. So we have been pressured to put in the block backwards within the bracket which sees it positioned effectively off middle on the Threadripper IHS.

Therefore we needed to get the Dremel out and crudely reduce a bit of the STRX4 mounting bracket, in order that the block could be positioned in a extra central location when put in backwards. Anyway, it was a little bit of messing round however we now have the block centrally situated with what seems to be good mounting strain.

Of course, we examined thermal efficiency earlier than we bought benchmarking and all the things regarded good. After an hour of looping the Cinebench R23 benchmark we hit a peak temperature of 83C, which given the facility utilization is an effective outcome. That stated, it is unlikely to be optimum and if we glance intently on the peak core advanced die temperatures we see that solely two peaked at round 80C, then two extra which peaked within the mid to low 70s with what we assume are the 4 centrally situated CCD’s peaking at between simply 57 and 61C.

What We Learned Using the Pro

The Threadripper Pro 5995WX is a powerful processor and though for almost all of our testing it wasn’t an important deal quicker than the 3990X, it may be round 30% quicker relying on the workload. However even that share achieve could be pretty meaningless in a workstation setting, so here is what occurred in ours…

As we talked about earlier than, Steve and Tim’s video modifying workstations are presently utilizing the Threadripper 3970X and 3990X and whereas each have been recreation altering, permitting us to stabilize dozens upon dozens of b-roll clips directly whereas additionally offering spectacular encoding efficiency, the current improve to a Panasonic GH6 mirrorless digicam has triggered a couple of modifying associated complications.

The Threadripper 3000 collection had no points with 4K60 footage from the older GH5, however after we upgraded to the GH6 we needed to begin working with 5.7K60, and this proved troublesome. Of course, we might use proxies however they’re a ache for modifying, taking much more time, and total only a extra cumbersome technique than we desire.

We had been actively testing for alternate options, the Core i9-12900K was superb at scrubbing by timelines for common modifying, however as quickly as we needed to stabilize greater than a dozen clips directly, the system grew to become unusable and would typically crash. Meaning we needed to stabilize clips in batches, saving after every batch was full earlier than beginning the following batch. It wasted loads of time and the encoding course of was additionally slower.

A greater, however admittedly rather more costly answer could be to improve to Threadripper 5000 and the 5975WX would in all probability be the best choice for our wants. The very first thing we did with the 5995WX was to open one of many present tasks we have been engaged on and begin modifying. The expertise was completely totally different. At no level did the 5995WX battle with the 5.7K footage just like the 3990X did, even color-corrected footage with transitions performed again easily.

You might say modifying is now “extra playable,” to make use of a gaming time period.

In brief, the 5995WX is a recreation changer for our workflow and as such it is troublesome to place it into the context of share features, it is not simply quicker, it is wildly extra sensible. You might say modifying is now extra playable, to make use of a gaming time period.

We’d say we might simply justify spending $3,300 on the 5975WX, plus all the things else it’s good to construct the workstation PC, as it will pay itself off, each by way of productiveness and psychological well being.

On that be aware, it is troublesome to offer one thing just like the 5995WX a worth ranking, if it could possibly do for you what it could possibly do for us then it is invaluable and pays for itself. It’s a workstation product, designed for professionals and with no retail competitors for Intel, it is the best choice. We’re comfortable AMD is giving clients the possibility to construct their very own workstation PCs and never forcing them to purchase mediocre OEM programs, in order that in itself is a win.

We sit up for placing the Threadripper Pro 5995WX by its paces over the approaching months and years, and we hope we will check out the 5975WX quickly as we really feel that mannequin is healthier suited to our use case.