The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores
by Ian Cutress on August 6, 2018 9:00 AM ESTEnough Jibber-Jabber, Show Me the Money Chips
All-in-all, the new chips look a lot like the old ones:
AMD sampled us the 2990WX and the 2950X for our launch day review. Both of these CPUs are coming out in August, first with the 2990WX on the 13th, and then with the 2950X on the 31st.
On the rear, there are slightly different component arrangements to account for the different dies that are active:
2990WX (left) and 2950X (right)
The packaging is certainly different, with AMD taking into account the public's commentary about the packaging from the first generation. My only feedback to AMD on this is to make the new CPU packaging stackable – as a reviewer having these chips around un-stacked is an organizational nightmare.
Also in the box is a Torx screwdriver for the socket and an Asetek water cooler bracket, as with the first generation.
If we add some EPYCness to the mix, there’s a pretty pattern. Here are 172 cores of Zen:
AMD also bundled two motherboards with the press kits: a second revision of the ASUS X399 Zenith Extreme, with a new VRM cooling kit, and the MSI X399 MEG Creation, the 19-phase monster seen at Computex.
At first, Summer wasn’t interested.
Then she had a sniff.
Now they are good friends. I think. (ed: Ian, if you kill that processor with static electricity, I will end you)
A side note about stacking. The processors do kind of stack on their own.
But this isn’t an advised strategy.
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edzieba - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
I guess "buy before you try" is going to be the standard for AMD going forward.BB-5F-96-D7-AE-26 - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Same?Spunjji - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
If you can't keep your wallet in your pants 'til after the reviews, then sure.melgross - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
It used to be that AMD would release specs, and the chips they sent out would not come close to them. After bulldozer, they stopped giving pre released chips for test.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
These are going to perform like Threadripper with Zen+. There aren't going to be any major surprises. The architecture is already well-known. It looks like the only question about these is how the memory allocation will affect certain benchmarks.Dug - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
The other question is if we can get some good x399 motherboards.IntoGraphics - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
Don't we already have good X399 motherboards?Or is your current X399 motherboard a lemon?
Mday - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
First page has 2800x in the AMD SKUs table, with the specs of a 2700x; and what appears to be the price of the 1800x ($419, url has 1800x) from last year for the 2700x in the Threadripper 2 vs Skylake-XThe Battle (Sorted by Price) table.
Ryan Smith - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Right you are. Thanks!DanNeely - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Putting an asterisk on the AMD supplied number in the chart is of only limited value if you don't have a matching footnote. I'm pretty sure I've seen the same problem on some of your other charts/graphs before.