It seems that AMD may be onto another winner with its Threadripper CPUs. The chipmaker has revealed the prices and details for its high-end offering, and it looks very promising.
When compared to Intel's Core i9 family, the new Ryzen CPUs will have discounts of up to $1,000, and will likely hit the market first. We now know the following:
- A 16-core, 32-thread 3.4GHz Threadripper 1950X will retail at $999
- A 12-core, 24-thread 3.5 GHz Threadripper 1920X will retail at $799
When you compare Intel's 16-core, 32-thread option, that's a whole $700 less, and the 12-core i9-7920X is $400 extra. You'll also pay $1000 less for the Threadripper 1950X versus Intel's 18-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980X.
Performance Benchmarks
Of course, that insane reduction in price is worth nothing if the performance matches it, and we haven't had any real benchmarks. We have, however, seen some promotional material from AMD.
In a video, CEO Dr. Lisa Su revealed multi-threaded Cinebench R15 results against the best Intel chips on the market right now.
Currently, that's the 10-core, 20 thread i9-7900X. The scores came in as follows:
- i9-7900X: 2167
- Threadripper 1920X: 2431
- Threadripper 1950X: 3062
Of course, this isn't quite a fair benchmark, as it pits AMD's next-gen tech against Intels last generation. Naturally, though, AMD can't get hold of an i9-720X just yet, so it's the best idea we have for now.
Whatever the final comparison, it's clear that AMD will at least have some kind of foothold in the high-end market.
“This is an important positioning play for AMD as having a great high-end helps sell the mid-range, but I think they'll sell every one they make,” said Moor Insights analyst Patrick Moorhead. “Video professionals, developers and consumers who want to say they have the best in technology will gravitate toward Threadripper.”
“I think we will see much of a replay of what we saw on Ryzen 7,” he continued. “That is, extremely well positioned in multithreaded workloads and competitive in lower threaded workloads.”
Threadripper chips will begin shipping alongside motherboards in early August, and will also feature in Alienware's Area 51 systems, which are available for pre-order on July 27.
