Threadripper 2990WX good to go?

[tricky]

On the verge of upgrading and just doing a bit of research on which CPU to opt for. The TR2 2990WX seems sensible for high density rendering power. However, I've just watched a short review on the CPU and it seems that the 32c/64t threadripper is barely better than intel's i9-7980XE (18c/36t) - check out from around 6mins50sec of this video. This is a 'real world' test, but the standalone benchmark seems better.

Obviously, I'm interested in real world performance.

Any reason why the TR2 isn't annihilating the i9 CPU in this test?

[baastyan]

Hi Richard,

I got myself 7980XE in January this year. This is my main WS and I am using it for archviz. My main task in the company is rendering + minor changes and updates in the 3D scenes.

3 days ago I finished to build the new rig at our office: 2990WX.
I did no have much time to do a lot of test but ... here's the first results that I got so far.

Rigs specs:

INTEL RIG:

CPU: 7980xe @ stock speed
MOBO: Asus Prime Delux X299
RAM: 4 x 16GB G. Skill Ripjaws 3000 MGz
SSD: Samsung 950 PRO
GPU: 1080ti
OS: Win10
Max: 2016 + Vray 3.6

AMD RIG:

CPU:2990WX @ stock speed
MOBO: MSI Meg Creation
RAM: 4 x 16GB G. Skill Trident Z @ 2933 MGz
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO
GPU: 660ti - temporarly
OS: Win10
Max: 2016 + Vray 3.6

Testing scene ("BiG WINDOW" - see below), specs:

render size: 4000px wide
file size: 1,38 GB
Polys: 30 M
Verts: 23M
external assets: 514 files (1,24 GB)
RAM in use by MAX while rendering: aprox. 27GB

Both 3D scene and assets were saved on NVMe drives (950 PRO and 970 EVO)

Please be aware also that I am using my "old" intel rig for almost 1 year now so there is plenty of programs installed there. In the opposite on AMD rig there is almost only MAX + Vray.
And one more thing. The rendering settings are not optimized so I am sure it possible to squeeze significantly the rendering time keeping similar quality. But the only reason of these tests was to show the difference between 7980xe and 2990wx.

And here comes the results (winner in blue):

1. Rendering speed (MAX + Vray):

7980XE - 53 min. 21s. (100%)
2990WX - 45 min. 3s. (118,4%)

2. Opening scene (MAX):

7980xe : 1min 13s (100%)
2990WX: 53 s. (137%)

3.Re-pathing scene assets (MAX):

7980xe : 1min 11s (100%)
2990WX: 51 s.(139%)

4. Saving scene (MAX):

7980xe : 22s (118 %)
2990WX: 26s. (100%)

5. Vray benchmark:

7980xe : 38s (100 %)
2990WX: 27s. (144%)

6. Cinebench R15:

7980xe : aprox. 3300 pts (118 %)
2990WX: aprox. 5000 pts (151%)

So as you can see the advantage of 2990WX over 7980XE in my test scene is not as big as you could assume while looking at Vray benchmark and Cinebench R15. I need to say I am disappointed here. From the other hand I am surprised that these 1-thread tasks (e.g repathing the scene assets) seems to work faster on 2990WX (expected the opposite). But maybe the reason is that 2990WX has newer generation of SSD (970 PRO)? Hard to say.

And few other things;
1. For some reason MAX on 2990wx tend to crash much, much more often then on 7980xe. But I do not know what causes the problem. Maybe something wrong with MAX installation.
2. I tried to run RAM on 2990WX @ 3200 MGz but I crashed every time when i started rendering with vray (the same with speed at 3066Mgz). So I had to keep 2933 Mgz speed.
3. MSI Meg Creation seemed to work kinda weird. After making some changes at CMOS with RAM speed ... sometimes I could not boot the rig. I even could not get to the BIOS. So I reset CMOS but then then again, the machine did not boot! I repeated it 2-3 times and finally I managed to run Windows.

Hope that was helpful.
I will try to do some other rendering tests with other 3D scenes. At least I am planning to do this.

[tricky]

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

The results are certainly interesting, and the Threadripper 2 doesn't seem anything like as quick as I had hoped. What's with the benchmark scenes I wonder? It would be great if Vlado and his team could drop into this thread and share their thoughts on your results. I may hold fire on ordering this new system for the time being.

[eligiusz]

Its all about communicating with ram, more ram intensive task, the worse it will get for 2990. Benchmarks are usually light on ram.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

There is a problem on Adobe's side when it comes to AMD optimization for Ryzen. Also, many of these tests take few seconds to finish. I would only trust the testings that take at least few minutes
at stock speeds, The 7980XE can obtain higher frequency under full load compared to the 2990 WX and with big scenes, there might be a slight disadvantage for the 2990wx because of how memory works on it
The frequency problem shouldn't be a thing with this TR if you set all cores to run at 3.7 or 3.8 GHz at full load, compared to running at 3.4 which is by default under full load.
This will improve performance by quite a bit and you are not even pushing this CPU to its max potential. I've been able to get 4.1 GHz stable with Meg Creation in 2 machines and CB scores of around 6000
The 7980XE is a beast when overclocked too. You can achieve around 4.4 GHz at worst case..But depending on your chip, Some people got it to 4.8 GHz with around 4800 CB score

So as you can see the advantage of 2990WX over 7980XE in my test scene is not as big as you could assume while looking at Vray benchmark and Cinebench R15

Like I explained above, the 7980xe can preserve higher frequency under full load and it has a memory advantage.
This result is to be expected and Vray bench and Cinebench take few seconds to finish so they are not as accurate as real world testing
I wouldn't recommend running any of these CPUs at stock speeds :II

But maybe the reason is that 2990WX has newer generation of SSD (970 PRO)?

This is probably the reason and you have a clean install of windows with the 2990wx
I have a 7900x on my personal machine running at 4.8 GHz and these single threaded tasks really fly
higher frequency usually improves your NVME performance, GPU performance and every part of your OS and apps

For some reason MAX on 2990wx tend to crash much, much more often then on 7980xe

I haven't noticed any difference myself.

I tried to run RAM on 2990WX @ 3200 MGz but I crashed every time when i started rendering with vray

Keep an eye on bios updates, I can run at 3200 Mhz with same CPU, RAM and Mobo you have

MSI Meg Creation seemed to work kinda weird. After making some changes at CMOS with RAM speed

This is not supposed to happen. Are you still running into these same issues?
Reset everything and install recent bios.

[werticus]

my 32 core can be significantly or about the same as my 16 core depending on the task.
in general in vray it is about 66% faster. Pay a lot of attention to bucket size when rendering as it can make a big big difference if one of the 32 cores gets stuck on a big bucket.

[Karol.Osinski]

Thank you so much baastyan for your benchmarks!!! I've searching around for this kind of stuff. I gotta say that they also dissapoints me, I expected something like 30% speed increase with 2990... Maybe it was indeed the bucket size as werticus has mentioned?

I am really interested in this cuz myself at work have i7980x and it fast enough and it has almost identical results to Xeon w2155 we have in our macs.However soon we will be getting new Windows workstation and I am planning to convince my boss to invest in one of AMD cpus, fingers crossed.

[squintnic]

dont do it lol
hate this CPU
it cant run 128gb RAM at a decent speed.....

[Karol.Osinski]

it cant run 128gb RAM at a decent speed.....

Hey Muhammed_Hamed you managed to run RAM with this CPU at high speed and I assume you have 128gb in your rig don't you ?

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

We have two tr2 rigs both with 128gb rams at 2933...no problems so far

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Karol.Osinski Just seen your comment here, sorry for the late reply
128 GB should work nicely at 2933, my prefered RAM is Gskill TriedentZ 3200 Mhz.. never had issues with these
in few cases I needed to use custom voltages for this to work, I can offer help on this if someone cannot achieve that
but in 90% of cases 2933 should be easy to achieve with 128 GB of RAM
The 2990wx has been very reliable here, and I will get my hands on the new TR CPUs soon