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core i9

Last calendar month, AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X slipped past Intel to claim the overall high-end performance crown for the first time in over a decade. Threadripper's workstation-class benchmark performance has been fantabulous since AMD's new CPU core debuted back in March, and Threadripper gave the smaller company a large-iron desktop CPU that could beat Intel at its own game and look good doing information technology. (We'll leave the once-oxymoronic concept of a "large-fe desktop" CPU for some other mean solar day).

Intel's initial response to Ryzen and Threadripper was to adjust the features on several SKUs, discuss plans to bring vi-core chips to desktops, and to slowly roll out college cadre counts on its Core Ten-Serial of CPUs. The Cadre i9-7900X launched in early June, with 12-core and 14-core CPUs dropping as the summer progressed. Today, Intel is launching Core i9-7960X and 7980XE Farthermost Edition. AT $two,000 and $1,700 these fries aren't cheap, simply the 18-core Core i9-7980XE also offers the highest level of functioning you lot can buy today.

We've previously discussed Intel's new Skylake-SP architecture, just to recap: Prior to the new Core-X Serial, Intel's high-end desktop processors (HEDT) used a relatively pocket-size (256KB per core) L2 and a large shared L3 that allocated an average of two.5MB per CPU core. Skylake-SP keeps the individual L2 and shared L3, but changes the ratios. Skylake-SP processors have 1MB of L2 per CPU core, only shrink the L3 back to one.375MB per core. This has generally worked out as a positive — while the older Broadwell-E designs still win some tests, Skylake-SP has proven itself to be a superior replacement on the whole.

Intel'southward Core-X Product Stack

Intel'south Cadre-Ten product stack, from most to least expensive, is shown below:

intel-core-x-series-processor-skus

At or beneath the Core i9-7940X, Intel charges $100 per core. The xvi-core i9-7960X is $1,700 ($106.25 per core), while the 18-cadre Core i9-7980XE is $111 per cadre. That apparently puts Santa Clara on the defensive equally far every bit price/performance is concerned, given AMD offers a xvi-cadre Threadripper for $1,000 ($62.50 per core). Back when Piledriver was AMD's all-time compages, Intel could sell one core for every two of AMD'due south and even so wait to come out comfortably on top. That'due south not the case anymore. The major comparing here will exist between the Core i9-7980XE and AMD'southward Threadripper 1950X. Intel has an edge in top clock speed and in total core count, but it'south also asking double Threadripper's price.

We've previously covered the Core i9-7900X, the X299 platform, and Threadripper itself, so we're going to dive directly into test results hither.

The Brand-New Chip Blues

One thing we want to note up-front is nosotros had a great deal of problem making the Core i9-7980XE behave according to its stated turbo frequencies and default behavior. Turbo Boost is supposed to increase the CPU's clock speed when the chip is simply running a few threads, to speed up overall performance. Our chip literally did the reverse, as shown beneath:

We typically test in Windows 10's "Balanced" CPU profile, but that proved untenable here. The CPU clock can dip substantially when lightly loaded in that mode, at least when paired with our Asus X299 Prime-A motherboard. Setting the CPU to "High Performance" improved, but did not resolve, this situation. The CPU clock stopped dropping below 2GHz in the middle of single-or-lightly-threaded tests, just it refused to burst upwardly to its specified maximum frequency of iv.2GHz. We'd like to thank both Rian Lawson of Intel and Gary Key of Asus for their extensive assist — on a Lord's day no less — with troubleshooting these problems, but despite hours of testing on this specific issue, nosotros were unable to find the UEFI options that would implement the behavior Intel told u.s. to look. Nosotros worked around the upshot by manually setting Turbo frequencies depending on how many cores a given benchmark would stress, but this patently isn't how Turbo Heave is supposed to work.

These types of problems are not uncommon with early on CPUs, simply they can throw off power consumption figures and CPU downward-throttling from default. We've express ourselves to functioning comparisons as opposed to ability consumption. Unfortunately, we were unable to test the 16-cadre Cadre i9-7960X due to the fourth dimension we spent testing the Core i9-7980XE'due south odd behavior.

Test Configuration, Results

Our Intel and AMD were benchmarked with 32GB of DDR4-3200 and a GTX 1080 Ti running Nvidia'due south 384.94 driver. Windows 10 Creators Update was installed on all testbeds. The Intel Core i9-7900X and i9-7980XE both used an Asus X299 Prime-A motherboard, while AMD'due south Threadripper 1950X used the Asus ROG Zenith Farthermost.

Our benchmark results are shown in the slideshow below. Each slide can exist clicked on to open up information technology in a new window.

The Highest-Performing (and Most Expensive) Desktop CPU You Tin Buy

The Core i9-7980XE occupies an odd position. It's the fastest "desktop" CPU you can purchase today and it combines Intel's strong single-core performance with the huge thread counts that were recently the sole province of AMD in this marketplace. Compared strictly with Intel'due south own HEDT processors, it'due south a much ameliorate value than any HEDT chip Intel has ever launched, right dorsum to Intel's offset Westmere six-cadre CPUs. The Core i7-6950X (Broadwell-E) debuted on May 31 2022 and cost ~$1,799 for a 10-core chip. Most of Intel's relevant customers probable didn't pay anywhere near that much for the CPU, but the listing price was still $180 per cadre. The Core i7-5960X (Haswell) was $i,000 for 8 cores, or $125 per core. Intel, therefore, can spin this every bit an improvement on its ain per-cadre pricing — and information technology is.

The problem for Intel's triumphant narrative is, well, AMD. The Cadre i9-7980XE is unquestionably fast, merely information technology's not 2x faster, or fifty-fifty l pct faster than Threadripper in any test we ran. CPUs to a higher place $1,000 are going to be less elastic than the conventional desktop market, but toll always matters to some extent. Just because companies or individuals tin afford to pay tiptop dollar for a CPU doesn't mean they don't care about toll at all. When Intel had the high-finish market entirely to itself, the company could afford to set its own prices. With AMD'south Threadripper 1950X already in market place, it's harder to justify the cost.

Customers who want the absolute highest-stop CPU and can beget to pay for information technology will adopt the Core i9-7980XE. But anyone who doesn't fit into that market is going to exist hard-pressed to opt for the Core i9-7900X when the Threadripper 1950X offers college workstation performance at the same price. Intel has retaken the functioning crown, but it hasn't swept the workstation field — non past a long shot.