AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX Processor Review

Final Thoughts

How Much Does it Cost?

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32-Core 64-Thread processor is available already. You can pick one up from most major retailers, and Amazon has it listed at £1599.99, or about £50 per core if you want to work it out that way. This isn’t a cheap CPU, that’s a given, but you really do get a lot of CPU for your money. The i9-7980XE is still £2000, and while it’s better at gaming and single core tasks, it’s slower at rendering and number crunching… You could get a 2990WX and a MEG motherboard for the same price as just that CPU; which would you do?

Overview

I love what AMD has done here, and I’m sure others do too. It’s such a ridiculous bit of hardware that you can’t help but be impressed by it. It does have its flaws though, but so does pretty much any hardware. The single core performance is pretty unremarkable and that’s still where Intel lead the game by a hell of a margin. However, while per-core the clocks are lower, there is strength in numbers, and 32 cores is a lot of cores! However, that’s only an advantage in applications that can use all the available cores. In gaming, it’s of little benefit, and in Gaming Mode, the CPU is no better than a budget Ryzen CPU running 8 cores.

Workstation Vs Gaming Station

For a 1080p gaming rig, you’re not buying this CPU, it’s pointless. However, if you’re running multi-GPU 4K+ and VR hardware, and working more on the development side of gaming, then perhaps it makes sense. The extra cores are well suited to game development suites where you’re running both the editors, rendering pipelines and real-time viewers. The CPU overhead here is vast and more beneficial in this way. The same is true for video editors, this CPU may be overkill for watching YouTube, but for rendering in Premiere, or transcoding video formats, rendering effects, it’s in a league of its own.

This is less the CPU to enjoy the latest and greatest content in gaming and video. It’s more the brute force powerhouse needed to make that next-generation content for the latest and greatest hardware. A tool more than a plaything if you will. If you need to cut your processing time down, this will have you clocking out of the office at lunchtime, not sticking around for overtime.

Should I Buy One?

I’m not so deluded to recommend people buy a £1600 CPU, it’s insanely expensive. However, expensive doesn’t mean poor value for money. For those who work in editing and development, time is money. If you can speed up your workflow, as the 2990WX has proven it can, you can save big money on work hours and likely end up saving yourself both time and money. Plus, the idea of having what’s basically a consumer version of a server CPU is all kinds of fun too.