AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X And 1920X Review: Unleashing The Multi-Threaded Beast

Name: AMD Ryzen ThreadRipper 1950X
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, August 10, 2017, 09:00 AM EDT

Next up, we have some numbers from the JetStream Benchmark Suite developed by WebKit. The JetStream Benchmark Suite uses a wide array of latency and throughput benchmarks to evaluate JavaScript performance, and all of the results are tabulated with roughly equal weighting. The benchmark measures both metrics of traditional JavaScript programming styles used on websites as well as new JavaScript-based technologies used on more modern, rich web applications. Scores in this benchmark are an indicator of the performance users would see when browsing and running advanced web applications.

JetStream JavaScript Benchmark

JavsScript Performance Testing

All of the systems were tested using the latest version of Microsoft's Edge browser, with default browser settings, on a clean install of Windows 10 Professional x64.

JetStream doesn't take full advantage of the resources available in a many-core processor like Threadripper, so single-thread performance is extremely important. Intel's clock speed and IPC advantages also give it an edge here, with Skylake-X and Kaby Lake taking top honors, though Threadripper did manage to pull ahead of the Broadwell-based Core i7-6950X.

LAME MT

Audio Conversion and Encoding

In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a popular, day-to-day use case for many end users, to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. LAME is an open-source mid to high bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is used widely around the world in a multitude of third party applications.

In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-thread modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Shorter times equate to better performance.

lame

This benchmark leverages only one or two cores, and as such, Intel's higher clocks and per-core IPC advantages give it the edge. The Threadripper 1950X and 1920X, however, were the fastest Ryzen processors of the bunch.

Blender

3D Rendering Benchmark

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that can handle everything from modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. It has a built-in benchmarking tool that will track the time it takes to complete rendering a particular model. We used a CPU-focused BMW model for these tests here...

Blender will take advantage of all of the CPU resources in a system, which really allowed the Threadripper 1950X to flex its 16-core muscle. The 1950X outpaced Intel's current flagship desktop processor by about 40 seconds. The 12-core Threadripper 1920X, despite being hundreds of dollars cheaper, just barely missed the mark set by the Core i9-7900X, by about 8 seconds.

Tags: AMD, CPU, processor, zen, review, (nasdaq:amd), ryzen, threadripper, ryzen threadripper

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com