Intel Core i9-7980XE And Core i9-7960X Review: Intel Attacks AMD Threadripper

Name: Intel Core i9-7980XE
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Monday, September 25, 2017, 03:00 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.

We saw some interesting behavior in the JetStream benchmark. We typically test with Windows' default "Balanced" power profile. However, it appeared that the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X weren't always turbo'ing properly with the default profile, with lightly-threaded workloads. As such, performance suffered. With Windows' "High Performance" profile enabled though, performance jumps upwards of 30%.

We have an inquiry in with Intel regarding this issue, but believe a simple driver or Windows update should alleviate this. The dies used in the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X are borrowed from the enterprise-class, many-core Xeons. And while they have hardware-controller P-States akin to Intel's SpeedShift technology for desktop parts, the implementation is slightly different. Enabling the "High Performance" profile turns P-State control completely over to the processor, which allows it to switch states more quickly and efficiently and boost properly.

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 test only leverages one or two threads, so the vast majority of those cores on the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X are dormant. The higher-clocked Intel parts take the lead here, but the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X still put up very good numbers and have no trouble outpacing any of the Ryzen processors.

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...

Well, Threadripper's dominance in the Blender benchmark was short-lived. Both the Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X outpaced the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and took the top two spots in the chart.

Tags: Intel, CPU, processor, Core i9, (NASDAQ:INTC), skylake-x, 7980xe, 7960x

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