This fall promises to be hot. AMD has just recorded a quarterly revenue record since 2005 - and is not going to stop there. Last week, the company announced three new desktop CPUs with deliveries starting in two weeks . According to preliminary tests 3DMark , these are the fastest desktop processors on the market. For example, the 24-core Threadripper 3960X leaves behind both the Core i9-9900KS and Intel Core i9-9980XE.

In brief about the latest AMD products:

• Ryzen 9 3950X from two 7-nanometer TSMC chipsets: 16 cores, 3.5-4.7 GHz, $ 749.
  
• Ryzen Threadripper 3960X (24 cores, 3.8-4.5 GHz) and Ryzen Threadripper 3970X (32 cores, 3.7-4.5 GHz) of four chipsets each. These are the first 3rd generation Threadripper processors on the 7nm Zen 2 architecture, $ 1399 and $ 1999.
  
• TRX40 chipset for new threadrippers. New socket and new motherboards.
  
• The regularly overclocked Athlon 3000G for $ 49.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is aimed at a more mass market, and the 3rd generation Threadripper is aimed at powerful gaming systems and high-performance workstations (HEDT market, high-end desktop).

The presented processors will go on sale in two weeks, from November 25, 2019 (Athlon 3000G - from November 19).

Ryzen 9 3950X

The Ryzen 9 3950X is one of AMD's most anticipated processors, which the company mentioned at almost every presentation this year. AMD’s new flagship for the desktop mass market is made by TSMC from two 8-core chipsets using the 7-nanometer process technology.

The 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X is based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. Compared to the previous flagship Ryzen 9 3900X (12 cores), the maximum clock speed increased by 100 MHz (4.7 GHz versus 4.6 GHz), and the L2 cache was increased from 6 to 8 MB Otherwise, the nominal characteristics did not change, even the TDP remained at the same level of 105 watts.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is compatible with most AM4 motherboards, but the X570 motherboard is recommended to take advantage of the maximum lane of 24 lanes of PCIe 4.0.

AMD claims that Ryzen 9 3950X performance in 1080p games is roughly equivalent to Core i9-9900K and is superior to Core i9-9920X, and in various content creation programs (graphics and video editors) it is superior to Core i9-9900K and Core i9-9920X by 18-79% "in selected tests."



AMD also emphasizes that the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X has lower power consumption than the 8-core Core i9-9900K.

In addition, all Ryzen 3000 processors support reduced power consumption and performance through Ryzen Master software. So, a processor with a TDP of 95/105 watts can be lowered to 65 watts. Then the temperature of the Ryzen 9 3950X will drop from 54 ° to 47 ° , and the performance will decrease by 23% (in Cinebench nT).

First 3rd Generation Threadripper

The Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and Ryzen Threadripper 3970X open the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper processor series.



The 32-core TR 3970X with 64 threads has a base frequency of 3.7 GHz, turbo 4.5 GHz, 64 lines PCIe 4.0, L3 cache 128 MB, four memory channels DDR4-3200 (1DPC), TDP 280 W and a recommended price of $ 1999. For context, more recently, a maximum of 10-core processor could be bought for less than $ 2000, AnandTech writes .

The 24-core TR 3960X has a slightly higher base frequency: 3.8 GHz. The rest of the specifications are the same, but the recommended price is $ 1399.





Tom's Hardware published preliminary Threadripper 3960X benchmarks in comparison with the previous generation Threadripper 2970WX processor, the current AMD Ryzen 9 3900X desktop flagship, as well as the main competitors Intel Core i9-9900KS and Intel Core i9-9980XE.


As you can see, Threadripper 3960X is seriously superior to its predecessor Threadripper 2970WX, which was quite expected. It is slightly inferior to the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9-9980XE chips in the Fire Strike test, but surpasses them all in Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme.

Threadripper 3970X test results yet. But it can be assumed that an increase in the number of cores by 25% will clearly increase productivity in some tasks that allow massive concurrency. AMD itself claims that the Threadripper 3970X “delivers up to 90% performance improvement over the Core i9-9980XE, including:

• Up to 90% in Cinebench R20 nT
  
• Up to 47% in Adobe Premiere
  
• Up to 49% in V-Ray
  
• Up to 43% in the Chromium Release 78 Compile
  
• Up to 36% in Unreal Engine

Benchmarks for Intel Core i9-9980XE 18C36T, AMD Threadripper 3960X 24C48T and AMD Threadripper 3970X 32C64T

But there are no independent test results yet.

TRX40 platform

A new sTRX4 socket and new TRX40 motherboards have been developed for the TR 3960X and TR 3970X processors, although technically the socket still has 4094 pins, as in the previous one. AMD representatives at the presentation mentioned that they laid down on the longevity of this platform. You can probably expect at least one more generation of Threadripper to be compatible with these motherboards. They emphasized that the new socket had to be implemented due to the new PCIe 4.0 x8 requirement.



The TRX40 chipset was developed by AMD engineers and is manufactured using the 14-nanometer process technology at GlobalFoundries.

A large number of PCIe lines (72, and with redundant 88) allows motherboard manufacturers to offer a variety of configurations, even as crazy as with 20 SATA ports, AnandTech writes . In a sense, it is this parameter (the number of lines), and not the number of cores, that becomes the main difference between Threadripper and the "mass" Ryzen 9.

Motherboard manufacturers are already publishing teasers of their new products, and most of them will be presented closer to November 25, 2019, that is, the date the officially launched sales of the Threadripper 3960X and Threadripper 3970X.

True, there are fears that the new motherboards will be very expensive. So far, the cheapest I managed to find was the Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Pro WiFi for $ 407.81 . The rest is even more expensive.

Athlon 3000G

The $ 49 Athlon 3000G is a pretty interesting processor, although it stands out among the high-end products. This is a dual-core CPU on Zen + Picasso 12nm microarchitecture like Athlon 3000G, Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G.

It operates at a frequency of 3.5 GHz without turbo mode with Radeon Vega 3 (1.1 GHz) graphics and a TDP of 35 watts. Supports up to 64 GB of DDR4-2933 memory and comes in a case with a quiet AMD 65 W cooler. At this price, this is a pretty attractive offer.

An interesting detail: AMD is positioning the Athlon 3000G as the first AM4 Athlon, "fully open for overclocking." Buyers can overstate the multiplier as much as the iron can withstand. AMD calls the plus 400 MHz “typical overclocking” for the end user. That is why the kit comes with a cooler for heat sink 65 watts, and not the nominal maximum of this processor TDP 35 watts.

The Athlon 3000G probably threatens the market position of Intel Celeron and Pentium. AMD said it was ready to produce Athlon chips in large numbers, so there is no shortage of them on the market.


Pentium GS400 ($ 73) and Athlon 3000G ($ 49) performance comparison


Pentium GS400 and Athlon 3000G performance compared to a nominal frequency of 3.5 GHz and after overclocking to 3.9 GHz.

Price war

What will Intel answer? In early October, the company introduced several processors of the new Xeon W-2200 line for workstations and servers, and in May announced the tenth generation of Ice Lake 10 nm processors . To withstand the competition, Intel released the tenth-generation Core i9 processors based on the Cascade Lake-X architecture with higher clock speeds, support for Turbo Boost 3.0, more PCIe lines and more system memory with higher frequencies, and in October drastically reduced prices processors of both new and old generation. For example, the price of the flagship 18-core Core i9-10908XE with a clock frequency of 3 GHz and up to 4.8 GHz in turbo mode is announced at $ 979. For comparison, last year's flagship 18-core Core i9-9980XE at the time of release was offered at $ 1990.

At the moment, the situation on the market of mainstream desktop processors is as follows (recommended retail prices are indicated for AMD, and OEM prices for Intel, which are usually $ 20-50 lower than retail prices):


In addition to lower prices, Intel took another smart step by canceling the release of the 16-core Cascade Lake-X, so that the situation does not look too obvious.

At the same time, AMD said that Intel’s sharp price cuts and other Intel maneuvers “will not affect the product plan.”