Threadripper 3970X, Core i9 10980XE, and Ryzen 9 3950X, how do they compare?
We all know that high end processors will always be a thing and much needed if you are involved in certain aspects on your PC. If you are a streamer, high-end gamer, or digital arts creator (music, photos, video-editing), they are very important to ensuring that your system runs smoothly. What is the best bet between two of AMD’s processor’s and Intel’s i9? We were reading into this recently in an article in Maximum PC that breaks it down and is very well written.
Value, Efficiency, Features, and Performance are important aspects to think about but which one wins the buy?
We’ll discuss the four facets and how we feel about this competition in the processor market.
Value:
When looking at price on these three processors, the one that is not going to win is the Threadripper 3970X. All of these processors will quickly remove $900+ from your wallet but the Ryzen 9 3950X and the i9 10980XE are very close in cost but what about value for the money? The 10980XE has an excuse to be 16.7% more expensive at $1050 with its 12.5% more cores than the 3950X. The 3950X’s cores are a bit faster at 3.5GHz to the 10980XE’s 3.0GHz. Neither one of these CPUs will have a cooler in the box so you can’t base a decision on cooling being included. I have to agree with Christian Guyton that the 3950X receives the value crown as it does outperform the Intel Chip in a few areas and comes with a free game and 3 months of Xbox game pass for PC. Also the fact that it is the cheapest of the three definitely helps.
Efficiency:
When we talk about efficiency we have to think of how much power these processors require to do their jobs. This metric is what takes the Threadripper 3970X out of the equation immediately. This is the gas guzzler out of the three chips and takes a whopping 280W and requires a TR4 compatible cooling block. When you look at the other two here, the 3950X takes about 105W and the 10980XE takes 165W to operate. Now it’s good to know that these all demand a lot of power to operate. That being said the 3950X is the most efficient at 105W and the ability to overclock will raise the thermals up to about where the other two sit, but is still more efficient out of the box, so by a small margin the 3950X takes this category as well.
Features:
The ability to support certain features within a system can be a huge selling point when it comes to a processor. Do you want to be able to set up an SSD utilizing an M2 connection, run PCIe 4.0 cards, or have improved bandwidth? This is where Intel is getting left behind when it comes to these three. The 10980XE lacks PCIe 4.0 support which means your ability to run NVMe Gen 4 M.2 SSDs, improved bandwidth for expansion components, and even specialist setups work off the PCIe 4.0 structure. Turbo Boost is a great aspect of the 10980XE chip and it can do some impressive overclocking automatically, and it shares quad-channel memory support with the 3970X where the 3950X only supports dual-channel. So with PCIe 4.0 support the Threadripper 3970X is the obvious choice when it comes to features.
Performance:
Performance is commonly a number one factor when it comes to PC’s because we all want something that shreds through the processes that it has to run with ease. The obvious choice here is the Threadripper as well, dominating in 5 of the 7 categories tested. It is a marvel of a processor with it’s 32 cores and 64 threads. There is a lot of justification for the $2000 cost to this processor.
Final Word:
The Threadripper 3970X is definitely the top dog here when it comes to raw power but the price point is a lot higher than the common consumer is going to pay for a single part within their PC. These three processors are not to be considered for strictly gaming builds as they are best put to use for CPU intensive tasks. Now for those that want the power on a budget which I’m using loosely the 3950X is going to be the best bang from these three and best of all will be able to last quite a long time. It is a top notch performer and is definitely worth the buy. Overall when it comes to processors, it’s all based on what you are doing with the machine. At the end of the day, it’s all about a solid performance for your PC.