Intel Releases Final Core i9 Specs and Release Dates -- And Threadripper Is Faster (Sometimes) (pcworld.com)

On Monday, Intel took the wraps of final details of its Core i9 microprocessors. From a report: Remember that Intel's Core X-series family (also called the Core i9) was announced with several key omissions: namely the clock speeds of the 12-core Core i9-7920X and above, as well as the thermal design power, or TDP. On Monday, Intel filled those in. The 12-core Core i9-7920X launches Aug. 28 while the 14-, 16-, and 18-core Core i9 chips ship on Sept. 25. Perhaps most important, though, is that we now know how fast Intel's Core i9s will run. When Intel inadvertently revealed that its 12-core Core i9-7920X was 2.9-GHz -- slower than the comparable AMD Threadripper -- a subset of the internet had a small freakout. We now know that that will be true for the remaining Core i9s as well, but with a big caveat. Here are the remaining speeds and feeds for the high-end Core i9 chips:
Core i9-7980XE (18 cores, 36 threads): 2.6GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7960X (16 cores, 32 threads): 2.8GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7940X 14 cores, 28 threads: 3.1GHz; Boost: 4.3GHz to 4.4GHz.
Core i9-7920X (12 cores, 24 threads): 2.9-GHz; Boost: 4.3-GHz to 4.4GHz.

Note that the boost speeds refer to both Intel's Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 and 3.0. [...] Essentially, both Intel and AMD can claim the title of fastest processor. Threadripper's base clock speeds are faster, but Intel's boost speeds climb higher than Threadripper can. It's also important to note that while Threadripper consumes 180 watts, even the fastest Core i9 chips Intel has announced have a lower TDP of 165 watts.

Comments

Intel can't help themselves can they?

[H3lldr0p]

That market segmentation is like a parasite to their thinking. They can't do anything without chopping the product line into as small as bites as they're able.

Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e lane

[Joe_Dragon]

Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e lanes.

On Intel it's about $1000 min to get 48 pci-e lanes. AMD $550 for there 64 pci-e lane one.

Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well

[kronix1986]

In real workloads, the 16-core Threadripper (16 cores, 3.4GHz) @ $1000 destroys the 10-core i9 (also $1000)

The problem for Intel is it also destroys the the 12-core i9 ($1200) and 14-core i9 ($1400). In all likelihood it's going to match the 16-core i9 ($1700) and lose overall (by a small margin) to the 18-core i9, which is $2000.

The fact that PCWorld haven't explictly mentioned price, or even implicitly mentioned TR's 64 PCIe lanes and the other benefits (a stable socket, cheaper boards, lower power draw than the i9s by a huge distance, etc.) is just testamanet to how much the mainstream tech press shill for Intel.

There is essentially no reason to buy the i9s. If you want the best workstation performance, you buy Threadripper. If you want the best gaming performance, you buy the i7-7700K. The i9s are an absurdity, and a panicked reaction to AMD's massive performance gains.

People forget that Intel had only planned to release a 10-core i7 based on Skylake-EP. Once they got wind of Threadripper they bolted on a 12-core, then a 14-core, then a 16-core, and finally (when TR was shown to have incredible workstation performance) the $2000 waste of space that is the 18-core 2.6GHz i9-7980XE with only 44 PCIe lanes.

Meanwhile, for half that cost AMD give you 16 cores @ 3.4GHz, 64 PCIe lanes, cheaper motherboards, and most importantly amazing workstation performance. It's not even a contest.

Great timing for spreading that FUD, Intel...

[yodleboy]

Threadripper officially launches on 8/10. Expect reviews to hit the internet first thing that morning as most hardware sites have had a week or two to play with their samples. Intel is trying desperately to make some last minute noise I suppose. Makes me suspect the official reviews of TR will be quite positive. Intel is going to find that having bigger numbers (Mhz, core count), is going to count for little when the other guy gets you 90% or more of the performance for half the price.

Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well

[AmiMoJo]

The bottom line is that they are both blazingly fast, especially for multi-threaded workloads. So when building a workstation there are more important things to worry about than a few percent in this benchmark or that benchmark.

Threadripper has more PCIe lanes, a definite bonus. Not only useful now for things like NVMe SSDs and RAID cards, but in future for adding a USB 4.0 card or whatever. If you want your system to last longer then expandability is key.

Threadripper motherboards also seem to be a bit cheaper, and of course the CPUs themselves are. For the longer term, AMD tend to stick by their sockets for longer so chances are if there is a major CPU upgrade option available (unlikely) you will be able to drop it in.

Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well

[Rockoon]

Maybe because Intel is a generation behind on interconnects between cores.

AMD dumps FSB in favor of HT in 2001
Intel dumps FSB in favor of QPI in 2009.
AMD switches from HT to Infinity Fabric in 2017.
Intel switches from QPI to ????? in ????

Intel had a few good wins in the past several decades, especially getting 14nm out the door so much sooner than any other fab company could get 14nm workable, but Intel has not had any wins afaict in actual processor design in that same period. When AMD went dual core, Intel had to go frankenchip with double-die solutions as well as hyper-threading in order to come close to keeping up in processor design.

The processor design space of Intel is littered with failures starting with Pentium 4. The start of the Core series was just Intel scrapping the Pentium 4 design completely and going back to the Pentium 3 design.

Intel needs a lithography breakthrough, and they need it yesterday. They have proven that they dont do actual design well.