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takyon writes:

Intel's Cascade Lake-X CPU for High-End Desktops: 18 cores for Under $1000

With someone in the press having broken their embargo earlier today, Intel is lifting the lid earlier than planned on their upcoming Cascade Lake-X family of processors for the high-end desktop (HEDT) market. Similar to the way Intel's Cascade Lake based Xeon Scalable processors are a further revision of their Skylake Xeons, offering clock speed increases and security fixes in hardware, the new HEDT processors will grant higher frequencies, more memory capacity, and better protection against side-channel attacks. The key numbers however are the big drop in Intel's pricing: Intel will be releasing its 18-core part, the Core i9-10980XE, for under $1000.

This pricing is a significant shift in Intel's strategy, and a number of fingers will be pointed at AMD as having made this happen. Next month AMD is set to launch its 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X at $749, which will offer 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes for slots (+4 for M.2, +4 for chipset) and support for 128 GB of DRAM. So Intel needed something similarly speedy, but with more PCIe lanes and more memory support that they could offer for just a bit more, leading to the 10980XE for $979. Ultimately, the on-shelf price is often just slightly higher than tray price, so don't be surprised if retail prices land at around $1000.

All the CPUs will support 256 GB of quad-channel memory (up from 128 GB), and have 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes (up from 44). Memory speed support is listed as DDR4-2933 for 1 DIMM per channel, and DDR4-2666 for 2 DIMMs per channel. All these CPUs have a TDP of 165 W, which Intel states will help the CPUs to turbo longer under Intel's recommended settings (as we know, consumer motherboard manufacturers like to ignore these anyway). All these CPUs are supported in X299 motherboards.

No 16-core part in the lineup, but there are 14 and 18 cores.

Related: 16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X and 24-core Threadripper 3 Will Launch in November

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Arctic's Freezer 50 TR Air Cooler w/ RGB for AMD's Threadripper Launched

The manufacturer does not disclose the cooler's rated TDP, but says that it can cool down Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX as well as CPUs 'of 32 cores and beyond'. So as we've seen with some other air coolers of this size (which can handle upwards of 340W) it's a reasonable bet that the 50 TR can dissipate at least 250 W of heat, leaving some additional headroom for overclocking and/or future processors with a higher TDP.

The back of the box says "It is an extremely powerful cooling solution for AMD sTR4 Threadripper® CPU, capable of efficiently and quietly cooling even 32- and 64-core CPUs with a TDP up to 250 W." sTR4 = Socket TR4.

Other leaks suggest that 24-core and 32-core Threadripper models will launch in November, alongside the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, while 48-core and 64-core models will launch in January 2020. Some features, including 8-channel memory support, may require new motherboards.

Here's a speculated lineup of a 24-core 3960X, 32-core 3970X, 48-core 3980X, and 64-core 3990X alongside older models.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD has announced its latest Threadripper high end desktop CPUs, along with a launch date for the Ryzen 9 3950X:

AMD is set to close out the year on a high note. As promised, the company will be delivering its latest 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X processor, built with two 7nm TSMC chiplets, to the consumer platform for $749. Not only this, but AMD today has lifted the covers on its next generation Threadripper platform, which includes Zen 2-based chiplets, a new socket, and an astounding 4x increase in CPU-to-chipset bandwidth.

Reviews of the 16-core 3950X will appear on November 14, with retail availability on November 25. The "mainstream" CPU has a 3.5 GHz base clock, 4.7 GHz single-core boost clock, and 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Unlike most Ryzen CPUs, the 3950X will not come with a bundled cooler, and AMD has published a list of recommended coolers instead.

All Ryzen 3000-series CPUs can now be configured to use a lower TDP using AMD's software:

takyon writes:

The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores on 7nm with PCIe 4.0

Earlier this year AMD pushed again, this time putting 12 cores in the market for the same price as 8, or what had been the 4-core price point only three years prior. In three years we had triple the cores for the same price, and these cores also have more raw performance. The frequency wasn't as high as the competition, but this was offset by that raw clock-for-clock throughput and ultimately where the competition now offered eight cores, AMD offered 12 at a much lower power consumption to boot.

Today is round 2 part 2: taking that same 12-core processor, and adding four more cores (for a 50% increase in price), and not only going after the best consumer processor Intel has to offer, but even the best high-end desktop processor. This is AMD squeezing Intel's product portfolio like never before. What exactly is mainstream, anyway?

AMD's new Ryzen 9 3950X has a suggested retail price of $749. For that AMD is advertising sixteen of its latest Zen 2 cores built on TSMC's 7nm process, running at a 3.5 GHz base frequency and a 4.7 GHz single-core turbo frequency. The TDP of the chip is rated at 105 watts and it has 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes as well as dual memory channels that support up to 128 GB of DDR4-3200.