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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X CPU-Z Leaks?

On June 5, 2018, during the Computex show in Taiwan, AMD revealed some details about its upcoming 12nm 2nd generation Ryzen Threadripper processor family that will have up to 32 physical cores (and 64 threads with SMT) that will work on existing X399 motherboards. These processors will also have the 2nd generation Ryzen features like Precision Boost 2 and XFR 2 to more aggressively boost clock speeds on multiple threads.

These are due to be released during the 3rd quarter of 2018 (rumor has it during August). My guess is that the flagship processor will have an MSRP of $1599.99… Let’s see how accurate my guess turns out to be!


Figure 1: AMD slide revealed at Computex

Since then, there has been quite a bit of speculation about the specifications and performance of this new family of processors. There have even been some supposed benchmark results and CPU-Z screenshots from the purported flagship AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X processor, as shown in Figure 2.


Figure 2: Alleged AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X CPU-Z Screenshot


Figure 3 shows an actual AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X CPU-Z screenshot (from my personal workstation system). The ID caption at the top of my screenshot shows that it is a validated result.

screenshot of CPU-Z validation for Dump [ffq2d1] - Submitted by  BIGBEAST  - 2018-06-20 22:08:59

Figure 3: Actual AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X CPU-Z Screenshot


Looking closely at the font on the Tools button from the purported Threadripper 2990X screenshot in Figure 2, it appears to be different than what you actually see in CPU-Z (and different from the font on the other buttons), which probably means that the screenshot is fake. Regardless of this, the numbers in the doctored screenshot are plausible from what AMD has officially revealed about the new processor.

If you are considering buying/building a new high-end desktop (HEDT) for workstation use, this new processor would be an excellent choice. It supports up to 128GB of RAM, and has 64 PCIe lanes, so you can have multiple M.2 NVMe drives with PCIe 3.0 x4 connectivity.

This easily lets you run multiple instances of SQL Server and multiple concurrent virtual machines.


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