AMD’S ZEN 4 THREADRIPPER 7000-SERIES launched recently. There are two basic versions: the WX series, aimed at professional applications, and the X series for workstations and HEDTs. It was predicted to smash overclocking records. AMD’s overclocking team got to work on the halo chip, the 96-core Threadripper Pro 7995WX. Liquid cooling pushed it to 5.0GHz, close to the boost speed of an unadulterated chip. This brought a few overclocking records, including on Cinebench R23 and 2024.
Then they brought out the overclocker’s favorite weapon: liquid nitrogen. This reached 6.0GHz on all cores, while consuming 1,000W. It could now produce a Cinebench R23 score of 201,501. Others followed, topping that. The benchmark world records on HWBot that can usefully scale across multiple cores are dominated by the new Threadrippers. That Cinebench R23 record stands at 210,702 (so far).
Of more practical interest is the ‘X’ variant. This has been seen as a return to the HEDT market, which AMD left in summer 2022. Intel appears to have forgotten the HEDT—its X-series processors are all 10th generation and look antiquated. The rise of potent multi-core consumer chips effectively killed the HEDT. Then we get AMD releasing a new Threadripper X-series. The top chip is the 7980X, a $4,999 monster with 64 cores and a base clock of 3.2GHz. Then there’s a 32-core 7970X at $2,499, and the 24-core 7960X at $1,499. You’ll need a TRX50 motherboard, which are $599 to $899. There’s not a lot of life in the HEDT market, and Threadripper alone won’t revive it by much, but it’s reassuring to know it’s still there.