Computex ’18: AMD bumps 2nd generation Threadripper to 32 cores

On the 2018 edition of the Computex trade show in Taipei, AMD revealed the successor to the Ryzen Threadripper line of processors. Like the new 2000 series of Ryzen, the new Threadripper receives the Zen+ 12nm treatment plus an upgrade from two functional cpu dies to three and four, bumping core count to 24 and 32 respectively.

Dummy dies

The current Threadripper package contains two ‘Zeppelin’ cpu dies, each containing 8 cores, making a total of 16 cores, and two non-functional ‘dummy’ dies. The next generation Threadripper will upgrade those ‘dummy’ dies to full cpus, resulting in a 24 and 32 core cpu.
This will bring the cpu into Epyc territory, as it matches the core count of AMD’s server chips. Unlike Epyc’s eight memory channels, Threadripper v2 is limited by the X399 platform to four memory channels. This means that memory intensive workloads may not get the same speedup as other workloads.

Same TR4 socket

Luckily, the chipset and cpu socket stays the same. Therefore, many power users could, in theory, upgrade to the lastest and greatest high performance desktop processor from AMD on their X399 motherboards. The only thing needed is a BIOS upgrade and a motherboard that is capable of delivering up to 250 Watts of power. Which is a big step from the 180 Watts the current generation demands.

Competition

During the presentation, the 24 core Threadripper was benchmarked against an Intel’s 18-core i9-7980XE processor.  3D animation application Blender was used for the showdown. There was a clear winner: the AMD processor completed the render 31% faster.

Specifications

No other specifications like cpu speed and price were revealed. Anandtech distilled some more information from the slide deck and found out that both the 24 and the 32 core processor will be clocked at 3.0 GHz, with a 3.4 GHz boost clock.
Release was still scheduled for the third quarter, so a rumored August release is still possible.