When Intel launched the Core i9 we got some CPUs with legitimately great performance like the 7900 X that we reviewed.
But then we also got a bunch of confusion.
We got the unnecessary Kaby Lake X.
There was that whole thing with the bootable CPU-based NVME raid
that Intel still hasn't fully enabled on their desktop
for fear of encroaching on their lucrative
Xeon market.
To say it was
sort of disorganized would probably be an understatement,
but that was yesterday.
Today is all about a new threat to Xeon
from Intel themselves again.
The Core i9 7980 XE Extreme Edition,
with 18 cores and acclaimed
Teraflop of compute power.
It's a true Halo product.
A shining beacon of the technology that will become affordable in the future,
and you can have it today.
But it won't come cheap,
and neither do Linus Tech Tips videos.
Today's video is brought to you by
Cyberpower's lineup of gaming desktops featuring Intel seventh generation Core i7 processors.
Check them out at the link below.
So what's a high core count Core i9 anyway? Think of it this way,
it's like higher core count.
Anything with more than the last generation flagship ten core (Core i7-6950X) is a high core count.
So the Core i7 7980 XE 18 core is actually launching alongside a whole range of
HCC chips:
the 16 core Core i9 7960X, along with a 14 core, and 12 core, and...
Okay, real talk Intel.
I love you guys,
but your naming scheme...
You guys are actually stepping on your own mobile CPU model numbers.
It's confusing!
Anywho, in terms of features,
there's no real surprises here.
You've got your turbo boost 3.0, hyper threading giving you up to 36 threads,
44 PCI Express Lanes etc.
All of these new processors are fully enabled with the features that we've come to expect
from a Skylake-X Core i9 on the X299 platform.
So what are we testing then aside from core counts and clock speeds?
I'll tell you...
Yes, it's really just the core counts and clock speeds, but
Just doesn't do it
Just this because this is more added horsepower than we've seen in one generation
since the core series began think about it
last gen the best we had this side of Xeon was 10 cores on the
i7 6950 X and the big reveal this year was supposed to be a new 10 core for about half its price
which we did get
but this fully fleshed out lineup looks like more than just a refresh it looks like a
Fresh more competitive Intel, I guess they didn't want another
AMD sees a gap in the lineup and goes for it scenario like with Rison 7
Which isn't to say though that AMD has nothing competitive their rise in thread ripper
1950x also rocks almost as many cores at 16 with 32 threads while costing a cool
$700 less
Could the new core I nines really justify that much of a price gap
To find out we grabbed a chi DT CPUs from Team Blue and team red and then for good measure a core
I nine 7900 X and the 22 core xeon e5
$26.99 v4 from last gen all of them were SPECT out with otherwise identical hardware right down to the cooler
We'll begin with our productivity workloads which
Actually sees a pretty
significant performance difference between the core i-9 and even the 22 core Xeon in 7-zip and
CPU mark while asus real bench shows a predictable curve for the I nines in the image editing test but
Finds them for some reason trailing Fred Ripper here despite multiple reruns to confirm
smaller blender scenes like the BMW and fishy cat see a
slider difference between the 16 and 18 core chips while the more complex scenes like gooseberry and
Pavillion Barcelona stretched things out a bit more
Interestingly thread Ripper manages to stay on Intel's heels here
It generally outperforms its price competitor the 7900 X
Thanks to its much higher core count, but in a twist ending that surprised
No one it's lower per thread performance does hurt it in some cases
Now while gaming isn't in any way the focus of this class of CPU or this video
And we had to test it and honestly the results were as expected pretty underwhelming
The high core count for I nines pull out some early leads at 1080p and deus ex
But slip and rise of the Tomb Raider
And then everything levels off at 4k for both titles the sole exception out of our gaming tests
Then becomes counter-strike go which at both 1080p and 4k shows a significant lead for Team Blue
synthetics meanwhile give a slight edge to Team Blue in 3d mark and Unigine super position sees similar scores across the board
the most interesting thing about gaming on any of these is
How thoroughly trounced they all get by a core i7 for a fraction of the price in all but the great equalizer 4k
Though this too should surprise
no one baby thermals will be more interesting well actually looks like all of our processors stayed nice and cool with an
h1 15i
But the higher base clock of the 70 960 actually put it closer to thread Ripper in that department power consumption is also pretty straightforward
more coarse more juice
But with that said our thread Ripper platform in general seems to pull fewer watts from the wall
It should be noted here though that we didn't test over clocks for this review since our X 299 boards vrm. Well
We don't trust it to handle overclocking one of these for long and believe it or not
We don't purposely try to ruin our equipment around here some preliminary readings though at 4.4
Gigahertz have this CPU alone pulling about 500 Watts off the 12 volt rail
so you're gonna want to pair this beast with a
Top-of-the-line board like a rampage extreme and a heavy-duty power supply in order to keep the juice flowing
I mean the wires get disquieting ly warm at these kinds of loads
Or you could just not overclock so finely then value our weighted performance numbers put the newly launched in core
I nine 79 80 XC and seventy-nine 60 X at the top of the performance heap
But when we look at their pricing they do fall behind due to their massive price tags
With that said price isn't the only consideration at this level it is likely that these CPUs will go into render machines and high-end
Workstations where when you're deploying a lot of them at a time performance per watt is also an important factor
And while they still fall behind the difference is predictably much less dramatic than price was
So what's the point of these products at all then because clearly they make no sense for the average consumer or gamer?
That's true
but as long as you don't need ECC Ram support an
HCC core, I 9 workstation is going to be hands down the fastest you can buy with the capability to
Overclock it if you're an enthusiast prosumer for truly Zeon crushing raw performance
Let's just hope though that you'll be using your new monster to generate revenue for your business
because
otherwise the dent in your wallet versus the performance might not be worth it compared to well Intel's own lower end line up or
AMD's thread Ripper
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