AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 Core Monster Review

Test Setup

We’re largely focussing upon the 3990X today, and our tests will utilise the ASUS Zenith II Extreme. However we’ve also dug out the two top end models from Gigabyte and MSI as well as the TR3970X to compare the VRM temperatures at the end of this review. But for now we’re just looking at how well the 3990X compares to its nearest rivals, even though with at least twice the cores of anything else on the market comparisons are hard to come by.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X
ASUS TRX40 Zenith II Extreme Alpha
G.Skill Trident Z 3600 MHz
Patriot Viper Steel 4000 MHz
Gskill Tident Z 3600Mhz
Corsair MP500 M.2 – OS Drive
Nvidia RTX 2080Ti
Corsair HX1000i
Coolermaster Master Liquid TR4 360
Corsair ML Fans
Windows 10 1909

Overclocking

For our overclocking exploits we first endeavoured to overclock the TR 3990X as we would any other processor, with some careful tweaking of voltages and multipliers across all 64 cores. The most usable of which was a 3.6 GHz overclock on all 64 cores, beyond which point we just couldn’t keep the processor cool enough for a full suite of tests. It might seem disappointing but as you’ll see in a moment, the 3990X is capable of much more if you just reset your preconceived notions of how to overclock.

   

However, we know that many of you will be curious as to what you really could get if you threw caution to the wind – tough to do with nearly four grands worth of CPU – and for a couple of our tests we’ll also be including this 3.8 GHz overclock. But that’s not the whole story.

  

If you throw away what you think you know about overclocking, you can actually get the TR 3990X to go much higher and faster, at lower voltages and power draw. Instead of approaching it in the usual manner we merely put on a 200 MHz offset, and set the Precision Boost Overclock to motherboard limits which as youll see below is basically setting it to enabled. This saw a huge increase in our scores both single and multi threaded and a lowering of temperatures and power draw. The very best of both worlds. This processor is so at the leading edge of what is possible that you’re significantly better off leaving it to do its own thing with regard to voltages and individual core clock speed. This will be in our graphs as the “tweaked” result.