AMD Releases 12 & 24-Core Ryzen Threadrippers: 2920X & 2970WX

Following up on the August launch of the very well received 2nd generation AMD Ryzen Threadrippers, AMD is now releasing the odd-sized core count chips to fill in the gaps between its 8-core Ryzen CPUs, and the 32-core behemoth that is the 2990WX Threadripper.

The 2920X is the 12-core 24-thread, more budget conscious Threadripper, meant as a step up from the mainstream Ryzen CPUs. While clearly an HEDT processor, AMD is targeting game streamers with its ability to handle high-performance video encoding without interrupting that game in play.

The 2970WX on the other hand is definitely more suited to workstation class applications with its 24-cores 48-threads, such as video production, rendering and design, as well as research and analysis. It has almost double the cache of the next CPU down in the stack, and much higher TDP as well. These two new CPUs are meant to be alternatives to Intel’s i9-7960X and i7-7820X.

All the enhancements from the 2nd launch carry over, including the much improved cache system and latency, compared to the first generation Threadrippers, as part of AMD’s Zen+ architecture. You can read our review of the 2990WX and 2950X to get a better understanding of how the chips scale, but there are some upcoming tests that will delve into how the performance has changed over the last couple of months. Later on we will look into the impact of AMD’s new Dynamic Local Mode software tweak as part of the Ryzen Master suite, which alters the behaviors of memory access for certain applications, potentially improving performance.

We have both the 2920X and 2970WX in the lab, ready for testing, so we’ll be able to see how these CPUs scale in real workloads and workstations-class applications, but you can read the previous review to get you started for the time being. Be aware, that results will have changed somewhat over the last couple of months, so we’ll be sure to update the tests with these new CPUs.

As part of AMD’s Holiday Bundles program, discounts on AMD Threadrippers and select partner motherboards will be made available from certain retailers. Not all offers are up yet, but keep an eye out as festivities kick off.