Due to pop demand, we're looking into AMD's Threadripper 2990WX performance using Linux. Apparently this is something we should have washed since day i, according to many AMD fans, although of course this is not role of our usual bombardment of tests.

In example you missed it, we did an extensive 24-hour interval-one review of the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX and Threadripper 2950X processors. The latter is the drop-in replacement for the previous flagship Threadripper and an overall cracking performer for the price. The 2990WX still is a different kind of beast, more expensive and offer more than cores, but with mixed results. That's why we followed upward with the mega-tasking test, a divide multi-tasking focused benchmark in an attempt to explore workstation performance of these high-end CPUs more closely.

Today nosotros take the Threadripper 2990WX put confronting the Core i9-7980XE head to head using both Windows 10 and Linux, more especifically Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. Both operating systems were tested in their out-of-the-box configuration, and so no optimizations were made.

Both test systems have been configured with 64GB of DDR4 memory, the 2990WX is limited to 3000 MHz, while the 7980XE happily accustomed 3200 MHz and could go higher, but for the sake of trying to keep things as apples to apples as possible we went with low latency CL14 DDR4-3200 retentivity.

Benchmarks

One thousand-queens is part of the Phoronix-Exam-Suite and it was one of the few benchmarks in the suite that we could go to work on Linux and Windows as well every bit AMD and Intel hardware. The test suite was a bit of a nightmare to piece of work with to be honest.

The benchmark measures the fourth dimension to solve the n-queens trouble, m-queen just uses a much larger lath making it a longer more complex problem. Hither we are measuring the time to solve and as you tin see the 2990WX does this in around one-half the fourth dimension of the 7980XE using either Windows or Linux which is extremely impressive.

Stockfish is a free and open-source chess engine, available on various platforms. It's consistently ranked as one of the best chess-engines and is the strongest open-source chess engine in the world. The speed of this test is measured in nodes positions per second, substantially positions per second and this is determined entirely by the processors performance.

Again we see when it comes to chess the 2990WX is a animate being using Windows or Linux. That said this time we practice see a 23% operation uplift for the 32-core processor when using Linux. Meanwhile the 7980XE only saw a iv% performance increase when testing with Linux.

The last chess benchmark we're going to look at is Crafty and again nosotros're measuring performance in nodes per second. Interestingly, the Core i9-7980XE wins out hither and saw the biggest performance uplift when moving to Linux, a 5% operation increase was seen opposed to but iii% for the 2990WX and this made the Intel CPU 12% faster overall.

John the Ripper is a password cracker that's currently available on multiple platforms including Linux and Windows. Using the traditional Information Encryption Standard we see that the 2990WX and 7980XE execute roughly the aforementioned amount of Crypts per second when using Windows. However using Linux it's a completely different ball game. Here the 7980XE is a whopping 80% faster but it's the 2990WX that's truly impressive delivering 3x more performance making information technology roughly fourscore% faster than the Core i9 processor.

We find a similar story when using the Blowfish cipher. Here the 7980XE is 7% faster on Windows but the 2990WX is almost seventy% faster when using Linux. So while the 32-core processors looks less than impressive using Windows 10, it looks incredible using Linux.

GraphicsMagick is a simple but highly efficiency software package for viewing and manipulating images. It supports a massive range of formats and epitome processing is heavily multi-threaded. It's used by several websites to process big numbers of uploaded images. Here we are looking at the acuminate performance which is measured in iterations per minute, so higher is better.

Using Windows 10, the 7980XE is 26% faster than the 2990WX, nevertheless using Linux turns that around and now the 32-core processor is 10% faster. Not a massive win but the AMD processor does come from well behind on Windows to beat the Core i9 on Linux.

The enhanced operating performs around thirty% better with Linux but we run into similar gains for both the AMD and Intel processors, the end effect it a small-scale win for AMD.

Side by side up we have the Apache Benchmark which measures the performance of HTTP spider web servers and every bit you can see performance is extremely poor on Windows. Windows Server does fair a little better, simply withal gets smashed about by Linux, which is why almost web servers run Linux (e.chiliad. TechSpot uses nginx instead of Apache on Linux boxes). Anyway, on Windows ten the 7980XE was four% faster than the 2990WX, but on Linux the 18-core processor was almost 40% faster, and then not a great consequence here for the 2990WX.

We've seen previously that encoding performance with the 2990WX isn't great and once again we run across that the 7980XE is 6% faster using Windows. We run across much the same using Linux, the 7980XE is able to edge out the 32-core processor. So for encoding workloads Linux appears to do little to help the 2990WX out.

The 2990WX also sucked in our VeraCrypt benchmark and we notice some odd results with Linux. For the 50MB test the 2990WX was slightly slower than the 7980XE when using Windows 10. But then Linux tanks performance, specially for the 7980XE.

But where the 2990WX actually struggled on Windows was on the retentiveness intensive 1GB test. Here it offered half the operation of the 7980XE. This event is improved on Linux, only even so, the 7980XE was however 35% faster. So the 1GB results are roughly what we were expecting to notice, nosotros're non sure what's going on with the 50MB results using Linux though.

Nosotros found some odd results using 7-nada on Linux as well. The 2990WX's exceptional decompression performance was reduced by thirteen% when using Linux opposed to Windows 10. The 7980XE likewise saw performance drop off, though it was very pocket-size.

Compression performance for the 2990WX was drastically improved, here nosotros see a massive 54% performance uplift. That said the 7980XE too enjoyed a performance heave, though it was a much smaller 10% increase. Still this meant overall the 7980XE was still 11% faster than the 2990WX.

Concluding upwardly we're going to run the Blender Open Data benchmark suite and nosotros're expecting positive results for the 2990WX here since it's already proven to be a rendering power house. Hither nosotros have the Barbershop Interior exam and we're measuring completion time in seconds.

The 7980XE was 23% faster using Linux, while the 2990WX was 31% faster. This meant whereas the 2990WX was 21% faster than the 7980XE on Windows, it'southward 29% faster using Linux.

We see a slightly different scenario with the BMW27 test though the outcome even so sees the 2990WX well ahead. Still where as the 32-core processors was 52% faster using Windows 10, that margin was reduced to 45% with Linux.

This time we see similar scaling using either CPU, both were 48% faster using Linux for the Classroom workload.

This time Linux slightly favored the 2990WX making it 59% faster where as it was 52% faster using Windows.

We run across a similar story with the Koro workload, Linux slightly improves the 2990WX's position, but overall both CPUs see good gains on Linux.

Then nosotros have the Pavilion Barcelona workload and we see more of the same, so time to wrap this upwardly.

Closing Remarks

So is Windows ten gimping the Threadripper 2990WX's performance? Unquestionably yeah, simply it's gimping the 7980XE to a sure degree as well. If you lot were to but compare the 2990WX using Linux and Windows 10 the state of affairs would announced a lot more extreme than it really is. For instance, you'd conclude that the 32-cadre processor is going to wreck the 7980XE by an fifty-fifty more extreme margin when in fact both CPUs see an almost identical performance uplift.

Meanwhile, programs that were problematic on Windows such as 7-zip and VeraCrypt still provide us with odd results. For example the 2990WX's compression performance was strengthened, but the decompression performance was weakened. Nevertheless overall Linux did provide a better balance.

Though we could still find the impact of the multi-die design on the 2990WX and its "limited" memory bandwidth to put it in some way, in the 7-zip compression test, even on Linux and performance jumps all over the place during the test, but the average concluded up being very similar after each run.

Encoding performance also remains lackluster, though nosotros have but managed very limited testing on Linux so far. Equally for for non-memory sensitive workloads like the Blender renders, here the 2990WX is a beast. This too includes the chess and countersign-smashing benchmarks.

So again, depending on what you program on using the 2990WX for will determine just how useful information technology really is. It's our opinion that there's room for Windows 10 optimizations in order to meliorate utilize, or better manage, these core-heavy CPUs. Improved thread scheduling isn't going to make the 2990WX a weapon in workloads where information technology'south struggling, only it's our promise that it can at least match the 2950X under those conditions, rather than come in much slower.

Results like what we saw in the GraphicsMagik sharpen test were promising as the 2990WX went from existence much slower than the 7980XE on Windows to slightly faster on Linux, and we saw the same thing with John The Ripper. All the same, this is only a small sample of applications and doesn't really do much for content creators.

We'd love to test out Premiere on Linux to encounter if our custom warp stabilizer exam running a dozen instances simultaneously provides meliorate results. On Windows this exam maxes out the 2990WX, simply the resulting performance is very poor.

Wrapping this 1 upward we have to say, the few days we spent messing effectually with Linux were interesting, only ultimately fabricated the states more appreciative of Windows 10's desktop OS feel.

Shopping Shortcuts:
  • AMD Threadripper 2990WX on Amazon, Newegg
  • Intel Core i9-7980XE on Amazon, Newegg
  • AMD Threadripper 1950X on Amazon, Newegg
  • AMD Threadripper 2950X on Amazon, Newegg (bachelor Aug 31)