Thanks to a stunning liquid nitrogen cooling system, Intel’s new W9-3495X Xeon processor outperformed AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995X CPU in a popular 3D rendering benchmark, Maxon’s Cinebench R23.
However, this does not reflect the more mundane reality of Pros: no one drives drag racing cars to work, and no creative professionals would risk a BSOD or system lock up by using extreme overclocking. The increased performance is not unsustainable, but it is not long-term viable (not to mention how dangerous it is).
Check out the content creation preview article Matt Bach from Puget Systems, a boutique workstation specialist put together for a more realistic view of how the two rivals perform on creative software.
Threadripper Pro vs. Xeon
He compared three Xeon “Sapphire Rapids” CPUs to three Threadripper Pro CPUs using eight popular benchmark software programs, including Cinebench R23. He stated that current generation Xeons are 40% faster than previous generations in single-core performance and 5% faster (56-core vs 64-core) than AMD’s workstation CPU. Overall, the 5995WX outperforms the best Xeon (W9-3495X) by about 8.5%.
The ThreadRipper Pro is not AMD’s fastest processor. The EPYC 9654, a monstrous 96-core/192 thread server processor that some vendors, including Broadberry, have begun to use in workstations, now holds that title. It not only has better IPC (instruction-per-clock) performance due to the newer Zen 4 architecture, but it also has 50% more cores.
Intel only won the Cinebench competition because no new EPYC CPUs were overclocked. Cinebench is also limited to 128 cores (or 256 threads) per instance which means that Cinebench R24/R25 will likely offer an instant boost to a 192-core EPYC system when Maxon decides to release it. Without overclocking, a dual socket Cinebench R23 running on two-thirds of its cores currently scores nearly 140,000 (via Storagereview).
Consider the price.
The Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX was introduced in March 2022, and the EPYC 9654 was introduced in November 2022. Could a Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX be released before the end of the year? Don’t dismiss it just yet, though we suspect there’s no need for it now given that it’s currently faster than Intel’s fastest CPU in several benchmarks.
This CPU could theoretically have 64 cores, a slightly higher base/max frequency, more cache, and a higher TDP. Those who want extra oomph can always check out boutique workstation providers like Broadberry, ThinkMate, Supermicro, Mediaworkstation, and a few others: as long as your budget allows for it that is. A dual-socket AMD EPYC workstation with 192 cores and full DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support will cost more than $20,000. einsteineruploaded with.