Author Topic: Threadripper 5975wx VS 3990x  (Read 2219 times)

2023-01-08, 14:27:02

Robwan

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In the uk all companies which sell custom build, pre-built (they build if for you) threadripper pcs only sell the latest 5 series threadrippers now. I won't go into specifics of the build with all the other parts, but now I can only get a 5975wx build for the same price as what I used to be able to buy a 3990x build.

With this is mind the only way to still get a 3990x build for the same price is to buy the parts separately. This is ok, but not ideal so I am trying to figure out if its really worth it, or do I just get pcspecialist.co.uk for example to make me a 5975wx build with no fuss of having to do it myself.

This brings me to my main question: How much slower really is the 5975wx than the 3990x. This is very hard to gauge from corona benchmark because if we go by top result for both, then the 3990x is twice as fast nearly! As a side note the 5995wx is only about 1 second faster than a 3990x according to the top benchmarks; and it will cost about £2000 more. I understand people are doing all kinds of stuff to get these results and overclocking the absolute balls of their cpus, but what do I look at to get an accurate comparison?

If I do a search on google for 5975wx vs 3990x multicore I get various results averaging around the 3990x being about 1.15x faster (which is not huge anymore). Should I be looking at Cinibench multicore results for example?

It's a long shot but does anyone own both a 3990x and 5970x with similar hardware and able to give me a comparison. I have a 3990x already which gets about 17 seconds with corona benchmark with pretty standard water cooling, no other bells and whistles. If a 5975wx can only do 25 seconds I think I'll build a 3990x myself. I can get either cpu for about the same price.

Thanks! and please correct me if I'm wrong with any of the above.


2023-01-09, 01:14:52
Reply #1

Blanco

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3990x all the way for rendering.
It might be different if the new 5000 threadrippers supported ddr5 ram and Pcie gen 5 ssd, but they don’t. Also the TR pro motherboards start around £900 so you have to factor that in to the cost.

But…. what will you be using the PC for? If you’re using it mainly for rendering then the 3990x is great - as you’ll know. However, if you’re using it mainly for modelling, photoshop etc with only a bit of test rendering I would go for the 7950x with ddr5 ram and gen 5 ssd (when they arrive…). The clock speeds are way higher and for single core functions - as I think modelling with 3dsmax is - it will be better to work with. Plus you could probably buy 2 of these for the price of a single 5975wx. I currently have a 5950x and a 3970x. I have noticed that for smaller test renders, the 5950x has picked up the job and is already half way through before the 3970x even starts. With gen 5 ssd and ddr5 ram, the 7950x will be even quicker. 

Lastly, I’ve been looking into a 3990x rig myself but parts are in very short supply. Most retailers have sold out of trx4 motherboards and finding a 3990x without paying scalper prices is tough.

Anyway, good luck!



2023-01-09, 01:54:41
Reply #2

Blanco

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Just found this on another thread. I think it’s more eloquent than my post.

“ But in my opinion, do not buy last-gen. If you can't afford 7950X + DDR5, get Raptor Lake. The single-thread performance improvement are the best thing ever for fast, smooth workflow. It's so much more important than rendering time. Rendering time on workstation are meaningless, it's still hours for high quality still, it will still get rendered over-night. Few seconds on benchmark here or there don't matter that much in grand scheme, but faster work does. “

Also, the 79503D is launching soon which should give a small uplift on the standard 7950x.

I appreciate that I haven’t answered your initial question but I thought this route might be worth considering. So, 7950x for workflow then pass over to 3990x for big renders (or for DR).

2023-01-09, 12:51:33
Reply #3

Nejc Kilar

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Not sure if its going to be helpful but I went from a 3970x to 5995wx and I'm really happy with the setup. I was a bit worried about going to a "lower clocked" CPU because I really enjoy snappy responsiveness and all but honestly I think this setup is the same as the 3970x was - if not even better.

I think the Corona and V-Ray benchmarks are solid indicators of the performance for these. Broadly speaking, I would expect the 3975wx to be kind of about 2/3rds as fast the 3990x. Probably a little less (~31 seconds vs ~19s). Basically you add the Zen 3 improvements to the Zen 2 based 3970x and that's the difference in performance. It's the same amount of cores and threads but the Zen 3 cores are roughly 10-15% faster.

The 5995wx should also be about the same amount faster than the 3990x.

Don't forget though that all of these CPUs can be overclocked so the top most entries you are seeing could very well be overclocked short burst runs. It is imho wise to skip the first couple of entries and focus on the "middle of the pack" entries.

What I typically do is just do the math and apply that to my actual scenes. It is by no means an accurate way to go about things but I think it is a good enough indicator of the performance boost I'd get. That's my personal impression at least.
For example, if my 3970x used to take 30 minutes to render out a given frame then I would expect the 3990x to be roughly, give or take, near the 20 minute mark for that same frame.

Then it is up to you to decide whether that justifies the expenses :)
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2023-01-09, 17:12:54
Reply #4

Robwan

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Thanks guys, some interesting stuff above.

I’m really just looking for a direct comparison between the 5975wx and the 3990x when it comes to long rendering times in corona.

If i take the middle of the pack for corona benchmark results and compare them, I come to conclusion that the 3990x is about 1.5 times faster than the 5975wx

BUT if i look at these cinebench multicore results here it tells me that the 3990x is only about 1.2 times faster https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r23_multi_core-16

For both I just divided 3990x score by 5975wx score. Cinibench does not give results in seconds and it's obviously not corona render engine, but surely the same logic applies as it's a multithreaded render benchmark? maybe I'm wrong here?

Bottom line - If the 3990x is only 1.2 x faster then i'll probably turn a blind eye since its quite a bit of hassle to source all the parts for a 3990x build, not to mention  the volatility of the price.

But if it’s 1.5 faster then i'll go out of my way to do it, since i'll be getting more than one build for the office. Oh and 5995wx are completely out of the question, £7000+ for a build when they appear to be only marginally better than a 3990x…according to the benchmark results.

Just waiting for that magic person who owns both to give me a comparison benchmark :)

2023-01-10, 12:07:22
Reply #5

Nejc Kilar

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Thanks guys, some interesting stuff above.

I’m really just looking for a direct comparison between the 5975wx and the 3990x when it comes to long rendering times in corona.

If i take the middle of the pack for corona benchmark results and compare them, I come to conclusion that the 3990x is about 1.5 times faster than the 5975wx

BUT if i look at these cinebench multicore results here it tells me that the 3990x is only about 1.2 times faster https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r23_multi_core-16

For both I just divided 3990x score by 5975wx score. Cinibench does not give results in seconds and it's obviously not corona render engine, but surely the same logic applies as it's a multithreaded render benchmark? maybe I'm wrong here?

Bottom line - If the 3990x is only 1.2 x faster then i'll probably turn a blind eye since its quite a bit of hassle to source all the parts for a 3990x build, not to mention  the volatility of the price.

But if it’s 1.5 faster then i'll go out of my way to do it, since i'll be getting more than one build for the office. Oh and 5995wx are completely out of the question, £7000+ for a build when they appear to be only marginally better than a 3990x…according to the benchmark results.

Just waiting for that magic person who owns both to give me a comparison benchmark :)

By and large each renderer has its own approach and specifics which does mean it might hit the CPU differently. As a personal opinion, I would encourage you to focus on the benchmarking tools of the software that you are using - that'll probably the best indicator for the performance you'll get although that said there's scenes that might have a different hit on the performance and so even software specific benchmarks are supposed to be taken as a ~value.

As for the 3990x vs 5975wx debate, I'd probably also look into a 3990x vs 3970x comparison and to get to the 5975wx performance levels I'd just subtract another 10-15% of the 3970x times. It isn't scientific no but should be indicative enough imho.
Also, my impression is that the performance class didn't really change between Zen 2 and Zen 3. Sure, there is that 10-15% boost + whatever clocks get you but a 5975wx still occupies a similar spot in that stack that the 3970x did.
Nejc Kilar | chaos-corona.com
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2023-01-10, 20:21:45
Reply #6

danio1011

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We have both 3990x's and a 3970x.  I used to think the 3970x was snappier due to its slightly higher clock speed for single core tasks, but I think I was just fooling myself, they're really about the same for workflow.  The 3990x, though, is way faster when set loose on our farm.  I don't have exact numbers but when watching them all work away in our render manager the 3970x always seems about 30-35% slower.


2023-01-10, 20:37:26
Reply #7

Robwan

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Thanks guys,

Yea we actually also have a 3970 too :) So I'm aware of its speed compared to the 3990x.  But adding a 10-15% speed increase to give an idea about the 5975wx seems like a good idea. Ill run another test this week and see how it aligns with my other research.

For me it's all the about render times and having better cpu takes hours off. I've used max and corona on a variety of devices - laptops, i9 pc, older dual xeons and I've never noticed any difference with anything other than raw render time. If I was looking for it, I'm sure I would see that some cpus fire the render up a bit faster but I'm more interested in cutting long render times.

Only if we could put two 7950x on the same motherboard 🤯 that would be awesome.

2023-01-10, 22:23:18
Reply #8

TomG

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Putting two on one board - that would make them Epycs then? :)
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2023-01-10, 23:45:00
Reply #9

Robwan

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Well, that's food for thought 🎂. If I could get two epyc chips totalling at less than the price of a 3990x, but could match the render time of the 3990x.

How would I work out how well they perform though? There's so many models to choose it seems. I guess if I knew how well one performed, I just slice the the render time in half for two right?

2023-01-11, 05:37:03
Reply #10

danio1011

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I've wondered about the Epyc too but can never find any information about what it would take to build a 2 CPU node\workstation. There must be constraints that make it less popular.

I'm still curious about the intel 13900k chip and whether or not the high single core speed affects day-to-day single thread workflow.  I haven't seen anyone make a comparison between that and a 39xx chip when it comes to workstation performance. 

2023-01-12, 20:31:23
Reply #11

Robwan

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I've done some further testing:

We have 2 3990x in the office and 1 3970x. I ran corona benchmark and the scores roughly align with the middle of the pack when looking at user submitted results which is good to know. Ours are not overlocked or anything, just vanilla.

By that logic and using the middle of the pack scores from the user submitted results:
  • 3990x is about 1.67x faster than a 3970x
  • 3990x is about 1.47x faster than a 5975wx
  • 5975wx is about 1.13x faster than a 3970x

I would give or take about 0.1 though since the difference of even a second can change the result that much. Except for the 5975x vs 3970x, I would expect the 5975x to always be faster by about 10-15% (as Nejc Kilar suggested). Also those people who are scoring under 14 seconds with a 3990x please tell us how you are overclocking them, talk about getting the most out of your money. 💸

Welp, this is good enough for me for now, Thanks everyone. I'll stick with getting the absolute weapon 3990x (while continuing to research epyc in the background hehe)
« Last Edit: 2023-01-12, 20:40:39 by Robin Walker »