Threadripper 1900X vs 1800X

jrphoenix

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Feb 29, 2004
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I am going to buy a new Ryzen / Threadripper system in the next month or so. I haven't seen any real reviews of the new 1900X vs 1800X. I know the threadripper motherboards are much more expensive. For gaming / photoshop / general usage, would you guys recommend going with an 1800X or 1900X?

Thank you!
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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For value I'd recommend going with a 1600X. You don't even need to do overclocking on it, since it has the same base/turbo frequency as the 1800X. Just get some 3200MHz or alternatively dual rank memory and you're good to go.

You'd be hard pressed to feel any difference between the 1600X and 1800X outside of benchmarks.

For gaming the saved cash is more profitably invested in a faster graphics card. Add a large PCIe NVMe SSD to help with everything else.
 

The Stilt

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Dec 5, 2015
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R7 1700 is a no brainer.
With 1900X you either need to suffer from the abysmal latency (UMA, Distributed Mode) or make sure your workloads are NUMA aware (Local Mode).

Unless you absolute need those additional PCI-E lanes, I would strongly suggest you steer clear of Threadripper and go with AM4 Ryzens instead.
 

mattiasnyc

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Mar 30, 2017
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R7 1700 is a no brainer.
With 1900X you either need to suffer from the abysmal latency (UMA, Distributed Mode) or make sure your workloads are NUMA aware (Local Mode).

Unless you absolute need those additional PCI-E lanes, I would strongly suggest you steer clear of Threadripper and go with AM4 Ryzens instead.

Quick question/thought though:

If comparing with the 1700, does the additional memory lanes, higher memory speeds (?) and higher boost (or OC?) offset the drawbacks you mention above? I'm talking about productivity, not gaming btw.

I'm actually in the situation where I may have a semi-tight budget, and I'm wondering if the loss I would take on selling a 1700 based system to build a TR system later will essentially make it worth just getting a 1900x based system instead from the get go (future upgrades would basically eat up all the lanes on an x370 quickly). It looks like the difference will be in the 600 dollar range. Maybe I could resell the 1700 + mobo for $200, so that would bring the loss to $400..... which could be better spent on other items...
 

The Stilt

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Dec 5, 2015
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Quick question/thought though:

If comparing with the 1700, does the additional memory lanes, higher memory speeds (?) and higher boost (or OC?) offset the drawbacks you mention above? I'm talking about productivity, not gaming btw.

I'm actually in the situation where I may have a semi-tight budget, and I'm wondering if the loss I would take on selling a 1700 based system to build a TR system later will essentially make it worth just getting a 1900x based system instead from the get go (future upgrades would basically eat up all the lanes on an x370 quickly). It looks like the difference will be in the 600 dollar range. Maybe I could resell the 1700 + mobo for $200, so that would bring the loss to $400..... which could be better spent on other items...

The memory bandwidth itself is no longer a performance limiting factor at >= 2933MHz MEMCLK on AM4 Ryzen.
Usually at that point the memory latency is significantly more important. The latency on Threadripper is anywhere between 30-70% higher than on AM4 Ryzen's, unless you use NUMA mode.
 
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mattiasnyc

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Mar 30, 2017
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I can see how memory bandwidth isn't a limiting factor on AM4 at 2933, but what I meant was if the drawbacks on TR4 are mitigated by the higher infinity fabric speeds and higher memory bandwidth (and possibly more easily attainable higher CPU speed). So if I was to hypothetically lose 10-20% performance on TR4 due to the different architecture in some areas, will I 'get it back' in others? That's what I was sort of asking.

In my specific case I'd be starting out on the new build with pro audio, which does very well at medium-high audio buffers and not as well as Intel at very low ones (i.e. less than 256 samples). And then at some point I would like to move to video editing and/or color grading. The latter is less latency sensitive than audio I think. So anyway, it all boils down to my need for more PCIe lanes than AM4 can provide, and if it makes sense getting a sufficient 1700/b350 or x370 first and take the hit once I need to upgrade, even if that's within a year - or if it's better to invest in a 1900x and pay the price up front so to speak.....

Anyway, it's really just me wondering what the net difference is between the pros/cons of the 1700 vs the 1900x are, and how much it depends on usage....
 

The Stilt

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No.

TR doesn't have higher fabric speeds than the AM4 counterparts (both run 1:2 in relation to MEMCLK).
So basically it boils down on the PCI-E links.
 
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mattiasnyc

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Mar 30, 2017
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I know that the relationship is the same. My question was really if a) there are no benefits on a TR platform having quad channel memory and b) if a potential increase in memory speed results in significant benefits from lowered latency (since they're tied together). And I'm basing this on the impression I've gotten from reading what people have achieved on average on a 1700/b350 system for memory speeds (about 3000) and clock speed (about 3.8-3.9GHz) relative to what I've seen for Threadripper (4-4.1GHz / 3600MHz)....

My logic could be faulty, or my impression. That's why I'm asking.
 

mattiasnyc

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Mar 30, 2017
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Basically, you need to ask yourself, do you need the pic lanes and additional chip name ports.

It's all dependent on work for me. If I get the work then AM4 won't work for me. The thing is I can probably grow into this since I'd be branching out and there's a bit of a learning period, but the question is do I start with a 1700 system and eventually max that out and eat the loss when I then upgrade later, or get a better platform but spend more up front. Those are really the questions rattling around in my tiny head. It's really right on the fence for me.....
 

LightningZ71

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Mar 10, 2017
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If you can afford it, I have to think that the 1900x is going to be the way to go. If memory latency is an issue, that can be mitigated with gaming mode. You do drop down to 4 cores, but they are the fastest 4 cores that AND offers. You can take advantage of ECC memory as well with vendor support.

The major benefit is the plethora of PIC lanes. But having lots of NVME ports makes for a very responsive system as well. Plus, when you can afford it, you can upgrade to 3600 RAM, which, as seen on this board, can take infinity fabric latency numbers down to numbers comparable to Intel's average latency on their mesh chips. While the benchmarks can certainly pick out the IF latency, in practice, they are still quite low and there precious few cases where the 1900x will be slower than the ryzen line by an appreciable amount.
 
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SPBHM

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Sep 12, 2012
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you have high latency (bad for gaming), or 4c/8t (not optimal for some games, ok for most) or much lower cost + decent latency and 8c/16t, for gaming I think the best choice is very clear.
 

LightningZ71

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For the OP, has he/she even indicated which games are being targeted here and what the actual splits are between the different use cases? If it's casual gaming and there's no real desire for bleeding edge performance, TR1900x in gaming mode will provide plenty of horsepower to get the job done. In any professional usage that requires very large memory pools, lots of PCI lanes, or substantial NVME data volume, the TR will be unrivaled. And, later on, when money is better, the 1900X can be sold and a 1950X purchased. If you need the I/O capabilities or the memory capacity, TR won't ever hurt you much, and can substantially help you in many cases. In my personal case, though, I'd save my pennies and get the 1920x. 4 more cores and double the L3 cache size.
 

Topweasel

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For the OP, has he/she even indicated which games are being targeted here and what the actual splits are between the different use cases? If it's casual gaming and there's no real desire for bleeding edge performance, TR1900x in gaming mode will provide plenty of horsepower to get the job done. In any professional usage that requires very large memory pools, lots of PCI lanes, or substantial NVME data volume, the TR will be unrivaled. And, later on, when money is better, the 1900X can be sold and a 1950X purchased. If you need the I/O capabilities or the memory capacity, TR won't ever hurt you much, and can substantially help you in many cases. In my personal case, though, I'd save my pennies and get the 1920x. 4 more cores and double the L3 cache size.

I am going to agree with this. Basically this is just a little bit above a 1800x in price and an extra $100 for the board (over a decent X370). Also for games in gaming mode due to the 4-0+4-0 configuration it might actually be the best gaming CPU in the Ryzen brand for games developed for Intel's 4c8t configuration. In either setup people are generally sacrificing some gaming performance (though I caution this because oddly enough AMD's setup actually seems do marginally better in GPU bound setups which is what people actually game in). So if current and future productivity and resources are what matters a 1900x setup is a pretty decent solution. It isn't that much more costly but has great upgrade options in the future (in a year in a half a 24 core version could be available).
 

jrphoenix

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@lightiningZ71.. based on the comments here.. I'll probably stay with the 1800X. I thought gaming may be a bit more future proofed with higher cores in the future with the threadripper platform. I currently play Fallout, Mass Effect Andromeda, and my favorite games.. the Total War series :)

@Topweasel... the gaming mode may make the 1900X as fast now.. the upgrade path is tempting to me.
 

Yakk

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I currently play Fallout, Mass Effect Andromeda, and my favorite games.. the Total War series :).

Except Mass Effect on the Frostbyte engine (well multithreaded) , TW & Fallout use quite old game engines which are essentially single threaded with some patches. Additional cores won't matter as much as clockspeed, but even then these are limited.

Next generation game engines like Frostbyte and Oxide engines make very good use of additional cores. UE4 is also getting there, slowly.
 
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@lightiningZ71.. based on the comments here.. I'll probably stay with the 1800X. I thought gaming may be a bit more future proofed with higher cores in the future with the threadripper platform. I currently play Fallout, Mass Effect Andromeda, and my favorite games.. the Total War series :)

@Topweasel... the gaming mode may make the 1900X as fast now.. the upgrade path is tempting to me.

Frankly Ryzen 7 at all isn't ideal for any of these things. I say this as a Ryzen 7 user. For "gaming/Photoshop/general use" PC you're still better off with an i7-7700K. Ryzen 7 and Threadripper are only smart purchases if you know your workflow will involve a lot of highly multithreaded processes, and most of what you have listed simply isn't that multithreaded. Some games (like Mass Effect Andromeda or other Frostbite engine games) do scale well to 8-12-16 threads in terms of CPU usage, but they don't see a huge performance benefit from it. And a significant number of games are still more dependent upon single-core performance and high clocks, and Ryzen falls behind there.

Photoshop is not a particularly well-multithreaded program, either:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...aby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-976/

Lastly, games also aren't going to magically start needing more than 8 threads in the near future. Read this thread for some good explanations why:

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...oing-to-use-more-cores.2517695/#post-39064015

So yeah, for your use case the i7-7700K is the best choice. Don't get me wrong, Ryzen is great at a good many things, but it's not ideal for what you specifically are wanting to do.
 
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IEC

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If gaming is your primary use, I would think Coffee Lake is what you are looking for. Intel should be releasing Z370 + Coffee Lake hexa core (6c/12t, 6c/6t) processors at the end of October. Photoshop isn't exactly heavily multithreaded either.

I'll be building a Coffee Lake system for a dedicated gaming box and let Threadripper do what it does best: more cores/connectivity. Although I don't have much impact to my FPS because of TR's memory latency because I don't game at 1080p.
 

Justinbaileyman

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I say save yourself $150+ and go with the R7 1700 instead of the R7 1800x. Both overclock the same and if your gaming then you could use that extra $150 bucks on a better GPU. I wouldn't waste my money taking a step back for a 6c/12t coffeelake CPU when you could get 8c/16t Ryzen.
 

StinkyPinky

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I say save yourself $150+ and go with the R7 1700 instead of the R7 1800x. Both overclock the same and if your gaming then you could use that extra $150 bucks on a better GPU. I wouldn't waste my money taking a step back for a 6c/12t coffeelake CPU when you could get 8c/16t Ryzen.

That 6c/12t coffee lake CPU will probably get close to 5GHz clock speed and have better IPC.