Reviews: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X

#5743585 Posted on: 12/21/2019 06:35 PM

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Ok got it, took me 3 days to have an useable OS for several reasons...
here's an early feedback 3960x+msi creator

1) the bottom fan spins almost nonstop for me (didn't have time to check if there's a setting for it) but maybe there's a reason...
2) yep MSI didn't lie, I now have 3x M.2 Nvme drives + 6x sata ssds plugged in and working at their expected speeds (unlike most of the motherboards using the ASM1061) this may be why my PCH fan is spinning I also have 8 various USB things (peripherals, drives,soundcard) connected 24/24 at the rear but still have 2 free ports on the rear i/o which is nice, you can forget having this in a non HEDT build you will run out of lanes/bandwith very quickly
3) I read and watched all the reviews but reading numbers and actually having them in your computer is two different things the motherboard cooling is very important in TRX40 because the cpu draws 200w nonstop for me (stock) I'm at idle is in the 200-240w which is pretty much the double of my previous 9900k, running cinebench I reach 490watts for the system (stock settings everywhere no tweaks) more than my 9900k but since I have 3x more cores it's a good result I think

my games aren't working yet but I'm a bit scared of what the power draw will be with heavy games like borderlands 3, 600+ I guess I already ordered a 1200w psu I don't want to run a 800 psu so close to max power (I had one explode back in the days with sli which destroyed some mb ports and 1 of the videocard)
and this may sound the end of my RGB craze as you need serious cooling for those beastly cpu, for example on my 9900k I couldn't feel any heat coming out of my AIO at idle it was cold or nearly, 3960x at idle you can feel hot air coming out of the rad as soon as you power on

even if I had the money for a 32 cores I feared this and was right, if they make 48-64 cores I don't see with what you are going to cool them custom loop only ?
I currently have it in a mid-tower I wanted to see if having (140) fans close to the components would work...meh....I guess I'll go back to my lian-li 13 fans setup where the gpu and cpu heat don't ever mix (gpu top slot exhaust with top fans, cpu is cooled by side 360 aio so it doesn't get heat from the gpu backplate which is the no1 heat source in a computer in 2019 and no one does anything to fix it, nope wc your gpu doesn't help the backplate will still be at 60°+ just like wc your cpu doesn't make the vrm cool)

#5743588 Posted on: 12/21/2019 07:07 PM

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Somehow I wanna buy it just to play Minesweeper.

#5743626 Posted on: 12/21/2019 09:40 PM

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stability test, encode a 3hr long 4K movie in 1080p H.265 while I'm doing other stuff lol
had to crank up the fans to max and even like that the H115i AOI is struggling (90°C)
if gaming doesn't completely ruin my thermals I might keep the build as is as the fan noise at max isn't too bad
edit : finished ! well you don't need heating with those cpus lol I'll have to wire one of the MB heat sensors I've never felt an AIO get so hot to the touch
oh boy encoding with the cpu may free the GPU to only do the gaming (which for heavy games using 90% gpu by themselves is a good thing, borderlands 3 in ultra is one)
but oh boy I just tried using nvenc to do the same job with the 1080Ti and my encoding fps doubled O_O

#5743883 Posted on: 12/23/2019 05:43 AM

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Man I wish I had the cash to purchase one of these CPUs with all the ripping of media that I am doing for my family's personal Plex server I could use the extra cores and threads for running a ripped blu-ray file through handbrake to decrease the size of the file.

#5763422 Posted on: 02/25/2020 09:46 PM

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feedback from my latest re-re-rebuild
I dumped my "precious" all-rgb fans everywhere and good looks for something that looks like a pimped out behind-the-scenes machine plumbing, it looks akward to say the least
but...
it now runs 4.4Ghz @1.4v all cores ! @80°C (with MSI motherboard OCGenie10 overclock preset, there's a "11" @4.45Ghz but it doesnt even boot)
and what's weirder...it draws a ton less Watts, like 60 less ! weird or not as DerBauer explained that in one of his oc Ryzen videos, the more heat the less efficient it is the more heat it generates, a vicious cycle
I've got 3x silent wings 2 on a 360x30mm rad + 3x silent wings 3 hi-speed pwm on a 360x55mm rad lol and that on a Corsair hydro x cpu block not covering the whole cpu package (zero availability here for good blocks like the heatkiller) but anyway, didn't waste my time, I not only didn't run oc before I actually underclocked and volted it 4.15@1.24v, don't need to do that anymore

pro-tip for watercooling :
- rads should always be case intakes, it makes a massive difference 5-10°C easily, the degrees you gain from cold outside air make the water temp colder and so your cpu colder and so all your rad is going to exhaust is almost-cold air my rads are cold to the touch now if you intake case air through your rads it's going to be the opposite hot = more hot = more hot = bad result (my h115i aio that was top mounted was noticeably hot)
- never place a rad on the top, never ever....if you don't watercool your gpu (and even if you do) because you'll be "cooling" your cpu with 60+°C air coming out of your gpu backplate, you can see that in various videos like Bitwit youtube.com/watch?v=xNAMxZgvves