AMD 2nd Gen Threadripper 2990X 32-Core Benchmarks Leak, Ready To Skewer Core i9

This processor, which is part of the 12nm Pinnacle Ridge family, has a whopping 32 cores capable of executing a total of 64 threads; "Threadripper" indeed. According to HKEPC, the shipping processor will have a base clock of 3GHz, an all-core max clock of 3.4GHz and Precision Boost that tops out at 4GHz. The processor has a 250W TDP, which will be quite the test for current-generation AMD X399-based motherboards. Other items of note are that the processor will have 3MB of L1 cache, 16MB of L2 cache and 64MB of L3 cache.

It was initially reported that the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X will be joined by two lesser family members: the 16-core (32-thread) 2950X and the 24-core (48-thread) 2970X. However, it is unknown if both of these low-end chips will be commercially available or if they will launch at the same time as the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X.

Even with a 250W TDP, there was still overclocking headroom with the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X. HKEPC was able to slap a Corsair H150i Pro water color on the processor and [stably] overclock it to 4.12GHz at 1.38 volts.

The closest thing that Intel has in the pipeline is a 28-core Skylake-X processor, which Intel showed running at a lofty 5GHz during Computex. However, it was later learned that the system was hooked up to an industrial-grade water chiller in order to keep the processor cool. So even if we do see a Core-X HEDT 28-core processor released later this year, there's no guarantee that it will boost to 5GHz out of the box.

Some images, credit: HKEPC.com