AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X & 2970WX Linux Performance Benchmarks
To no surprise given our successes with the Threadripper 2950X/2990WX and various X399 motherboards tested in recent months, the 2920X and 2970WX are playing well under Linux. There aren't any Linux compatibility issues to note and the lone issue back during the original Threadripper 2 launch has been resolved. That original issue was the k10temp Linux CPU thermal driver not being able to report the correct Threadripper 2 temperatures, but with the patch I got into Linux 4.18, all Threadripper 2 processors now are reporting correct temperatures on the latest kernel.
With no Linux compatibility woes to worry about, let's get right to the benchmark results. For this fresh benchmarking from Ubuntu 18.10, I tested:
- Intel Core i9 9900K
- Intel Core i9 7900X
- Intel Core i9 7960X
- Intel Core i9 7980XE
- AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
- AMD Threadripper 1950X
- AMD Threadripper 2920X
- AMD Threadripper 2950X
- AMD Threadripper 2970WX
- AMD Threadripper 2990WX
The systems were tested with 4 x 8GB DDR4-3200 memory, Crucial MX300 525GB SSD, and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card while running Ubuntu 18.10 x86_64 with the Linux 4.19 kernel, Mesa 18.2.2, and GCC 8.2.0. The latest firmware/microcode was in use on each box (with default Spectre/Meltdown mitigations), the CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS were "-O3 -march=native" on each system, the performance frequency scaling governor used on each system, etc. All of the CPUs were benchmarked at their stock frequencies.
In addition to the raw Linux performance metrics for these high-end desktop processors, the AC system power consumption was also being monitored via the Phoronix Test Suite and a WattsUp Pro power meter in order to generate performance-per-Watt metrics. There are also performance-per-dollar metrics based upon the current pricing at NewEgg as of testing. All of the benchmarking was conducted in a fully standardized and automated manner using the Phoronix Test Suite.