Test Bed and Setup

As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Test Setup
Intel HEDT i9-9980XE
i9-7980XE
i9-7960X
i9-7940X
i9-7920X
ASRock X299
OC Formula
P1.40 TRUE
Copper
Crucial Ballistix
4x4GB
DDR4-2666
AMD TR4 TR2 2970WX
TR2 2920X
ASUS ROG
X399 Zenith
1501 Enermax
Liqtech TR4
Corsair Vengeance
RGB Pro 4x8GB
DDR4-2933
TR2 2990WX
TR2 2950X
ASUS ROG
X399 Zenith
0508 Enermax
Liqtech TR4
G.Skill FlareX
4x8GB
DDR4-2933
GPU Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests)
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests)
PSU Corsair AX860i
Corsair AX1200i
SSD Crucial MX200 1TB
OS Windows 10 x64 RS3 1709
Spectre and Meltdown Patched
VRM Supplimented with SST-FHP141-VF 173 CFM fans

Unfortunately due to travel back and forth to the US for AMD’s Horizon Event and Supercomputing 2018, I was unable to look into overclocking performance for this review. We will hopefully cover it in another article.

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.

Hardware Providers
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC Crucial MX200 +
MX500 SSDs
Corsair AX860i +
AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV,
SniperX, FlareX
Crucial Ballistix
DDR4
Silverstone
Coolers
Silverstone
Fans
The Intel Core i9-9980XE CPU Review Our New Testing Suite for 2018 and 2019
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  • TheJian - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link

    I stopped reading when I saw 8k with a 1080. Most tests are just pointless, as it would be more interesting with a 1080ti at least or better 2080ti. That would give the chips more room to run when they can to separate the men from the boys so to speak.

    Vid tests with handbrake stupid too. Does anyone look at the vid after those tests? It would look like crap. Try SLOWER as a setting and lets find out how the chips fare, and bitrates of ~4500-5000 for 1080p. Something I'd actually watch on a 60in+ tv without going blind.

    Release groups for AMZN for example release 5000 bitrate L4.1, 5-9 ref frames, SLOWER. etc. Nfo files reveal stuff like this:
    cabac=1 / ref=9 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=11 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=17.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=3:0.85

    More than I'd do, but the point is, SLOWER will give you far better quality (something I could actually stomach watching), without all the black blocks in dark scenes etc. Current 720p releases from nf or amzn have went to crap (700mb files for h264? ROFL). We are talking untouched direct from NF or AMZN. Meaning that is the quality you are watching as a subscriber that is, which is just one of the reasons we cancelled NF (agenda TV was the largest reason to dump them).

    If you're going to test at crap settings nobody would watch, might as well kick in quicksync with quality maxed and get better results as MOST people would do if quality wasn't an issue anyway.
    option1=value1:option2=value2:tu=1:ref=9:trellis=3 and L4.1 with encoder preset set to QUALITY.
    That's a pretty good string for decent quality with QSV. Seems to me you're choosing to turn off AVX/Quicksync so AMD looks better or something. Why would any USER turn off stuff that speeds things up unless quality (guys like me) is an issue? Same with turning off gpu in blender etc. What is the point of a test that NOBODY would do in real life? Who turns off AVX512 in handbrake if you bought a chip to get it? LOL. That tech is a feature you BUY intel for. IF you turn off all the good stuff, the chip becomes a ripoff. But users don't do that :) Same for NV, if you have the ability to use RTX stuff, why would you NOT when a game supports it? To make AMD cards look better? Pffft. To wait for AMD to catch up? Pffft.

    I say this as an AMD stock holder :) Most useless review I've seen in a while. Not wasting my time reading much of it. Moving on to better reviews that actually test how we PLAY/WATCH/WORK in the real world. 8K...ROFLMAO. Ryan has been claiming 1440p was norm since 660ti. Then it was 4k not long after for the last 5yrs when nobody was using that, now it's 8k tests with a GTX 1080...ROFLMAO. No wonder I come here once a month or less pretty much and when I do, I'm usually turned off by the tests. Constantly changing what people do (REAL TESTS) to turning stuff off, down, (vid cards at ref speeds instead of OC OOTB settings etc), etc etc...Let's see if we can set up this test in a way nobody would do at home to strike down advantages of anyone competing with AMD. Blah. I'd rather see where both sides REALLY win in ways we USE these products. Turn everything on if it's in the chip, gpu, test, etc and spend MORE time testing resolutions etc we actually USE in practice. 8k...hahaha. Whatever. 13fps?

    "Ashes has dropdown options for MSAA, Light Quality, Object Quality, Shading Samples, Shadow Quality, Textures, and separate options for the terrain."
    Yeah, I'm out. Dropdown quality is against my religion and useless to me. I'm sure the other tests have issues I'd hate also, no time to waste on junk review tests. Too many other places that don't do this crap. I bought a 1070ti to run MAX settings at 1200p (dell 24in) in everything or throw it to my lower res 22in. If I can't do that, I'll wait for my next card to play game X. Not knocking AMD here, just Anandtech. I'll likely buy a 7nm AMD cpu when they hit, and they have a shot at a 7nm gpu for me too. You guys and tomshardware (heh, you joined) have really went downhill with irrational testing setups. If you're going to do 4k at ultra, why not do them all there? I digress...
  • spikespiegal - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link

    Just curious, but how many of you AMD fanbois have ever been in a data center or been responsible for adjusting performance on a couple dozen VMware hosts running mixed applications? Oh wait...none. In the mythical world according to AMDs BS dept a Hypervisor / Operating system takes the number of tasks running and divides them by the number of cores running, and you clowns believe it. In the *real world* where we have to deal with really expensive hosts that don't have LED fans in them and run applications adults use we know that's not the truth. Hypervisors and Operating systems schedulers all favor cores that process mixed threads faster, and if you want to argue that please consult with a VMware or Hyper-V engineer the next time you see them in your drive thru. Oh wait...I am a VMware engineer.
    An i3 8530 costs $200 and literally beats any AMD chip made running stock in dual threaded applications. Seriously....look up the single threaded performance. More cores don't make an application more multithreaded and they don't make contribute to a better desktop experience. I have servers with 30-40% of my CPU resources not being used, and just assigning more cores won't make applications faster. It just ties up my scheduler doing nothing and wastes performance. The only way to get better application efficiency is vertical, and that's higher core performance, and that's nothing I'm seeing AMD bringing to the table.
  • Michael011 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    The pricing shows just how greedy Intel has become. It is better to spend your money on a top end AMD Threadripper and motherboard. https://mobdro.io/

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