Advanced Micro Devices made a huge comeback this year with its Ryzen chips. This is a good news for AMD fans and also for buyers for getting high-spec chips at a cheaper price. Compared to Intel's counterpart products, Ryzen is almost a steal to grab. With Intel repurposing its Xeon Gold server chip to "Core i9=7980XE" to battle AMD Threadripper, the heavy blows and bruises for Intel are becoming more evident.
AMD Threadripper 1950X vs Intel Xeon Gold 6150 (AKA Core i9-7980XE)
AMD Threadripper is a 16/32 cores/threads chip with 3.4 GHz base speed and 4.0 GHz when in Turbo.
L2 Cache boasts 512KB/core while L3 cache packs 32 MB. The TDP is said to be 180W for the $999 Pricetag. Specs will be the evidence that this Threadripper will be a behemoth in the world of chips dominated by Intel for a decade.
While Intel's Core i9-7980XE has 18/36 core/threads and unannounced base and turbo speeds, L2 cache is 1m/core, almost 2x faster than AMD Threadripper 1950X. Though L3 cache lacks some with 24.74mb. Core i9's TDP is 165W and is priced at $1999.
The battle's deciding factor is the price. AMD Threadripper specs are almost the same as the Intel Core i9-7980XE, but you buyers can get the hands on it at almost half the price compared to i9's $1999.
Weaknesses and strengths
After AMD announced Threadripper in May, they did not have anything to compete with it.
Rebranding Intel Xeon Gold 6150 into core i9 will give them a fast product to counteract, but instead of selling the chip for $3358, they will have to sell it for $1999. This is a huge blow on Intel's sales. But even though they slashed the price by almost a half, Threadripper is still cheaper.
Specs wise, Intel will benefit from the two extra cores and a lower power dissipation.
While AMD will most likely benefit from higher clock speeds and more IO bandwidth. When no problems will fall on AMD's side, it will surely gain a considerable share in the HEDT market.
Another threat
With the timing of the Threadripper announcement, it seems like AMD will try to release Threadripper-Vega graphics units. With more IO options, the ripper can pair up with more graphics cards than its Intel counterpart.
This bundling opportunity will bring a lot of potential to Ryzen and Vega and Intel will have a difficult time countering this.
Ryzen 3 is also an interesting product from AMD. Price has not been disclosed but it is expected that Ryzen 3 will follow suit with Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7. The Ryzen 3 is expected to be a cheaper alternative to its older Ryzen products but is expected to compete against Intel's mid-range i5 products.
