Most modern desktop processors have several cores to split up tasks, and in newer hybrid CPUs, some of them are designed for different tasks. If you’re on AMD, the top-end chips have up to 16 cores, while if you’re on Intel, you can look up to a whopping 24 cores. AMD’s Threadripper processors are designed to have far more cores than your typical desktop CPU, mostly for media production and servers, but we haven’t seen non-workstation versions of those since 2019, when the Threadripper 3000-series was launched with up to 64 cores. Now, Threadripper is back and better than ever.
AMD has announced two new ranges of Threadripper CPUs, the Threadripper 7000-series and the Threadripper PRO 7000 WX-series. The only difference between both is that the PRO chips are for workstations and thus come with a few extra features that some users might not need, such as a lot of PCI Express lanes. AMD hasn’t really stopped making these, as we also saw Threadripper PRO 5000 WX-series, so really, what’s new here is that the regular Threadripper CPUs for high-end desktops (HEDTs) are back after a four-year break, and they have a lot of improvements.
For starters, while the Threadripper 3000 CPUs have older Zen 2 cores, the newest design that was available back them, the Threadripper 7000 CPUs have Zen 4 cores, which is what the regular Ryzen 7000-series chips have. Also, we still have a lot of cores. The regular Threadripper 7000-series only goes up to 64 cores and 128 threads for the Threadripper 7980X, going down to 24 cores and 48 threads for the 7960X and 32 cores/64 threads for the 7970X. But these are good compared to what the 3000-series chips were packing, with boost speeds up to 5.1 GHz and a whopping 320MB of cache in the higher-end chip. They also have a TDP of 350W, so you better have a capable power supply for these.
As for the Threadripper PRO series, it’s basically the same, except we have a higher-end Threadripper 7995WX with a total of 96 cores and 192 threads. This still boosts up to those speeds and bumps the cache up to an insane 480MB. This CPU is not available in a non-PRO version, but the older Threadripper 3000-series went up to the 3990X, while this one goes up to the 7980X. There’s a chance AMD might decide to release this as the 7990X in the future, but of course, this is just speculation from our part.
AMD didn’t detail pricing for the Threadripper PRO series, but the regular Threadripper chips start at $1,499 for the 7960X, and go up to a whopping $4,999 for the 7980X with 64 cores. So these are probably too prohibitively expensive unless you actually have a need for this many cores — and if you’re after the best possible gaming PC, more cores do not equal better performance, so you’re probably better off with AMD’s best AM5 CPU to date, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. It’s much cheaper. And frankly, even lower-end chips from AMD are okay for most people.
Source: AMD
