AMD's new Threadripper 2 range of CPUs is now here and ready for purchase and with 32 cores and 64 threads, the top of the line 2990WX is the most powerful workstation CPU ever released. It's fine for gaming and general computing, but if you throw some heavy duty workstation tasks at it, phew... you're in for a treat.
The 2290WX has a higher clock speed and double the core counts of its predecessor, but as some reviewers have noticed, the first-generation processor is actually better at gaming than the new chip. The second-generation Threadripper CPUs also fall behind in a number of general benchmarking utilities. Where it really shines though, is in tasks like video encoding, rendering, and heavily-multithreaded settings.
This means that you'll definitely want to pick your Threadripper 2 CPU carefully. If you want to do some gaming, you're better off sticking with the much more affordable X-range of new-gen CPUs, as those have higher clock speeds and much more capable gaming chops. But for specific, multithreaded-driven tasks, the top WX chips are definitely winners. In many cases they blow even Intel's top chips out of the water, thanks
They're more affordable too, though that's more the case in the midrange. The 2970WX for example, is $1,300, but if you go with the 2990WX is $1,800. That's a lot of money, but you get all those cores, so it's worth it -- if you're performing the right tasks with it.
