How does it play on a processor for over 9,000 dollars, or rather, can it be played properly on a server processor for the price of a small car with an extremely high number of cores but a rather low clock rate?
Tech Youtuber Linus Sebastian is investigating this question in a recent video, among other things. His choice falls on the currently most powerful x86 processor in the world with no less than 64 cores based on the Zen 3 architecture, 128 threads and a boost frequency of up to 3,500 MHz:
The AMD Epyc 7763. In this country, AMD’s server flagship is loud idealo.de available from around 9,145 dollars. You can watch the full video in English here:
Link to YouTube content
Epyc 7763 versus Ryzen 9 5950X
The following table shows the biggest differences between the current desktop flagship Ryzen 9 5950X from the consumer sector and the server CPU Epyc 7763. They are due to the completely different application area, the same applies to the large price difference.
|
Kerne / Threads |
Epyc 7763: 64 / 128 |
|---|---|
|
Clock rate |
Epyc 7763: 2,45 / 3,5 GHz |
|
L3-Cache |
Epyc 7763: 256 MByte |
|
Memory channels |
Epyc 7763: 8 |
|
Street price |
Epyc 7763: 9.145 Euro |
The Tyan Tomcat HX S8030 server mainboard, which offers full PCIe 4.0 support, octa-channel ECC RAM and an MSI Geforce RTX 3090 Suprim X is used in the test by Linus.
Unsurprisingly, the 128 threads of the Epyc 7763 pulverize the results of other processors with fewer cores and threads in synthetic benchmarks such as Cinebench R23. Here Linus achieved around 61,000 points in the multi-core test. For comparison: With our Ryzen 9 5950X we »only« get around 24,000 points.
Epyc 7763 versus Ryzen 9 5950X in games
What is exciting, however, is how well the setup copes with games. Because compared to desktop processors such as the Ryzen 9 5950X, which boosts to 4.9 GHz at its peak, the Epyc 7763 has a maximum of 3.5 GHz.
With the first Threadripper CPUs from AMD there could also be problems due to the high number of cores, both in the form of poor performance and games that would not even start. The situation has improved significantly in the meantime, and Linus does not report such difficulties in his video.
Apex Legends: First, Linus looks at the performance in Apex Legends. In a test range, it achieved an average of 144 frames per second at 4K resolution including the maximum level of detail. Although this is a considerable value, it is not really meaningful, since Apex Legends locks at 144 FPS by default.
On our new graphics card test system with Ryzen 9 5950X and Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, we achieve comparable values before the fixed frame rate limiter takes effect. You can find all details about the hardware used in our overview:
more on the subject
Our new test system presented in detail
F1 2020: In the racing game F1 2020, the Epyc 7763 comes with a view of the one percent of the minimum FPS (99th Percentile) according to Linus to around 150 frames per second under 4K resolution. The scene cannot be recreated exactly, but on our test system we achieve an average of around 204 FPS during a time trial in the Australian Grand Prix, with a minimum of 150 FPS as well.
Crysis 3: Last but not least, the Epyc 7763 has to face Crysis 3. In the still respectable, although eight-year-old shooter from Crytek, the 64-core device including the RTX 3090 achieves an average of 57 FPS under 4K resolution. We again achieve comparable values (61 FPS) on our test system.
How well can you play with the 9,000 euro CPU?
The answer is clear: The AMD Epyc 7763 server processor is, in addition to its primary function as a pack animal in data centers, generally also good for gaming. At least in the titles chosen by Linus, the CPU can keep up with our Ryzen 9 5950X.
At first glance, the results are quite surprising, because after all, the Ryzen 9 5950X clocks around 1.4 GHz higher than the Epyc 7763 (4.9 versus 3.5 GHz).
At second glance, however, there is one crucial limitation: With 4K resolution, the differences in performance of different processors are usually equalized, since the graphics card is usually the limiting factor here. This is also confirmed by our follow-up test of the Ryzen 5 1600 in comparison to the Intel Core i9 10900K and Ryzen 9 5900X.
In contrast, the Ryzen 9 5950X should be clearly superior to the Epyc 7763 in lower resolution levels such as Full HD (1920×1080).
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