AMD Threadripper 2950X

The new king of high-end desktops.

- Zak Storey

AH, THREADRIPPER, where do we begin? That mad assortment of core complexes, intricately stitched together, was enough to revolutionize the HEDT segment into a world unlike one we’d ever seen before, even rattling Intel to its very bones. AMD truly was on to a winner with its Infinity Fabric, and it provided much-needed proof that multi-die packages are certainly the way forward. The age of the monolithic processor is dead. Long live Ryzen.

Or something like that, right? So here we are: second-gen, Threadripper 2, sort of. 12nm transistors, architectural adjustments, memory optimizations, and— more importantly—a bigger product stack this time around. The big question: Is it worth the upgrade? Well, let’s get to that.