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Samsung has a new SmartThings hub and router with Plume's mesh Wi-Fi tech
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X
2019 Chevy Silverado first drive review: Brute suit riot

Samsung has a new SmartThings hub and router with Plume's mesh Wi-Fi tech

Posted: 13 Aug 2018 05:30 AM PDT

Samsung is overhauling its SmartThings product line today, with two key new offerings: a brand new hub, which can now wirelessly connect to your router, and a new Wi-Fi router that includes mesh networking tech from Plume.

The router is the bigger deal. It's a dual-band model that's sold in a three-pack and, like other mesh routers, is meant to have units placed all around your home to deliver better Wi-Fi coverage. This is Samsung's second try at a mesh SmartThings router, but this time around, it's licensing mesh networking tech from Plume. Plume has a lot of buy-in from major cable companies already, so presumably the tech is well-tested and — for Samsung to have gone and paid for this integration — probably better than whatever Samsung made on its own.

And since this is a SmartThings router, it also doubles as a SmartThings hub. That'll allow you to set up and manage a wide number of smart home devices, like plugs, switches, and lights, that connect over Zigbee and Z-Wave, two wireless protocols not typically found in routers. It's a great perk, and really, all routers should probably start including this stuff, especially now that smart home tech is becoming more and more popular.

Samsung is calling the router SmartThings Wifi (much better than the old name: "Samsung Connect Home"). It goes on sale today, selling in a three-pack for $280 or individually for $120.

The other part of this announcement is a new standalone SmartThings hub, and it comes with a major upgrade. Previously, you had to plug the SmartThings hub directly into your router, but the new hub can work wirelessly. That means you can put the hub elsewhere in your house and reduce the immense clutter of cables that tends to grow around home routers. It'll sell for $70.

In addition to the hub and Wi-Fi system, Samsung is also introducing new versions of SmartThings' leak, motion, and "multipurpose" door opening / vibration / temperature sensor, as well as its programmable button and plug-in smart outlet. The products all launch today and will sell for between $15 and $35.

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X

Posted: 13 Aug 2018 06:12 AM PDT

If you ponder the name "Threadripper" for a moment, you might get the inkling that AMD bestowed it on its flagship CPU to evoke massive thread counts and the ability to burn through pretty much any intensive computing task. (You'd be right.) You could also laugh off the name as marketing hyperbole dreamed up in a Madison Avenue board room. (Maybe.) But either way, there's no denying that the first Threadripper chips were among the most powerful consumer CPUs on the market when they debuted, and the second-generation chips are even more powerful.

Similar Products

How much more? The flagship first-gen Ryzen Threadripper 1950X has 16 cores and 32 computing threads, while AMD is now selling a 32-core, 64-thread Threadripper 2990WX ($1,799), part of a new two-chip Threadripper WX line, with a 24-core version (the $1,299 2970WX) to follow in the fall. These two new CPUs are overkill for most PC-building enthusiasts both in terms of raw compute power and price, so we're focusing on the Threadripper 2950X for our initial second-generation Threadripper review. This is the direct replacement for the 1950X. It's got the same number of cores and threads, but a slightly increased base clock speed of 3.5GHz (with the ability to boost to up to 4.4GHz) and a lower cache latency, among other minor improvements. Even better, it retails for $899, $100 less than the debut prices of the 1950X and its closest Intel alternative, the Core i9-7900X. (A $649 12-core complement, the Threadripper 2920X, will follow in October, along with the 24-core chip.)

As a result, if you're building a tricked-out video-editing workstation, or yearn for a gaming-and-streaming rig, the Threadripper 2950X is an excellent choice for a CPU if you can afford it and the supporting platform. Like the 1950X before it, it earns our Editors' Choice award. It's far from the only excellent choice in the high-end desktop (HEDT) market these days, though, since the first-gen Threadripper chips can now be had at significant discounts, and Intel will almost certainly release refreshed Core X-Series Core i7 and i9 CPUs in the next few months. But let's dig into why Threadipper remains a whopper of a bargain for extreme power seekers.

Threadripper's Expanding Ecosystem

Discounts and product refreshes are mainstays of consumer technology, of course, so if you wait around for the next one you could end up never buying a single component. That would be a shame in this case, because one of the Threadripper 2950X's most notable ancillary improvements is an expanded ecosystem of complementary components. Because it supports the same X399 chipset as the 1950X, it's compatible with any X399 motherboard, even those that were designed before it was introduced.

In fact, we tested it with the same Asus ROG X399 Zenith Extreme motherboard and Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360 liquid cooler that we used to test its predecessor. If you're planning to buy an older X399 board such as the Asus model we used, it may require a BIOS update to be compatible with the Threadripper 2950X. Luckily, all X399 boards support USB flashback, which means you can update the BIOS from a file installed on a USB stick, instead of having to boot up with a different CPU first.

There are now more than 30 coolers that are officially compatible with Threadripper chips, a few of which are air cooling solutions designed specifically with Threadripper in mind. One of these is the new Cooler Master Wraith Ripper, which can deal with the heat from any chip in the second generation, including the monster 32-core 2990WX.

The absence of adequate liquid cooling solutions is one of the few reasons why you might not have wanted to buy a Threadripper 1950X. The chip itself is huge, essentially comprising two ordinary Ryzen chips fused together, which means that it is bigger than most of the liquid cooling heat sinks that were on the market last year. The 2950X isn't any smaller, and it has the same 180-watt thermal design power (TDP, a measure of required heat dissipation), but new solutions like the Wraith Ripper should do a better job of covering a larger portion of the CPU's heat spreader.

Not only are there more and better Threadripper cooling solutions, but the chips themselves are better equipped to adapt their heat output to the maximum that the cooler can handle. This is thanks to an update to AMD's Precision Boost feature. The original version of Precision Boost lowers the CPU clock speeds to a steady safe level if it detects a complex multi-threaded task, such as 3D rendering, even if the cooler and the power supply would allow higher speeds. An updated version available on the 2950X, called Precision Boost 2, is far more granular. It continuously adjusts the clock speed in increments as small as 25MHz to allow the CPU to run at the highest possible frequency based on the capabilities of the power supply and cooler. These adjustments happen as frequently as 1,000 times per second. The result, according to AMD, is that clock speed will decrease at a slower rate as the CPU heats up under a heavy workload.

Support for Faster Memory

In addition to better thermal management, Threadripper CPUs now officially support DDR4 memory clock speeds of 2,933MHz, up from 2,667MHz in the first generation. This should theoretically help with memory-dependent processing tasks, although, of course, you can configure the memory manually to run at lesser speeds if you're experiencing compatibility issues, or experiment with even higher settings at your own risk.

The connection between the processor and memory modules is also important in determining how well your Threadripper-powered PC will handle memory-intensive tasks. Each of the Threadripper 2950X's two dies is directly connected to two memory channels, and by default also has access to the memory channels connected to the other die thanks to Infinity Fabric, AMD's marketing name for the technology that allows different parts of the chip to talk with one another.

Infinity Fabric results an extraordinarily innovative and scalable CPU design, but it also introduces latency as it passes requests back and forth within the chip. If you are running applications for which memory latency has a large impact on performance, you can force each die to only use its directly connected memory by enabling the "Local" memory option in AMD's Ryzen Master software utility.

Life in the 64 Fast Lanes

Many of the best things about Threadripper chips aren't changing with the 2950X. Aside from support for basic technologies that every cutting-edge CPU should have, such as USB 3.1 Gen 2 and PCI Express NVMe for lightning-quick storage, the 2950X is capable of handling 64 PCI Express lanes. You will probably never use all 64 lanes, but if you plan to install two GPUs and two PCIe SSDs, you'll occupy 40 lanes and have plenty of leftovers for future add-ins.

This arrangement would be tighter, or in some cases impossible, on an Intel Core X-series chip and the current X299 platform. The lane count can vary with these chips depending on which one you install. For example, the Core i9-7900X supports 44 lanes, while the Core i7-7820X supports 28. (The short-lived "Kaby Lake-X" chips that also work on this platform support only 16.)

Like every Ryzen CPU, the Threadripper 2950X is overclockable, and AMD's Ryzen Master software utility makes it easy to adjust clock speeds directly from Windows instead of using the BIOS. Second-generation Threadripper chips have an updated Extended Frequency Range (XFR) tool, dubbed XFR2, that auto-adjusts the speed of every processor core to extend the amount of time the CPU is overclocked before it gets too hot. Before, with the 1950X, XFR would operate across only a subset of the cores.

AMD cautions that overclocking on your part, whether manually or using tools in Ryzen Master, still voids the warranty. Assuming you don't overclock, you'll enjoy the three-year warranty that AMD includes with boxed versions of the Threadripper 2950X. This length is the same as Intel offers for its X-series processors. (We'll get into our experience overclocking the Threadripper 2950X below.)

As with the 1950X, the Ryzen Master software also lets you toggle between Creator and Game modes. The former is the default and used under most circumstances, while Game mode is a special state that disables half the cores and changes the memory state to accelerate performance in certain games. (More on that below, too.)

One of the Threadripper 2950X's few glaring omissions, at least for video editors and photographers, is the X399 platform's lack of Thunderbolt 3 support. Thunderbolt 3 offers blazingly fast data transfer speeds of up to 40GBps, and it's quickly becoming the interface of choice for professional and prosumer external hard drives and RAID arrays. The lack of Thunderbolt 3 support isn't entirely AMD's fault, since Intel developed the technology and charges royalties to use it (though the royalties may end this year). In addition, the motherboard must support Thunderbolt 3, and there are no current X399 motherboards on the market that do.

Building a Threadripper PC

Installing a Threadripper CPU is a unique process because of its large size (remember, it's essentially two regular Ryzen chips fused together). Instead of just dropping the CPU into its slot and attaching the screws and heat sink, you first have to slide the Threadripper into a folding bracket, and then fasten down that bracket to the motherboard using a torque screwdriver that AMD provides in the Threadripper box. If you're a PC building enthusiast, you'll likely appreciate the novel steps, but if you just want to build as quickly as possible, don't count on it; you'll need to slow down and proceed carefully, as the bracket mechanism and the 4,000-plus in-socket pins are delicate.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X Screwdriver

You'll find a detailed installation guide with images in our Threadripper 1950X review. If you have an older liquid cooler like the Thermaltake one we used, the process is identical. If not, you'll want to pair our guide with the instructions from your cooler manufacturer.

In addition to the Threadripper 2950X, Asus X399 Zenith Extreme, and Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360, our testbed includes the following components:

	PART/MANUFACTURER
PROCESSOR	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X
MAINBOARD	Asus X399 Zenith Extreme
MEMORY	G.Skill Flare X DDR-3200 (two 16GB kits)
BOOT DRIVE	Samsung SSD 970 EVO (500GB/M.2)
HARD DRIVE	Seagate 4TB Desktop HDD ST4000DM000
CHASSIS	Mean:IT 5pm
POWER SUPPLY	Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W
CPU COOLER	Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360
VIDEO CARD	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition

This is an identical testbed to the one we used for the 1950X, with the exception of faster memory. The 1950X testbed used G.Skill TridentZ RGB memory, while the 2950X testbed uses G.Skill Flare X memory pegged at 2,933MHz using the XMP profile in the BIOS. An Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition video card handles display output for our CPU-specific tests, and a 500GB Samsung SSD 970 EVO is our boot drive. It all goes into a Mean:It tempered-glass 5PM case, and a Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200 power supply powers everything.

Performance Testing

And so, onward to our charts. On the Intel side, Team Blue's 10-core Intel Core i9-7900X is going to be Threadripper's chief competition, though for our formal comparisons we also dropped in the eight-core Core i7-7820X (a Core X-Series chip, too) as the step down from the Core i9-7900X. And, of course, we dropped in the top-end Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition (Intel's flagship 18-core part, still at $1,999 at this writing) for a look at the top end of the Intel line and, in fact, the entire HEDT market.

Looking back to the previous AMD generation, we're also charting in the Threadripper 1950X (the forebear to the 2950X) and the Threadripper 1920X, AMD's step-down 12-core model. (As we mentioned earlier, this 12-core chip will be supplanted by a second-generation 12-core Threadripper, the 2920X, in October.)

Finally, we're also looping in the two top-end chips in Intel's and AMD's "mainstream" lines. The Core i7-8700K is the current head honcho for Team Blue on its mainstream socket (if you discount the limited-edition Core i7-8086K, which we're in the process of reviewing), and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X(also being reviewed at the moment) is the top dog in the new second-generation Ryzen line. The Core i7 is a six-core/12-thread chip, while the Ryzen 7 features eight cores and 16 threads.

On thread-hungry tests and tasks, the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i7-8700K won't stand a chance against the 16-core/32-thread Threadripper 2950X; this was the case with the previous generations of each of these chips versus the Threadripper 1950X. The 10-core Core i9-7900X, however, should be in the same league as the Threadripper parts (for the most part) given its pricing, while we expect the 18-core Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition to be the alpha dog in tasks that gobble up cores and threads.

That said, the Core i9-7980XE has a suggested price of $1,999, more than twice that of the top Threadripper chip, and it hasn't budged much from that rarified price spot since its debut in 2017. That's a lot of extra moolah to pay for a few extra cores. Let's see if it's worth it.

Cinebench R15

First up in our testing regimen: Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test. Cinebench is a fully threaded test that's one of the best at-a-glance measures of a task making use of all available processor cores and threads. In practice, many applications, even pro applications, can't leverage all threads as well as Cinebench can, but this horsepower trial shows the top potential of the chip, using the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image.

Along with the usual test that makes use of all available cores, we've mapped in the single-core results here, to get a sense of how AMD's new chip fares with single-threaded workloads.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X (Cinebench)

The Threadripper 2950X's first showing is an impressive one, and about what we'd expect from a Threadripper generational step-up. That's an approximately 6 percent uptick from the Threadripper 1950X to the 2950X in the "All Cores" trial, with the 2950X encroaching ever closer to the 18-core/36-thread Intel Core i9-7980XE. It also tops its closest-in-price Core X-Series competitor, the 10-core/20-thread Core i9-7900X, by a healthy 30 percent on the multithreaded trial.

The Single Core setting tells a different tale. The Threadripper 2950X shows a decided uptick from the 1950X and 1920X, with the Intel chips still in the lead. That said, with the 2950X, the Intel lead has been halved. It was about 15 percent last year, and now it's down to about 8 percent.

iTunes 10.6 Conversion Test

We then switched over to our venerable iTunes Conversion Test, using version 10.6 of iTunes. This test taxes only a single CPU core, as much legacy software still does. We're hoping that no one will be doing much conversion action on software this old on a CPU this cutting-edge, but it's an interesting exercise...

You can see a reflection of the single-core Cinebench test here in the iTunes benchmark. Because audio transcoding with this version of the application taxes only a single core, we suspected as much. The difference here between the 2950X and the Intels is around 20 percent. We'd still like to see the Threadrippers do better here, but we think their showing is more than good enough given the likely usage profile of this chip. The newer Intel parts are appreciably faster, but most relevant software that a Threadripper buyer might consider should be able to make good use of multiple cores. And if single-core tasks are primarily what you do, Threadripper and Core X are not what you ought to be looking at; check out a much cheaper Intel Core i7-8700K.

Handbrake 0.9.9

This is a time-consuming test of video-crunching capabilities. Handbrake, a commonly used utility for converting videos from one format to another, benefits from having lots of cores and threads at your disposal. In this test, we use a nice, big hunk of near-4K video to see how the chips perform with a sustained task of this kind, as the CPU has plenty of time during the render to heat up and, potentially, throttle. We tasked the CPUs to convert a 12-minute-and-14-second .MOV file encoded in H.264 (the showcase short film Tears of Steel, at a resolution of 3,840 by 1,714) into a 1080p MPEG-4 video…

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X (Handbrake)

Only the 18-core Core i9-7980XE could catch the new Threadripper or its parent, and that not by a whole lot. To get a better sense of how impressive that is, Intel's top-end predecessor to the Core i9-7980XE, the Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, took about 6.5 minutes to complete this test, and just a couple of years ago that was riding high as a $1,799 CPU whose price—like that of the Core i9-7980XE—didn't budge much for its active life on the market.

POV-Ray 3.7

Next up, using the "All CPUs" setting, we ran the POV-Ray benchmark, which challenges all available cores to render a complex photo-realistic image using ray tracing. After that, again to get a sense of how the chips handle single-core performance, we ran the same benchmark using the "One CPU" setting.

We saw a mirror here, more or less, of what we saw with Cinebench. The Intel chips in this test set were better at the One CPU setting, but the Threadripper parts new and old pulled ahead of everything else, barring the mighty Core i9-7980XE, on the All CPUs test. The Core i9-7900X was competitive, but it couldn't best the extra cores and threads that AMD offers at similar or lower price points.

Blender 2.77a

Blender is an open-source 3D content-creation program that can be used to design and create visual effects, animation, and 3D models for use in video games or 3D printing. We open a standard test file (it's of a flying squirrel) and time how long the test processor takes to finish the render.

The results here were all quite close, but the Threadripper 2950X held its own against a slew of pricier Intel silicon. It seems Blender prefers a balance of cores and raw clock, rather than simply maximum cores and threads, as indicated by the competitive showings of the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i7-8700K.

7-Zip 16.04 Benchmark

Last, we fired up the popular 7-Zip file-compression software and ran its built-in compression and decompression benchmark, which is another useful test of a CPU's multi-core abilities. Operations of this kind are very CPU-intensive, and the 7-Zip program is fully threaded.

On this last test, the Threadripper chips dominated, with the Threadripper 2950X in particular pummeling almost all takers, with the exception being the much pricier Core i9-7980XE.

Overclocking

AMD provides a downloadable app, Ryzen Master, for system monitoring and overclocking, as well as toggling between Creator and Game Modes, which we mentioned earlier in brief. You can use Ryzen Master to tweak clocks and voltages from within Windows, versus the usual BIOS-level approach.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X Ryzen Master

With the Threadripper 1950X, we were able to get the chip stable at 3.9GHz with various tweaks and by bumping up the voltage a fair amount (1.125V to 1.325V). Here, we first opted for letting Ryzen Master do the work, engaging Precision Boost Overdrive to see if the more granular controls over power management and other similar settings would make a difference. We had some modest successes in our Cinebench trials, but ultimately it didn't matter as much as the full manual mode, tweaking the voltage and core clock across all cores step by step.

In our manual trials, we knocked the voltage to 1.3V and tweaked up in 25MHz increments from the base clock of 3,500MHz. (The software allows for 25MHz up-steps.) We found the best balance at all cores set to 3,950MHz; at that setting, the system ran stably, and we shaved 11 seconds off our Handbrake render time, for a gain of about 4.5 percent. Cinebench shot up to a score of 3,333, an improvement of just shy of 5 percent. On our sample, going much beyond either locked the system up, or didn't produce better scores than at our 3,950MHz setting.

So clearly, there is some overhead to exploit here. That said, we still can't recommend overly aggressive overclocking of the 2950X. Overclocking, per AMD and a message right in Ryzen Master, does void your warranty. So if you care about the longevity of your $899 processor, stay at or stick close to stock speeds—again, unless you're an overclocking vet with a solid cooler.

Gaming Performance

One point of contention with the original Threadrippers was gaming performance at relatively "low" resolutions with high-end video cards, in other words, in situations where the CPU itself and memory latency comes into play. Testing from many outlets indicated that at 1080p, for example, the maximum frame rates in many games showed some suppression versus the same games, settings, and video card in use on recent high-end Intel silicon.

With 2017's Threadripper 1950X chip, AMD indeed stated in its reviewer's guide that "the AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor was not designed for or intended to run games at the 1,920x1,080 resolution." The company argued at the time that if you're spending this much on a processor and platform, you should probably be pushing more pixels on a higher-resolution monitor. We're not arguing with the logic of that, but the fact is: 1080p is a popular gaming resolution, and also favored by competitive gamers with high-refresh-rate screens. So we ran some anecdotal tests with our same GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition card in concert with the Threadripper 2950X to see what kind of improvements have been made. (Again, memory was set to 2,933MHz, the newly supported JEDEC profile ceiling for the Threadripper platform.)

Of note, as mentioned earlier, Threadripper has both a Creator mode and a Game mode that you can switch between using the Ryzen Master software. Creator mode is enabled by default, and it offers the best performance for tackling tasks that like lots of threads. Game mode disables a number of cores (the amount depends on the chip; in the 2950X's case, it disables eight of the 16) and tweaks the RAM to the Local memory (aka "NUMA") mode to favor gaming. What's actually happening under the hood is complicated. But AMD says across the 75 or so games it tested with this generation of the chip, Game mode offered a roughly 5 to 10 percent improvement in some titles, with the effect and variability ranging from game to game. Some games prefer more cores; others benefit more from less latency.

Given the mostly under-10-percent difference between the two modes, though, unless you're a frame-rate stickler, you may want to just leave Creator mode enabled, especially since you need to reboot when switching between the two modes. The only issue with that approach is that you may run into the occasional game that won't launch without some cores disabled, which will require enabling Game mode. (That didn't happen among eight titles we launched, to see what would happen.)

At 4K (3,840 by 2,160), all of the late-model CPUs were within 2 or 3 frames per second of one another on the six test games we tried, signaling that the CPUs weren't the bottleneck; the limitations were around the video card's ability. So we then shifted all of our testing to 1080p.

First, we fired up Rise of the Tomb Raider in DirectX 11 mode at the game's Very High detail preset and ran the built-in benchmark. The Threadripper 2950X turned in an average frame rate of 121 frames per second (fps) in Creator mode. That's within a few frames of what we saw in the past with the various Intel Core X solutions.

We then shifted over to a few games that we had tested using the same GeForce GTX 1080 video card in our Core i7-7700K video-card testbed. Hitman (2016), on the High detail setting, showed a 3 to 4 percent delta between the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X and the Core i7-7700K, tested under both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. That's good, as the Core i7-7700K (as well as its 8700K successor) tends to outperform both the Threadripper chips and the Intel Core X line for gaming at 1080p. Likewise, Tom Clancy's: The Division, at 99fps (2950X) versus 108fps (7700K) was just an 8 percent deficit.

We then did a systematic run through seven games new...and older. Testing solely at 1080p, we tried each at an elevated settings preset indicated below, in turn in Creator mode (that is, with all cores running and direct memory access mode engaged), Game mode (with half the cores disabled and local memory access mode engaged), and in Creator mode with the local memory access setting engaged (as an experiment, to see if any of the games benefit from this combo approach). Here's what we saw, with all figures in frames per second...

What does that tell us? It tells us that, indeed, the frame-rate penalty at 1080p varies a bunch by game, but it's from negligible to modest. (Far Cry Primal is an outlier, and we suspect there will be a few others.) The Threadripper 2950X is a slightly better gamer at 1080p than its predecessor; and at least in our handful of test games, Creator versus Game mode only mattered sometimes.

The main takeaway is that if you really want the best possible gaming performance specifically at or around 1080p resolution, above all else, and the core/thread count is a distant second concern, you're in the wrong review. Opt for a chip with fewer cores and higher clocks, like the Core i7-8700K.

But otherwise, this is mostly a non-issue. Both the Threadripper and Core X chips deliver high enough frame rates to satisfy all but the most discerning high-fps game junkie, and the kind of buyers with the money and need for a Threadripper platform ought to have graduated to a 1440p or 4K panel by now. And at 4K resolution, it doesn't matter; the video card's the issue, not the CPU.

Threadripper: Still a Ripping-Good Value

The Ryzen Threadripper 2950X is slightly faster than its 1950X predecessor at the types of computing tasks that lap up all of the processor cores and threads that they can find. This includes ray tracing, 3D rendering, converting and exporting media files, and other highly specialized tasks. They're the sort of tasks you might use an Intel Xeon-powered workstation for at the office, and you could certainly shell out the amount of money you'd spend on a 2950X build out a Xeon workstation instead.

But where's the fun in that? Aside from the satisfaction of assembling your own PC, there's a certain aura to a build with a Threadripper inside of it. The awesome name is certainly part of that aura, but so is the fact that you're getting workstation-level performance at a price that, until recently, wasn't possible in a consumer-grade chip. The 2950X's $899 retail price still classes it as a luxe-level CPU, but it's still $100 less than both its Threadripper predecessor and its nearest competitor, Intel's Core i9-7900X.

Now that the Threadripper ecosystem has had a year to mature, you can also select among dozens of motherboards, coolers, power supplies, and other components to suit your tastes and budget. This further narrows the gap with Intel's Core X-Series chips, and affords significantly more room for creative expression than you'd get from an off-the-shelf system like the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition.

The platform, like any, has its downsides, of course. Aside from minor inconveniences like the lack of Thunderbolt 3 support, the Threadripper 2950X is a smidge behind the Core i9-7900X and other Intel Core X and mainstream-CPU solutions when it comes to 1080p gaming performance, just like its predecessor. The difference isn't immense, but it has gotten smaller and varies significantly depending on the game you're playing. But the fact remains that if you want to consistently milk out every last frame that your 144Hz high-refresh monitor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will display, you're better off with an Intel chip.

Any chip at this price range, AMD or Intel, is suited to a rather small subset of potential PC builders: people who need as much multi-thread, multi-core compute power as possible for the money. (Or folks who have the cash for PC bragging rights, but can't see spending twice as much money for incremental gains.) If that's you, this is the best chip of its kind that you can buy.

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2019 Chevy Silverado first drive review: Brute suit riot

Posted: 13 Aug 2018 05:13 AM PDT

When the outgoing Chevrolet Silverado 1500 pickup bowed for 2014, it was competitive and it led the half-ton field in some areas. But it didn't look or feel particularly new. The third-generation Silverado wasn't flashy in appearance or construction -- in fact, it looked similar to its predecessor. Whether that was strategic, or simply because much of it was developed during General Motors' cash crunch, the old model came across as a familiar friend that was a bit technophobic and a little too set in its ways.

This all-new 2019 Silverado 1500 treads an altogether more aggressive path. It's here to strut its stuff with a bold new look and gobs of tech -- both under the hood and in the cabin. And yet, after a full day behind the wheel in this latest model, the Silverado seems like it's held on to the essence of what made the old truck so endearing.

If that preamble has you assuming that Chevy has adopted all-aluminum bodywork and a full line of downsized turbo engines like its Ford F-150 nemesis, think again. If you're envisioning a hybrid option or an available coil spring suspension under its rear haunches like the Ram 1500... well, you're wrong there too.

GM hasn't abandoned what worked in the past. Instead the company has taken a witheringly hard look at the Silverado's genetic makeup and executed substantial and effective changes throughout. The 2019 Silverado finally feels like the brand-new truck that it is, especially in higher-end models where its full complement of optional comfort and safety tech is on ready display.

That face

Before I even get on the road, though, I have to discuss the Silverado's new suit. It's… not for everyone. While the old model looked like a safe, evolutionary facelift of the previous-generation pickup, this new truck is unlikely to be confused for its forebear. Its bluff, upright new nose has swagger by the bushelful.

The way the design's fenders wrap into the face is particularly likely to polarize opinions. Those steel fenders jut decisively into the grille, underlining the Silverado's newly narrowed, glowering headlamps. The protrusions look a bit like anthropomorphized versions of the eye black that football players wear. Those same fenders extend downward, resting over the bumper fascia in unusual fashion thanks to integrated air curtains that guide currents around the front wheels to curb drag. (Despite hitting an inch higher, airflow has has improved on the new truck by seven percent.)

The sun has clearly set on demure Silverado designs.

Mike Cutler/Roadshow

Combined with the 2019 Silverado's more prominently sculpted wheel arches and a longer wheelbase, the visual takeaway is that this is one massive pickup. Even though its overall footprint is similar (it's only around 1.5 inches longer), the Silverado looks larger than before, and more imposing than its Ford and Dodge rivals.

This Chevy's appearance might not sit comfortably with everyone, but I suspect it's going to go over well with pickup shoppers. In an unsubtle age where tailgates are emblazoned with billboard-sized brand lettering and today's lifted brodozer style has even infiltrated Whole Foods parking lots, it's a look that should find plenty of fans. If nothing else, given the Silverado's ubiquity (Chevy sold nearly 600,000 last year), the design's initially jarring quality probably won't last.

That body

I mentioned the 2019 Silverado 1500's longer wheelbase, and indeed it's stretched its legs by up to 3.9 inches. Ride quality is improved, and fortunately the Silverado's front overhang has been shortened to avoid making its turning circle larger, improving the arrival angle for improved off-roading in the bargain. A shorter front overhang and reworked steering geometry mean that this longer truck doesn't necessitate a bigger turning circle.

That bodywork isn't just more deliberately sculpted, it's smarter, too. The Silverado wears aluminum swing panels -- its doors, hood and tailgate are skinned in Al13. The entire truck's makeup is an impressively optimized mosaic of varying grades of high-strength steels and aluminum. Chevy's engineers have scalpeled away 88 pounds from the bodywork and a further 88 pounds from the chassis, too.

After years of producing overweight vehicles, GM finally accepted the gospel of lightweighting a number of years ago, and has since become a leading disciple. Chevy says when you compare crew-cab V8 models, this new rig tips the scales at around 450 pounds less than its predecessor, the result of an exhaustive gram-by-gram analysis.

Increased use of mixed metals, plus aluminum doors, hood and tailgate contribute to a 450-pound diet.

Chevrolet

That bed

If its newfound lightness has you thinking this 1500 is somehow less capable, think again. Nowhere is that more evident than in its bed, which benefits from a clean-sheet overhaul. New stamping methods and higher-grade steel has enabled a bed that's not only stronger, it's seven-inches wider and it's deeper, too. Compared to last year's model, the resulting roll-formed Durabed offers 10 more cubic feet of space in short- and standard-box guise, and a whopping 14 more cubes in long-box form. Depending on configuration, the Durabed is around 20 percent more capacious than rivals.

The Durabed isn't just larger, it's smarter, too. Its dozen cargo tie-downs are rated to withstand 500 pounds of bending force -- twice as robust as before. Plus, there's available LED in-bed lighting and a 110/120-volt outlet to power that big tailgating TV you've been eyeing. Large, lockable in-bed bins are also available. The coup de grâce? An optional power tailgate that not only lowers, it lifts, as well. Yes, that's unnecessarily extravagant, and that's exactly why it'll be popular -- this market segment is chock full of overkill.

The High Country's cabin delivers all hat and all cattle.

Chevrolet

The great indoors

There are lots of changes outside, but the 1500's new interior might just be its biggest quality-of-life upgrade. The outgoing Silverado's cab was a decent place to spend time, especially because for most of its life, it was the quietest truck in its class.

However, the old truck's cabin had a number of fundamental blind spots, including its lack of a telescoping wheel, or keyless entry and start. It may sound trivial, but it's amazing how old a vehicle can feel simply by forcing you to push a button on a separate fob to unlock a door -- let alone requiring slotting and twisting a key in the ignition to bring its engine to life.

GM has remedied those deficiencies, and added higher-quality materials and contemporary finishes. There's also new available tech including a smartly executed multicolor head-up display, USB-C (and standard USB) ports and so on. Chevy seems to recognize that more and more people are stepping out of luxury cars and climbing into high-end pickups and SUVs, and it's unwilling to sacrifice connectivity and features while doing so.

An eight-inch touchscreen features better-quality graphics and snappier performance.

Chevrolet

The Silverado's new infotainment system combines crisper, more modern graphics and fonts with minimized latency between commands. While base models receive seven-inch touchscreens, many models will feature eight-inch units, and the available navigation system features single-line address entry and sharper-looking maps. Apple CarPlay and Android auto are aboard, too. The new system isn't as visually impressive as the optional gargantuan 12-inch vertical Uconnect hub in the Ram, but it's plenty big.

It's not just front-seat passengers that are treated well. The Silverado's aforementioned larger cab primarily works out to three inches of added rear-seat leg room on four-door crew cabs (swelling from 40.9 to 43.9 inches). Whether you regularly ferry backseat passengers or not, that extra floor space will come in handy when it comes time to stash groceries or tools out of the elements. And speaking of stashing, the entire cabin has more stowage space, including twin gloveboxes and novel second-row seatback storage bins.

A new Trailboss trim adds a two-inch lift, plus skid plates, knobby tires and other off-road kit.

Chevrolet

Your way and the highway

While most shoppers will select mid-grade models such as Custom and LT, the 2019 Silverado offers a broader array of trims to better tailor appearances and capabilities to your needs. There's a new RST street-truck model with body-colored detailing and massive 22-inch wheels, as well as the new Trailboss. The latter adds a two-inch factory lift atop the Z71 Off-Road pack, kitting it out with skid plates, Rancho shocks, knobby tires and a burlier appearance.

You may recognize my test truck's High Country badges as a new version of the lux'd-up model introduced late in the previous Silverado's lifecycle. Despite crowding its GMC Sierra Denali brethren in rarified air, the High Country proved to be a big success. Unsurprisingly, it returns here wearing even more chrome frosting and Cowboy Cadillac trappings.

The new High Country's ride and handling is appropriate for its mission, too. In an old-school meets new-school twist, it uses Corvette-derived carbon composite second-stage leaf springs to prop up its live axle. Doing so sheds a further 24 pounds while allowing engineers to further dial-in ride quality and improve handling.

The High Country's optional 6.2-liter V8 delivers 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque.

Mike Cutler/Roadshow

All ate up with motors

My High Country tester also packed one hell of a V8.

While GM will offer the 1500 with the buyer's choice of a new 2.7-liter turbo four-cylinder, its aging 4.3-liter V6 or an updated 5.3-liter V8, this High Country was spec'd with GM's full-house 6.2-liter V8, featuring a seamless new Dynamic Fuel Management cylinder-deactivation system that lets it run on anything between one and all eight cylinders as demand warrants.

At this early drive event, trucks with fewer than eight cylinders weren't available for testing, and some fuel economy data is still pending. However, GM claims city mileage figures will climb around five percent higher on V8 models, noting that a four-wheel-drive 6.2-liter V8 like my test truck is earmarked to get 16 mpg city, 20 highway and 17 combined.

A 3.0-liter Duramax diesel will also be offered soon.

Combined with an unobtrusive new stop-start system and a new 10-speed automatic transmission, my tester's big V8 marshaled all 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque to cope effortlessly with the mountain ascents on my test route in and around Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The High Country features down-home chrome, and lots of it.

Mike Cutler/Roadshow

When empty, the 6.2-liter makes the Silverado an unlikely rocketship. Even at elevation, acceleration felt like 0-60 runs would register around six seconds, suggesting low-to-mid fives might not be out of the question at sea level.

My test rig felt similarly unperturbed when a 6,000-pound trailer was strapped to its hitch. The High Country is rated to tow over double that figure, but given the area's 6,000-plus foot elevation, it still felt like an impressive performance.

Despite having so many options at its disposal, the 10-speed gearbox rarely felt indecisive. I do wish it wasn't necessary to drop the column shifter a notch before using the rocker switch to toggle through the ratios. This requirement feels unnecessary, and it's annoying when you want to quickly call up extra engine braking on descents or preselect a lower gear ahead of a passing maneuver.

A number of towing-minded options make hitching and hauling easier, including this camera package.

Chevrolet

Towing APPetite

A new Trailering Camera Package includes a Hitch Guidance mode that makes putting Tab A into Slot B easier, and an optional wired camera can be plunked on the back of the trailer to aid in reversing, too. You no longer need a buddy to verify that your lights are hooked up correctly -- a test sequence activated by the touchscreen or via a MyChevrolet phone app makes it a one-person job.

Speaking of apps, an infotainment app on the optional Advanced Trailering System allows for the creation of different trailer profiles. ATS not only presets the brake gain for specific trailers, it keeps track of mileage, fuel economy and transmission temps, too. Once you've got your trailer hooked up, there's an option group that uses additional sensors to keep tabs on trailer tire temperatures and pressures for added safety.

Another tech topic where the old Silverado lagged rivals was in terms of both active and passive safety gear. The new model greatly improves things. It's available with forward collision alert with low-speed automatic emergency brake, lane-keep assist and blind-spot alert. Plus, this new truck offers significant technological improvements in visibility, including more powerful LED lights with automatic high beams, an available surround-view camera system and a digital rearview mirror.

The big-dollar Big Country is ready for big adventure.

Mike Cutler/Roadshow

The (big) bottom line

Sadly, much of the active safety gear remains optional, even in top trims. And of course, none of this technology comes cheap. While MSRPs on base 2WD Work Trucks start a smidge under $30,000, my optioned-up High Country 4x4 rang up at an eye-watering -- but ultimately competitive -- $65,655 including delivery. As one GM exec told me, "We have yet to find the price ceiling on pickup trucks -- customers want more, but it's going to cost more."

The 2019 Silverado 1500 hits streets nationwide beginning later this month -- and it's safe to say you'll see it coming.

Editors' note: Roadshow accepts multiday vehicle loans from manufacturers in order to provide scored editorial reviews. All scored vehicle reviews are completed on our turf and on our terms. However, for this feature, the manufacturer covered travel costs. This is common in the auto industry, as it's far more economical to ship journalists to cars than to ship cars to journalists.

The judgments and opinions of Roadshow's editorial team are our own and we do not accept paid editorial content.

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