AMD ThreadRipper: X399, 16C/32T, 64 PCIe lanes and more

Computex 2017 - AMD might not have Radeon RX Vega anywhere near ready for consumer and gamers' consumption, but that didn't stop them from unleashing their new ThreadRipper CPU at Computex.

AMD detailed their new ThreadRipper in Taipei, announcing it has a whopping 16C/32T of CPU performance, 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes (more on why this is the most important part in a minute), quad-channel DDR4 support, and their new X399 chipset for HEDT.

The new X399 chipset supports 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes which is perfect for 2/3/4-way GPU setups (4-way Radeon RX Vega anyone?!) and the world of M.2 SSDs that use those precious PCIe lanes. Not only that, but we have quad-channel DDR4 support with up to 8 x DIMMs on high-end motherboards.

Considering Intel's new X299 chipset only has 44 PCIe lanes, AMD absolutely crushes them when it comes to PCIe connectivity. Intel's highest-end Core i9 processors will only have 44 PCIe lanes, so if you were to have a 2-way GPU setup with x16/x16 you'll only have 12 PCIe lanes left. Throw in a couple of M.2 drives and you're out of PCIe lanes. This won't be a problem with ThreadRipper, however.

AMD's exciting new ThreadRipper CPUs arrive on the TR4 socket with 4094 pins, up to 16C/32T, up to 32MB cache, and will be available in the coming months. We saw a slew of X399-based boards at Computex, with some truly exciting designs on the way.

All we need to see now is the mainstream gaming performance, as Ryzen 7 1800X isn't the best performing processor when it comes to mainstream games against Intel's Core i7-7700K which has half the cores and threads. If AMD can kill it with ThreadRipper and price it at something like $1199 versus the Core i9-7980XE at $1999... we might see a huge change in the CPU market over the next 6-12 months.

Bring it on.