TR 2990WX CPU clock speed while rendering

Hey there,
studio I work at just provided me with new workstation and I was lucky enought to get AMD Threadripper 2990WX (32C/64T) 3Ghz with boost up to 4.2Ghz. Now It works sweet and all but to be honest I am a bit disappointed with it’s rendering power. I was simply expecting bigger boost to my old I7 7800X (6C/12T) in my rendering times. So I started some digging and I tried to do tricks here and there but I wasn’t be able to find more info about this particular thing. Durning rendering (CPU obviously) It takes all cores to do the computing up to 100% but all cores run only at 3Ghz (which is a base clock) while temperature is at pretty cool 58°(even after 24 hours non stop rendering). My old I7 7800X was able to get as high as 80°. So I wonder why wouldn’t my new 2990WX simply increase cores clock a bit let’s say up to 70° line so I would get more power? Is it normal that out of box it uses only base core clock when rendering with all cores and so turbo boost at 4.2 Ghz is limited only for like gaming?

PS: I know I can activate PBO overlocking but it crosses warranty so in this case I am not about to do it since this CPU cost is like 2K$.

PS2 : I did try to change power management to high performance but didn’t notice any change.

Thanks for answers,
cheers T.

Yes, but 7800X has max temp set to 100°C by manufacturer and 2990WX max temp is 68°C.

Isn’t it enabled on Zen+ by default? Because on my 2700X it sure does.

Well yeah, 4.2 ghz is meant to be to a single core. Looks like your CPU is boosting to 3.4 on all cores. Check this out while rendering in HWInfo or Ryzen Master.
Btw, do you use it with Blender 2.8 or 2.79? 2.8 seems to use CPU power differently, especially with procedural maps, which lead to excessive heat amount → less frequency

Hey,
thx for reaction. I understand temp limit but still i got 10°C to hit the roof so it should be able to boost. PBO isn’t activated by default (see a screen below). When rendering cores run at 3.0 Ghz (again screen from ryzen master) and 3.4 would be indeed sweet but no unfortunately no. I use Blender 2.8 but haven’t render with it on this new machine yet (only modeling). This rendering was done on 3ds max + V-ray (I use Max together with a Blender in work). Anyway I just wonder why TR woudn’T boost atleast a bit from 3.0 when there is still safe temperature zone (I don’t expect it to turbo boost all cores up 4.2 that is for sure).

This screen was taken durning rendering.

Hey have you tried Coreprio? I recently watched a video explaining the problem Windows 10 scheduler has with 2990wx and 2970wx. Looks like it’s Windows fault on the under performance of this 2 processors. Check if this answers your problem :slight_smile:

And try this as a temporary solution.

At least for Windows you definitely want to be using Experimental 2.79 or 2.80, as I believe there was specific work to get thread scheduling working well for 32+ threads in the last few months. I would expect poor performance in <= 2.79b.

I have solved that out. It was simply bios setting (I set everything on auto) and now mobo is giving cpu power at will and it does work as it should. Still honestly I wouldn’t buy this cpu if it were my own money. I would rather go for TR 2950X (or better the upcoming ryzen 3850x 16C/32T with turbo boost at 5.1 Ghz). I simply don’t think that TR 2990WX is worth the money.

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