In October, AMD launched the Epyc 7H12, a 64-core behemoth designed to take down Intel’s Xeon in the server market. Now AMD has confirmed plans for an epyc…er, epic smackdown of Intel in the desktop PC with the 64-core Threadripper 3990X. No, AMD’s 64-core Threadripper 3990X isn’t quite here—and boy, Intel should thank its lucky stars for that. After AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X danced on Intel’s head by topping the Intel Core i9-9900KS in both single-core and multithreaded performance, the 32-core Threadripper 3970X just added insult to injury. And with the 64-core Threadripper 3990X on the horizon…wow. Wow. Hulk SMASH. Granted, we don’t know everything about this new chip, including the key metric: the price. A four-digit price tag should be expected. But here’s what we do know about the 3990X: It will have 64 cores and 128 threads. It will have 288MB of total cache. It will consume 280W, the same TDP as the current Threadripper 3970X. You won’t be able to afford it. But AMD’s 64-core monstrosity will probably be priced way above the threshold of the average enthusiast.
