Threadripper 2 announced: AMD one-ups Intel with 32-core Ryzen Threadripper CPU

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Let the core wars begin. 32 cores, 64 threads. Same socket. Coming in Q3 of this year.

At AMD's Computex press conference on Wednesday, the company shared the first details on what's coming with Ryzen's second generation Threadripper CPU. Threadripper is the big daddy of AMD's new CPU line: it's not a gaming CPU, but it's a multithreaded, multicore monster. What's new: second-gen Threadripper, following the launch of other Ryzen chips in the last few months, is coming in Q3 of 2018. Oh, and it has up to 32 cores.

AMD is leaning into some "heavy metal" imagery to market Threadripper, and the CPU looks like it'll earn it. Threadripper 2 will run on a 12nm Zen+ architecture and have the new features of Ryzen second gen. It's running on the same socket and will come in a number of configurations, but the highest-end chip will have a monstrous 32 cores and 64 threads. Only 24 hours ago, Intel teased a 28-core high-end chip for release later this year. AMD spared no time topping that with Threadripper.

AMD demonstrated 24-core and 32-core chips running on air cooling at the press conference, ripping through some benchmarks. It's going to be a good year for high-end computing.

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Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).