HEXUS Bang4Buck
The performance benchmarks on the previous pages tell part of the story, but it is also interesting to see how CPUs compare once value and power efficiency are put into the equation.
We have taken both single- and multi-threaded applications in the form of PiFast and Cinebench and then calculated how the CPUs line up once launch price is factored in. We also graph up single- and multi-threaded relative performance with the TDP factored in, hence a bang4watt for both workloads.
Performance is good for PiFast, of course, but the comparatively exorbitant $1,999 asking fee counts against the Core i9-7980XE hugely. The Core i3-7100 is almost as quick yet costs $117. Stating an obvious truth, you are not buying this chip for single-threaded goodness first and foremost.
It's rare for expensive CPUs to break out of the bottom of the Cinebench graph - the cost is the stumbling block - so even though the Core i9-7980XE is class-leading fast, that price sticker doesn't half hurt. AMD's rival Threadripper 1950X isn't quite as quick but is half the price, hence it scores almost twice as much as the best from Intel.
Impressive as performance undoubtedly is, there is very little value... unless you absolutely need the most performance out of a single-socket system. For example, if a video-processing project takes six hours on this chip and 24 hours on a Core i7-7700K, opportunity-cost time can be construed as money.
