Okay so this one looks like a bigger home chip. It is not.
Socket is the plug on the motherboard. The chip only fits the board made for that plug. A home Ryzen and a Threadripper do not share a plug. The Threadripper generations do not share a plug with each other either.
A Ryzen 9 3950X is 16 cores on the normal desktop socket, AM4. Two memory channels. A memory channel is one path from the chip to the memory. Two paths is the home setup, usually two sticks. It has 64 MB of level 3 (L3) cache. It is rated 105 watts.
The old 16-core Threadripper is the 2950X. Same core count. Already a different computer. Socket sTR4. Four memory channels. 32 MB of L3 cache. Rated 180 watts.
A 3960X is 24 cores. A 3970X is 32 cores. Both are socket sTRX4. Your AM4 board will not take them. The old sTR4 board will not take them either. Four memory channels, so the two sticks from a home miner leave two paths empty. 128 MB of L3 cache. Rated 280 watts. The cooler you already have for a normal Ryzen does not move over.
To run one you are buying the rest of a computer:
- a motherboard with that exact socket
- four memory sticks, not the two you already mine on
- a cooler that can live with the higher watt rating
- a case that board actually fits
People buy one for workstation work. Rendering, video, a big compile, a simulation, a big model on the computer itself. One box with room for more drives and more cards. That is the job. Mining is not why the platform exists.
The 3950X and the 5950X are what you buy when you wanted 16 cores and a normal board. The 5950X is the same class. Still AM4. Still 16 cores. Still 64 MB of L3 cache. Still rated 105 watts. A newer 16-core desktop chip, like the Ryzen 9 9950X, is still a normal desktop socket and still two memory channels. It is not a Threadripper.
For hash, use the middle of the public XMRig list, not the best score someone posted. A 3950X in the middle is about 15.9 thousand hashes a second (kH/s). Two of those is about 31.8. A 32-core 3970X in the middle is about 31.4. Close. A 24-core 3960X in the middle is about 23.6, and it still needs the special board.
That watt number is the chip rating, not the number at the wall plug. The watts note already covers that.
If you are brand new, this is not the door. Gupax is.
If threads and L3 seats are still fuzzy, that note is here.
You are not dropping in a faster chip. You are buying a different computer.