If you're looking to spend close to $4,000 on something, you have options. You can take a vacation, go on a cruise, put a down payment on a new car, or build a gaming PC with no expense spared. Or you can go all in on AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper 3990X CPU.

The Threadripper 3990X makes its retail debut today, just as the embargo on performance reviews is lifted, and AMD has not sent us any chips, perhaps acknowledging that the 3990X is overkill for a gaming setup. And they are right. And they are right.

But if you're interested in all-around performance, our friends at AnandTech and Tom's Hardware have posted a review of the 3990X. In summary, Tom's Hardware states that the 3990X is "pretty much what AMD says it is" and that it is "a highly specialized processor that delivers phenomenal performance on a narrow range of workloads, but at a very attractive price point given its capabilities."

The latter bit is an important qualifier. For a gaming PC, it is far better to buy a "mainstream" processor, such as the Ryzen 9 3900X or Intel Core i7-9700K, two of the best CPUs for gaming, or even something cheaper. Assuming that your budget is not unlimited, it makes more sense to put your money into a high-end GPU than into a high-end desktop (HEDT) processor.

So why release a chip like the 3990X, when AMD is flexing its muscles and showing how much room the 7-nanometer Zen 2 architecture has to spare? Another reason is that there is a real market for HEDT processors. While the asking price is undoubtedly high, there is value here in the workstation world where so many cores and threads are needed to handle multi-threaded workloads (such as Hollywood-level 3D rendering).

Anyway, for those who have been waiting for the 3990X, it is on sale at Newegg for $3989.99.