Seems like the video is up again at the EEVblog2 channel..
I think there is little point to go the i9 series processors on the Intel platform. Then at that point I think a threadripper is way more cost efficient. The 7900x is literally 2x more expensive than the 7820x, for only 2 more cores (which are also clocked a bit slower).
This benchmark suggests it's a pretty linear increase in speed of about 20%, for 100% more cost (but less on total system cost though).
In terms of comparing it to AMD offerings, see same benchmark. The AMD 1800X is nowhere close in h265, the 2700X is an incremental improvement (add a generous 15%), so same. The 1920X is 22% quicker in h264, but about on par as the 7820X in h265. So it's about even I guess.
I assume this is also Dave's workstation at the office, in that case the faster single-core performance of the 7820X should also be taken into consideration. There the 7820X scores 194 in Cinebench single-thread, vs 167 for 1920X/1950X..
I think that in terms of buying equipment as a
desktop, then this is key. Although multi-core performance is nice to have for that 22% h264 boost, this is something you could fix with a next gen upgrade or getting a more expensive CPU. The single core performance for daily tasks is something different altogether. However it's hard to guess where CPU land is going to be in 2 or 3 years time. It probably won't be making much improvements in single-core performance though, so it's nice to maximize what's available.
Threadripper gen 2 is already announced for launch end of this summer I think. Flagship is going to be a 32 core 64 thread monster, but I doubt that will be priced as competitively as the 1950X was. Personally I think they will extrapolate the current pricing scheme, i.e. you will still get more cores for less money than at previous gen launch, but I doubt that they will put out a 32-core chip at 1000$, such that the other skews (12, 16, 24?) will be priced accordingly..
I'm planning to upgrade my workstation somewhere this winter, and key for me would be to see what the ST/MT performance vs pricing vs core load will be..
But if you're only doing GPU accelerated rendering, then probably the i7 is plenty..