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The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

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Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#31

Post by eloff »

mtgx wrote: post #26
Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good god! Why on earth you need 32 core quad GPU workstation?

For the same reason Apple is selling an 18-core Mac Pro for $20,000 or whatever the price is now. Some people need that power. It's just that with AMD, you can get more of it and for a tiny fraction of the cost of Apple's Mac Pro.

That's just abusive pricing. If you're stuck with Apple software then I guess you have no choice. I have a 10-core 128GB ram workstation that's two years old now, it cost me half as much as a MacBook Pro. I need a new laptop soon, but the difference between the i9 Dell and the i9 MacBook is $800 CAD. Plus the Dell is for sure going to work better with a Linux install, in terms of drivers, which is better for me for work than MacOS. I won't be buying Apple.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#32

Post by LeifCarrotson »

whatever1 wrote: post #17

Bloody hell, this processor has more cores than the dual socket Xeon HPCs that my lab bought 2 years ago. Amazing. Honest question: Isn't the memory throughput an issue when you try to feed 32 hungry processors?

Threadripper uses quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory. That gets you 80 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is possible because the processor sits in an enormous 4094-pin TR4 socket. Your Xeons were probably in 2011 pin sockets with DDR3-1866 resulting in 70 GB/s memory bandwidth. One Threadripper has more than double the pin count and slightly more total memory bandwidth than your dual Xeon machine.

Also, your the Intel setup has a 25 GB/s QPI bus between the processors. Threadripper runs an Infinity Fabric bus, with 42 GB/s between each die internally (aggregate 170 GB/s). While a couple of those internal dies are not directly connected to the memory, you should have little trouble sharing meals among those hungry processors.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#33

Post by dagmx »

Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6
h4b4n3r0 wrote: post #4

That pricing is actually more reasonable than I was expecting. I might get myself a 32 core quad GPU workstation. Unthinkable even just a year ago.

Good god! Why on earth you need 32 core quad GPU workstation?

Rendering scales fairly linearly with hardware. If I'm rendering with Arnold for example, it can saturate all my cores pretty well and gives back an almost linear rendering time reduction.

Same with GPU systems like redshift, alternatively I can dedicate half the machine to rendering and the other half to continued work.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#34

Post by _2d30 »

eloff wrote: post #31
mtgx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason Apple is selling an 18-core Mac Pro for $20,000 or whatever the price is now. Some people need that power. It's just that with AMD, you can get more of it and for a tiny fraction of the cost of Apple's Mac Pro.

That's just abusive pricing. If you're stuck with Apple software then I guess you have no choice. I have a 10-core 128GB ram workstation that's two years old now, it cost me half as much as a MacBook Pro. I need a new laptop soon, but the difference between the i9 Dell and the i9 MacBook is $800 CAD. Plus the Dell is for sure going to work better with a Linux install, in terms of drivers, which is better for me for w…

He made that number up. The most expensive possible iMac Pro is ~$13.5K (see here: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac-pro/3.2ghz-1tb).

Note that most price comparisons show that the iMac Pro is actually quite the deal.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#35

Post by aeleos »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #32
whatever1 wrote: post #17

Bloody hell, this processor has more cores than the dual socket Xeon HPCs that my lab bought 2 years ago. Amazing. Honest question: Isn't the memory throughput an issue when you try to feed 32 hungry processors?

Threadripper uses quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory. That gets you 80 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is possible because the processor sits in an enormous 4094-pin TR4 socket. Your Xeons were probably in 2011 pin sockets with DDR3-1866 resulting in 70 GB/s memory bandwidth. One Threadripper has more than double the pin count and slightly more total memory bandwidth than your dual Xeon machine. Also, your the Intel setup ha…

Actually with this release threadripper 2 will support DDR4-2933 which should increase the memory bandwith and the throughput of the infinity fabric if I'm not mistaken (I am pretty sure infinity fabric runs at the ram speed)

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#36

Post by vbezhenar »

While I can see Intel's leadership in single-core performance with 6 cores (overclocked 8700K can have 5+ GHz and future flagships probably will be even faster with 8 cores), at high-core workstation AMD is a winner, hands down. Competition is good.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#37

Post by sandworm101 »

mbell wrote: post #27
florakel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is time to give AMD a chance. Intel is plagued by problems with the 10nm process technology resulting in no significant innovation on their CPUs' performance or power consumption for over two years now. And just recently they pushed their 10nm products even further back to the second half of 2019. AMD might have the first 7nm CPUs out by then. Of course process technologies are not easily comparable between fabs b…

> It is time to give AMD a chance. Intel is plagued by problems with the 10nm process technology resulting in no significant innovation on their CPUs' performance or power consumption for over two years now. The difference between 14nm and 14nm+++ is pretty close to a full node step... > And just recently they pushed their 10nm products even further back to the second half of 2019. AMD might have the first 7nm CPUs o…

If they arent behind on process tech, then they arent using it properly. The numbers are there. All techs aside, AMD is building competative chips at lower pricepoints. Intel has to pull the rabbit from the hat if it wants to stay in the spotlight.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#38

Post by dragontamer »

aeleos wrote: post #35
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threadripper uses quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory. That gets you 80 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is possible because the processor sits in an enormous 4094-pin TR4 socket. Your Xeons were probably in 2011 pin sockets with DDR3-1866 resulting in 70 GB/s memory bandwidth. One Threadripper has more than double the pin count and slightly more total memory bandwidth than your dual Xeon machine. Also, your the Intel setup ha…

Actually with this release threadripper 2 will support DDR4-2933 which should increase the memory bandwith and the throughput of the infinity fabric if I'm not mistaken (I am pretty sure infinity fabric runs at the ram speed)

Most people overclock RAM using XMP settings and hit 3200 MT/s easily (which also overclocks the infinity fabric).

I've seen some people hit 3466MT/s on higher-end more expensive RAM on AMD's 12nm stuffs (Ryzen 2). So that's probably the practical limit.

3200 MT/s on Hynix dies is probably a reasonable expectation.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#39

Post by dragontamer »

jadbox wrote: post #12
distantsounds wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cinema4D and Blender are both very CPU intensive as well as taxing on the GPU.

Blender 2.8 Eevee is reducing rendering by factor of 100, with a modest reduction of quality. It's basically using game rendering techniques, but instead of catering to realtime, it'll take a couple seconds to produce a frame. It's almost entirely GPU driven, so in the future there may not be a need to really go full Threadripper unless you use Cycles daily.

If you want to use Cycles for animations, you'll probably need the full Threadripper.

Cycles is easily 5+ minutes a frame, maybe 20+ minutes on a threadripper if you have an interior scene or something hard to light. Even with Cycle's denoiser, you need a lot of rays to get a decent animation.

Even a short 10-second animation through Cycles will take multiple days to render on a Threadripper.

Re: The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores

#40

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

mizzack wrote: post #19

Roughly linear pricing per core? What is this wizardry?

> Roughly linear pricing per core? What is this wizardry?

It's called "marketing", and it's definitely not limited by the laws of physics as we know them.

You too can learn the ways of marketing, but it comes at a very steep price: your eternal soul. (JK, that's sales.)

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