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

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

#111

Post by microcolonel » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 11:49 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #98

std_throwaway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lisa Su sounded like she'd be in the boat to open the PSP source when she was on Reddit. It seems that she only learned later that she can't do that.

The Platform Security Processor (and the code to make it work) is licensed from ARM, AMD did hire a 3rd party to audit the PSP after that thread on Reddit blew up. The results indicated the need for a rewrite, so in 5 to 6 years hopefully AMD will own the IP to their new PSP.

Where are you seeing the results of this audit?

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

#112

Post by some_account » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #81

AboutTheWhisles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is strange about pre-ordering hardware that might initially be in short supply? Pre-orders don't make sense in the case of downloadable games, where there is no scarcity.

Pre-ordering a product that hasn't been reviewed and benchmarked means you could get something much worse than you expect. For example, there may be apps that can't take advantage of 32 cores so you could spend $1,800 to get no benefit.

Not to mention that with so many cores, if they want to read and write to disk, the disk is going to be a huge bottleneck.

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

#113

Post by _2d30 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 6:13 AM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #52

_2d30 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still heavily marked up. 32GB ECC isn't $800. Current nVidia GPUs will run circles around those Radeons - even more so with Turing.

Yeah, it's like $500. Of course there's a markup on it. Apple doesn't make money by assembling parts at stock prices and then sending it to you.

It's the case that building a comparable computer (in terms of the specific iMac Pro hardware) is very similarly priced BUT requires labor, the purchase of an OS and additional peripherals: https://youtu.be/SONKIJd8xRM?t=187

That said, your point that Apple could've chosen better hardware at its price, is reasonable but off topic.

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

#114

Post by _2d30 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 6:15 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #49

_2d30 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

iMac Pro is cost-effective on the Intel platform. But AMD's Threadripper is the topic of discussion here, and I think for most people... those 32-cores for $1799 is just a way better deal. Do remember that this 32-core Threadripper offers quad-channel memory, 64x PCIe lanes, and ECC support (!!). So the Threadripper offers pretty much everything a professional wants. The only downside to Threadripper is that its mult…

Threadripper is the broadest point of topic in the thread. Down here, the question was about if Apple actually charged $20K for a particular computer. They don't and given the particular hardware choices, the iMac Pro is a great deal. The ideal choice of hardware is a separate topic.

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

#115

Post by Drdrdrq » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 8:25 AM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #43

zanny wrote: post #41

At the end of the day we still have the third party me_cleaner to disable the proprietary secret coprocessor on Intel chips while AMD chips still have their equivalent PSP With no first or third party means to disable it. Until such a time I can get the equivalent tool to stop the hardware spyware built into the CPU I can have no enthusiasm or motivation to buy AMD chips. Not to say I want to buy Intel parts - they h…

What percentage of Intel owners have run the ME-cleaner software? Probably infinitesimally small. If AMD wants to dominate they don’t need to care about your particular use-case at all in fact. They just need to produce the fastest x86 chips at the cheapest price.

I think the problem is that me-cleaner is a 3rd party solution, I'm not sure I would trust it not to brick my CPU. If AMD solved this, it would be a huge differentiator in my eyes, and I think it would further boost their sales. That said, I suspect there is some deal with 3 letter agencies that doesn't allow them to do that. It doesn't make sense to go against their customers like that otherwise.

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

#116

Post by skgoa » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #73

geezerjay wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2020 is currently just 18 months ahead. In the consumer's pov that means close to nothing. Heck, I assume they would not be able to change within that time frame even if they wanted to.

The commitment was made over a year ago when Ryzen was first released. Basically it was a guarantee if you were going to upgrade you processor in the next 3 years you wouldn't have to get a new motherboard. A moderate upgrader would get 1 upgrade out of this deal, an aggressive upgrader (gets ever new chip), would get 3 upgrades. Someone who is conservative and only plans to upgrade ever 5 years or so would see no be…

> Someone who is conservative and only plans to upgrade ever 5 years or so would see no benefit.

I disagree based on my personal experience. The CPU upgrade path for my current desktop computer ended roughly a year after I bought it, even though that CPU generation had been introduced very recently by Intel. I got a relatively high-end CPU, so upgrading to anything but the highest-end CPUs of that generation doesn't really make sense from a performance point of view. Yet those still cost a surprising amount of money today and offer worse performance than the midrange options of newer generations.

Simply put, extending the lifetime and thus upgrade path out by at least 150% means that the options available 5 years down the line will be 150% "better", even though no CPUs for that socket might even be in production anymore at that time. For me that seems like a significant advantage.

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

#117

Post by skgoa » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:45 AM UTC

harias wrote: post #86

An image says x series is for gamers. Are modern games that CPU intensive? Don't most major game engines depend almost entirely upon the GPU?

Software behaves like an ideal gas: it will always expand, if given more space. Modern games do a lot of stuff on CPUs that would have seemed insanely inefficient to do 10 years ago, simply because gamers have cores to spare.

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

#118

Post by NullPrefix » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 11:26 AM UTC

skgoa wrote: post #117

harias wrote: post #86

An image says x series is for gamers. Are modern games that CPU intensive? Don't most major game engines depend almost entirely upon the GPU?

Software behaves like an ideal gas: it will always expand, if given more space. Modern games do a lot of stuff on CPUs that would have seemed insanely inefficient to do 10 years ago, simply because gamers have cores to spare.

Soon AAA games will be released on electron.

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

#119

Post by llampx » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #81

AboutTheWhisles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is strange about pre-ordering hardware that might initially be in short supply? Pre-orders don't make sense in the case of downloadable games, where there is no scarcity.

Pre-ordering a product that hasn't been reviewed and benchmarked means you could get something much worse than you expect. For example, there may be apps that can't take advantage of 32 cores so you could spend $1,800 to get no benefit.

Right, they could just pay the same money to get a 10-core processor from Intel.

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

#120

Post by llampx » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 11:41 AM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #45

vbezhenar wrote: post #36

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.

AMD has always had great OC performance but my impression is that they have been power hogs. Is that incorrect or has it changed?

They haven't always been power hogs. Nowadays they have a clear advantage. You don't want to know how much heat a Xeon machine with 32 cores will have to dissipate.