AMD Threadripper 2990WX 32-Core and 2950X 16-Core Review

Post by znpy » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #41

MrUnderhill wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For compiling, having many cores is fantastic. Granted, on a workstation, compilation normally just involves a few files (the ones that have changed since the previous build and their dependencies), but when you have to do a full rebuild, it is fantastic to be able to do `make -j16` and watch it chug through 16 files simultaneously. Interestingly, the benchmark in this review shows that the 16-core 2950X compiles Chr…

"this review shows that the 16-core 2950X compiles Chromium faster than the 32-core 2990WX, presumably this means something other than the thread count becomes a bottleneck after 16 threads" The article mentions that, due to the die packaging, only 16 of the cores have direct access to RAM. So for the 32-core version, half the cores are memory-starved and have to go through the 'connected' cores (also impacting these…

Post by Osiris » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

mrkgnao wrote: post #89

Filligree wrote: post #13

The biggest benefit I've found to running a 1950X isn't something I would have expected, but which perhaps I should have. True, it's much faster than my old system for batch processing, but most of the time it's still idle. Even if it's running Chrome flat-out, as far as the 1950X is concerned, that's idle. Because the two NUMA nodes are ~entirely independent, it's capable of running two independent processes at full…

> Because the two NUMA nodes are ~entirely independent, it's capable of running two independent processes at full speed. I don't understand. From my (admittedly little better than layperson's) knowledge, I'm guessing the cores of most multicore processors have to compete for memory access...? Is there a good search term I can use to help me understand what's going on here?

Post by mastax » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

barkingcat wrote: post #45

drewg123 wrote: post #24

It is interested that the review is not yet finished. The author writes in the comments section: Hey everyone, sorry for leaving a few pages blank right now. Jet lag hit me hard over the weekend from Flash Memory Summit. Will be filling in the blanks and the analysis throughout today. I am disappointed in that, as I was looking forward to reading the test setup and power draw sections, as I have a 2990WX on order, an…

Shouldn't they not publish until the review is done? This is really unprofessional - even bloggers have the concept of "only publish finished drafts" or use the scheduled publishing feature that all blogging platforms have nowadays.

Post by coss » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

MrUnderhill wrote: post #20

karangoeluw wrote: post #2

Honest q: What home-use workstation would use 32 cores? (Excluding home labs or servers).

For compiling, having many cores is fantastic. Granted, on a workstation, compilation normally just involves a few files (the ones that have changed since the previous build and their dependencies), but when you have to do a full rebuild, it is fantastic to be able to do `make -j16` and watch it chug through 16 files simultaneously. Interestingly, the benchmark in this review shows that the 16-core 2950X compiles Chr…

Post by wtallis » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

vesrah wrote: post #96

xvf22 wrote: post #88

It seems that they left the plastic cover for at least some of the benchmarks [1]. I can imagine that would limit performance since the CPU would be throttling itself down to keep cool. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/comments/13124/the-amd-threadrippe...

You think they'd either pull the review or place a disclaimer at the start about this, but I agree with what you're thinking (throttling).