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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

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Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#61

Now if only programming multi-core work could catch up to this hardware. Honestly chips with more cores is starting to sound like cars with more wheels or I guess more valves lately. Doesn't matter the horsepower the speed limit is the same until we can make software better.

> Doesn't matter the horsepower the speed limit is the same until we can make software better.

For developers code compilations benefit from more cores. For hobby 3d artists their renderings benefit from more cores. For hobby video creators their editing & rendering benefits from more cores. For hobby IT usages the extra PCI-E lanes and ECC RAM gets you the capability of doing server-like virtualization without spending server money.

Threadripper is an HEDT platform, same as Skylake-X. This is not targeting mass market usage, so complaining about mass-market viability is rather irrelevant.

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#62
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but memory/IO is a much bigger issue in this scenario than processing power. While running a cluster in VMs, I'm frequently limited by IO (and if your VMs use more memory than it's physically available, you'll quickly descent into swap hell) well before my CPUs register a significant uptick in usage. And, mind you, my workstation is 4 year old Xeon with 64 gigs of memory and reasonably fast (but not amaz…

I really hope the 3000-series Threadripper is 8-channel like its server counterpart. 8 16GB DIMMs gets you 128GB, and a significant amount of memory bandwidth. You also have enough PCI-E lanes to either stripe or partition your I/O in such a way to work around any major bottlenecks.

It's definitely going to start at quad-channel + 64 PCI-E lanes like the existing sRT4 platform as it's almost certainly going to have sTR4 socket-compatible SKUs. Rumors are there will also be an 8-channel + 128 lane one as well. Supposedly the quad-channel will be the platform with overclocking support, the more "enthusiast" platform, and the 8-channel one will really more be the workstation platform.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/news-pc/3510-hw-news-threadrippe...

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#63
post #12
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear a lot about AVX-512 being really good. Is there any software that's commonly used that has a measurable performance boost with it? Or is it more specialised stuff?

One challenge with AVX-512 is that it can actually _slow down_ your code. It's so power hungry that if you're using it on more than one core it almost immediately incurs significant throttling. Now, if everything you're doing is 512 bits at a time, you're still winning. But if you're interleaving scalar and vector arithmetic, the drop in clock speeds could slow down the scalar code quite substantially. https://blog.c…

Latest kernel as an api for knowing at runtime if AVX 512 create throttle, allowing to dynamically disable it when it decrease performance

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're doing both. AMD has ramped single-core performance, at least from an IPC perspective, massively. From Excavator (2015) to Ryzen we saw a 52% increase in IPC. From Ryzen 1000 to 2000 (Zen+) we saw a 3% increase in IPC. From Ryzen 2000 to 3000 (Zen2) we saw a 15% increase in IPC. From 2015 to 2019 we saw a total IPC boost on the AMD side of over 80%, and an increase in max core count in the desktop line of 433%…

The progress is ok, just incremental. AMD had been playing catch up, until Ryzen/Threadripper. Just for comparison, here are the numbers from my GeekBench 4 run: Single-Threaded: 4,746 Multi-Threaded: 34,586 According to a leaked benchmark, the Threadripper 3000's numbers are: Single-Threaded: 5,519 Multi-Threaded: 68,279 The multithreaded benchmark is 2x, that's a no-brainer since it's likely to have 32 cores vs the…

Honestly, that seems rather low. It looks like a lot of Ryzen 3900X's are doing well over 6000 on Geekbench? Ie. https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/14151649

Is the Threadripper 3000 test also from Geekbench V4? I noticed they added V5.

I don't see why it should be so far behind the Ryzen in single thread... unless the boost isn't working properly or something, could be disabled if it's a test chip.

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#66

I have the original Threadripper 1950X overclocked to 4.1ghz and I’ve been pretty happy with it. As a developer I can’t find much reason to upgrade 2 years after its release. Single core improvements (from AMD or Intel) aren’t game-changing. More cores won’t do anything for me (.NET Core, angular, etc) I’ve considered switching back to intel for their 5ghz processors but based on benchmarks, I wouldn’t see anything b…

The biggest upgrade over Threadripper 1950X is that the new ones are no longer NUMA. So performance across the cores will be much more consistent even if the peaks are not that much bigger.

If your development involves compiling code then the 2x larger L3 is also going to result in huge improvements to code compilation speed as seen in the Epyc Rome reviews. Example: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-epyc... - compare the 7601 vs. the 7502. Both are 32c/64t parts. Both have close-enough base clocks & turbo clocks. But the new one (7502) absolutely smokes the old one (7601) at both kernel compile in GCC and LLVM compile. Compilers love that L3 it seems.

All signs point to Threadripper 3000 still being sTR4 compatible, so that means you could drop in a CPU that gives you +15% single core performance vs. previous gen's best case, no more NUMA domains bringing more consistent performance, lower power usage, and double the L3 for much faster compiles.

That's pretty awesome particularly given we're only talking a ~2 year gap between the products.

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#67
post #2

AMD is in a really good position right now. Intel still has the lead in low idle power which is good in laptops. Ryzen lets different cores have different max frequencies so if your code is single threaded and your operating system isn't the newest that could be a reason to go Intel. Likewise if its single threaded and can take advantage of AVX-512 or the Intel Math Kernel Library. But otherwise?

I looked for some numbers on low idle power, apparently 3k significantly improved something: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMD_Stock/comments/ado0ix/ryzen_mob.... This reviewer seems impressed, something about only using 10W in idle on desktop: https://youtu.be/M5pHUHGZ7hU?t=363.

And a head-to-head test of a laptop available in AMD and Intel variants says it has better battery life, although the screen panel could be the reason: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T495-Review-bu...

I'd like more info, and Intel still probably has a lot of firmware tweaks etc. that AMD has to implement to win microbenchmarks, but to a first order it's not clear Intel has a lead there anymore.

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#68
But will they actually be generally available for purchase? I was super excited to grab an AMD Ryzen 3900x when they came out mid-July and they've been consistently sold out since then. That's over 3 months with the only reliable way to get one being to buy one for almost twice the MSRP from 3rd party resellers at $800-900 vs MSRP of $500.

Re: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 32-core CPU is more bad news for Intel

#70

Now if only programming multi-core work could catch up to this hardware. Honestly chips with more cores is starting to sound like cars with more wheels or I guess more valves lately. Doesn't matter the horsepower the speed limit is the same until we can make software better.

Since the beginning I have always wondered when I came across complaints about there not being enough multi-core software. Am I the only one with more than 1 process running on my system?
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