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AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

anandtech.com

51–60 of 290 posts

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#51
post #30

I find it interesting how desktop CPUs are essentially coming down to two enthusiast markets, developers/content creators/workstations and gaming. While the gaming market is (usually) seeking the highest top single core clock speed with respect to CPUs, it also relies on other expensive hardware. Meanwhile the dev/content creator/workstation market is much better served by these multi-core behemoths. Intel really has…

It's like vehicles. Desktops/workstations and even most non-tablet laptops are now analogous to small trucks such as pickups. Tablets and phones are cars. Most people drive cars. Trucks are for work or people who like to haul stuff. Servers and huge workstations I guess are like 18-wheelers and locomotives. :) The "mobile is the future of everything" people were wrong. It's not that desktop is going away, but the mar…

Suddenly number of wheels is analogous to cores...

Motorcycle - fast for gaming

Car/SUV - good general purpose

Truck (dually) - serious work (probably fun)

18-wheeler - move a load of loads at once

But apparently that makes the Ryzen 9 3950X a 16-wheel Porsche Cayenne Turbo S? Super fun to drive but you can use it to haul...

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#52

I find it interesting how desktop CPUs are essentially coming down to two enthusiast markets, developers/content creators/workstations and gaming. While the gaming market is (usually) seeking the highest top single core clock speed with respect to CPUs, it also relies on other expensive hardware. Meanwhile the dev/content creator/workstation market is much better served by these multi-core behemoths. Intel really has…

You're forgetting about the low budget CPUs used for desktop PCs. AMD has a pretty good standing with their Vega GPUs built into the Ryzen/Athlon APUs.

Or are you only talking about enthusiasts?

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting idea I didn't consider. edit: Below is wrong, see author of article's reply below for why. Preserving for record. They have been holding back review samples of their latest i9s so reviewers wouldn't do head-to-heads with this new 3950X (but people have anyway, and the 3950X crushes the i9). See Linus Tech Tip's review of the 3950X this morning for citation.

The new 18-core i9-10980XE isn't out yet, and review embargoes haven't been lifted. We know it's a slightly clock bumped version of the i9-9980XE, which was included in the AnandTech review and not the Linus review. Linus tested the 8-core i9-9900KS, which came out a few weeks ago, and those results are also in the link which is the title to this thread.

Ian,

What are your thoughts on the question of whether Intel may be strategically timing releases of some mitigations to favor their performance in review benchmarks?

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#54
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like vehicles. Desktops/workstations and even most non-tablet laptops are now analogous to small trucks such as pickups. Tablets and phones are cars. Most people drive cars. Trucks are for work or people who like to haul stuff. Servers and huge workstations I guess are like 18-wheelers and locomotives. :) The "mobile is the future of everything" people were wrong. It's not that desktop is going away, but the mar…

Suddenly number of wheels is analogous to cores... Motorcycle - fast for gaming Car/SUV - good general purpose Truck (dually) - serious work (probably fun) 18-wheeler - move a load of loads at once But apparently that makes the Ryzen 9 3950X a 16-wheel Porsche Cayenne Turbo S? Super fun to drive but you can use it to haul...

Hah... yeah the analogy gets silly if you make it literal and stretch it too far. I was just using it to talk about how different types of devices specialize for different use cases.

Phones: ultra-portable communication and rapid service interaction device -- basically a pocket terminal. Skill level: beginner / non-technical.

Tablets: casual computing devices suitable for reading, writing, some forms of content creation, and games. Skill level: beginner / non-technical.

Desktops/Laptops: more powerful and flexible devices for serious content creation, high-end gaming, development, heavy number crunching, etc. Skill level: intermediate to advanced users. They're still relatively easy to use for casual use cases but they have more knobs, expose more details, and have less training wheels / guard rails to keep you from breaking things.

Servers: big machines that sit in one place in a data center, office, or basement and run lots of stuff. Skill level: mostly advanced users.

SBCs like the Pi: hobbyist devices for hacking, DIY IOT, DIY automation, etc. Skill level: mostly advanced users.

Then of course there's a long tail of specialized and smaller devices like watches, FitBits, IOT, etc.

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#55

Why did Apple not release their new MBP 16 with the 3950X? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21523780

In addition to the points already mentioned, a good bit of Apple's software depends on Intel-proprietary features, e.g. QuickSync for video encoding. So far, no macOS system ever shipped with an AMD CPU, and porting the OS and user-mode application stack is not trivial.

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#57

I read that all these new AMD CPUs support ECC, but it’s been hard finding verification. Can any one recommended a motherboard that both supports and uses ECC RAM with this new CPU?

Here is a list of AM4 mainboards that support Ryzen 3000 and support ECC RAM:

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=mbam4&xf=16791_R3000X%7E494_ECC-Unt...

There's 107 of them, starting at 43 Euros.

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#58
post #21
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows anymore, it’s kind of feature size, but everyone defines feature differently!

It seems like transistor density (N per unit area) would be a more useful measurement.

I mean I'm no chip designer but surely they are using some crazy hacks like transistors that take up more space than the lines between them by being part of the substraight above and below the etched lines. And presumably they use interference/coherence to etch even finer details? There are probably about a million different techniques they use to pack in more transistors without making the process smaller.

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#59

This isn't the most groundbreaking release - it's not the first 16-core chip you can buy (edited), nor the first 7nm. No new clockspeed records were set. Still, $750 for all that power! Any professionals shopping for this, or waiting for 24 or 32-core Threadripper? Anyone trying to upgrade on an older motherboard, or are you getting a matching X570 to ensure maximum boost and PCI-e bandwidth?

I'm waiting for 64 core CPU. 32 is nice but still not enough.

Are you on 48 cores currently?

Re: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review

#60

I read that all these new AMD CPUs support ECC, but it’s been hard finding verification. Can any one recommended a motherboard that both supports and uses ECC RAM with this new CPU?

Some useful links within:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cb8tyr/asus_pro_ws_x57...

ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace seems like the top dog here.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/the-amd-x570-motherboar...

The conclusion doesn't point out ECC-compatible boards, but the comments mention the same Asus.

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