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Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

techcommunity.microsoft.com

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#11

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

Very few people will switch from Windows to Linux for any reason, so it's fair to benchmark Threadripper on Windows for customers who are already tied to Windows.

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#12

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

>It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software simply was not ready yet. Phoronix was one of the few which did it right.

I found it jaw-dropping how badly Microsoft handled that release. In some cases, the best way to improve multithreaded performance under Windows was to disable three quarters of the cores. Meanwhile any decent Linux distro scaled to the full core count out of the box.

I wonder to what extent this is holding back computer architecture. Certainly the Wintel cartel has historically back competition from other architectures, but even within x86-land we can see the monopoly power and technical inadequacy of Windows holding back innovation.

Linux supports every architecture known to man. Microsoft pretty much only supports x86. They have no excuse.

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#13
post #3

It's good to see Microsoft supports AMD now. With recent benchmark of M1 family chip, I hope Windows don't support M1 chip, at least for now. I would like to see how AMD and Intel can do to change this performance game.

When did Microsoft not "support" AMD CPUs? It truly would not make any difference if Microsoft "supported" the M1 CPU, as Apple does not sell it to anyone without the rest of Apple computer attached to it. I mean, you can run Windows VMs on M1 computers now, with something like Parallels. But perhaps not more directly, as with Boot Camp? > I would like to see how AMD and Intel can do to change this performance game W…

> But perhaps not more directly, as with Boot Camp?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dwightsilverman/2021/04/14/you-...

Obviously you have to run ARM Windows, but it’s indeed Windows.

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did Microsoft not "support" AMD CPUs? It truly would not make any difference if Microsoft "supported" the M1 CPU, as Apple does not sell it to anyone without the rest of Apple computer attached to it. I mean, you can run Windows VMs on M1 computers now, with something like Parallels. But perhaps not more directly, as with Boot Camp? > I would like to see how AMD and Intel can do to change this performance game W…

> But perhaps not more directly, as with Boot Camp? https://www.forbes.com/sites/dwightsilverman/2021/04/14/you-... Obviously you have to run ARM Windows, but it’s indeed Windows.

If I understand this article correctly, as of April 2021, you can run Windows on ARM under Parallels virtualization software, which is a Virtual Machine, or VM. So that's not direct to hardware, which I thought Boot Camp was?

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#15

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#16
post #9

These are very impressive gains. The era of >GB L3 cache is upon us.

With the current roadmap, we are about 2-3 years away from 256 Core and 1GB L3 Cache. What I want to see is a new and innovative way to cool these potential 400 - 700W monster tightly packed in a server.

It would be interesting to see a something like a conductive metal monolith and then just bolt the processor boards to one side of it. One side would be flat, the other grooved with coolant flowing down to keep cool.

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#17

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

>It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software simply was not ready yet. Phoronix was one of the few which did it right. I found it jaw-dropping how badly Microsoft handled that release. In some cases, the best way to improve multithreaded performance under Windows was to disable thr…

This narrative doesn’t jive with the Windows NT development history and its support for Alpha, PowerPC, etc. As well as Windows CE historical range of processor support.

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#18

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

>It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software simply was not ready yet. Phoronix was one of the few which did it right. I found it jaw-dropping how badly Microsoft handled that release. In some cases, the best way to improve multithreaded performance under Windows was to disable thr…

There are plenty of reasons to be critical of MS, but they sell a lot of ARM machines these days...[1]

1: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-pro...

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#19
post #9

These are very impressive gains. The era of >GB L3 cache is upon us.

With the current roadmap, we are about 2-3 years away from 256 Core and 1GB L3 Cache. What I want to see is a new and innovative way to cool these potential 400 - 700W monster tightly packed in a server.

With the release of this 768MB L3 cache, we're __already__ at 1.5GB L3 cache if you go dual-socket.

> What I want to see is a new and innovative way to cool these potential 400 - 700W monster tightly packed in a server.

I mean, air-conditioning, fans, and water cooling are pretty much the only options. And they all work.

These are only 250W CPUs, so dual-socket into 500W or maybe 750W with the motherboard/RAM/SSDs in there. GPUs are harder to cool, as those are 500W behemoths by themselves, and GPU-servers run 8x GPUs (contrasted against your typical 2x CPU dual-socket setups).

Re: Microsoft Benchmarks Upcoming AMD Milan-X CPU

#20
post #7

I was coming here to say: "Windows has an insignificant (actually 0% for a few years) market in top500. It is not a good benchmark for a processor with such a big number of cores.". Then was surprised to see that it was run in CentOS. It is a shame that many sites didn't behaved like this when Threadripper was launched and basically said that the architecture was inefficient at using so many cores or the software sim…

Azure is the new darling "OS" for Microsoft, we are back into the mainframe/UNIX server days anyway. Besides third party distributions, Microsoft now has three flavours of their own as well. Azure Sphere OS, CBL-Mariner, then their Android flavours (althought it isn't really Linux) and RTOS like Azure RTOS. Still owns the desktop, but since the internal political wars for the ultimate GUI framework started, I have st…

> the internal political wars for the ultimate GUI framework started

Any more info about this?

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