Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality

#131

Post by hardwaresofton » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #116

hardwaresofton wrote: post #103

I'm excited for what this will do to the cost of dedicated servers in ~1 year. Also, as a person who used to work at Intel, I don't know whose idea this was, but that person should probably have a long hard look at themselves -- hardware people are exactly the people that this kind of shit wouldn't fly with, because they'll almost always ask for details and can spot a hack from a mile away. On the one hand I can symp…

> I'm excited for what this will do to the cost of dedicated servers in ~1 year. This is the opposite though? The dedicated servers are turning into HEDTs. AMD 32-core EPYC has been available since last year, and Intel's 28-core Skylake (although $10,000) has been also available for a year. So dedicated servers got this tech first, then HEDT got it a bit later. I guess Threadripper is Zen+ so its technically HEDT get…

Ahh I deal with bare metal cloud companies that sell dedicated HEDTs so I was thinking that I'd be able to find even more HEDTs with great specs in a year's time as Threadrippers make their way through the market. People (including me) pay a premium for faster Intel cores and I'm excited to make the switch to slower, more plentiful AMD cores when I can, because I've invested in learning languages that do their best to handle parallelism well.

In practice the only difference between the dedicated servers of yesteryear and HEDTs of today is becoming perception (well and some very specific features), and considering computational load of most things hasn't actually gotten that much bigger, in addition to a proliferation of langauges that can adequately use multiple cores, feels like everything is looking to get cheaper yet better -- that's what excites me.

Re: Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality

#132

Post by yellowapple » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #33

examancer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally what the OP did. A 1950X is only $799 now, so less than half a top end i9.

That's extremely recent. It was more like $900 a day or two ago: https://camelcamelcamel.com/AMD-Threadripper-32-thread-Proce... And it is still $960 on Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681911...

"And it is still $960 on Newegg"

As of 2018-06-11 18:27 PDT (when I clicked on that link) the current Newegg price is $799.99.

Re: Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality

#133

Post by dTal » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #108

dingo_bat wrote: post #3

It's awesome that TR2 will be a drop in replacement on existing motherboards! Props to AMD for delivering real value to consumers.

AMD's forward compatibility is one of the most amazing things to me, so much so that I still can't believe AM4 is going to remain viable for future CPUs for a while hence despite its age. It's also a big reason I'm not going with Intel, since I know I can upgrade to something significantly better without having to get a new motherboard.

Worth noting that with AMD sockets, physical compatibility is no guarantee that it'll work without a software update. If you're unlucky/incautious during a system build, you can end up in a catch 22 with a motherboard that requires a BIOS update for your new CPU to work, and no way to boot it to update the BIOS because your CPU doesn't work. AMD will loan you an older CPU if you jump through enough hoops, but it's probably less hassle just to buy the cheapest last-gen CPU you can find on Amazon.

Still a better scenario than changing the socket all the time, but it can catch you out if you're used to Intel's "socket = generation" philosophy.

Source: happened to me a few weeks back.

Re: Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality

#134

Post by kmfrk » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 11:13 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #133

kmfrk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD's forward compatibility is one of the most amazing things to me, so much so that I still can't believe AM4 is going to remain viable for future CPUs for a while hence despite its age. It's also a big reason I'm not going with Intel, since I know I can upgrade to something significantly better without having to get a new motherboard.

Worth noting that with AMD sockets, physical compatibility is no guarantee that it'll work without a software update. If you're unlucky/incautious during a system build, you can end up in a catch 22 with a motherboard that requires a BIOS update for your new CPU to work, and no way to boot it to update the BIOS because your CPU doesn't work. AMD will loan you an older CPU if you jump through enough hoops, but it's pr…

Oh yeah, I've read the 2200G/2400G horror stories and taken precautions, thanks. :)