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

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

#191

Post by derekdahmer »

xzel wrote: post #132
derekdahmer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a similar position, really tied to all my tools on OS X but didn't want to spent 3k on their desktop line. Instead I built an awesome Hackintosh with 16gb ram, 8 cores, nvme drive and 1080 for like $1600 that runs High Sierra. It's definitely more work to set up initially but pretty low hassle afterwards. No regrets.

Yes I'm at the crossroads but I want to be able to have a laptop to take as well and the new mac line up is just not for me. Thats great info that the Hackintosh computers are still kicking because I had mostly ruled that out after not hearing much about them over the past few years. Mind sharing your build? :D

My build:

  - Intel 7700k
  - Geforce 1080
  - Asus ROG Strix Z270E
  - Samsung Evo 960 NVMe
The process is much easier than it was years ago - especially if you can find a few people that got it working with the same motherboard.

1) Make a standard install USB

2) Run Clover Configurator on the USB with standard settings + tweaks based on your GPU and motherboard (you can find suggestions on /r/hackintosh and the TonyMac forums)

3) Install and boot

4) Tweak the Clover configuration on the EFI partition to fix any random remaining issues you find like USB or audio.

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

#192

Post by philwelch »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #188
philwelch wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno what to say, man. It's a real problem that I've run into.

I believe you had performance issues caused by chrome. What I'm wondering is whether all three of the following apply: 1. The problem was caused by Chrome actively spending CPU and memory cycles, not just having so much memory allocated you run low, because NUMA itself can't change memory consumption. Caveat: It's possible the NUMA setting would also cause Chrome's ram use to be capped. If that's causes an improvemen…

I switched back from Chrome to Safari (for totally unrelated reasons) between the last time I had this problem and the current time. Maybe Chrome is better about throttling background tabs these days (and better than Safari). Also, this time, wikis and strategy pages seem to load fine (though noticeably slower), but it's a little too hard for me to order a pizza on Grubhub, especially if I'm context switching back and forth between the browser and the game. All I can actually say with confidence is that I have run into a performance bottleneck well before hitting the single-thread will-it-run-at-all barrier.

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

#193

Post by Baal »

arithma wrote: post #165

How many cores must a CPU have until it's competitive with GPUs? Those beasts could pretty well open the hell-gates to fully interactive raytracing soon, or not so much? Of course am not expecting THIS processor to be competitive, but with the interest in raytracing, things might get interesting if this trend of more CPU cores keep on piling up.

Not a chance. By the time you get there, GPUs would do it (much) faster. Not to mention that GPUs are likely going to get specialized cores for raytracing (see RTX).

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

#194

Post by Filligree »

p2t2p wrote: post #180
Filligree wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux does that. Windows... Judging by the performance I'm (not) getting, Windows does a very poor job with NUMA.

Does Linux do that OOB or do I need to do some configuration?

I never configured anything.

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

#195

Post by Filligree »

adiusmus wrote: post #189
Filligree wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 32 GB of ram, but you could easily fit 128 GB if needed. Above that, I think sourcing the chips becomes difficult. If you aren't concerned with getting absolute maximum speed from the servers, then I'd think you could run 16 of 'em with only moderate degradation; perhaps 20-30% slower (per server) than a single server. Feel free to imagine the Clusterio applications.

We’re running 43 clusterio-like connected worlds here. Worlds allocated 8gb ram each. Less if we can get away with it by deleting unused chunks.

How do you deal with biters?

That's been the real blocker for me. I don't want to disable them entirely, but worlds need to keep running while there are no players in them. So...?

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

#196

Post by shmageggy »

omnimus wrote: post #157
shmageggy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ableton cannot multi-thread a single track (at least in Version 9) This is still the case in 10, and one of the reasons I have been seriously looking at Bitwig (Linux support being the other).

Is situation in bitwig better?

When I tested them out with identical sessions, I was able to get higher track/VST counts without dropouts in Bitwig.

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

#197

Post by c2h5oh »

somebodythere wrote: post #103
c2h5oh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD has manufacturing cost advantage - CPUs are built from 4- core CCXes that can be binned separately. Intel on the other hand needs to manufacture a monolithic CPU that not only is fault free in enough cores, but performs well. That's harder and yields are way lower. 80% yield on a 4 core block is a 16.7% yield on a 32 core block - and that's before binning

If AMD's method scales so much easier, why didn't Intel just... do that? Honest question.

Because it's not free. Communication between cores in different CCXes (and memory access - there is a single memory controller per CCX) has slightly higher latency than within a single CCX (or a monolithic CPU, but here Intel's advantage decreases with core count due to a different interconnect).

Also because they didn't have to innovate - no competition since early Opterons.

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

#198

Post by adiusmus »

Filligree wrote: post #195
adiusmus wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re running 43 clusterio-like connected worlds here. Worlds allocated 8gb ram each. Less if we can get away with it by deleting unused chunks.

How do you deal with biters? That's been the real blocker for me. I don't want to disable them entirely, but worlds need to keep running while there are no players in them. So...?

Use deliberate antagonism. Create an artillery cluster with flamethrowers and uranium ammo turrets around outside. Space these outside your main base defences. Make them high priority for replenishment. Self contained solar power and accumulators as well as grid power. Don’t use laser turrets except for very inside of cluster.

Use thick walls with mixture of solid walls on inside and every-other spacing on outer.

Main base exterior walls use a mixture of uranium turrets, flamethrowers and laser turrets.

Use laser turrets wrapped around large power pole within base. But no interior walls. Redundant connections using large power poles. Substations are for ordinary structures.

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

#199

Post by Filligree »

gascan wrote: post #114
Osiris wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2 dies in the 1950X, each one has 2 memory channels. Thus, it's possible to run a process on one (8-core) die that maxes out the memory bandwidth to it's two local DDR4 channels while the other die still has full bandwidth access to it's own DDR4 channels. Threadripper is able to switch between NUMA (non-uniform memory access) mode and "regular" mode. In NUMA, the OS knows that 2 channels are attached to 1…

As a bonus, if you are explicitly NUMA & the OS/code does a good job, there's little line contention or resource sharing (e.g., caches) between die.

I found a significant performance benefit to keeping NUMA turned on when running Linux, for basically every workload.

For Windows, it is the other way around. I hope they'll improve their NUMA handling, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Linux kernel is clever about this. You can get some idea of what it does by looking at numactl, which lists the various scheduling modes -- though in practice the kernel does a great job without any user overrides, and actually using the command is likely to slow things down.

Which is not to say that it can't occasionally be helpful, if you're trying to optimize the speed of a single thread. At a minimum, you can choose between optimizing for bandwidth (interleaving data on all four memory channels) or latency (putting everything in the local node). Usually you want the latter.

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

#200

Post by omnimus »

dragontamer wrote: post #166
omnimus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you buy good graphics card and you blow CPU out of the water. But it is true for render engines like Arnold or Corona CPU is main thing. For cycles get gpu.

You might be surprised. http://download.blender.org/institute/benchmark/latest_snaps... The Threadripper 1950x (16-core) is faster than the 1080 Ti in several tests. Fishy Cat for instance is faster on Threadripper, as well as the difficult "Barbershop Interior". With all the updates to Zen2, higher clocks, and now 32-cores, I bet that the 2990wx will be incredible and give GPUs a run for their money. Besides, you'll…

You make very good point. I do 3D rendering from time to time and i dont actualy play games anymore. Most of my work would greatly benefit from powrful cpu not so much gpu. Interesting i should reconsider.
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