Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 18/05/2017 5:49 AM, wrote:
Looks like Ryzen has got Intel's complacent bowels unblocked.
They are bringing out an "i9" with 12 cores.
But AMD will be competing with "Threadripper" a 16-core beast.
Unfortunately, it seems that will use the 4000-pins server socket.
So I can't see it being cheap.
Well, since your original posting, Intel has upped the ante to 18 cores
and 36 threads, just to pip AMD's 16 cores/32 thread monster.
However, AMD Threadripper seems to bring something truly useful (to some
people, anyways) beyond just more cores, it's also bringing 64 PCIe
lanes to the motherboard. That means you can put upto 4 full-16-lane
GPU's into this system, or upto 8 half-8-lane GPUs! Intel is petering
out at only 44-lanes. What is 44-lanes useful for anyways? 3
full-16-lane GPU's actually require 48 lanes, so they can't even get a
3rd full-lane in there, instead they have 2 full-16-lane, and one
factional-12-lane slot. Is there even an x12 slot? There are x16 and x8
slots, but no x12 slots.
Before you celebrate in too lavish a fashion, better look
at the actual block diagrams of the systems being built.
I'm seeing a lot less than the theoretical lane count
in the actual designs. They're squandering the excess.
I was a bit disappointed, because I was buying into the
hype, and then the actual motherboard was a lot less.
On (Intel) systems where there aren't a lot of lanes to go
around, that's when the motherboard makers bring out the
PCI Express switch chips. The AMD motherboards, no effort is
being made to "present" all the lanes so a user can use them.
And the prices on the Epyc server offerings are not
attractive for re-purposing for desktops. AMD will be binning
the chips, and the ones that don't pass, will go into the
SKUs with reduced core counts. There are some interesting
chips with one out of four cores in a cluster enabled,
but the article said it would be a while before they
had enough of those, and those particular models will likely
all be gobbled up so none go to retail.
That's the thing about glossy slide decks - the paint isn't
quite as shiny when you get the actual item.
If you're in the market for a ThreadRipper, then the question
will be, is it a cost effective compute platform, and does
it meet some need you've got. The lane thing is kinda watered
down by the nature of actual implementation.
Paul