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AMD Hardware

AMD Unveils Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core and 1920X 12-Core Specs and Pricing (hothardware.com) 85

Posted by msmash from the AMD-news dept.
MojoKid writes: AMD first teased its Ryzen Threadripper series of high-end desktop (HEDT) processors back in mid-May, but is now sharing additional details on the first two products in the family. Both processors are based on the 14nm Zen core, make use of AMD's new Socket TR4 interface, support quad-channel DDR memory, and feature a total of 64 PCIe lanes. In addition, both processors will come from the factory unlocked. Ryzen Threadripper 1920X will have 12 Cores, 24 Threads, and 3.5/4.0 GHz (Base Clock/Precision Boost) clock speeds. Ryzen Threadripper 1950X will have 16 Cores, 32 Threads, and 3.4/4.0 GHz (Base Clock/Precision Boost) clock speeds. Pricing is set at $799 and $999, respectively, with availability in early August, though Dell's Alienware gaming PC division will have systems shipping with the new chip starting this month. AMD also put the new chips up against Intel's Core i7-7900X 10-core CPU in a Cinebench benchmark run in a video demo, and the 12-core Threadripper chip beats Intel's currently available Skylake-X chip handily, while the 16-core Threadripper outpaces it even further.
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AMD Unveils Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core and 1920X 12-Core Specs and Pricing More

AMD Unveils Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core and 1920X 12-Core Specs and Pricing

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  • Phenomenal (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These sell at a steep discount to Intel's core i9, and are anywhere from $400 to $1000 cheaper. It's a no-brainer.

    • Don't forget - AMD motherboards tend to be significantly cheaper than Intel motherboards. Whether that holds true going forward remains to be seen. All the potential platform cost savings could be eaten up by RGB lighting.

      • Not [newegg.com] sure [newegg.com] where you're getting that. I loved my Phenom II when it came out, but other than increased competition I'm not sure where all this Ryzen hype is coming from.

        • Re:Phenomenal (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @04:48PM (#54803531)
          Intel boards got significantly cheaper, matching amd's, only after Intel castrated the number of pcie lines available.

        • From the last 2 decades.
          You're comparing platforms over 1 year apart in age.
          A fairer comparison (but still biased to Intel due to age) would be to compare X370 boards to Z270 boards.

          Try again and let me know.

          • Why does it matter how old it is? I'm comparing boards with AM4 sockets to LGA 1151 sockets. The Z270 is the newest, top of line board. Of course it's more expensive, but you don't need that to run the latest intel chips.

            • Because new products tend to have higher prices because they are new. Prices drop over time.
              The X370 is also the newest, top of the line chipset. (The Z270 is not a board.)

              Compare apples to apples, please.

    • For the desktop/gaming user, I'm not actually convinced of their price vs performance. Userbenchmark [userbenchmark.com] has the Ryzen series at a pretty big disadvantage given the high prices compared [userbenchmark.com] with similarly performing intel CPUs. They seem to only be the clear winner when it comes to massively parallel multi-threaded applications.

      • Re:Phenomenal (Score:5, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @04:37PM (#54803443) Homepage Journal

        These are more aimed at workstations than gaming. For workstations having more PCIe lanes (64, standard Ryzen has 24 and Intel's Skylake-X competition has 44) means plenty of bandwidth for multiple GPUs, RAID cards and NVMe SSDs. They have more cores than Intel's parts too, which while they have slightly lower single core performance and clock speeds will perform better overall in anything that can make use of them like video encoding, CAD/raytracing and simulations. Oh, and code compilation of course. Also handy if you have a lot of VMs.

        AMD hardware tends to last longer than Intel too. By that I mean that it won't suck in 5 years time, not that Intel hardware is less reliable. 5 years down the road AMD will probably still be releasing CPUs for the socket, and supporting the old chipset reasonably well.

  • Much better for Linux (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The plethora of undocumented opcodes present in these chips make them perfect for running Linux compilers. Some operations can run in 1/10 the time if properly optimised.

  • I've always been a fan of AMD's processors and still have used them in my Linux machine, but I had to go Intel for my gaming system for the last few upgrades. Granted I never spend this much on a CPU so I'll need to tech to "trickle down" to their budget line, but seeing a good performance option from AMD will be good again.

  • Laptops and servers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @03:54PM (#54803029)

    In a dwindling X86/AMD64 PC market, laptops* is where the volume is... Yet AMD has nothing for the Laptop Market in the Zen Class Architecture.

    And in servers, while there may not be as much volume, is where the cream of the profits are.

    While Zen Server parts (Epyc) look good on paper, it reamis to be seen if there will be Adoption from server makers, and demand from server purcharsers...

    So, no laptop parts, to early for servers, coupled with so so results for enthusiasts desktop PC (great bang for buck, but performance is more or less even depending on workload) and crap processors for enterprise desktop (corporate parts without IGP? Really? I mean, REALLY?!?!?), is to early to be happy for AMD.

    I hope they do well, I really do, for this will be good for all of us (even those of us using Apple gear, therefore, tied to Intel)...

    But one thing is to hope, and quite another thing is reality, and is to early to know what reality looks like.

    Just my two cents.

    • Re:Laptops and servers (Score:5, Informative)

      by steveha ( 103154 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @04:21PM (#54803303) Homepage

      AMD has nothing for the Laptop Market in the Zen Class Architecture.

      Coming in Q3. In other words, 2-4 months from now.

      Laptops refresh twice a year, and the Ryzen launch wasn't in time for the last laptop refresh. No big deal; they're coming.

      https://semiaccurate.com/2017/05/22/amd-talks-threadripper-ryzen-mobile-ryzen-pro/ [semiaccurate.com]

      While Zen Server parts (Epyc) look good on paper, it reamis to be seen if there will be Adoption from server makers, and demand from server purcharsers...

      Well, sure. But unless the paper is a lie, those chips will do well. They will offer much-improved price/performance compared to Intel's server chips, they offer some tasty new security features [semiaccurate.com] (like VMs running with the in-RAM data encrypted so that there's no way for one VM to spy on another's memory), and they are doing it right when Intel is jacking their server customers [semiaccurate.com] on price.

      corporate parts without IGP? Really? I mean, REALLY?!?!?

      Does "IGP" mean integrated graphics? AMD is all over integrated graphics, they call such products "APUs" and the mobile lineup will be pretty much all APUs. So my guess is Q3 for corporate products with APUs as well. (I hope AMD supports ECC RAM on APUs, finally.)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Speaking from the company's perspective and not a user perspective it's more important for AMD to compete successfully in the areas that they do compete than to provide competition in areas where they wouldn't. AMD doesn't have the least power hungry chips, the highest performing server chips or the fastest single threaded gaming chips. Very often it's the extremes that make money, the "sweet spot" processors not so much. Particularly not if you have a 800lb gorilla in the room looking to snuff out your pro

    • "Too" Learn it, mmmkay?

      • "Too" Learn it, mmmkay?

        I'll wager Quarters to Greenbacks that my 296/300 ToEFL beats the living shit out of whatever you got in your DELE ...

        mmmkay? :-P :-P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      While Zen Server parts (Epyc) look good on paper, it reamis to be seen if there will be Adoption from server makers

      https://www.supermicro.com/pro... [supermicro.com]

      But one thing is to hope, and quite another thing is reality

      Hence the provided link via a two word google search that describes some reality.

    • In a dwindling X86/AMD64 PC market, laptops* is where the volume is... Yet AMD has nothing for the Laptop Market in the Zen Class Architecture.

      And in servers, while there may not be as much volume, is where the cream of the profits are.

      While Zen Server parts (Epyc) look good on paper, it reamis to be seen if there will be Adoption from server makers, and demand from server purcharsers...

      So, no laptop parts, to early for servers, coupled with so so results for enthusiasts desktop PC (great bang for buck, but performance is more or less even depending on workload) and crap processors for enterprise desktop (corporate parts without IGP? Really? I mean, REALLY?!?!?), is to early to be happy for AMD.

      I hope they do well, I really do, for this will be good for all of us (even those of us using Apple gear, therefore, tied to Intel)...

      But one thing is to hope, and quite another thing is reality, and is to early to know what reality looks like.

      Just my two cents.

      Don't worry, Opterons has seen plenty of enterprise adoption among cloud providers. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft use a bunch of them on their Data Centers. If you have IAAS cloud account, chances are you are using either a Xeon E3 or an Opterons. With EPYC continues the tradition to provide more cores for the price and with performance improvement over their previous platform, I am quite confident with the outlook. In addition to that, HPE skipped on AMD on their G9 line, but will be introducing some model

  • Intel is fucked on all levels server / desktop and workstation / high end gaming. By cheaper AMD systems with more pci-e lanes at all levels.

    Intel kaby-lake x is an said over priced joke that costs more and does less then the same chips on the desktop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      The i3 7350K CPU can be overclocked to at least 5Ghz, giving fantastic single-threaded performance, comparable to an overclocked i7. Many tasks still care about single-threaded performance more than multiple cores.

    • Intel is fucked on all levels ...

      You really need to recalibrate your "is fucked" dowsing rod.

      After a decade of living on cream and sunshine, summer vacation is over, and Intel will soon have to buckle down and earn good grades, obtained through long hours of hard study.

      Heard on beaches the world over when governments shorten their unemployment insurance entitlement periods: "Shit! We're fucked! Now we'll all have to get real jobs."

      Welcome back to how everyone else lives.

      On the one hand, it will take a whi

      • Intel will see steadily declining margins and sales, but they still have more money to spend on R&D than any other chip manufacturer. It seems likely that more and more of their revenue will come from memory, e.g. 3D XPoint, as Intel transitions back into a memory company instead of a CPU company. In general, ARM has won the performance per watt war... for now.

        • In general, ARM has won the performance per watt war... for now.

          Intel has been trying to fight in that war for a long time now, and they've never managed it. Even the ARM they bought was power hungry, for ARM anyway. The only guys they've ever been able to beat have been AMD, and only off and on at that.

      • Intel is not stupid. People get paid 200K a year to ensure they don't waste billions a year.

        Intel competes AS MUCH AS the competition requires them to. They're sitting on plenty of new technology (like live-reconfigurable FPGA embedded processors they had for YEARS with the Altera acquisition).

        But they're not gonna just GIVE US that technology. We have to pay for it. So while there was no AMD competition, they were fine giving us a "trickle down" / as-little-as-possible actual innovation for years. And then

  • Since gaming is not very well threaded, and in clock-limited situations these won't be any better than Ryzen. Intel still wins out for performance there, and these are expensive processors to be using in applications which won't use all the cores. Oh well, I guess some folks may just want them for bragging rights?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Ubuntu server with KVM virtualization (including a Win10 gaming VM) actually.

      I do admit I was hoping to be a bit further away from 800 bucks on the 12 core, though. Oh well, gotta wait and see the prices in Switzerland first anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      If you stream high quality video encoded with software rather than the dedicated hardware, you need all the cores you can get. Encoding video in software still gives a much higher image quality than the hardware accelerated encoding.

      Someone made a performance testing video showing Ryzen greatly outperforming an i7 when simultaneously encoding video and playing the game.

      • I agree. I use every one of my 8 cores on my AMD.

        1 - Vulkan API supports ALL CORE utilization. That's the whole point of Vulkan.

        2 - Hosting a VM (for all your work stuff, for example) means I can dedicate 4-6 cores and have both my systems completely independent for all practical purposes. My work SQL instance won't freeze my gaming. Working from home, that's a huge benefit for me to not need to buy two machines or to switch back-and-forth. With RAM being super cheap (32 GB for $100!) I can dedicate half to

        • Oh yeah, using multiple VMs or doing video editing are great cases for higher core count processors! I am under the impression that Alienware's target market is gaming, though, and even though newer APIs like Vulkan are making the move toward multiple cores it is still the case that today's games tend to favor higher clock speed over more cores (once you have 4 or maybe 6 cores). Have a 16 or even 12-core dedicated gaming system is a waste, you'd be better off spending the extra money on a more powerful GPU

      • Now that is a fair point, if you are using CPU based video recording / streaming while gaming. I personally prefer GPU-based streaming myself, but I have heard some folks say that CPU based can give better looking results with a sufficiently powerful system. I wonder if programs like OBS can really utilize that many cores effectively, though? If you have a 12 or 16 core processor and are playing a modern game that needs 4 cores (a good average) then you have 8-12 cores left over for CPU encoding. I have not

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jon3k ( 691256 )
      There won't be any Alienware setups that are CPU bound in gaming. These will be attached to either high resolution or high frame rate monitors (or both) and will be GPU bound. And you'll also get the benefit of multiple cores for everything else.

  • Threadripper: The instruction mutilator (Score:5, Funny)

    by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Thursday July 13, 2017 @04:24PM (#54803335)
    Threadripper: It has the electrolytes processes crave
  • The bottleneck for most problems isn't CPU cycles/second, it's the bandwidth of getting data to/from those CPUs. Adding CPUs does nothing to improve performance unless you also give it a much wider I/O path to memory. Adding more high speed cache, on the other hand, may help more than adding CPUs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by steveha ( 103154 )

      The bottleneck for most problems isn't CPU cycles/second, it's the bandwidth of getting data to/from those CPUs. Adding CPUs does nothing to improve performance unless you also give it a much wider I/O path to memory.

      Threadripper parts have quite a lot of bandwidth. The pro parts ("Epyc") will have even more.

      Threadripper is intended for the PC enthusiast market, not so much for data centers. Frankly I don't think that for even an enthusiast home user memory bandwidth will be a major differentiating point.

  • For me, one of the most crucial parameters when choosing my next CPU is to get one without a backdoor in the chipset (after the vulnerabilities discovered in Intel Management Engine). Intel is no longer a player. AMD has had similar "features" in the past. Does anyone know if they have carved that crap out of this new series of CPU's?

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