AMD's Entry-Level 16-core, 32-thread Threadripper to Reportedly Cost $849

[Dave65]

simple answer: rather i pay 1000€ for an Intel CPU than 300€ for an AMD one.

 

[JMccovery]

Where have these 10 and 14 core Threadripper chips been officially announced? I thought we learned from AMD when Ryzen 5 launched that they were disabling cores in symmetrical pairs only. Leaving us with 4:4/3:3/2:2 CCX arrangements for Ryzen and 4:4:4:4(16core)/3:3:3:3(12core) for Threadripper. Has this changed with Threadripper? Ifso, why and source?

(Source: Google "AMD Ryzen Cores Are Disabled in Symmetrical Pairs" there are dozens.)

Yes, disabled in symmetrical pairs, but remember, ThreadRipper is a dual-die MCM, so having a 4:4+3:3 or a 3:3+2:2 configuration is possible.

 

[Captain_Tom]

If this is true (which I doubt), why would they do it?
It would be enough to price it 10-20% below Intel's counterpart.
Instead this is priced at roughly half of Intel's rumored 16C/32T.

So my first question would be: just how bad is the performance? Because from the price point of view, they're putting this against the 10-core Skylake-X.
Or maybe they already know Intel is going to drop prices even before the launch?

Because they can.


AMD's die size is SMALLER per 4 cores than Intel's is, and they are getting better yields than Intel is. Seriously it costs roughly half as much as it does Intel to make a quad core, and then it gets worse:

-AMD's CCX design allows them to simply piece together 4 x 4.0GHz quad cores for moar cores and cache. That's why AMD will have a 4.0GHz 16-core. Something Intel can only dream of.

-AMD's design is more efficient as well. So AMD's 16-core will likely be 180w while Intel will be lucky to get a 3.5GHz 18-core that uses less than 220w.


AMD will make more money on each 16-core sold than Intel will on each 12-core sold, and they desperately need marketshare in the server space. I will be the first to admit that I thought AMD would charge more for Threadripper, but they need the marketshare; and they will make PLENTY of money at these prices. The server market is tough to get into, and so they need to be merciless to get contracts. They need to make it so a company will be at a competitive disadvantage if they don't switch.

 

[Prima.Vera]

That's good. Now where are them benches with Intel/AMD comparisons?

 

[EarthDog]

Because they can.


AMD's die size is SMALLER per 4 cores than Intel's is, and they are getting better yields than Intel is. Seriously it costs roughly half as much as it does Intel to make a quad core, and then it gets worse:

-AMD's CCX design allows them to simply piece together 4 x 4.0GHz quad cores for moar cores and cache. That's why AMD will have a 4.0GHz 16-core. Something Intel can only dream of.

-AMD's design is more efficient as well. So AMD's 16-core will likely be 180w while Intel will be lucky to get a 3.5GHz 18-core that uses less than 220w.


AMD will make more money on each 16-core sold than Intel will on each 12-core sold, and they desperately need marketshare in the server space. I will be the first to admit that I thought AMD would charge more for Threadripper, but they need the marketshare; and they will make PLENTY of money at these prices. The server market is tough to get into, and so they need to be merciless to get contracts. They need to make it so a company will be at a competitive disadvantage if they don't switch.

interesting take...

Cant say we will see 4ghz stock on 16c amd... their quads are barely 4 ghz chips overclocked.

If you stitch together 4 of those, does that exacerbate the latency in transferring across the fabric which is/was a concern?
https://www.techpowerup.com/231268/...yzed-improvements-improveable-ccx-compromises

Also, their STOCK quads are 65W... x4 = 260W. Quads at 4ghz all cores im certain are more than that. I know you cant just x4 it, but.. 4ghz and 4 ccx wont sip power either. I expect it in the neighborhood of 200W stock. At 4ghz, 200+ for sure.

Just something to consider.

 

[Captain_Tom]

interesting take...

Cant say we will see 4ghz stock on 16c amd... their quads are barely 4 ghz chips overclocked.

If you stitch together 4 of those, does that exacerbate the latency in transferring across the fabric which is/was a concern?
https://www.techpowerup.com/231268/...yzed-improvements-improveable-ccx-compromises

Also, their STOCK quads are 65W... x4 = 260W. Quads at 4ghz all cores im certain are more than that.

Just something to consider.

Well there is definitely a 5-10% performance hit in IPC from the CCX fabric (Forgot where I saw the tests that showed this). But considering Ryzen's pricing, I think we can both agree it's worth it lol.

I doubt there is more of a hit when switching to 4 x CCX's, but we will have to wait for the benchmarks won't we . Even if it took an additional 10% hit, it would crush whatever Intel releases (Rumors point to Intel having trouble getting the 18-core i9 above 2.5GHz lol).


As for Threadripper's clockspeeds - Leaks point to 4.1GHz for the 14-core, and 3.9 + XFR for the 16-core (I clearly believe them). Oh and AMD can bin their quad-cores to use less than 65w per CCX, and additionally I believe there is some power savings by combining them. After all AMD's 8-core has a 95w TDP while they 4-core has a TDP rating of 65w. It's not insane at all to think they could get 180w with their 16-core.

 

[EarthDog]

How cant there be more of a hit? You add three more ccx which goes through it. Any thread jumping will suffer when doing so. How much is going to be the question. I dont expect it to be a dealbreaker or anything, but something to keep an eye on for sure.

The threadripper base clock is (rumored) at 3.5ghz with 3.9 or 4.1 ghz boost/xfr (one or two cores... dont recall). 7900x is 3.3 with single core to 4.3ghz... intels 18 core monster wont make 3ghz, but heh, its (rumored) to be 165w.


Edit: hate to post this but...:
https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/6fbmdj/i97980xe_clock_speed_prediction/

Saying 3.1ghz.... but who knows...

 

[Captain_Tom]

How cant there be more of a hit? You add three more ccx which goes through it. Any thread jumping will suffer when doing so. How much is going to be the question. I dont expect it to be a dealbreaker or anything, but something to keep an eye on for sure.

The threadripper base clock is (rumored) at 3.5ghz with 3.9 or 4.1 ghz boost/xfr (one or two cores... dont recall). 7900x is 3.3 with single core to 4.3ghz... intels 18 core monster wont make 3ghz, but heh, its (rumored) to be 165w.

Well I guess we will have to see what each one can do with an AIO Liquid cooler.

My assumption is once tweaked Intel's 7900X will hit ~4.5GHz on ALL cores at once, and then AMD's 16-core will hit 4.0GHz on ALL cores at once. I think it's pretty obvious which one will be stronger lol. 6 more cores for the same price!

Power usage will likely be the same. Intel's (no inferior) efficiency goes down by a large margin when overclocked. We will see....

 

[EarthDog]

Captn... its a crapshoot for their 8 thread to reach 4 ghz on all threads (and blow its tdp out of the water in the process)... I mean, I WANT to see it, but just am not sure, with the info we have already, that's going to be possible with all threads. Zen2...?

 

[Captain_Tom]

Captn... its a crapshoot for their 8 thread to reach 4 ghz on all threads (and blow its tdp out of the water in the process)... I mean, I WANT to see it, but just am not sure, with the info we have already, that's going to be possible with all threads. Zen2...?

That's the leak. I don't doubt power usage will go up, but I see no reason why it would use more than 200w if you told it to run at that speed on all cores.

I doubt the 18-core Xeon will be able to hit 3.5GHz without using 250w lol

 

[EarthDog]

Lol, ok.

 

[Steevo]

Captn... its a crapshoot for their 8 thread to reach 4 ghz on all threads (and blow its tdp out of the water in the process)... I mean, I WANT to see it, but just am not sure, with the info we have already, that's going to be possible with all threads. Zen2...?

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_7_1800X/14.html

Have you read the review?

 

[R-T-B]

Ryzen 1800X hits 4Ghz pretty reliably. I've yet to see one that doesn't. Mine is a poor overclocker and even it does with some healthy voltage and cooling.

But, I mean we should expect this as it's binned to turbo to that.

 

[EarthDog]

Ive seen several, but an overwhelming majority is accurate.

The (my) problem with that.... it isnt past its own xfr. So, its bringing all cores to full boost.

 

[thesmokingman]

That's not what MB vendors said. They said they had no knowledge of such a product.

That's just like how MS pulled directx12 out of their ass and the documentation almost matches Mantle word for word.

 

[ratirt]

Nice pricing . I thing the XFR on those is out of the picture. Purpose of this CPU is not to reach high clock rates. It would be nice if it could but.... 3.6Ghz is nice for 16 Core CPU. It is still better than Intels top Xeon 24 Core. Turbo 3.4 Mhz and only 32 PCI-E lanes. Wonder how this 32core will look like will look like.

 

[msroadkill612]

AMD APU's only really go up to 4 cores.

AMD slides show epyc with full 32 cores on the MCM, and its fabric branching to additional cpu/gpuS, presumably on an mcm on the second socket of a dual socket mobo.

4 core and 1 vega gpu is the sweetspot minimum config, as required for power sipping, lucrative mobile apuS - so that configuration is sensibly, first to market.

But there seems few limits to cpu/gpu combos (apuS) possible on the amd mcm/fabric.

 

[Captain_Tom]

Nice pricing . I thing the XFR on those is out of the picture. Purpose of this CPU is not to reach high clock rates. It would be nice if it could but.... 3.6Ghz is nice for 16 Core CPU. It is still better than Intels top Xeon 24 Core. Turbo 3.4 Mhz and only 32 PCI-E lanes. Wonder how this 32core will look like will look like.

The same leaks show XFR up to 4.1 GHz on the 14-core buddy

 

[$ReaPeR$]

finally, after years of misery in the CPU market, things are heating up

 

[EarthDog]

The same leaks show XFR up to 4.1 GHz on the 14-core buddy

Amazing they can't get an 8 core to 4.1 XFR, yet with 16 its possible...........................



..................................

 

[Captain_Tom]

Amazing they can't get an 8 core to 4.1 XFR, yet with 16 its possible...........................



..................................

WuT?

It's common knowledge that 1800X XFR to 4.1. Threadripper is just several 1800X/1600X dies glued together lol. It will likely have a lower base clock (For TDP reasons), but you can expect these to boost to 4.1 just as easily.

 

[EarthDog]

Let me clarify... ALL CORES to their boost/xfr speeds.

...thought we were talking all cores... at least i was, lol!

 

[Lionheart]

simple answer: rather i pay 1000€ for an Intel CPU than 300€ for an AMD one.

Good for you Intel fanboy, enjoy ripping yourself off.

 

[ratirt]

Good for you Intel fanboy, enjoy ripping yourself off.

Maybe it's not being a fanboy but it's an unconditional love

 

[pantherx12]

A lot of people seem to be getting bent out of shape at these being cheap and therefore expecting poor performance Vs Intel.

This is nothing like that it's just the scaleble modular design means pricing follows a very simple format.

About twice the power costs about twice as much. Each time.

This is because AMD are making 8 core parts and them sticking them in the infinity fabric.

Intel with are straight up making 20 core monolithic CPUs, meaning their pricing scales down from the top rather than building from the bottom.

So Amd chips maybe cost 50 dollars each then they stick 4 of them on a PCB then charge you 1000 for it. But you still get loads of performance.

Intel 20 core maybe costs 500 dollars straight up thanks to complex monolithic CPUs having exponentially more chances of having errors. Vs a quad core based on same architecture and process.

So an 18-16-14 core are all that same 20 core chip that costs Intel 500 or so.


AMD have engineered a game changer here folks assuming they don't balls it right up.


It means dual GPU cards should In theory not be shitty as they'll be using the infinity fabric as well.


Sorry writing isn't my forte but hopefully you get the jist.


AMD have made god damn processor Legos,that's what Vega and Ryzen are, building blocks that fit together perfectly.

So you could build a "little house", or"Lego land "

AMD could could put 64 cores in a single package,128 etc etc.

The scalebility on depends on how much the customer wants to spend and power delivery/cooling etc.