Am I selecting the right CPU?

Randy R · December 8, 2019

I've been waiting for the AMD Threadripper 24 core cpu all year pretty much. Its a dream of a chip.

But, am I being real though? Is it worth it? Would the 3950x be better? not to mention half the price.
Been trying since launch to get the 3960x, but with the wait I'm doubting the eventual purchase. I had the same type of doubts last year when I put in a custom order for a $50k Mustang. I love it now that I have it.

I don't game. Well, I "Game" but not like you think, I'm old and I only like building/creative games, or storylines. So like Cities skylines, or Dragon Age.. very brief list, but I don't care about top of the line performance as far as FPS or any of that or spend much time gaming.

What I do though, I am a tech enthusiast, I am mostly a programmer. I write, design, test heavy lifting software that uses lots of cpu power, lots of I/O especially***. I work with large databases of various types, I move large amounts of data around between my two separate areas, home and work. I do lots of various intensive tasks to suit my fancy for exploring technology, and I run my business which I do most of the same type of work. So my PC is a combination of work and home since I like to do similar things, using your skillset to its potential sort of thing.

I have a poor choice of a pc currently for such tasks. Built almost 5 years ago. I have lots of various servers currently at home that I use to accomplish the types of tasks I could eventually do on a fully specced Threadripper system. The PCIE lanes is the real driver of my choice for a Threadripper. I mean I would get a Threadripper 3000 series 16 core cpu.. but the ryzen one honestly has about the same number of lanes as the 4790k that I have and I'm already maxed out on here with 1 gpu, 1 40GB infiniband sfp+ card, thats already 16 lanes. all my sata ports are used and I have an nvme slotted into my other slot at 4x. I don't get good speeds on any of my devices unless I'm selective about what I'm doing at the time.

While with gen4 in theory there is more bandwidth but my devices are mostly gen3, so that only really applies to the chipset lanes since it can manage that traffic.

While I can afford the 3960x and associated components, I just don't want to get grossly more than I need. I do reasonably well at my business and expect that having such a chip will enable me to do more, but would appreciate any one to weigh in on what they think.

19_blackie_73 · December 8, 2019

Seems like you could utilize the extra lanes and with all that cpu power retire some servers. So it is probably worth it, especially as you use it for your business too and if you cando sth. in less time, time is money in your case. So maybe you can recover the extra cost easily, but that depends if the software you are using really can utilize all that cores

martward · December 8, 2019

Sounds like you're one of the few people who could actually use the features of a threadripper chip at home. It's not stupid at all if you can actually use it.

Man · December 8, 2019

34 minutes ago, Randy R said:

I'm already maxed out on here with 1 gpu, 1 40GB infiniband sfp+ card, thats already 16 lanes. all my sata ports are used and I have an nvme slotted into my other slot at 4x. I don't get good speeds on any of my devices unless I'm selective about what I'm doing at the time.

While with gen4 in theory there is more bandwidth but my devices are mostly gen3, so that only really applies to the chipset lanes since it can manage that traffic.

Threadripper 1920X goes for around $250, comes with 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes and supports quad-channel memory. The 3950X, on the other hand, has just 24 lanes and only supports dual-channel bus, if I'm not terribly mistaken.

Sure, 3950X offers ~30% better performance, but it's basically a 'domestic' CPU at its very core. There's just no comparison between TR4 and AM4 based systems when it comes productivity.

That's just my opinion, of course. And I'm by no means a Ryzen expert!