Intel Skylake SP 8176 Review vs AMD Epyc 7601

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, MageTank said:

The 7980XE on the other hand... that's worthy of all kinds of fear, lol.

Leverage my plans of world domination with multiple 7980XE's. Got it.

 

My oddly Neo Cortex world domination plans. Good thing I didn't go with a bandiccot as my general.

 

1 minute ago, MageTank said:

AVX scales with memory bandwidth. Having 8 channels for copious amounts of bandwidth, that will certainly brute force some AVX.

Right, forgot that EPYC brings octo channel to the table.

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, apoclypse said:

Doesn't matter in real world scenarios imo. Anandtech used the latest LTS version of the distro which in the server space is all they are going to use. They aren't going to be running the latest version of any distro. It's either CentOS or LTS versions of Ubuntu or possibly something older. Anandtech seemed to be going for more real world scenario benchmarks. In that kind of workflow AMDs chips performed admirably. 

You could be right, I'm not familiar enough with the high-end/server space.  I still think the numbers look off for Skylake, though.  Most of them are extremely low, especially when compared to Broadwell.

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

I don't think that particular commenter is a reliable source. If you read his other comments he claims the Zen architecture is a Haswell copy + paste job. If that was the case, one would assume Intel would be very vocal about it and that they would share the same characteristics (which they don't considering the peculiarities of Zen). And non-LTS distros aren't exactly going to be used in enterprise environments although I do concur that it might cause the Xeon to not run on all cylinders. However, might the same not be said for EPYC? AMD isn't exactly ubiquitous in the server space. Given everything we've seen so far, an older distro is probably optimized (as in developed with that kind of system in mind) for Haswell.

I hadn't read that far down, so I didn't see that particular comment.  It just sounded plausible to me, that's why i brought it up here.  I figured someone more knowledgeable would be able to clarify if that was accurate or not.

[kiska3]

44 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

You could be right, I'm not familiar enough with the high-end/server space. 

Its the same reason why many companies have not moved on from XP(or W7 to a lesser extent), it works, and reliably. The same reason why we have not seen companies move on from Server 2008 and 2012(even though Server 2016 is out) is mostly because of the Long Term Support that they offer, no IT admin will want to cycle(and inconvenience staff) with constant OS upgrades to keep within their support cycle.(non-LTS ubuntu versions have a support cycle of 6 or 9 months)

i.e They don't want to be on the bleeding edge, or paid beta testers, guinea pig, any other synonyms with testing software(finding bugs)

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Is it just me, or do those memory bandwidth numbers look really odd?  I would have expected Skylake-SP to be superior to Broadwell-EP, but it only (marginally) beats it in 8 thread tests.  Or am I missing something?

That'll be the change to the mesh architecture. It's also very amusing to see how low each Purely core gets in memory bandwidth when this exact arguement was being used against EPYC before these reviews.

 

Quote

The new Skylake-SP offers mediocre bandwidth to a single thread: only 12 GB/s is available despite the use of fast DDR-4 2666. The Broadwell-EP delivers 50% more bandwidth with slower DDR4-2400. It is clear that Skylake-SP needs more threads to get the most of its available memory bandwidth.

 

Meanwhile a single thread on a Naples core can get 27,5 GB/s if necessary. This is very promissing, as this means that a single-threaded phase in an HPC application will get abundant bandwidth and run as fast as possible. But the total bandwidth that one whole quad core CCX can command is only 30 GB/s.

EPYC is higher than Broadwell-EP was too.

[Taf the Ghost]

Per a comment on r/AMD from Anandtech's reviewer, they didn't have a lot of time with either product, so it's not quite as much testing as they'd like. (The DB test is also a bit wonky.) The Epyc system will also run 2666 memory, but there just wasn't any in the system they were testing on.

 

All together, it's nice to see Intel suddenly have some competition in the space. It's been a while.

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

More expensive than Epyc AND it probably needs 3 nuclear reactors for each CPU going off of Skylake-X's power consumption numbers.

 

Seems like a no-brainer if you ask me.

 

It would be a no brainer except AMD have to win two battles here (especially becasue it's in a mission critical usage), one is they have to produce a chip better than their competitors - yes they've most likely done that, tick.  2. they have to prove to the server buying managers that it is better (read just as reliable, has sufficient after sales service, guarantee's etc).  Most companies in my experience will spend twice as much on tools if they have good reputation versus tools that are new to the market with no prior experience so to speak.

 

 

 

 

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, Jito463 said:

You could be right, I'm not familiar enough with the high-end/server space.  I still think the numbers look off for Skylake, though.  Most of them are extremely low, especially when compared to Broadwell.

We'll have to wait for more testing of other SKUs, some things greatly benefit from higher clocks rates than more cores so it takes a bit of research and verification to make sure you are getting the best possible for the money.

 

Here's a good example for MS SQL Server.

 

Quote

Storage Configuration

• SanDisk Fusion-io ioMemory PX600 2.6TB
  • 80% Over-provisioning in high-performance mode
  • Full power draw enabled
  • VSL 4.1.1 Firmware/Drivers

The CPUs under consideration are two each of the following:

• Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640 v2 - 20M Cache, 2.00GHz, 8 cores - $889
• Intel Xeon Processor E5-2687W v2 - 25M Cache, 3.40GHz, 8 cores - $2112
• Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 v2 - 25M Cache, 3.00GHz, 10 cores - $2061
• Intel Xeon Processor E5-2697 v2 - 30M Cache, 2.70GHz, 12 cores - $2618

http://www.storagereview.com/selecting_the_best_intel_xeon_e52600_v2_cpu_for_sql_server_2012

 

Which CPU from the above list would be best to use in a SQL database server for thousands of users? Surely the E5-2697v2 is it as it has the highest number of cores and there are thousands of users and thousands of transactions per second.

 

 

Turns out no the E5-2697v2 is not the best choice or even second best choice, and the difference is quite vast. It's also providing not much extra performance to a CPU a third it's price.

 

Some things love cores and others love frequency, just look at what a mere 300Mhz can do.

 

I'm very interested to see Intel 8168, 8158, 6154, 6150, 6142 and 6136 reviews

[cj09beira]

13 hours ago, MageTank said:

AVX scales with memory bandwidth. Having 8 channels for copious amounts of bandwidth, that will certainly brute force some AVX. As for whether they actually changed their AVX pipeline to be able to handle more bit-ops/clock, that's highly unlikely. If AMD would give us real control over Ryzen's memory controller, I'd wager I could make it's AVX performance at least on par with Haswell's, but those new registers completely ignored tREFI, 2DPC tertiary timings and multi-rank timings. I specifically need the 2DPC and multi-rank timings for tRDWR and tWRRD, the timings that directly influence AVX performance. 

Maybe if we poke AMD they might enable us to use those timings 

[Taf the Ghost]

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

Maybe if we poke AMD they might enable us to use those timings 

One of the discussion points is that part of the Ryzen launch issues is that AMD closed off that ability for motherboard makers at the last minute. So, hopefully, when we get a new IMC with the next Ryzen revision, they'll open up access to them.

 

@leadeater The fact companies now have something to test against is just good overall. I'm still followed that CPUs became exciting again for the first time in ages.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

 

@leadeater The fact companies now have something to test against is just good overall. I'm still followed that CPUs became exciting again for the first time in ages.

Yea I mainly want to see the reviews of the CPUs I mentioned to see if the frequency scaling is the same as the old ring architecture with the new mesh, could be better could be worse.

 

Then we also have to compare the different dies, HCC vs MCC vs LCC.

 

It's kind of great that even Intel CPUs are interesting this time around, or more than the last 3 times.

[Taf the Ghost]

19 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea I mainly want to see the reviews of the CPUs I mentioned to see if the frequency scaling is the same as the old ring architecture with the new mesh, could be better could be worse.

 

Then we also have to compare the different dies, HCC vs MCC vs LCC.

 

It's kind of great that even Intel CPUs are interesting this time around, or more than the last 3 times.

Intel's HCC design should actually scale better, as it should be almost identical core to core latency. The Mesh is actually a pretty massive design change, which is probably why we've seen some big uplifts in a few Xeon applications with the new CPUs. The ones most sensitive to the core latency would see a jump.  It also goes along with where the design has been going since Sandy Bridge.  Sandy Bridge's single-core performance isn't far behind in IPC than the current Skylake architecture, but the multi-threaded performance is pretty massively improved.

 

Still, there's also a big rub in this space. Intel's documents say that Icelake Xeons will be on the same platform, so does that mean the die-shrink is all that's happening with Icelake? Or is that just marketing speak? The other thing is that AMD is likely to iterate really quickly on both Server and Mainstream platforms. Their roadmap is actually incredibly aggressive. AMD is likely to have Zen 2-based "7nm" Server parts in mid-2019, which really could bring either 6 package Epyc chips or 6c CCX design. Be interesting to see.

[NumLock21]

Box art

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Box art

It's beautiful! I hope that it's not the only selling point for Skylake Xeons tho

[NumLock21]

5 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

It's beautiful! I hope that it's not the only selling point for Skylake Xeons tho

No it isn't, inside you can a case badge sticker but no cooler!

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

No it isn't, inside you can a case badge sticker but no cooler!

You get a sticker? Is it as cool as this tho?

[NumLock21]

6 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

You get a sticker? Is it as cool as this tho?

A lot cooler. RGB

[Whispre]

14 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

It would be a no brainer except AMD have to win two battles here (especially becasue it's in a mission critical usage), one is they have to produce a chip better than their competitors - yes they've most likely done that, tick.  2. they have to prove to the server buying managers that it is better (read just as reliable, has sufficient after sales service, guarantee's etc).  Most companies in my experience will spend twice as much on tools if they have good reputation versus tools that are new to the market with no prior experience so to speak.

 

 

 

 

Even more than that... The accompanying platform (Mobo etc) must be at least equivalent. Also, if you are like we are, all your servers belong to cluster's, and you can't really mix and match Intel and AMD CPU s In the same cluster, thus increasing both the cost and complexity of switching.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Whispre said:

Even more than that... The accompanying platform (Mobo etc) must be at least equivalent. Also, if you are like we are, all your servers belong to cluster's, and you can't really mix and match Intel and AMD CPU s In the same cluster, thus increasing both the cost and complexity of switching.

And it doesn't even end there.  While I am not really upto date with server hardware at the moment (most of my experience is just the other side of servers in business), I was considering the other day what would happen to a mid size manufacturing outfit should one server go down for a few hours,  the costs would easily pay for the Intel CPU's in the first incidence.  Having seen first hand what happens when CNC orders/layouts don't get served on time and you have $250,000 of stock not rolling off the production line (customers get unhappy and you lose them).

 

When considering one returning or non returning customers = $000's in profit made lost, the cost of that CPU now becomes moot compared to everything else.

 

 

[AnonymousGuy]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

When considering one returning or non returning customers = $000's in profit made lost, the cost of that CPU now becomes moot compared to everything else.

 

 

Which is why Intel increases pricing 15% for a 5% improvement in performance (from HSX to BDX).  They do it because companies will pay it.  The hardware makes money and gets written off as a depreciating capital asset.

 

Reliability wise, it took forever to kill off PowerPC and SPARC and shit like from HPC because RAS difference of 99.9999 and 99.9999999% was a big deal.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Intel's HCC design should actually scale better, as it should be almost identical core to core latency. The Mesh is actually a pretty massive design change, which is probably why we've seen some big uplifts in a few Xeon applications with the new CPUs.

The bigger the die though the higher the latency to IMC and PCIe etc, that's why I want to see a LCC and MCC die CPUs reviewed. As you can see with the SQL performance article I linked the reason why the E5-2697v2 gets crushed is it's using the HCC dual ring bus and the other ones were using MCC/LCC single ring.

 

So how does the die scale with the mesh design, can we see it at all like we can now?

 

Also core to core latency between direct neighbors is the same but what about edge core to edge core across the die?

[BuckGup]

Most clients just want more power cheaper so AMD could totally steal a huge piece of the market

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Most clients just want more power cheaper so AMD could totally steal a huge piece of the market

If clients were only interested in dollars and power then AMD could easily make no difference at all. It's already a very steep uphill battle for them, basic performance/price is only a tenth of the equation.

 

See the following:

 

1 hour ago, Whispre said:

Even more than that... The accompanying platform (Mobo etc) must be at least equivalent. Also, if you are like we are, all your servers belong to cluster's, and you can't really mix and match Intel and AMD CPU s In the same cluster, thus increasing both the cost and complexity of switching.

 

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

We'll have to wait for more testing of other SKUs, some things greatly benefit from higher clocks rates than more cores so it takes a bit of research and verification to make sure you are getting the best possible for the money.

 

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

And it doesn't even end there.  While I am not really upto date with server hardware at the moment (most of my experience is just the other side of servers in business), I was considering the other day what would happen to a mid size manufacturing outfit should one server go down for a few hours,  the costs would easily pay for the Intel CPU's in the first incidence.  Having seen first hand what happens when CNC orders/layouts don't get served on time and you have $250,000 of stock not rolling off the production line (customers get unhappy and you lose them).

 

When considering one returning or non returning customers = $000's in profit made lost, the cost of that CPU now becomes moot compared to everything else.

 

 

 

[VagabondWraith]

29 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If clients were only interested in dollars and power then AMD could easily make no difference at all. It's already a very steep uphill battle for them, basic performance/price is only a tenth of the equation.

 

See the following:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I don't see AMD making much of a dent. Most companies are tied into Intel and are not going to throw away their entire ecosystem for an unproven platform. AMD will gain 'some' market share but it's not going to be anything major.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, VagabondWraith said:

Yeah, I don't see AMD making much of a dent. Most companies are tied into Intel and are not going to throw away their entire ecosystem for an unproven platform. AMD will gain 'some' market share but it's not going to be anything major.

 

They might get some market share from me in the not too distant future, it just depends how their 1300 stuff stacks up to intel for a home server/htpc.  However I doubt this will  set the stock market on fire .

[VerticalDiscussions]

Good job AMD.