Poll: A few questions regarding Threadripper vs i9

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 hour ago, He_162 said:

4. Let's not get off topic into nitty gritty details about how high frames on a crap monitor is bigger than the issue of having a crap monitor.

I think that it's an important discussion, pure frame rate is the deciding factor for many people.

1 hour ago, Damascus said:

Lol, love the last question, what do you want, the most expensive hedt cpu or its price to performance opponent?"

 

http://digiworthy.com/2017/07/13/amd-threadripper-price-performance/

 

If this article is correct, then the cheapest Threadripper chip will cost 800 dollars.  The 7820x is 600 dollars, and while it has less cores, and worse PCIe expandability, it's not a terrible value.

It's only 100 dollars more then the 1800x, and for better single threaded performance, and better PCIe expandability, that's not unreasonable.

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

3) Take your game and lock it at 144fps, then unlock it and go to 300fps or more, you will see a difference.

Everyone knows that games are more responsive when running at a high refresh rate regardless of what your monitor's refresh rate is.

You won't necessarily see a difference, but if the input is frame rate bound, or if your character movement updates through the frame rate, and uses delta time(so you won't move twice as fast if your frame rate is double), then if you have a higher frame rate, you will start moving/perform actions faster, whether you can "see" the actions or not.  This can give you an advantage in multiplayer games, especially those that are peer to peer.

1 hour ago, jjohnthedon1 said:

Also the point of ops post 

will thread ripper perform better if it can oc higher due to not being thermally limited 

 

answer absolutely 

Yes, I thought I was clear with my questions, I guess not.

I also wanted to know if people thought whether the higher core Intel CPUs that are coming out (7920x and up) may have worse thermal problems.  

More cores = more heat, after all.

32 minutes ago, Enderman said:

And no, never trust benchmarks from the manufacturer.

AMD historically, is very good at generating hype.

[jjohnthedon1]

1 minute ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I think that it's an important discussion, pure frame rate is the deciding factor for many people.

http://digiworthy.com/2017/07/13/amd-threadripper-price-performance/

 

If this article is correct, then the cheapest Threadripper chip will cost 800 dollars.  The 7820x is 600 dollars, and while it has less cores, and worse PCIe expandability, its not a terrible value.

It's only 100 dollars more then the 1800x, and for better single threaded performance, and better PCIe expandability, that's not unreasonable.

You won't necessarily see a difference, but if the input is frame rate bound, or if your character movement updates through the frame rate, and uses delta time(so you won't move twice as fast if your frame rate is double), then if you have a higher frame rate, you will start moving/perform actions faster, whether you can "see" the actions or not.  This can give you an advantage in multiplayer games, especially those that are peer to peer.

Yes, I thought I was clear with my questions, I guess not.

I also wanted to know if people thought whether the higher core Intel CPUs that are coming out (7920x and up) may have worse thermal problems.  

More cores = more heat, after all.

AMD historically, is very good at generating hype.

My extreamly educated guess is yes they will be worse temperature and throttling wise unless intell change how the implement the heat transfer for the ihs

 

 

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 minute ago, jjohnthedon1 said:

My extreamly educated guess is yes they will be worse temperature and throttling wise unless intell change how the implement the heat transfer for the ihs

 

Even the worst solder conducts heat better than the best thermal paste, with possibly a few exceptions.  It's also true that heat kills components, and even if you don't overclock, the extra heat that Skylake x generates may shorten it's lifespan.

[He_162]

38 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I think that it's an important discussion, pure frame rate is the deciding factor for many people.

http://digiworthy.com/2017/07/13/amd-threadripper-price-performance/

 

If this article is correct, then the cheapest Threadripper chip will cost 800 dollars.  The 7820x is 600 dollars, and while it has less cores, and worse PCIe expandability, it's not a terrible value.

It's only 100 dollars more then the 1800x, and for better single threaded performance, and better PCIe expandability, that's not unreasonable.

You won't necessarily see a difference, but if the input is frame rate bound, or if your character movement updates through the frame rate, and uses delta time(so you won't move twice as fast if your frame rate is double), then if you have a higher frame rate, you will start moving/perform actions faster, whether you can "see" the actions or not.  This can give you an advantage in multiplayer games, especially those that are peer to peer.

Yes, I thought I was clear with my questions, I guess not.

I also wanted to know if people thought whether the higher core Intel CPUs that are coming out (7920x and up) may have worse thermal problems.  

More cores = more heat, after all.

AMD historically, is very good at generating hype.

Keep in mind the following:
Threadripper (12 core, non X variant) is 800$, the motherboard manufacturers say 200$ for a decent motherboard.

That means you are paying 1000 - 1100$ for those two items, and 600$ for the 8 core Intel offering, with a 300$ motherboard investment being a poor choice since most don't have proper hardware for overclocking ("good enough" VRM, and only an 8 pin power connector) you'll want to buy one of the 400 or 500$ ones, leaving you at the same cost for worse performance.

Now, just to make this clear, I do not know what the exact prices will be, I only understand they will be within a certain range, and are subject to constant change, but I highly doubt they will be less, or more than the said figures by more than 100$.

I know I sound like an idiot here, but I just don't see why you would get less cores with similar single core performance (slightly better) for a higher price, especially when Intel is putting thermal paste in their HEDT CPU's, and making them hard to overclock, which is a signature factor of the X series CPU's.

[Skanky Sylveon]

14 minutes ago, He_162 said:

Keep in mind the following:
Threadripper (12 core, non X variant) is 800$, the motherboard manufacturers say 200$ for a decent motherboard.

That means you are paying 1000 - 1100$ for those two items, and 600$ for the 8 core Intel offering, with a 300$ motherboard investment being a poor choice since most don't have proper hardware for overclocking ("good enough" VRM, and only an 8 pin power connector) you'll want to buy one of the 400 or 500$ ones, leaving you at the same cost for worse performance.

Now, just to make this clear, I do not know what the exact prices will be, I only understand they will be within a certain range, and are subject to constant change, but I highly doubt they will be less, or more than the said figures by more than 100$.

I know I sound like an idiot here, but I just don't see why you would get less cores with similar single core performance (slightly better) for a higher price, especially when Intel is putting thermal paste in their HEDT CPU's, and making them hard to overclock, which is a signature factor of the X series CPU's.

You make a valid point, x299's motherboards are expensive.  If you don't plan on overclocking, the 200 - 300 motherboards are OK, but if you do they may not be adequate.

I never said that the 7820x was a great value, just that it wasn't terrible.  At least on paper.

We don't know much about the x399 platform ether, we may need to invest 400 - 500 dollars for adequate overclocking on them also.

It might not make much difference however, Ryzen never overclocked that well, and I believe that Threadripper will be no different.

[HKZeroFive]

6 hours ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

AMD measures IPC differently then Intel, it's not necessarily an apples to apples comparison, but yeah, the higher TDP Intel chips seem to use less power.

 

I said after thermal throttling, not before.  Skylake x clearly has better single threaded performance before throttling.

They may measure IPC differently but the general stance is that Intel's IPC for Skylake-X remains superior to that of Ryzen and Threadripper.

 

You can make any chip thermal throttle. I honestly have no clue why this is a question in the first place where you're comparing one that is and that is not... that's an unfair comparison. If you give a 16-core i9 and a Ryzen Threadripper 1950X the same amount of cooling, the Core i9 will still clock higher and therefore you will get higher single-threaded performance, especially after factoring in IPC.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Some questions are vague while others are too specific. I think the answer to "Do you think that Threadripper might actually have higher single threaded performance then the higher core i9s" is yes, because it says might, and until we know the clocks, it could happen. Threadripper clocks are more or less out now, but we still don't know what Intel will  manage in the higher core-count CPUs.

I don't think it has anything to do with throttling, so i don't know whether that means yes or no.

 

The answer to (2) could be "yes, because I don't use coolers LOL" or "No, assuming stock clocks and obvious cooling".

 

3-5 are more to the point, those are fine  Although 3 allows for degrees, while 4 is binary: no grays.

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 hour ago, HKZeroFive said:

They may measure IPC differently but the general stance is that Intel's IPC for Skylake-X remains superior to that of Ryzen and Threadripper.

 

You can make any chip thermal throttle. I honestly have no clue why this is a question in the first place where you're comparing one that is and that is not... that's an unfair comparison. If you give a 16-core i9 and a Ryzen Threadripper 1950X the same amount of cooling, the Core i9 will still clock higher and therefore you will get higher single-threaded performance, especially after factoring in IPC.

I meant TDP not IPC.

If one chip needs to throttle because it can't handle its thermals while the other doesn't.

And they are using the same cooler, that is worth discussing, yes?

And yes, that is very much worth comparing.

[HKZeroFive]

5 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I meant TDP not IPC.

My point still remains.

[Simon771]

IPC won't be better that Skylake-X ... AMD just isn't that good in that area.

 

[He_162]

2 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

IPC won't be better that Skylake-X ... AMD just isn't that good in that area.

 

AMD improved their IPC by 52% with Zen, I'd say that's good, and considering the fact that it's only slightly slower than intel, and worth sacrificing for more cores at the same price, that's some great value, and we can expect great leaps and bounds from them with Zen 2 and Zen 3.

[Simon771]

8 minutes ago, He_162 said:

AMD improved their IPC by 52% with Zen, I'd say that's good, and considering the fact that it's only slightly slower than intel, and worth sacrificing for more cores at the same price, that's some great value, and we can expect great leaps and bounds from them with Zen 2 and Zen 3.

While that's true, they still ca't compar with Intel when it comes to IPC performance. Intel is still few years ahead with that.

I do hope we can soon see Zen cores that mannage to get 200 cinebench score in single core performance, but I'm not sure if Zen2 or Zen3 will acchive that. Maybe something like 185 at best. And I'm not talking about Ln2 cooling or anything extreme ... I want to have that kind of score stable on air cooling. Once that happens, even more Intel users wil switch to amd.

[He_162]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

While that's true, they still ca't compar with Intel when it comes to IPC performance. Intel is still few years ahead with that.

I do hope we can soon see Zen cores that mannage to get 200 cinebench score in single core performance, but I'm not sure if Zen2 or Zen3 will acchive that. Maybe something like 185 at best. And I'm not talking about Ln2 cooling or anything extreme ... I want to have that kind of score stable on air cooling. Once that happens, even more Intel users wil switch to amd.

11 - 13% isn't a few years, that's the jump from Broadwell to Skylake in performance, and AMD is looking at beating them when it comes to Zen 3 if intel doesn't pick up the pace with their 10nm chips.

You're looking at Haswell performance in Ryzen, and AMD copyrighted the name "Kyzen" so I assume that is "Zen 2" or maybe a Zen Refresh, either way, "Kyzen" is offering 15% more IPC in the form of higher clock speeds, or some other manner we do not know of yet, but that's the general idea is that it's going to be an improvement, or Zen will fail.

Either way, AMD will catch up by Zen 2, and possibly beat intel by Zen 3.

[Simon771]

12 minutes ago, He_162 said:

Either way, AMD will catch up by Zen 2, and possibly beat intel by Zen 3.

I hope you are right and that will actually happen. Would make me realy happy since we would be able to get great performing CPUs for all kind of workloads, for cheap price.

[Skanky Sylveon]

3 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Some questions are vague while others are too specific.

I could have been more specific, I did want to keep the questions short however.

2 hours ago, HKZeroFive said:

My point still remains.

So does mine.

1 hour ago, He_162 said:

AMD improved their IPC by 52% with Zen, I'd say that's good, and considering the fact that it's only slightly slower than intel, and worth sacrificing for more cores at the same price, that's some great value, and we can expect great leaps and bounds from them with Zen 2 and Zen 3.

If AMD is truthful with all of their improvements being "tock, tock, tock", then they may surpass Intel in IPC regardless of throttling.

1 hour ago, He_162 said:

11 - 13% isn't a few years.

I would say it's probably about 1 year, if even that.

[HKZeroFive]

19 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

So does mine.

Your question asked whether or not Threadripper will have better superior single-threaded performance if Intel's Skylake-X chip thermal throttles. Aside from the fact that nobody buys a $1000+ chip without a sufficient amount of cooling, there's the matter of comparing apples to oranges.

 

Based off Ryzen, it's safe to assume that Threadripper will top off at 4GHz because of process limitations. At 4GHz, Skylake-X still has a significant amount of headroom when it comes to overclocking because it's not architecturally limited.

 

There's also the point of Skylake-X using less power than Ryzen at the same clocks. As we all know, more power = more heat. So if each chip had the same cooler, expect the equivalent Threadripper CPU to consume more power and output more heat than SKL-X CPU at the same clocks.

 

Beyond 4GHz is where the Skylake-X CPUs run hot and become much more prone to thermal throttling. But at that point, you already have a higher clockspeed and a higher IPC which can only mean that single-threaded performance is better.

[He_162]

2 hours ago, Simon771 said:

I hope you are right and that will actually happen. Would make me realy happy since we would be able to get great performing CPUs for all kind of workloads, for cheap price.

You already can with Ryzen, like I said, the single core performance is not so far behind that it's unusable in any way, your looking at a 5 - 10% worse performance for 1/3 the price of intels stuff.
(single core performance)
And if you look at price to core count, 300$ for 8 cores, or 350$ for 4 cores, it makes no sense to get the 4 core for a minor increase in single core performance, it's actually just insane.

[Skanky Sylveon]

52 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

Your question asked whether or not Threadripper will have better superior single-threaded performance if Intel's Skylake-X chip thermal throttles. Aside from the fact that nobody buys a $1000+ chip without a sufficient amount of cooling, there's the matter of comparing apples to oranges.

 

Based off Ryzen, it's safe to assume that Threadripper will top off at 4GHz because of process limitations. At 4GHz, Skylake-X still has a significant amount of headroom when it comes to overclocking because it's not architecturally limited.

 

There's also the point of Skylake-X using less power than Ryzen at the same clocks. As we all know, more power = more heat. So if each chip had the same cooler, expect the equivalent Threadripper CPU to consume more power and output more heat than SKL-X CPU at the same clocks.

 

Beyond 4GHz is where the Skylake-X CPUs run hot and become much more prone to thermal throttling. But at that point, you already have a higher clockspeed and a higher IPC which can only mean that single-threaded performance is better.

Skylake x runs below 4GHz when throttling.  Also the "more power = more heat" is an oversimplification, there are more factors at play, also the ability to dissipate that heat is important.  Something that skylake x seems to have problems with due to lintel's poor choice of TIM.

 

The TDP from skylake x hasn't changed from brodwell e and haswell e, however its thermals are higher, this leads to one of three possible conclusions.

1 Intel is being misleading about skylake x's TDP.

2 The TIM that Intel is using is not as effective as previous TIMs, thus responsible for higher temps.

3 A little bit of both.

 

Even AIOs are having trouble with skylake x's temps, and this is with just the 10 core chip, how well do you think the higher core chips that are coming out will do?

 

Edit: Skylake x's higher clock speed may also lead to increased temps.

[Simon771]

1 hour ago, He_162 said:

You already can with Ryzen, like I said, the single core performance is not so far behind that it's unusable in any way, your looking at a 5 - 10% worse performance for 1/3 the price of intels stuff.
(single core performance)
And if you look at price to core count, 300$ for 8 cores, or 350$ for 4 cores, it makes no sense to get the 4 core for a minor increase in single core performance, it's actually just insane.

Ryzen scores around 140-160 in cinebench with single core.

2066 CPUs start at 200 and end at around 220.

 

That's not only 5-10%, but more like 20-25%.

I'm using Ryzen R7 1700 CPU and I'm happy with it overall. I only lack IPC or single threaded performance for one game ... otherwise it's great CPU.

Oh and also IMC ... that needs to be polished so we can acctually use 4 DIM sticks with 128GB total ram at 4200MHz  After they make that work, we are golden.

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

Ryzen scores around 140-160 in cinebench with single core.

2066 CPUs start at 200 and end at around 220.

 

That's not only 5-10%, but more like 20-25%.

I'm using Ryzen R7 1700 CPU and I'm happy with it overall. I only lack IPC or single threaded performance for one game ... otherwise it's great CPU.

Oh and also IMC ... that needs to be polished so we can acctually use 4 DIM sticks with 128GB total ram at 4200MHz  After they make that work, we are golden.

May I ask what game?  I'm curious.

Ryzen's IMC needs improvement.

[HKZeroFive]

1 hour ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Skylake x runs below 4GHz when throttling.  Also the "more power = more heat" is an oversimplification, there are more factors at play, also the ability to dissipate that heat is important.  Something that skylake x seems to have problems with due to lintel's poor choice of TIM.

Again, nobody runs a $1000 chip without an adequate cooling solution. And seeing how at stock, the i9-7900X boosts up to 4GHz, the only way you're going to thermal throttle is if you have insufficient cooling which makes no sense in the first place.

Quote

The TDP from skylake x hasn't changed from brodwell e and haswell e, however its thermals are higher, this leads to one of three possible conclusions.

1 Intel is being misleading about skylake x's TDP.

2 The TIM that Intel is using is not as effective as previous TIMs, thus responsible for higher temps.

3 A little bit of both.

Or the more likely explanation is because of higher clocks, a new cache design, a new mesh ring and AVX512 instructions that weren't present in Broadwell-E? You're acting as if the two CPUs are the exact same.

Quote

Even AIOs are having trouble with skylake x's temps, and this is with just the 10 core chip, how well do you think the higher core chips that are coming out will do?

An AIO can handle a stock or mildly overclocked i9-7900X just fine...

 

https://www.techspot.com/review/1437-overclocking-core-i9/

[He_162]

22 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

Ryzen scores around 140-160 in cinebench with single core.

2066 CPUs start at 200 and end at around 220.

 

That's not only 5-10%, but more like 20-25%.

I'm using Ryzen R7 1700 CPU and I'm happy with it overall. I only lack IPC or single threaded performance for one game ... otherwise it's great CPU.

Oh and also IMC ... that needs to be polished so we can acctually use 4 DIM sticks with 128GB total ram at 4200MHz  After they make that work, we are golden.

19% isn't 20 - 25%

I should also mention that most programs use 1 - 2 threads or more, and the combination of that and how good Ryzen's SMT is makes the results usually only 10 - 13% slower than X299, and then in programs where all available cores and threads are used, Ryzen takes the cake at the same price points, so I don't see the issue.

You should check out the latest BIOS updates, ram at that high of speeds works on Ryzen, even on 4 dimms.
^^^^
And if you knew anything about ram, I doubt you'd want 4200mhz, because the latency would be insane.

[Simon771]

2 minutes ago, He_162 said:

19% isn't 20 - 25%

I should also mention that most programs use 1 - 2 threads or more, and the combination of that and how good Ryzen's SMT is makes the results usually only 10 - 13% slower than X299, and then in programs where all available cores and threads are used, Ryzen takes the cake at the same price points, so I don't see the issue.

You should check out the latest BIOS updates, ram at that high of speeds works on Ryzen, even on 4 dimms.
^^^^
And if you knew anything about ram, I doubt you'd want 4200mhz, because the latency would be insane.

I did update my BIOS to agesa 1.0.0.6 is that's what you had in mind. I'm sticll stuck at 2933 CL14.

Was hoping to get 3200MHz CL15.

Not sure if I would be able to run 2933 CL14 on 4 sticks ... I would like to try one day, but I don't have money now to just go buying RAM  

 

When AMD will make 8 core chip that will score 200 in cinebench on single core, and will cost less than 4 core cpu from Intel ... that's when I will be happy and I will be able to proudly say that AMD beat Intel on all fronts. And trust me, I want that to happen

[Skanky Sylveon]

53 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

Or the more likely explanation is because of higher clocks, a new cache design, a new mesh ring and AVX512 instructions that weren't present in Broadwell-E? You're acting as if the two CPUs are the exact same.

I corrected myself about the higher clock speed, unless it took you 30 minutes to respond to my post, you would have seen that.

Perhaps Intel should have re evaluated skylake x's TDP?  After all they are different processors.

53 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

An AIO can handle a stock or mildly overclocked i9-7900X just fine...

 

https://www.techspot.com/review/1437-overclocking-core-i9/

I haven't seen that article, informative read, a 140 TDP CPU should be getting lower temps with that cooling solution however.

53 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

Again, nobody runs a $1000 chip without an adequate cooling solution. And seeing how at stock, the i9-7900X boosts up to 4GHz, the only way you're going to thermal throttle is if you have insufficient cooling which makes no sense in the first place.

I thought the 7900x boosts up to 4.3GHz.

Skylake x has trouble dissipating the heat it creates due to the TIM that it uses, while getting a more beefy cooling solution does work for the 10 core, it might not work for the 12, 14, 16 and 18 core chips that are coming out.

Better TIM would give better heat dissipation, which would be helpful for everyone.

[HKZeroFive]

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I corrected myself about the higher clock speed, unless it took you 30 minutes to respond to my post, you would have seen that.

Honestly did not see that. But the other factors, especially AVX512, are perfectly valid explanations.

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I haven't seen that article, informative read, a 140 TDP CPU should be getting lower temps with that cooling solution however.

Not denying it shouldn't. There are three explanations why:

 

-the first and most obvious is the lack of soldering. Kinda self explanatory for any well-informed hardware enthusiast.

-the second being AVX512 without a proper AVX offset implementation

-the third reason is the constant abuse of MCE by motherboards

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I thought the 7900x boosts up to 4.3GHz.

On all cores, it boosts up to 4GHz with MCE. See slide below:

 

 

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Skylake x has trouble dissipating the heat it creates due to the TIM that it uses, while getting a more beefy cooling solution does work for the 10 core, it might not work for the 12, 14, 16 and 18 core chips that are coming out.

Not denying that the lack of soldering is a problem but the same goes with Threadripper (albeit, not to the same extent). Power is always going to be proportional to v^2 * f. Both CPUs will need beefy cooling options. Skylake-X just has more headroom since it's not architecturally limited.

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Better TIM would give better heat dissipation, which would be helpful for everyone.

It sure would.