Threadripper benchmarks breakdown

[Skanky Sylveon]

It's time for jack to let er rip!

[TigerHawk]

So I get why they test games on it at 1080p, to stress the cpu and not the gpu, but like......is that REALLY going to be the average usecase for owners after they've spent $1000+ on a cpu/motherboard? Do people with such high end machines seriously still game at 1080p? I switched to 1440p like....5 or 6 years ago and I only buy ~$300 cpus, not to mention that you can do virtual super resolution or whatever these days even if you have a 1080p monitor still.

I guess for 144hz maybe? Cause at 1440p and especially 4k gaming I bet every single one of those HEDT cpus would be within a few % of each other, margin of error type stuff.

Edit: Yes I get they would be awesome for streaming and gaming, but still...1080p? Is it still 2006?

[WereCat]

1 hour ago, Suika said:

So the question is, for me anyway, who's the intended audience? A streamer would be better suited taking their $1,500-1,700 budget and building a second PC with the sole purpose of video capture and streaming. A content creator, at least in Adobe Premiere, is still better off with CUDA acceleration... Is TR's attractiveness in PCIe lanes and 3D rendering? I'm honestly not convinced that TR, or X299 at this current time, is a platform I'd consider if I were a dedicated streamer or content creator. It is impressive to see AMD really competing with Intel in the enthusiast and professional market, but it seems niche now.

AdoredTV did a benchmark of Gaming + Streaming in a really high quality + local recording + encoding video in the background at the same time.

The CPU did not broke a sweat and had still almost 50% to spare while providing good gaming experience.

That was on the 16c32t 1950X.

 

I think that there is a value to get TR for streamers but definitely not the 16c unless you want to try the Placebo mode with x264 in OBS.

 

 

However, screw gaming benchmarks with TR. It its obviously not meant for that. I wouldn't have use for it as I don't do anything that my 4770k can't handle but other people may need it.

 

[WMGroomAK]

Probably one of the more interesting things in any of the articles on this I've read today is from Anandtech when they are discussing reaching out to Intel and AMD on where the 1950X sits competition wise.  

Quote

We asked both Intel and AMD to list what they consider would be the ideal competition for the Threadripper processors. Given that Threadripper is a consumer focused product – and interestingly, not really a workstation focused product – AMD expectantly stated that Intel’s current Core i9-7900X, a 10-core processor, is the product available today that best fits that role. A Xeon would be an workstation/enterprise product, which would not be sold in many prebuilt systems that Threadripper customers might want.

 

Intel surprised me, in saying exactly the same thing. They stated that the Core i9-7900X would be the best fit at the time of Threadripper’s launch. I half-expected them to suggest some form of cheaper 2P option, although when I followed them up as to why they didn’t suggest such a thing, it became obvious for two reasons: firstly, Intel’s Consumer and Intel’s Enterprise divisions are almost different companies with little crossover or insight into the other’s business. There are no unified press relations on this front: ask the consumer team, get the consumer answer. Ask the Enterprise team and they’re more focused on EPYC, not Threadripper. The second reason is that a ‘cheap 2P’ system doesn’t exist when you buy new – most online discussions about cheaper Intel 2P systems revolve around finding CPU bargains from the gray market or resellers.

I'm wondering if Intel may revise their assessment and suggest that the 1950X is more in competition with their upcoming 7960X as being competing 16-core CPUs...  

[Suika]

37 minutes ago, WereCat said:

AdoredTV did a benchmark of Gaming + Streaming in a really high quality + local recording + encoding video in the background at the same time.

The CPU did not broke a sweat and had still almost 50% to spare while providing good gaming experience.

That was on the 16c32t 1950X.

My argument here is why are you investing that much in a platform when you could invest even less in an i7-7700k and separate R5 1600 rig with a capture card that can accomplish the same thing, but yield better gaming performance and a similar viewer experience? Streaming just seems like an unusual justification when the superior solution is likely going to be an entire machine dedicated to the process, as opposed as to one machine to do it all. At least for me, it breaks down like this:

 

$1,310 for the i7-7700k and R5 1600 system, better gaming experience and similar viewer experience (not including components like storage that would be included in the TR build)

 

i7-7700k - $300

 

H100i - $100

16GB - $120

Z270 - $150

 

R5 1600 - $200

B350 - $80

16GB - $120

Capture Device - $150

Extra PSU - $50

Extra case - $40

 

vs.

$1,540 for Threadripper, with inferior gaming performance and similar viewer experience (Ryzen can't hit 144Hz as easily as Intel, which immediately doesn't sell to me). Also less spacious than a second rig, probably less power consumption, but being a new platform, it may not be as easy to deal with.

 

1920X - $800

 

H100i - $100 (dunno if compatible, just assuming)

32GB - $240

TR4 - $400

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to own one of these chips as impractical as it is, but it seems to entertain a more niche audience than just "streamers and content creators." I mean, my 5930k is still plenty to get by when simultaneously playing and recording. The massive thread advantage to Threadripper doesn't yield enough of a benefit to justify it to me. You'd really have to go overkill from what most streamers do to really sell it.

[XenosTech]

1 hour ago, Suika said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The HEDT platform is more of an epeen thing now.... Most will get it for bench marking and ocing then there's the folks who need a rig for number crunching so more cores matter to them or strong AVX performance matters to them most. Then some people want to work/stream/game from the same pc because they don't have the space for another pc that's all it really boils down to.. What fits my scenario better

[Bouzoo]

3 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Is not permanent you know, probably a reboot away so with an SSD maybe less than a minute.

I mean I know, but why...? Unless we're talking playing old games, literally no reason (even that at this point that makes no sense). 

[Bouzoo]

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

If they want to go from productivity to gaming. 

Seeing benchmarks, tested games run the same or better than at R5 1600/X. Even many older games would run the same. Not many games need that nowadays. 

[ApolloFury]

One thing I find inconsistent in all reviews is the power consumption. Half claim it is under i9-7900X and the other half claim same or slightly over. A bit confusing.

[WMGroomAK]

1 minute ago, ApolloFury said:

One thing I find inconsistent in all reviews is the power consumption. Half claim it is under i9-7900X and the other half claim same or slightly over. A bit confusing.

Power draw is one of those things that I think everyone is measuring differently and under different loads...  Some measure at the EPS cable, others are measuring wall draw and I think they are using different benchmarks to get the load values...  Would be nice if everyone did it consistently though.

[leadeater]

47 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

I mean I know, but why...? Unless we're talking playing old games, literally no reason (even that at this point that makes no sense). 

It's not even just old games, news games don't understand NUMA at all since that is normally a two socket system which in gaming is even more rare than dual GPU. Game engines don't have any thread management logic to keep cross communication within the same NUMA node so will often pick a non optimal core to place a thread on causing a latency hit for inter-core communication.

 

AMD is counting on Windows thread management which is NUMA aware to place threads in the same NUMA boundary, game mode makes the CPU report as 2 NUMA nodes and creator mode makes the CPU report as single NUMA node.

 

Edit:

Also high end workstation applications are usually NUMA aware like Solid Works or Adobe Suite as those are used in dual socket Xeon workstations.

[BuckGup]

Dude intel is screwed. Sure it's slightly behind Intel in gaming but destroys it in everything else and still is only a tiny fracture slower in gaming. So $799 or $1600? You choose

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

I mean I know, but why...? Unless we're talking playing old games, literally no reason (even that at this point that makes no sense). 

4.5 would yield useful increases in IPC for when people might want to do 144hz gaming yet you can reboot and have your 12/24 for non-action games and productivity, just a minute or two.

 

See this computer devices can actually do many different things and people also might have varied interests with them like playing Counterstrike then editing counterstrike video footage.

[VagabondWraith]

47 minutes ago, ApolloFury said:

One thing I find inconsistent in all reviews is the power consumption. Half claim it is under i9-7900X and the other half claim same or slightly over. A bit confusing.

What's up with Tom Logan's power consumption? I mean, an overclocked processor will obviously pull more watts but holy sh!t this doesn't seem right. I haven't read Tom's full review yet to see what he was testing to get that number, bit holy moly that looks awfully high.

 

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

I like how people trying to find reasons against TR. 

They talk about gaming like they forgot the whole reason of going HEDT in the first place. 

This is a gaming focused forum after all, people usually talk about areas that are most relatable to themselves. I did make a comment a day or so ago though that AMD could in the next revision of Zen/TR implement a more sophisticated power management feature that could solely boost one die when the workload permits, you would still need NUMA mode on though to push the load on to a single die more reliably unless game engines become TR aware (HA not likely).

 

Zen+ TR with 8 core 4.5GHz boost would be awesome, dreams are free though.

[DarkBlade2117]

If I may ask, I've never done to much research into this, but as far as I know, unlike GPUs with CPUs every setting you change is done VIA BIOs. With the "rumors"(I've not even read through the any articles or watched any videos yet), of TR being able to get a few hundred Mhz boost when disabling cores,  would some program or something to say switch it from the 12c/24t or any TR CPU down to a 4c/8t or 6c/12t via program or even a readily available hardware switch that doesn't require a restart to give it high clock speed for those who do intend on purchasing Threadripper for their 3D rendering or heavy photo editing though aswell as game?

[VFe]

I'll say this, TR(and Epyc) are incredibly attractive to Unreal4 developers, UE4 has several highly parallel compilation steps that benefit from just massive amounts of cores. So at the very least these are optimal processors for highend game developers.

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 minute ago, VFe said:

I'll say this, TR(and Epyc) are incredibly attractive to Unreal4 developers, UE4 has several highly parallel compilation steps that benefit from just massive amounts of cores. So at the very least these are optimal processors for highend game developers.

Building lighting comes to mind.  The difference from just 4 cores to 6 is pretty large.

[Marinatall_Ironside]

3 minutes ago, VFe said:

I'll say this, TR(and Epyc) are incredibly attractive to Unreal4 developers, UE4 has several highly parallel compilation steps that benefit from just massive amounts of cores. So at the very least these are optimal processors for highend game developers.

I also wondered if CryEngine V also benefits from this as well. I haven't tinkered around in either engine enough and only worked with Unity in class.

[VFe]

4 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Building lighting comes to mind.  The difference from just 4 cores to 6 is pretty large.

Building lighting, compiling shaders, and C++ compilation all scale well to about 50~ cores before you start seeing diminishing returns.

 

TR is attractive, but highly considering a 64core Epyc build for UE4.

 

TR is probably the best bang for the buck though, for a cheaper build.

[Jahramika]

Not many comments for the new King of CPUs while using less power and producing less heat = but hurt Intel fans.

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 minute ago, VFe said:

Building lighting, compiling shaders, and C++ compilation all scale well to about 50~ cores before you start seeing diminishing returns.

 

TR is attractive, but highly considering a 64core Epyc build for UE4.

 

TR is probably the best bang for the buck though, for a cheaper build.

Unreal is also capable of multi threaded workloads, with some limitations.

 

It's also not easy to implement.  However, I wonder in a post Threadripper world if more developers will consider multi threading.

[Guest]

Well, steve from hardware unboxed did an interesting comparison comparing both threadripper cpu's against the core i9-7900X and when it came to the multi core performance benchmarks, threadripper smashed the core i9, but when it came to gaming, threadripper didn't do so well in certain games. In the gaming benchmarks, there were 2 memory access modes, the distribute mode and local mode. These memory settings did improve threadrippers performance in the gaming benchmarks, but only by a small margin.

 

 

[VFe]

1 minute ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Unreal is also capable of multi threaded workloads, with some limitations.

 

It's also not easy to implement.  However, I wonder in a post Threadripper world if more developers will consider multi threading.

For games in particular it's difficult, you kinda have to assume a "base" level of access to cores in your designs, we're only just recently seeing games that require 4 cores to run well, gonna be a long time.

 

It's possible to put certain game elements in expanding thread pools to make use of all available cores, but there's a very small amount of systems you can do that with, majority of the engine will be stuck to 1-4 cores by design.

 

A lot of this is Amdhal's law at play, rather than a design challenge that can be overcome.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Unreal is also capable of multi threaded workloads, with some limitations.

 

It's also not easy to implement.  However, I wonder in a post Threadripper world if more developers will consider multi threading.

In terms of the threadripper 64 core EPYC cpu, are they using the same dye configuration as the threadripper 1950X and 1920X. (two dummie dyes and 2 active dyes)