
AMD Threadripper 1950X review - jjuhl
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/amd-threadripper-review-1950x-1920x/
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pcunite
More cores and NVMe ... now this should be a computing upgrade for me. I'm
currently on an i5-3570K custom build from 2013. ECC is on my _to get_ list as
well. I'll miss the onboard video, however. But not a biggie.

I would really like to be able to test one of these things before buying. I
want to know how much faster _my workloads_ will be when doing the following:

* C++ compiles times in VS2015

* Sony Vegas render to an AVI file using Lagarith

* Handbrake render AVI to MP4

* Output Canon Raw files using Canon DPP

* Resize JPG files using FastStone Photo Resizer

* Search NVMe drives using FileSearchEX

* Running VMWare Workstation guests and their applications (Exchange Server, OS installs, etc.)

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olegkikin
I would really want to see a comparison with the previous generation Xeons,
which do drop in price much faster than the consumer CPUs. I feel like higher-
core ones will beat 1950X at tasks that multithread well.

Examples:

18-core Xeon E5-2686 v4 = $450
([http://www.ebay.com/itm/172668300615](http://www.ebay.com/itm/172668300615))

18-core Xeon E5 2695 V4 ES = $610
([http://www.ebay.com/itm/272620269793](http://www.ebay.com/itm/272620269793))

20-core Xeon E5-2698 v4 ES = $745
([http://www.ebay.com/itm/282579817803](http://www.ebay.com/itm/282579817803))

22-core Xeon E5 2699 V4 ES = $920
([http://www.ebay.com/itm/201883329486](http://www.ebay.com/itm/201883329486))

24-core Xeon E7-8890 v4 ES = $999
([http://www.ebay.com/itm/352113502495](http://www.ebay.com/itm/352113502495))

~~~
Boothroid
In my experience the motherboards are a downside when considering a Xeon
system - narrow range, expensive, often missing latest features, sub-optimal
in an everyday desktop machine. OTOH there are dual socket options which
threadripper doesn't have.

There was an article on building a dual Xeon box using cheap second hand chips
recently and I was seriously considering it until I saw the range and cost of
dual socket boards.

~~~
brudgers
I read this article
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12249317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12249317)
and had the same idea last year when I went to build a computer for the boy.
It wasn't just that the price of the motherboard was a killer, navigating the
subtle differences between similar server sockets and chips is hard. And used
motherboards are not cheap and often proprietary. Then there's the fact that
for a dual socket motherboard, a single chip is a bit economically
inefficient...so a pair of chips starts to make sense. And then a bigger power
supply. And still not good support for powerful graphics cards because...well,
you know...it's a server motherboard.

In the end, I got a bought the boy a used Dell Precision T7500 for less than I
would have paid for an equivalent case and power supply. Sure only six Xeon
cores and 12 threads. But a system with RAM, a windows license, a small hard
disk and 12GB of RAM was half the price of the cheapest
Threadripper...including shipping.

~~~
Boothroid
But again that will lack the latest features that you will be getting with a
Threadripper system, but I guess that might not matter to you. Bargains to be
had I agree.

~~~
brudgers
With similar budgets, half a dozen used Precision hexacore Xeon boxes is
within the realm of possibility. That's more cores and threads and memory
bandwidth to throw at workloads that significantly benefit from multi-
threading. Of course the premise is that most of the benefits from multi-
threading come from software rather than hardware.

From a systems perspective, there is a more robust pipeline of replacement
parts for the used boxes relative to the latest retail Threadripper
motherboards. More boxes means it is possible to stay up with a hardware
failure (which is to say that scaling out instead of scaling up means a
partial hardware failures versus total hardware failures).

There's no free lunch of course. All those 1100w power supplies are going to
equate to higher operating costs. And if first cost is no object then four or
five Threadripper boxes will outperform the older hardware. Likewise if having
the latest and greatest is part of the problem being solved.

YMMV.

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aidenn0
I'd be ineterested in seeing how they run the chromium build. It completes in
just over an hour on my Ryzen 1700.

~~~
robin_reala
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/11697/the-amd-ryzen-
threadripp...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/11697/the-amd-ryzen-
threadripper-1950x-and-1920x-review/11)

23.11 compiles per day vs 15.6 for the 1700. 50% faster.

~~~
aidenn0
Ah, it's on windows. That matches my experience that windows builds take about
50% longer than linux builds.

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justinjlynn
Does Ryzen have something similar to Intel's Processor Trace functionality?
It's pretty much the only thing keeping me tied to Intel at this point.

