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  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I have a ThreadRipper Pro 3955WX, and I discovered something interesting about the memory bandwidth.

    Originally, I bought 4x64 GB ECC RDIMM because I thought 256 GB might be enough, and I wanted to leave some empty RAM slots to populate with 128 GB RDIMMs if those ever became cost-effective. (Right now, 128 GB RDIMMs are about triple the price of 64 GB.)

    CPU-Z and AIDA64 reported "quad" channel memory, and AIDA64's memory benchmarks showed reasonable memory performance.

    But I discovered that 256 GB wasn't enough for my application, so I bought 2 more 64 GB RDIMMs.

    At this point, I had 6 DIMMs populated. CPU-Z and AIDA64 both reported "hexa" channel memory, but AIDA64's memory benchmarks showed that my memory performance was about 2/3 that of a Ryzen.

    So I bought 2 more RDIMMs again, for a total of 8. Now, my memory benchmark in AIDA64 is much closer to expected.

    So the moral of the story is: you can populate 4 DIMMs, or you can populate 8, but don't dare populate 6. Populating precisely 6 DIMMs will absolutely cripple your memory performance, whereas 4 DIMMs still have acceptable performance.
  • kobblestown - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    The 3955 probably has only 2 CCDs and is therefore limited to 4 DDR channels throughput. It seems that each IF link has the throughput of 2 DDR channels and this makes sense.

    You should keep in mind that the IO die has in effect 4 dual channel controllers and you may have populated them suboptimally. If you have two dual channel controllers fully populated and two half populated (instead of a third fully populated and the fourth one staying empty) you'll have skewed results. Also, there was some noise about Milan working better with 6 channel configurations so it may be something specific to Rome chips.
  • Rudde - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Server providers had requested for 6 channel memory support for server processors and that was implemented in Milan.
  • McFig - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    What kobblestown is suggesting is that maybe Mikewind Dale could have gotten the 6 RDIMMs working by moving one of them so that each pair is fully populated.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    McFig, there are only 8 slots, so I'm not sure how I could have moved the 6 DIMMs among the 8 slots to ensure that each pair is populated.
  • 1_rick - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    He probably means "each of 3 pairs fully populated".
  • DougMcC - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I think the question is whether 3/3 is better than 4/2
  • kobblestown - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    Heya! Sorry for the nebulous formulation. In terms of the number of DIMMS per memory controller, I suggest having 2+2+2+0 instead of 2+1+2+1. One needs to figure out what this means for any particular MB. But as DougMcC suggests, that would probably mean having 4 DIMMs on one side of the CPU and 2 on the other, rather than having 3 DIMMs on each side. The latter is bound to be suboptimal. Whether the former offers an improvement is something that I would be very interested to know but could be that Rome has some shortcoming in this area which is addressed in Milan.

    Again, dual CCD configurations are limited to 4 channel bandwidth but it's still worth it to have all channels populated so you don't get bitten by badly handled assymetry and the IO does not fight (too much) with the cores for the bandwidth.
  • kobblestown - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    BTW, one should also check the memory interleaving options in the UEFI. Maybe the way the IO die aggregates the memory channels can be tweaked to achive the expected performance even with 6 DIMMs. Or maybe that's only achievable with Milan.
  • Mikewind Dale - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    Ahhh, I see what you mean. Thanks. Well, I have 8 DIMMs now, and I don't want to mess with my system any more. Maybe Anandtech can test this.
  • Rocket_Scientist - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    I want to know who spends 5 grand on a processor but doesn't spend the few extra dollars to utilize all 8 memory channels!
  • Mikewind Dale - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    The 3955WX processor "only" costs $1,150, while each stick of 64 GB RAM costs $350.

    And I wanted to keep some empty slots in case 128 GB RDIMMs became affordable. But I didn't know that using 6 channels would cause so much performance degradation.
  • mode_13h - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    > who spends 5 grand on a processor but doesn't spend
    > the few extra dollars to utilize all 8 memory channels!

    Although I tend to agree, the article did reveal some benchmarks where the additional bandwidth provides negligible benefit.
  • lmh - Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - link

    Can you share what memory bandwidth you actually measured in the 3955WX 8-channel configuration?
  • McFig - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    There’s an error in the table “AMD 32-Core Zen 2 Comparison”: The MSRPs are mixed up.
  • McFig - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Also: “code bath”; “Undreal” (I’m guessing should be “Unreal”?); “but also the updates” (e.g. could be “but also there were significant updates”)
  • SarahKerrigan - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I kind of like "Code Bath."
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    " This is part of AMD’s guaranteed supply chain process, allowing OEMs to hard lock processors into certain vendors for supply chain end-to-end security that is requested by specific customers."

    I ASSUME that's a feature a certain OS vendor can't access.

    "Only select vendors seem to have access/licenses to make WRX80 motherboards, and your main options are:"

    I've seen the Giga offered as a burn-in special with a bundled processor, making it a better deal. The Asus is nice but I have to wonder if it's worth all the features.
  • DesireeTR - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    No, It's worse. There's article about AMD Platform Secure Boot Feature (PSB) by servethehome together with Dell EMC. It basically burns permanently a public key of the OEM into the EPYC processor. It creates a guarantee that both motherboard and processor are not tampered. If you move your processor from OEM A that enabled PSB to motherboard of OEM B, AMD Secure Processor considers that as tampering and stops it working. The reverse is true.

    Some OEM are very strict (Dell EMC does this by hardware burn-in), some are less strict (HPE use
  • DesireeTR - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    HPE only locks the public key in the firmware, and perform tamper check on BIOS only). And I guess before long, all PRO processor might get the same PSB feature too.
  • DesireeTR - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    OK, found the news too. IDK if I can link any other website here other than Anandtech, but look for "Lenovo is Using AMD PSB to Vendor Lock AMD CPUs" from servethehome, dated April 5th 2021. Lenovo P620 with Threadripper Pro was tested and found that they used the strict PSB lock-in like Dell do on their PowerEdge servers.
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I think "permanently" is the biggest concern, otherwise it could be a great feature as part of a "root of trust" if the user could control it, especially via hardware modification. e.g. jumper.
  • DesireeTR - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Yeah, and if this trend continues, the Ryzen PRO definitely is next on the line getting this PSB. Laptops might be OK, since they use soldered BGA processor anyway, but definitely a big no no for prebuild towers.
  • arashi - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    If it can be overridden like that then it isn't a root of trust anymore.
  • Threska - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    There's the presumption you trust yourself.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Dear Anandtech: If you ever review the motherboards, I'll relate something a few things I discovered about the Supermicro M12SWA-TF:

    First, it cannot use sleep mode. If you put the computer to sleep, then when you wake it up, the fans will all spin at low RPM, and they will fail to adjust to temperature. HWiNFO64 reports two sets of sensors: one set is direct, and the other is indirect, via the IPMI. After waking from sleep, the direct sensor readings were still reported, but the indirect-via-IPMI sensors were all null. When I logged into the BMC/IPMI, all the sensors were null there too. And when I ran a CPU burn-in after waking from sleep, my CPU temperature quickly climbed higher than normal, and the fans did NOT ramp up their RPM. (I was prepared for this, so I was running only a single-threaded CPU benchmark.)

    Not only did rebooting the computer fix the problem, but so did Windows hibernate. The fact that Windows hibernate fixed the problem told me that the problem was hardware, not OS.

    I contacted Supermicro, and they said this behavior is normal (!!!!!!). They explained that the IPMI controls the fan RPM, but it only connects to the sensors during POST. If you put the computer to sleep, the IPMI loses its connection to the sensors, and it cannot resume that connection until the computer POSTs again.

    So if you review the motherboards, make sure to test the sleep behavior.

    Second, the Supermicro board is programmed with critical low fan RPM threshholds that are lower than Noctua's RPM. If you Google, you'll see a lot of people have problems with using Noctua fans with Supermicro boards. What happens is, the the Noctua fan's RPM will drop below the critical low RPM threshholds, so the Supermicro board will think the fan is failing, and it will quickly ramp the fan up to 100% PWM. Once the fan exceeds the critical low RPM threshold, the alert will end, and the fan will drop its RPM back down again, starting the cycle over. So the fans cycle back and forth between high and low RPM. When I logged into the IPMI, I saw that I every single fan was triggering the low RPM alert every few seconds.

    The solution is to reprogram the IPMI with new critical low RPM thresholds. Supermicro's own IPMI software does NOT allow this, because Supermicro explained to me that some people have overheated and fried their motherboards using insufficient cooling. So I had to use a third-party tool called "ipmitool".

    Usually, ipmitool is obtained via "sudo apt-get install ipmitool". However, I found that the Linux version was unable to establish a connection with my BMC, even though other IPMI tools had no problem with establishing that connection. But other IPMI tools did not have the ability to reprogram the fan thresholds.

    Luckily, the Windows version of ipmitool was able to establish a connection and alter my fan thresholds just fine. The Windows version is available at https://www.dannynieuwenhuis.nl/download-windows-i...

    If you Google, you'll find many, many different websites offering instructions for how to use ipmitool to modify your Supermicro board to be compatible with Noctua fans. I'll just give a few sample lines of code here, in case anyone needs them:

    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN1 lower 40 140 240
    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN1 upper 1650 1750 1850

    Where:
    --- FAN1 is the name of the fan header, as labeled in the motherboard manual. Options are FAN1-FAN6 and FANA-FAND.
    --- "lower" numbers are lower non-recoverable, lower critical, and lower non-critical, in that order.
    --- "upper" numbers are upper non-critical, upper critical, and upper non-recoverable, in that order.

    To calculate the thresholds, I did the following:
    First, I looked up Noctua's specs. FAN1 is my Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3. According to Noctua, its fan's RPM are 300 +/-20% to 1500 +/- 10% RPM.
    Second, I set the lower non-critical to 300*0.8 (i.e. -20%) and the upper non-critical to 1500*1.1 (i.e. +10%).
    Third, for the critical and non-recoverable thresholds, I just added or subtracted 100%.

    Do the same for every other fan in every other header. I wrote about every line in a .BAT file in Windows, which read like this:

    REM **************************************************************************************************
    REM **********
    REM FAN1 is Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3: 300 +/-20% to 1500 +/- 10% RPM
    REM **********

    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN1 lower 40 140 240
    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN1 upper 1650 1750 1850
    REM **************************************************************************************************

    REM **************************************************************************************************
    REM **********
    REM FAN2 is Noctua NF-A15: 300 +/- 20% to 1200 +/- 10%
    REM **********

    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN2 lower 40 140 240
    ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ipaddress> -U <username> -P <password> sensor thresh FAN2 upper 1320 1420 1520
    REM **************************************************************************************************

    and so forth, for every fan header. This successfully solved the problem of the fans triggering the threshold alerts and cycling up and down.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    "Second, the Supermicro board is programmed with critical low fan RPM threshholds that are lower than Noctua's RPM."

    I meant *higher*. The Supermicro default critical low fan RPM thresholds are *higher* than Noctua's.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Oh, and because sleep mode is dangerous, threatening to potentially fry your CPU (since the fans no longer respond to temperature), I not only set my computer never to sleep, but I removed sleep from the power options in the start menu. That way, I cannot accidentally put the computer to sleep.

    If you do ever put your Supermicro M12SWA-TF to sleep, you will not receive any alerts that every sensor is null. If you log into the BMC, you'll see every sensor is null, but there are no alerts. And the fans all spin at minimum RPM regardless of your fan setting, and regardless of temperature. So sleep mode appears to have the potential to fry your CPU.
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    You keep saying "fry" but haven't CPUs had thermal protection for ages at this point?
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Threska, possibly. But I didn't want to find out.

    At best, sleep mode would cause the computer to constantly downclock or shut down without any clear cause (unless the user realized it was because sleep mode deactivated the IPMI's reporting of the sensors while the sensors themselves were still reporting values to software such as HWiNFO).
  • Spunjji - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    Having seen how modern processors behave with insufficient cooling, Threska's right that it won't get "fried", but you're correct to infer that it would result in unpredictably sub-optimal performance.

    Anecdotally, I had a friend with a Sandy Bridge system with a cooling issue that he only noticed when he bought a new GPU and ran 3DMark and got unexpectedly low results. The "cooling issue" was that the stock heatsink wasn't even making contact with the CPU heat-spreader; he'd been gaming with the system for 3 years by that point. 😬
  • serpretetsky - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    I had to do some thermal shutdown testing on some consumer intel cpu. I forgot which one. Maybe i5/i7 8000 series?

    With server CPUs this was usually pretty easy, remove fan, and wait for shutdown. With the consumer CPU it kept running. So i completely removed the heatsink, the thing simply downclocked to 800 MHz, and continued running happily with no heatsink. Booted to linux, ran everything great, and no heatsink (actually once it booted to linux I think it even started clocking back up once in a while). I had get a hot-air soldering gun to heat it up till shutdown.
  • mode_13h - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    5-10 years ago, there was a heatsink gasket where you have to get near 100 degrees C to melt the material so it fuses with the heatsink and CPU. I forget the name, but I'm wondering if it's even possible to do that any more.
  • skaurus - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    That's great analysis.
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    It would be nice to see how these MBs do with VFIO since that has considerations most users don't.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Ian, is the source code for your 3DPM benchmark published anywhere? If not, it would be nice if we could see it and compare the AVX2 path with the AVX-512 one. Also, maybe someone could add support for ARM NEON or SVE.
  • techguymaxc - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I'm slightly confused by the concluding remarks.

    "Performance between Threadripper Pro and Threadripper came in three stages. Either (a) the results between similar processors was practically identical, (b) Threadripper beat TR Pro by a small margin due to slightly higher frequencies, or (c) TR Pro thrashed Threadripper due to memory bandwidth availability. That last point, (c), only really kicks in for the 32c and 64c processors it should be noted. Our 16c TR Pro had the same memory bandwidth results as TR, most likely due to only having two chiplets in its design."

    A and B are observable, but C only proves true in synthetic benchmarks (and Pi calculation). Is there a real-world use-case for the additional memory bandwidth, outside of calculating Pi?
  • Blastdoor - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    The advantage shows up with multi-threaded SPEC. SPEC is essentially a composite of a suite of real-world tasks. I guess you could call it 'synthetic' due to it being a composite, but the individual tasks don't strike me as 'synthetic.' For example, here's a description of namd: https://www.spec.org/cpu2017/Docs/benchmarks/508.n...
  • techguymaxc - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Thanks for that info. It would be nice to see the breakdown of individual test results from the SPEC suite.
  • arashi - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    Bench
  • mode_13h - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    Sometimes they do show it. I wonder why not, this time?

    One thing to note is how some of the same applications they benchmark in standalone tests are *also* included in SPEC17. So, those tests can get over-represented.
  • Blastdoor - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Re:

    "We are patiently waiting for AMD to launch Threadripper versions with Zen 3 – we hoped it would have been at Computex in June, but now we’re not sure exactly when."

    Maybe it will happen when Intel offers something remotely competitive in this market? Or maybe when supply constraints ease and AMD can fully meet demand?
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Chagall (Threadripper 5000-series) is rumored to launch in August.
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Long as AMD sticks to the same socket the platform should have longevity just like AM4.
  • Bernecky - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Your "AMD Comparison" shows Threadripper DRAM as: 4×DDR4-3200.
    This is incorrect: I have a 3970X running on an ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme II Alpha, with
    256GB: 8×DDR4-3600(OC slightly).

    The Alpha no longer appears on the ASUS web site. Not sure what happened to it.
  • JMC2000 - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    The "4xDDR-3200" is referencing 4 channels @ a non-overclocked speed of 3200; what you have is 8 DDR4 DIMMs in 4 channels.
  • Railgun - Sunday, July 18, 2021 - link

    Still here on the UK site.

    https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards-Components/Mo...
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    ‘The only downside to EPYC is that it can only be used in single socket systems, and the peak memory support is halved (from 4 TB to 2 TB).’

    Eh?

    I assume you meant TR Pro. A big downside is that it’s Zen 2.
  • Thanny - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Ryzen and Threadripper support ECC memory just fine. It's only registered memory that isn't supported, which is why you can only get 128GB into a Ryzen platform and 256GB into a Threadripper platform (32GB is the largest unbuffered DIMM you can get).

    The motherboard must also support it, which not all Ryzen motherboards do. But all Threadripper boards support ECC. I'm using 128GB of unbuffered ECC right now with a 3960X.
  • willis936 - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    >Ryzen and Threadripper support ECC memory just fine

    A common misconception. Error reporting does not work with any AM4 chipset on non-pro AMD processors. Sure you have ECC, maybe. How do you know the soft error rate isn't massive?
  • Mikewind Dale - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Error reporting is not the same thing as error correction.

    Error correction without error reporting is still better than most mainstream platforms, which don't even support error correction, let alone reporting.
  • Mikewind Dale - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    I just tested ECC error reporting. It worked. Using my motherboard's EZ Overclock utility, I overclocked my DDR4-2666 to 3600. Then, I ran Memtest86 Pro.

    Within the first 27 seconds, Memtest86 Pro reported 17 "ECC Correctable Errors."

    My motherboard is a Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi.
    My CPU is a Ryzen 7 2700X, non-Pro.

    Evidently, ECC reporting *is* working on an ordinary AM4 chipset with a non-Pro processor.
  • mode_13h - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    > ECC reporting *is* working on an ordinary AM4 chipset with a non-Pro processor.

    Definitely not on the non-pro APUs, however.
  • vegemeister - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Since when does non-pro Threadripper lack ECC memory support? ASRock lists ECC support and several ECC kits in the QVL for thier TRX40 Creator motherboard.

    Perhaps you meant registered memory support?
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Is regular TR officially qualified by AMD for ECC? That might matter to some bureaucracies.
  • drAgonear - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Yes, that ECC support is validated and advertised is one of the differences between regular Ryzen and "regular TR". The article is just wrong. scroll down a little bit on https://www.amd.com/en/products/ryzen-threadripper
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    Also, a lot of Ryzen motherboards support ECC. For example, my Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi says it supports ECC. I have a Ryzen 7 2700X non-Pro with Kingston DDR4-2933 ECC UDIMM, and whenever I query Windows ("wmic memphysical get memoryerrorcorrection") or other programs (e.g. AIDA64, Memtest86, etc.), they all say that I have ECC.
  • Threska - Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - link

    I think "verified" is the important part.
  • Mikewind Dale - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    I just tested ECC error reporting. It worked. Using my motherboard's EZ Overclock utility, I overclocked my DDR4-2666 to 3600. Then, I ran Memtest86 Pro.

    Within the first 27 seconds, Memtest86 Pro reported 17 "ECC Correctable Errors."

    My motherboard is a Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi.
    My CPU is a Ryzen 7 2700X, non-Pro.

    Evidently, ECC reporting *is* working on an ordinary AM4 chipset with a non-Pro processor.
  • mode_13h - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    > ECC reporting *is* working on an ordinary AM4 chipset with a non-Pro processor.

    Definitely not on the non-pro APUs, however.

    (and you can just refer to your above post, rather than repeat the whole thing)
  • Thanny - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Your Blender results for the 3960X are off by a lot. I rendered the same scene with mine in 173 seconds. That's with PBO enabled, so it'll be a bit faster than stock, but not 20% faster.

    My guess is that you didn't warm Blender up properly first. When starting a render for the first time, it has to do some setup work, which is timed with the rest of the render, but only needs to be done once.

    I'd expect a stock 3960X to be in the neighborhood of 180 seconds.
  • 29a - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    "Firstly, because we need an AI benchmark, and a bad one is still better than not having one at all."

    I 100% disagree with this statement. Bad data is worse than no data at all.
  • arashi - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    But but but what about the few (<10) clicks they'd lose for not having lousy CPU based AI benchmarks!
  • willis936 - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Availability of entry level ECC CPUs (AMD pro and Intel Xeon E-2200/W) is really low. It's unfortunate. People don't have the cash for $10k systems right now but the need for ECC has only gone up. I hope for more editorials calling for mainstream ECC.
  • Threska - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Linus is mainstream enough.

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/linus-torv...
  • Mikewind Dale - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    At least mainstream desktop Ryzens tend to support ECC, even if not officially validated.

    What frustrates me is that laptop Ryzens don't support ECC at all - not even the Ryzen Pros.

    Every Ryzen Pro laptop I've seen lacks ECC support, and some of them even have non-ECC memory soldered to the motherboard.

    If you want an ECC laptop, it appears you have literally no choice at all but a Xeon laptop for $5,000.
  • mode_13h - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    > laptop Ryzens don't support ECC at all - not even the Ryzen Pros.

    It probably depends on the laptop. If its motherboard doesn't have the extra traces for the ECC bits, then of course it won't.
  • Mikewind Dale - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    It depends on the laptop, yes. But I haven't found a single Ryzen Pro laptop from a single company that supports ECC.

    AMD's website ("Where to Buy AMD Ryzen™ PRO Powered Laptops") lists HP ProBook, HP EliteBook, and Lenovo Thinkpad. But none of them support ECC.
  • mode_13h - Saturday, July 17, 2021 - link

    > I haven't found a single Ryzen Pro laptop from a single company that supports ECC.

    Thanks for the datapoint. Maybe someone will buck the trend, but it's also possible they judged the laptop users who really care about ECC would also prefer a dGPU and therefore won't be using APUs.
  • mode_13h - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    > I hope for more editorials calling for mainstream ECC.

    You'll probably just get inferior in-band ECC.
  • Threska - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    One could have more than one.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/mc8j2c/...

    Especially depending upon the memory type.

    https://semiengineering.com/what-designers-need-to...
  • croc - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    The first year anniversary of the Threadripper Pro! And a timely review to celebrate it! Not the CPU, the release... Because that might be the last Threadripper we see for quite some time....

    I get the impression that AMD has been in the position of runer up for so long now that they don't know how to capitalize on a lead. Either that or by selling off their fab they have lost touch with how to design for fabrication, which might explain their failure to deliver product at the 7NM node. Unfilled Epycs, no Zen 3 Threadrippers...
  • mode_13h - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    What a croc!
    ; )

    > that might be the last Threadripper we see for quite some time....

    The announcement for Chagall is rumored to be coming in August, with volume shipping in September. Have you heard otherwise?

    > by selling off their fab they have lost touch with how to design for fabrication

    Huh? Why do you think the issue is design-related?

    And if we're contemplating counter-factuals, then let's not lose sight of the fact that GF is still on 12 nm. And if AMD still owned them, we should also consider whether the whole enterprise would still be doing business, at all.

    > which might explain their failure to deliver product at the 7NM node.

    Or maybe they're in the same boat as everyone else, facing higher demand and restricted supply?
  • croc - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    Lemmee see.... Wasn't Chagall an artist? And wasn't the code name for the Threadripper Zen 3 to be Genesis Peak? And aren't you quoting a rumor? Have there been ANY leaked benchmarks? Has ANY processor EVER launched without leaked benchmarks?

    The lack of things often speak volumes...
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    > And aren't you quoting a rumor?

    Yes, that's exactly what I said.

    > Have there been ANY leaked benchmarks?
    > Has ANY processor EVER launched without leaked benchmarks?

    It's a niche product. There typically aren't many motherboard options for them (and even fewer, at launch). I think it's not surprising, if there aren't any benchmark leaks as of yet. There won't be many engineering samples floating around.

    Anyway, we'll know within about 5 weeks if there's any truth to the rumor.
  • croc - Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - link

    I will know when a bios with AGESA support for a Zen 3 Threadripper arrives. None have arrived yet, and typically they do so about a month prior. Chagal is an artist, and artist names are usually reserved for apus. Supposedly the next TR will use the TRX40 socket, which means that there are many MBs for testing / leaking. Given that the Epyc still uses the SP3 socket, I believe this to be tue The latest 'chagall' rumor is that it won't release before Sept, mebbe as late as November. Gotta love them movable goal posts

    Personaly, I don't think that AMD can get the cores to deliver at the frequencies required for an HEDT product Hell, given their back orders for their server chip I doubt that they even care. Bigger fish to fry, all that. Still, a bit of egg-on-face for Dr. Su. And niche? don't tell the CGI world that they are niche...
  • Qasar - Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - link

    sorry croc, but you could be wrong, looks like TR based on zen 3 could be Chagall, and on both STRX4 and SWRX8, at least according to here :
    https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-threadripper...
    https://www.notebookcheck.net/Zen-3-based-Ryzen-Th...

    from moores law is dead, a video about TR zen 3 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-7Q_VsWUM
    but no concrete info as of yet, but a search on google for threadripper zen 3, all seems to say the same, code name chagall
  • croc - Saturday, July 24, 2021 - link

    No new BIOS since April... 7 days to August, so looks like another no-show, eh...
  • Qasar - Saturday, July 24, 2021 - link

    and the point is ? considering their has been no official announcement from amd when zen 3 TR is to be released, why would there be a bios for it yet ?
    the point of my reply was that you could be wrong on the code name, not the release date.

    at least amd HAS a HEDT cpu, when was the last one from intel ?

    bottom line : all there are, are rumors, which should be taken with some salt.
  • croc - Monday, July 26, 2021 - link

    That would be the Xeon w-3175x
  • Qasar - Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - link

    sorry but that is not HEDT, workstation, sure. the last HEDT platform intel had was x299 and socket 2066
    socket 3647, is there server/workstation platform, but hey if you consider a US $3k cpu to be a HEDT processor, then that's your choice :-)
  • mode_13h - Monday, July 26, 2021 - link

    > at least amd HAS a HEDT cpu, when was the last one from intel ?

    Intel is doing an Ice Lake workstation platform. Not sure if HEDT will follow.
  • mode_13h - Sunday, July 25, 2021 - link

    > 7 days to August

    The rumor was that it would be *announced* at some point in August. It didn't say when, in August, but the rumored ship date wasn't until sometime in September. But it's just a rumor.
  • croc - Monday, July 26, 2021 - link

    MY point is that the BIOS updates usually happen about a month before the product announcement. Not to mention some benchmarks and other 'leaked' information. Y'know,,, Hype generation, direct from horsey's mouth. August announcement? Don't think so. Chagall? Possible, but would break convention, not that AMD really has any when it comes to code names...
  • mode_13h - Monday, July 26, 2021 - link

    > BIOS updates usually happen about a month before the product announcement.

    Before announcement or ship?

    > Hype generation

    Seems to me that it's not necessary, in this case. AMD will already have more demand than it can satisfy.
  • Qasar - Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - link

    " Not to mention some benchmarks and other 'leaked' information "
    considering how few leaks and info have come out about amd's products as of late until quite close to release, im not surprised there is little info out there about zen 3 TR

    " Hype generation "
    which amd doesnt need all that much, their products are more interesting then intels right now, intel needs the hype, not amd ;-)
  • Mikewind Dale - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    Given how much trouble Intel has had with their new process - even though Intel used to be the industry leader in fabrication - I suspect that if AMD had kept fabrication in-house, they'd be in serious trouble right.

    GlobalFoundries has also had trouble moving to a new, cutting-edge process. At the moment, they'd decided to stay one process behind TSMC, and cater to the portion of the market that doesn't need a cutting-edge process.
  • anakhizer - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    The article is excellent! However, the ordering of data in the tables is absolutely terrible.

    Please figure out how to sort the tables in a more logical manner like performance. As the tables are they are pretty much unreadable if you want to get the performance numbers with a glance.
  • kensiko - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    Performance wise, looking at all those graphs, the 5950x is such a great deal ! I really love my 5950x. I did love my TR1950x, it was not getting as hot at my 5950x. But no way I'm going back to Threadripper for just a home PC. Event at work I don't think we would get a Threadripper again, the Epyc gives what we want even if the frequency is a bit lower.
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    Threadripper still makes a lot of sense for people who have scalable workloads (or run lots of VMs) and who don't need the full memory bandwidth or PCIe lanes of EPYC or TR Pro.

    I personally wouldn't buy one, but they're popular for deep learning workstations and Linus Torvalds famously has one.
  • Threska - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    VFIO would be more popular if video card makers weren't tight with GPU-pasthrough.

    https://forum.level1techs.com/t/the-vfio-and-gpu-p...

    CPUs like Threadripper would be a great fit.
  • FLORIDAMAN85 - Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - link

    Alt title: AMD, faster than Intel in Crysis, again.
  • quadibloc - Thursday, July 22, 2021 - link

    It's too bad it took so long for this chip to become generally available. I hope this won't be repeated in the next generation of Threadrippers - and they should have become available sooner. Like within a month of Ryzen, so that people could buy them before they're already obsolete.
  • mode_13h - Thursday, July 22, 2021 - link

    > Like within a month of Ryzen, so that people could buy them before they're already obsolete.

    First, how is it obsolete? TR 3000 and TR 3000 Pro are still peerless, in many ways.

    Second, Intel has traditionally had like 6 months or a year of lag between their mainstream and HEDT. I know you didn't say anything about Intel, but I'm pointing this out because it establishes a precedent for what AMD is doing (not that I think AMD is worried about precedents).
  • alpha754293 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link

    "file:///J:/Shared%20drives/AnandTech/Articles/20210706%20TR%20Pro/AMD%20Opens%20Up%20Threadripper%20Pro:%20Three%20New%20WRX80%20Motherboards"

    You might want to fix this link in your review.
  • Ryan Smith - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link

    Thanks!
  • 0ldman79 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link

    I can understand Lenovo locking their OEM CPUs to their motherboards as a packaged deal.

    If I read this correctly, ALL Threadripper Pro CPUs will be locked to Lenovo boards forever if they're ever installed in a Lenovo P620 motherboard.

    That's a huge load of crap. No one is going to know this except for Anandtech readers and whatever poor schmuck that gets screwed a few years down the road.

    Hopefully someone will figure out how to defeat that OEM lock. That is just poor judgment on AMD's part.

    To clarify, I have zero problem with the CPU being locked to the Lenovo system *as it is sold*, but it is 100% unacceptable to lock a LATER installed CPU to the motherboard as well.
  • GregoriaEgan - Sunday, December 12, 2021 - link

    So I was thinking about getting the low end 3955WX Threadripper Pro, but as I understand it the 24 Core "old" Threadripper are better because of more chiplets (and cores). I just saw a mentioning of TH "Pro" functions, I'm unsure, are there more functions of the Pro-line, like remote administration or the like?
    I doubt that I would ever get more than 256 GB RAM and I'm not sure that I need the extra PCI-e lanes, but are there any other more features that just don't exist in the non-pro TH, that you only get with the Pro-line?

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