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Intel Releases Final Core i9 Specs and Release Dates -- And Threadripper Is Faster (Sometimes) (pcworld.com)
On Monday, Intel took the wraps of final details of its Core i9 microprocessors. From a report: Remember that Intel's Core X-series family (also called the Core i9) was announced with several key omissions: namely the clock speeds of the 12-core Core i9-7920X and above, as well as the thermal design power, or TDP. On Monday, Intel filled those in. The 12-core Core i9-7920X launches Aug. 28 while the 14-, 16-, and 18-core Core i9 chips ship on Sept. 25. Perhaps most important, though, is that we now know how fast Intel's Core i9s will run. When Intel inadvertently revealed that its 12-core Core i9-7920X was 2.9-GHz -- slower than the comparable AMD Threadripper -- a subset of the internet had a small freakout. We now know that that will be true for the remaining Core i9s as well, but with a big caveat. Here are the remaining speeds and feeds for the high-end Core i9 chips:
Core i9-7980XE (18 cores, 36 threads): 2.6GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7960X (16 cores, 32 threads): 2.8GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7940X 14 cores, 28 threads: 3.1GHz; Boost: 4.3GHz to 4.4GHz.
Core i9-7920X (12 cores, 24 threads): 2.9-GHz; Boost: 4.3-GHz to 4.4GHz.
Note that the boost speeds refer to both Intel's Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 and 3.0. [...] Essentially, both Intel and AMD can claim the title of fastest processor. Threadripper's base clock speeds are faster, but Intel's boost speeds climb higher than Threadripper can. It's also important to note that while Threadripper consumes 180 watts, even the fastest Core i9 chips Intel has announced have a lower TDP of 165 watts.
Core i9-7980XE (18 cores, 36 threads): 2.6GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7960X (16 cores, 32 threads): 2.8GHz; Boost, 4.2GHz to 4.4 GHz.
Core i9-7940X 14 cores, 28 threads: 3.1GHz; Boost: 4.3GHz to 4.4GHz.
Core i9-7920X (12 cores, 24 threads): 2.9-GHz; Boost: 4.3-GHz to 4.4GHz.
Note that the boost speeds refer to both Intel's Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 and 3.0. [...] Essentially, both Intel and AMD can claim the title of fastest processor. Threadripper's base clock speeds are faster, but Intel's boost speeds climb higher than Threadripper can. It's also important to note that while Threadripper consumes 180 watts, even the fastest Core i9 chips Intel has announced have a lower TDP of 165 watts.
Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e lanes.
On Intel it's about $1000 min to get 48 pci-e lanes. AMD $550 for there 64 pci-e lane one.
The bottom line is that they are both blazingly fast, especially for multi-threaded workloads. So when building a workstation there are more important things to worry about than a few percent in this benchmark or that benchmark.
Threadripper has more PCIe lanes, a definite bonus. Not only useful now for things like NVMe SSDs and RAID cards, but in future for adding a USB 4.0 card or whatever. If you want your system to last longer then expandability is key.
Threadripper motherboards also seem to be a bit cheaper, and of course the CPUs themselves are. For the longer term, AMD tend to stick by their sockets for longer so chances are if there is a major CPU upgrade option available (unlikely) you will be able to drop it in.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Data centers don't care about noise or heating like an oven, they have massive power supplies and massive cooling. At worst you'll replace one 4P server with one 2P server with 2x the cores. Or two 2P VM platforms with one 2P VM platform with the same number of cores. I very much doubt they'll ever feel it's too much processing power in one place.
This is just plain wrong -- data centers care very deeply about power consumption. Since data centers pack thousands of CPUs into warehouse-size rooms, even a single extra watt per CPU is a big deal. Higher power consumption means a greater power delivery requirement for the room, more cooling, a bigger UPS requirement, and a bigger power bill. Operating costs are driven by transactions per second per watt.
High performance computing and high-end desktops are pretty much the only remaining markets where power consumption is a secondary concern. This has not been true for data centers in a long time.