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Intel Releases Final Core i9 Specs and Release Dates -- And Threadripper Is Faster (Sometimes) (pcworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the footprints dept.

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.

91 comments

  1. Accumulation of bad karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Is anyone else still skeptical of using AMD hardware after a few too many bad experiences trying to figure out why something that is supposed to be equivalent to intel performs so poorly in the real world?

    1. Re: Accumulation of bad karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Intel compilers are used for a lot of backend libraries (eg. parts of Matlab), and tens to turn off some SSE extensions even on AMD processors that support them. Lack of vectorization leads to worse performance, 'nuff said.

    2. Re:Accumulation of bad karma... by Junta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Depends on longevity in the market.

      Back in the Netburst days, you marvelled at how Intel did so poorly despite 'looking' like it should be faster.

      From Conroe to about Bulldozer, things were about the same.

      The bulldozer screwed up AMD in the same way that Netburst screwed up Intel for a while. Meanwhile Intel progressed well.

      Now with Zen, at least on desktop it's back to mostly neck and neck. In high end server, it's a mixed bag, Epyc having more memory channels means better capacity, but individual memory performance is equal to their desktop product. This is fine for a lot of applications (e.g. VDI, similar virtualization) and gets more aggregate performance and capacity, though single thread/process memory throughput takes a hit.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  2. The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Balial · · Score: 3

    ... on slashdot no less. How about some real workload comparisons?

    1. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by arbiter1 · · Score: 1

      Yea was gonna ask who says which one is faster (sometimes). if they are going by mhz then someone been under rock if that if how the decide which is faster, it would be an AMD FX 9590 would beat a i7 4770k easy.

    2. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel has been the clock king-of-the-hill since forever... so I understand why the internets are freaking out.

      Anyway, at that number of cores I guess IPC and thermal throttling must make worlds of difference. It's too soon to declare losers and winners.

    3. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Balial · · Score: 0

      The internets are stupid. Intel have been way below their Pentium 4 clock frequencies ever since they proved it was a terrible optimization goal.

    4. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by starless · · Score: 1

      that's probably because, to first order, MHz does often roughly correspond to real processing power.
      (or at least it does in my comparisons for scientific floating point number crunching for a variety of systems)

    5. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by kronix1986 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In real workloads, the 16-core Threadripper (16 cores, 3.4GHz) @ $1000 destroys the 10-core i9 (also $1000)

      The problem for Intel is it also destroys the the 12-core i9 ($1200) and 14-core i9 ($1400). In all likelihood it's going to match the 16-core i9 ($1700) and lose overall (by a small margin) to the 18-core i9, which is $2000.

      The fact that PCWorld haven't explictly mentioned price, or even implicitly mentioned TR's 64 PCIe lanes and the other benefits (a stable socket, cheaper boards, lower power draw than the i9s by a huge distance, etc.) is just testamanet to how much the mainstream tech press shill for Intel.

      There is essentially no reason to buy the i9s. If you want the best workstation performance, you buy Threadripper. If you want the best gaming performance, you buy the i7-7700K. The i9s are an absurdity, and a panicked reaction to AMD's massive performance gains.

      People forget that Intel had only planned to release a 10-core i7 based on Skylake-EP. Once they got wind of Threadripper they bolted on a 12-core, then a 14-core, then a 16-core, and finally (when TR was shown to have incredible workstation performance) the $2000 waste of space that is the 18-core 2.6GHz i9-7980XE with only 44 PCIe lanes.

      Meanwhile, for half that cost AMD give you 16 cores @ 3.4GHz, 64 PCIe lanes, cheaper motherboards, and most importantly amazing workstation performance. It's not even a contest.

    6. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
    7. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt the high core count Intel chips are going to scale as well. AMD designed these chips from the ground up to scale for more cores. I don't think Intel has done that, and so I don't think they can bolt more and more cores on without running into limitations.

      My guess is that for massively parallel applications AMD is gonna be your best bet for the next few years. For typical applications both will be fine, but Intel will probably hold an edge.

    8. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      On what basis do you say that Intel hasn't designed for greater core scaling?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    9. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      The problem for AMD is that most desktop workloads aren't multi-threaded, and many that are (like HandBrake) show diminishing returns after 4 threads.

      Heck, Firefox still only uses a few threads.

      Six cores (from AMD, or four from Intel) really does seem to offer the best performance for "average" users. (I won't speak to CAD, Mathematica, etc. users.)

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    10. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The major CPU upgrades for the same socket are already on AMD's roadmap.

      Posting anon because I just modded.

    11. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      while by raw count amd still wins, shouldn't it be 60 lanes vs 44 lanes?

      intel doesn't count its dmi (essentially 4 lanes) in its lane count for accessing the chipset
      tr uses 4 lanes to access its chipset yet is using it in the lane count

    12. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe because Intel is a generation behind on interconnects between cores.

      AMD dumps FSB in favor of HT in 2001
      Intel dumps FSB in favor of QPI in 2009.
      AMD switches from HT to Infinity Fabric in 2017.
      Intel switches from QPI to ????? in ????

      Intel had a few good wins in the past several decades, especially getting 14nm out the door so much sooner than any other fab company could get 14nm workable, but Intel has not had any wins afaict in actual processor design in that same period. When AMD went dual core, Intel had to go frankenchip with double-die solutions as well as hyper-threading in order to come close to keeping up in processor design.

      The processor design space of Intel is littered with failures starting with Pentium 4. The start of the Core series was just Intel scrapping the Pentium 4 design completely and going back to the Pentium 3 design.

      Intel needs a lithography breakthrough, and they need it yesterday. They have proven that they dont do actual design well.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    13. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Ramze · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Handbrake's outdated documentation says it has diminishing returns past 6 cores. Current users post that the diminishing returns start after 10 cores. The highest core count for Threadripper is 16, so there's definitely some overkill there on the high end... but, that just means that you've got 6 cores to do something else with. Maybe even transcode more than one video simultaneously.

      You're absolutely right that 4-6 cores is perfectly fine for most people, but in order to make the leap to the next generation of computing with the next generation of applications, we need to move beyond that.

      A/V, 3D-rendering, VR, and AI all benefit from multi-core... and Firefox is being re-written in Rust to better take advantage of multi-core.

      Personally, I'd love to have my own Jarvis AI straight out of Iron Man on my 64-core supercomputer I got in the $2,000 range and runs google's open-source AI. I'd like to have it power my VR setup right out of Lawnmower Man, but with modern graphics. Love to have my own Industrial Light & Magic / Pixar 3D animation studio that my nephews can play with to make movies for our entertainment... and render things that would normally take months or years on today's average computers.

      CPUs aren't going to get much faster GHz-wise with current techniques, but we can cram in more cores to do things that no one ever dreamed they could do with a home PC. These threadrippers are game-changers. It's not fair to judge their usefulness by what people use their current CPUs for. That's sort of like judging modern 4 and 6 core CPUs by what single-core Pentiums were used for 20 years ago back when multimedia on PCs was still in its infancy.

    14. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by pjrc · · Score: 1

      So I shouldn't upgrade and just stick with my 6 core Sandy Bridge E ?

      I paid $600 about 5 years ago.

      --
      PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
    15. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The i9 doesn't segfault all over the place like Ryzen does with heavily multi-threaded workloads.

      "Threadripper" indeed.

    16. Re: The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel has 18 and 22 core CPUs for years now (Xeons). You simply don't know what you are talking about.

    17. Re: The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's more that goes into a design for high core counts than high core count. Intel could slap 64 Atoms on a single die and it wouldn't make it designed for it.

    18. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you buy an i9 or Threadripper if the primary workload you care about doesn't scale with the available number of cores/threads? Ryzen and i7 are the parts which give the best results for lightly threaded applications. Don't complain about buying a shitty saw when you should have been shopping for a hammer.

    19. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Love to have my own Industrial Light & Magic / Pixar 3D animation studio that my nephews can play with to make movies for our entertainment... and render things that would normally take months or years on today's average computers.

      The first half is here. Try Blender with the free Pixar's Renderman version with non-commercial license. The learning curve will be very high, a lot of work is still required for a decent result and the render speed is what it is today. The young learn fast when challenged, though, and he might be able to integrate the tools with school work in sciences, mathematics, programming and arts.

    20. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Balial · · Score: 1

      So to a first order, floating point units and SIMD extensions are irrelevant?

      You might want to check your calculations again.

    21. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if not every application is multi-threaded, you can still benefit by running multiple applications. If a game uses 4 cores, you could use the other four to render video in the background

    22. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "In real workloads"

      ie: workloads that take full advantage of all available threads

      There's not too many workloads that require 32 threads at full capacity all the time. Many single task workloads have serious diminishing returns above 10 threads. They'll be great for rendering. Video encoding is often used as an example use case, but I really have to wonder why this is being down on a CPU and not a DSP or GPU.

      Even in a heavy VM environment, it's unlikely that maximizing thread count is worth optimising over higher per thread IPC, as most VM workloads are I/O limited as core count increases, and higher IPC tends to optimise for better overall power usage. I'd wait and see what the full benchmarks look like. There's still NDAs in effect for benchmarking atm (Aug 10th), so the only benchmarks we're seeing obviously show TR strengths.

      TR has 64 PCIe lanes yes, but 4 lanes are reserved for the CPU to chipset, so there's really only 60 CPU PCIe lanes (Disappointingly misleading marketing by AMD here, you guys used to be the more trustworthy option), where the chipset (X390) provides an extra 5 lanes (one x1 and one x4) for a total of 65 lanes.

      The i9 provides 44 lanes with none used for chipset communication (Uses DMI3), and 24 lanes via the X299 chipset, for a total of 68 lanes. And yes those 24 chipset lanes use the equivalent of 4 lanes to the CPU, but not all use is simultaneous, and devices can communicate directly with each other, so real world performance difference may depend on the application.

      "lower power draw than the i9s by a huge distance"
      The i9s actually have lower TDP than TR. I'd wait to see performance/watt until we start seeing full benchmarks.

    23. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      They have proven that they dont do actual design well.

      Seeing as how Intel's performance has been crushing AMD for almost a decade, that's the stupidest thing I've read this month.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    24. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by theendlessnow · · Score: 1

      Nice "rah rah"...

      But AMD's newest have an issue. 0-60 in so many seconds sounds good...however 0-60... segfault doesn't. Until AMD fixes some of the shortcoming on these new chips, there's some risk. Fast is nice, but fast and reliable is better.

      I like that AMD is making a attempt at getting back in the game, but I can't afford a system to be down when under heavy load. And arguably it's the point of going with a higher end chip to begin with.

    25. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Where did I even hint that I'm going to buy an i9 or TR? My old FX-6100 is perfectly adequate to the tasks I set it to.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    26. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      in order to make the leap to the next generation of computing with the next generation of applications, we need to move beyond that.

      I'm pretty sure I read that exact quote 10 years ago when dual-core CPUs came out.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    27. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      The bottom line is that they are both blazingly fast, especially for multi-threaded workloads.

      And that's enough for me to happily abandon aging monopolist Intel at the first viable opportunity.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    28. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Firefox still only uses a few threads.

      That's due to change in the very near future.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    29. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Current users post that the diminishing returns start after 10 cores. The highest core count for Threadripper is 16, so there's definitely some overkill there on the high end...

      As far as gaming goes, one word: Vulkan.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    30. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Assumes that all new games will be written in Vulkan instead of DX10.

      (DX12 has the same feature set as Vulkan regarding multi-threading, but I'm not holding my breath on it's wild adoption either.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    31. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Assumes that all new games will be written in Vulkan instead of DX10.

      (DX12 has the same feature set as Vulkan regarding multi-threading, but I'm not holding my breath on it's wild adoption either.

      Then you haven't been paying attention. Every major game engine has a Vulkan prototype up and running, or (like idsoft) already shipping. DX10 is Microsoft's Vulkan clone, so yes, the whole graphics world is going to Vulkan, the process is well advanced. Anything that wants performance or (for mobile) power saving is going Vulkan.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    32. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      DX10 was release 10 years ago with Windows Vista, whereas DICE started working on the predecesor to Vulkan just four years ago.

      Thus... I'm a bit skeptical about your claims.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    33. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Simple typo, meant DX 12, which you should have known, so I am skeptical about your moral backbone.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    34. Re:The Megahertz Myth is alive and well by Nutria · · Score: 1

      I can't read your mind.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  3. How could this possibly happen? by TimothyHollins · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    So, Intel has had an uninterrupted cash flow comparable to the kings of Saudi Arabia for more than 5 years, and this is all they could put out? They have been bested by the R&D of a company that *doesn't have profits*! How in the nine hells did they lose the crown with unlimited money and years upon years of R&D time?

    Did they spend all those hundreds of billions on sensitivity training? Did they invest it in diversity, integrity, and governance hires? How is it even possible for them to not outclass AMD when they've had such a mindboggling advantage in every way?

    1. Re:How could this possibly happen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      They probably are not taking full advantage of the H1B programme.

    2. Re:How could this possibly happen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they coasted without expending much effort while collecting billions. Only when AMD challenged them, they've started competing. So we'll see how well Coffee Lake is vs Ryzen in the near future, because Skylake and Kaby Lake are no match for it.

    3. Re:How could this possibly happen? by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For the same reason that carriers don't upgrade infrastructure unless it literally crashes, why companies like HP got rid of expensive engineers, and why small oil companies don't dig lots of exploration bores. You don't need 'real' growth if quarterly profits look good on paper because you are slashing costs, and everyone at the top of the pile is going to be gone in 3 years when the old wells run dry.

      --
      Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
  4. Intel can't help themselves can they? by H3lldr0p · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That market segmentation is like a parasite to their thinking. They can't do anything without chopping the product line into as small as bites as they're able.

    1. Re:Intel can't help themselves can they? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Intel you don't pay for the computational performance, you pay for the privilege. Unless you are a government customer.

  5. Yah, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD is betterer than Intel ,because you stick it to 'the man' when you buy an AMD processor ;) an entirely personal viewpoint

    (plus Intels low-end/smartphone/smartwatch processors are garbage power hungry crap and why anyone would use them over an ARM design is utter stupidity - yes, I'm looking at you Fossil and TAG)

    1. Re:Yah, but by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

      I will freely admit that sticking it to the man is on the list of considerations for me. Only as long as price/performance makes sense, though.

  6. An important story that Slashdot won't cover by CajunArson · · Score: -1

    Since Slashdot doesn't actually cover important technological news anymore, here's a professionally run website that exposed a serious bug in RyZen and got an official response from AMD: https://phoronix.com/scan.php?...

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:An important story that Slashdot won't cover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since Slashdot doesn't actually cover important technological news anymore, here's a professionally run website that exposed a serious bug in RyZen and got an official response from AMD: https://phoronix.com/scan.php?...

      "With the Ryzen segmentation faults on Linux they are found to occur with many, parallel compilation workloads in particular -- certainly not the workloads most Linux users will be firing off on a frequent basis unless intentionally running scripts like ryzen-test/kill-ryzen. As I've previously written, my Ryzen Linux boxes have been working out great except in cases of intentional torture testing with these heavy parallel compilation tasks. Even when carrying out other heavy, non-compilation (GCC or Clang) parallel workloads in recent days, from server tasks to scientific processing, my Ryzen test boxes have been stable. I'm still using Ryzen 5 on my main desktop system without any faults in day-to-day use on Fedora 26 Linux."

      "AMD was also able to confirm this issue is not present with AMD Epyc or AMD ThreadRipper processors, but isolated to these early Ryzen processors under Linux."

      "Ryzen customers believe to be affected by the problem can contact AMD Customer Care. Some of those who have contacted customer care about the segmentation faults have in turn been affected by thermal, power, or other problems, but AMD says they are committed to working with those encountering this performance marginality issue under Linux. AMD will also be stepping up their Linux testing/QA for future consumer products."

      t's not as serious as you make it out to be, it only effects EARLY ryzen chips, not zen or threadripper, and only in certain, specific scenarios. everyone here is talking about threadripper, so you might as well be talking about intel bugs, which there are also many.

  7. i11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When is i11 comming out?

  8. Intel's TDP lies by kronix1986 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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."

    The actual power draw of even the 10-core i9 is >200W. Intel are deceiving us yet again.

    1. Re:Intel's TDP lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is going to be quite a challenge cooling either of these monsters.

    2. Re:Intel's TDP lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMD are lying too. Ryzen 5 1600 for example usually runs at between 87 and 92 W, and it is advertised at 65W. On the other hand, Intel mobile processors that are rated at 15W TDP usually run about 8W.

    3. Re:Intel's TDP lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These are 'Intel' watts, and not watt watts.

      It's like the US Gallon vs the European Gallon, see? (The US version is smaller,.... can't possibly think why that is)

    4. Re:Intel's TDP lies by bongey · · Score: 2

      What they hell are you talking about? Tom's hardware,the Ryzen chips came UNDER there TDP ratings. http://www.tomshardware.com/re...

    5. Re:Intel's TDP lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The procedure is, fill a 5 liter container with 5 liters of water, then dip either an average european ball sack (for Imperial gallons) or an average American ball sack (for US gallons) into the container, displacing either very little water for europeans or quite a bit more for the Americans; any water not displaced from the container is the definition of the local gallon.

      But it's all ultimately based on metric. And nutsacks.

    6. Re:Intel's TDP lies by jaa101 · · Score: 1

      This is not new. The definition that Intel uses for TDP is different from that used by AMD so you can't compare raw TDP numbers across manufacturers. AMD's numbers are more conservative so I'd expect an AMD 165W product to use less power than an Intel 180W product in most situations.

    7. Re: Intel's TDP lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no European gallon. Europe uses litres.

  9. Software is the real bottleneck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We're talking about CPUs with 24 or more threads of execution here. The bottleneck isn't hardware, it's the software. Most software just doesn't support that high degree of threading. That's why we need to start using programming languages built around concurrency, like Rust and Erlang. Rust is a great example. Look at the innovation we're seeing from Mozilla with their new Servo web browser engine. It is being designed from the ground up using Rust so that it can make full use of CPUs with many simultaneous threads of execution. We need to leave uni-threaded languages like C behind, even if they've tried to naively add half-baked threading support (like pthreads). We need to move to languages like Rust where the language itself is built with concurrency and thread safety as core features.

    1. Re:Software is the real bottleneck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Stop trying to make Rust happen.

    2. Re:Software is the real bottleneck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but straight white males can't use Rust. It's in the Code of Glorious Social Equality For Some.

    3. Re: Software is the real bottleneck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rust, the solution to every problem ever.

  10. Threadripper is also cheaper. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The 16-core i9-7960X is ~$1700, while the 1950X Threadripper is $999. And the Threadripper X models are the higher-clocked/premium version. If AMD has a non-X model in the works, the pricing difference could be even greater (AMD didn't reveal the X/non-X version of the R3 until way later, so it's possible).

  11. Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e lane by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  12. Core i9 is just too dam hot by ZippyTheChicken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How can you justify this many cores at that temperature? Sure if you are running a single gaming rig in your home you can water cool your computer but if you are running anything else I can imagine the cooling problems for a room of these things will be astounding.. I am just not sure of the applications in servers or regular business or home units at this wattage.

    1. Re:Core i9 is just too dam hot by avandesande · · Score: 1

      because they replace 3 individual cpus that eat more electricity/make more heat since they need their own motherboards? Or something like that

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Core i9 is just too dam hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And of course no game can utilize 9 cores so your machine will just be a utilized as a nice fancy radiator to heat your bedroom in the winter. The applications for this thing are in science/engineering and not gaming.

    3. Re:Core i9 is just too dam hot by Kjella · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Core i9 is just too dam hot by MrFlibbs · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Core i9 is just too dam hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Efficiency of computation is a hot topic in high performance computing.

  13. TRUE @ an application level, but... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    See subject - The OS process scheduler itself can use the extra cores for BIG overall gains ala e.g. in Windows:

    Increase cpu core count @ hardware level

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Executive]
    "AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads"=dword:00000008
    "AdditionalDelayedWorkerThreads"=dword:00000008

    * I.E. - How much extra cores will help BEYOND today's CPUs for the OPERATING SYSTEM itself (in Critical Worker Threads) in juggling threads in itself & for other processes (in Delayed Worker Threads) per https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc615012(v=bts.10).aspx/

    Here I use 8 for an Intel Core I7 as shown above (both in 1st a 920 & currently a 4790k, since they're quad core (& hyperthreaded) & it was lesser based on physical core count of earlier systems I had (this setting has been around since, iirc, Win2k (correct me IF I am off/wrong - it's been SO long since then)...

    (Those are settings in WINDOWS you can adjust to take advantage of added cores as you upgrade to CPUs w/ more cores, for example).

    ANYTHING/EVERYTHING, in theory, gains there alone (less "process scheduler thrashing" in other words) - I don't care so much about applications/programs (they are probably written to their practical limits anyhow as to what threadwork will gain them) but again, MORE about how the OS will utilize them (per the 2 TUNABLE PARAMETERS in the .reg file I note above as a way to REALLY use the extra cores, almost guaranteed - Windows allows it, not sure of other OS like *NIX based ones).

    APK

    P.S.=> The rest will be done @ compiler level (already good, only depends on HOW you can leverage it OR if internal-to-program itself datasets AND PROCESSES (imo, a Gannt chart illustrates this well) allow for it - not all do) & it's always that way, pretty much - hardware 1st, software catches up (& it does, mostly inefficiently @ 1st, sucking up the CPU cycles/efficiencies gained)... apk

    1. Re:TRUE @ an application level, but... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you moved off a toy OS you would be better off.

    2. Re:TRUE @ an application level, but... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if he moved off Slashdot, we'd all be better off!

      I'm not holding my breath...

    3. Re:TRUE @ an application level, but... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe APK should hold his and solve the problem permanently.

  14. Is this really an upgrade? by Gabest · · Score: 1

    I think I already could have spent 1000+ USD a couple of years ago on a xeon to get more than 4 cores. But at the normal 200-300 USD price point, there is nothing to upgrade to.

  15. On TDP figures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD generally have, in the past at least, when I last looked, used maximum theoretical load for their TDP figures, whereas Intel used the "100% CPU" which is less than maximally used, since you won't be using all the TLB logic at the same time, for example. So when AMD stated 90W TDP it was actually running even at 100% at notably less than 90W.

  16. TDP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The TDP that Intel claims for their chips is pure bullshit at this point. I guarantee their chips will be sucking in shitloads of power right along with the AMD chips, especially when we're talking i9 and Threadripper.
    I'll wait for the benchmarks, especially those including the power draw.

  17. Great timing for spreading that FUD, Intel... by yodleboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Threadripper officially launches on 8/10. Expect reviews to hit the internet first thing that morning as most hardware sites have had a week or two to play with their samples. Intel is trying desperately to make some last minute noise I suppose. Makes me suspect the official reviews of TR will be quite positive. Intel is going to find that having bigger numbers (Mhz, core count), is going to count for little when the other guy gets you 90% or more of the performance for half the price.

    1. Re:Great timing for spreading that FUD, Intel... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Tech Report is ridiculous faggot shit. Trust a real reviewer.

    2. Re:Great timing for spreading that FUD, Intel... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TR is Thread Ripper not Tech Report in this context.

    3. Re:Great timing for spreading that FUD, Intel... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I thought the review embargo was lifted tomorrow or something. They've had the unboxings now and there's been a fractal design system IIRC reviewed, but just the one system

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  18. Remember that Intel were happily skinning you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for several hundreds of dollars extra for several years, just because they could. So much for honesty and respect for the customers. Vote with your wallet and buy AMD instead.

  19. Faster? by farble1670 · · Score: 0

    And Threadripper Is Faster

    And the performance of a processor is not simply clock speed X cores.

    1. Re:Faster? by Z80a · · Score: 1

      The Zen architecture IPC is pretty much on par with the Core one as long you're not using the intel AVX extensions.

  20. Good lord that's fast! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Cool! CNN's terrible advertising scripting can lock up Chrome even faster now!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  21. Re:Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e l by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    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.

    In addition to the base price, what matters here (for the datacenter market) is how much computing can be done per Watt with your average server application. We need a third-party review for that because AMD exaggerates while Intel lies it's ass off about everything.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  22. Re:Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e l by bongey · · Score: 1

    Epyc P series , the 1P processor models have 128 lanes. Tyan is releasing a board that has 124 lanes available. which would be great for san/nas or gpgpu build.

  23. OK, you tell us which is faster. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hmm?

    1. Re:OK, you tell us which is faster. by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      Point is, we will know when someone runs real world tests across a full suite of applications and benchmarks.

  24. Re:Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel is:
    44 PCIe via CPU
    24 PCIe via chipset (with equivalent to 4 lane shared to CPU)

    AMD is:
    60 PCIe via CPU (4 lanes are reserved for chipset, the 64 number is a bit misleading)
    5 PCIe via chipset (X390) with shared 4 lane to CPU.

    It's pretty close depending on application and usage.

  25. Re:Threadripper Is half the cost with more pci-e l by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    It's pretty close depending on application and usage not really.

    AMD also has usb 3.1 on die.

    Intels 24 pci-e on chipset is also stacked with sata / usb / MB IO / sound pci-e / network link and do lower end cpus only having as low as 16 pci-e lanes. Some boards also wire storage M.2 slots to the chipset as well.

  26. Answer me a question (curious)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Can you tell me an analogous setting in *NIX variants like Windows has here?

    * Thanks...

    (Let's see how configurable YOUR "OS of choice" is vs. what you call a 'toy OS" that most of the planet uses on servers + desktops/laptops combined...)

    APK

    P.S.=> Something tells me you can't or you would have but, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt & see if you put one out to answer my completely fair question... apk