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posted by martyb on Thursday November 14 2019, @11:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the smaller-faster-cheaper dept.

The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores on 7nm with PCIe 4.0

Earlier this year AMD pushed again, this time putting 12 cores in the market for the same price as 8, or what had been the 4-core price point only three years prior. In three years we had triple the cores for the same price, and these cores also have more raw performance. The frequency wasn't as high as the competition, but this was offset by that raw clock-for-clock throughput and ultimately where the competition now offered eight cores, AMD offered 12 at a much lower power consumption to boot.

Today is round 2 part 2: taking that same 12-core processor, and adding four more cores (for a 50% increase in price), and not only going after the best consumer processor Intel has to offer, but even the best high-end desktop processor. This is AMD squeezing Intel's product portfolio like never before. What exactly is mainstream, anyway?

AMD's new Ryzen 9 3950X has a suggested retail price of $749. For that AMD is advertising sixteen of its latest Zen 2 cores built on TSMC's 7nm process, running at a 3.5 GHz base frequency and a 4.7 GHz single-core turbo frequency. The TDP of the chip is rated at 105 watts and it has 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes as well as dual memory channels that support up to 128 GB of DDR4-3200.

From the conclusion:

Because it is competing against Intel's high-end Skylake Refresh desktop platform (comparing equal core count, rather than price), it can't compete when AVX-512 is in play, or memory bandwidth is the limiting factor. At some level having this many cores requires extra memory bandwidth, and dual channel isn't going to cut it. This is one of the downsides of moving 'mainstream' up to a HEDT price point, even if it does come with more cores.

There are some other minor points to note – if we compare single threaded performance, despite AMD's Zen 2 having a general IPC advantage, the Core i9-9900KS is still running at 5.0 GHz for sustained single threaded work, which is still 7-15% higher than the Ryzen 3950X, and as a result it does pull out ahead in a number of ST tests as well as in low resolution (CPU-bound) gaming. At higher resolution gaming, most of the CPUs in our test perform within a fraction of each other.

[...] In terms of absolute performance across our benchmark range, the Ryzen 9 3950X has the lead. This metric also puts the 3900X above the 9900KS, because despite the 5.0 GHz all-core on 8-cores, moving to 12-core and 16-core at almost the same performance per core gives more of an advantage in our test suite's MT-heavy workloads. As we move to the more expensive HEDT chips, the 16-core and 18-core from Intel, then even with strong AVX-512 performance, it's not enough to offset other areas.

See also: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core CPU Review Roundup – The Intel HEDT Destroyer For $749 US, Achieves Several World Records
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores Muscles Into the Mainstream

Previously: 16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X and 24-core Threadripper 3 Will Launch in November
AMD Announces 3rd-Generation Threadripper CPUs, Ryzen 9 3950X available on November 25th, and More


Original Submission

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16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X and 24-core Threadripper 3 Will Launch in November 2 comments

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-9-3950x-delay-launch-third-gen-threadripper,40442.html

AMD previously told us that it's long-awaited Ryzen 9 3950X, a 16-core 32-thread behemoth destined for the mainstream desktop, would arrive in September 2019, but today the company announced it is delaying the release until November while it focuses on meeting the demand for existing chips.

The company did throw us a bone, though, and also announced for the first time that the third-generation Threadripper processors would launch in November, though the graphic clearly states they will debut with 24 cores instead of the expected 32, or even 64, cores.

Aside from the mention of 24 cores, AMD doesn't give us any specific details of the new Threadripper chips. There's no shortage of possible reasons the company has delayed the Ryzen 9 3950X, with the most obvious being the company's struggles to meet the current level of demand for its highest-end chips.


Original Submission

AMD Announces 3rd-Generation Threadripper CPUs, Ryzen 9 3950X available on November 25th, and More 22 comments

AMD has announced its latest Threadripper high end desktop CPUs, along with a launch date for the Ryzen 9 3950X:

AMD is set to close out the year on a high note. As promised, the company will be delivering its latest 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X processor, built with two 7nm TSMC chiplets, to the consumer platform for $749. Not only this, but AMD today has lifted the covers on its next generation Threadripper platform, which includes Zen 2-based chiplets, a new socket, and an astounding 4x increase in CPU-to-chipset bandwidth.

Reviews of the 16-core 3950X will appear on November 14, with retail availability on November 25. The "mainstream" CPU has a 3.5 GHz base clock, 4.7 GHz single-core boost clock, and 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Unlike most Ryzen CPUs, the 3950X will not come with a bundled cooler, and AMD has published a list of recommended coolers instead.

All Ryzen 3000-series CPUs can now be configured to use a lower TDP using AMD's software:

AMD's Ryzen CPUs Will Eventually Feature More Than 16 Cores 22 comments

In an interview with Tom's Hardware (adwalled), AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster has hinted that the 16 cores of the "mainstream" Ryzen 9 3950X CPU is not a stopping point for the company. Zen 3, Zen 4, or Zen 5 based Ryzen CPUs could feature up to 24 or 32 cores:

There are a lot of interesting details that Mark has mentioned in the interview in particular to the next-generation technologies that would be featured on their processor lineup ranging from Ryzen and EPYC CPUs. The most significant detail and the one I would start this article is with the fact that AMD isn't stopping at just 16 cores. According to AMD, there are now many applications that can scale across multiple cores and threads. The addition of cores is entirely relative to the number of applications that can take advantage of those cores so as long as this balance exists, there would not be a saturation point of cores on next-generation CPUs, whether these be mainstream or the HPC server parts.

[...] In the coming Zen iterations, Mark has stated that Infinity Fabric would continue to evolve to keep up with higher-bandwidth interfaces such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 (already confirmed for 2021) that would be featured on AMD's lineup around 2021-2022.

[...] AMD is also looking into integrating BFloat 16 on their next-gen EPYC lineup much like Intel's 14nm Cooper Lake CPUs which are expected to launch around mid of 2020. As for SMT4, it all boils down to whether there's enough demand or workloads that can take advantage of it.

SMT4 = simultaneous multithreading with 4 threads per core. The feature has been rumored to appear on Zen 3 or Zen 4 CPUs, although it may be included with Threadripper or Epyc instead of Ryzen CPUs.

A rumor based on a China Times report suggests that TSMC's "5nm" node is ahead of schedule and that AMD Zen 4 CPUs based on the process node could appear in "early 2021" instead of late 2021 or early 2022. The increased transistor density of the "5nm" node should allow for at least 50% higher core counts.


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @01:51AM (#920583)

    There's only so much porn you can watch simultaneously.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @06:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @06:16AM (#920620)

      8 cores to render the VR sex dungeon, 8 cores to live stream your webcam.

  • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @06:43AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @06:43AM (#920622)

    I just love how many insightful comments we get on hard-core tech articles! Nothing can be more hard core than CPUs, unless it is porn, apparently. Maybe the wrong people came over from the site-which-must-not-be-named? SoylentNews could be like South Africa, where the Dutch sent all their less-intelligent funamentalists, and so evolved into a liberal-progressive nation!! And of course, America, and SN, are much more like pre-end-of-apartheid South Africa. Bloody Brits!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @11:31AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @11:31AM (#920656)

      Yea, Takyon is pretty good but besides that it is mostly crickets here unless they is some angle where idiots can spew their orange man bad bs. For awhile I was submitting stories about ASML, etc but they didn't really take.

      Personally I awaiting for the new threadrippers.

      • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday November 15 2019, @12:43PM (1 child)

        by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Friday November 15 2019, @12:43PM (#920666)

        Interesting.

        So you don't consider "SoylentNews could be like South Africa, where the Dutch sent all their less-intelligent funamentalists, and so evolved into a liberal-progressive nation!!" to be as jingoistic and bad as the "orange man bad," that you referenced?

        Don't rip conservatives, but denouncing liberals is A-OK?

        Telling, indeed.

        --
        Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @12:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15 2019, @12:50PM (#920672)

          Uh, no. This entire thread is empty of any content except my short sentence about "I am waiting for the new threadrippers". I am literally the only one who has contributed to this thread.

  • (Score: 2) by EEMac on Friday November 15 2019, @01:39PM (3 children)

    by EEMac (6423) on Friday November 15 2019, @01:39PM (#920683)

    That is one heck of a chip.

    I'm not in the market for a $750 CPU, but for those who are . . . especially those who already have an AM4 motherboard . . . woohoo!

    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday November 15 2019, @03:53PM (1 child)

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 15 2019, @03:53PM (#920705)
      The price point is pretty amazing. My current workstation has a $2,000 18/32 core/thread i9 7980xe. This nearly matches to beats (depending on the application) that processor for less than 1/2 the price. Intel is really behind the 8-ball here and I'm loving it.
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday November 15 2019, @03:56PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday November 15 2019, @03:56PM (#920706) Journal

      You can do a lot with that socket.

      You could pick up the 2-core Athlon 3000G for $50, put that on an AM4 motherboard, then get a 16-core and discrete GPU after the prices drop.

      There could be some motherboard issues but you can let the world beta test for you.

      It will be interesting to see when the next "mainstream" core count increase will be. Nothing with Zen 3. Maybe an increase to 24 cores with Zen 4 or 5. AM5 socket required, with DDR5 DRAM.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
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