Time for a new computer - what processor?

[Simon]

The problem is that all of the performance tests are usually done with multithreading video encoding so not a fair comparison for most software.

[Mr. Scram]

With the multicore war just heating up investing in old server hardware doesn't seem sensible. It's all inefficient, hot and insecure compared to newer stuff. Patching can only get you so far, it's still a workaround for hardware issues and impacts performance even more. You don't need to do mission critical stuff to be badly hurt by a breach.

Besides, what was exotic server hardware not long ago is fairly mundane desktop territory today. With the added benefit of higher single core clocks on top.

[technix]

The problem is that all of the performance tests are usually done with multithreading video encoding so not a fair comparison for most software.

Depending on what you do really. If you have a single thread exclusive workload, it might be cheaper to buy an overclockable Pentium or Core i3, count on the fact that there are only 30% or less of the chip active, and crank that clock sky high on standard cooling solutions. If it is heavily multithreaded you will need a high end Ryzen Threadripper or even a dual Broadwell-EP machine (dual-socket processors since Skylake are crazy.)

I pulled up that list noting Passmark per core per GHz, boiling down to almost just cache per core and instruction per clock difference across generations of Intel processors, which is barely.

With the multicore war just heating up investing in old server hardware doesn't seem sensible. It's all inefficient, hot and insecure compared to newer stuff. Patching can only get you so far, it's still a workaround for hardware issues and impacts performance even more. You don't need to do mission critical stuff to be badly hurt by a breach.

I am not using decommissioned server hardware as a server, I am using it as a workstation or even a home desktop. Market segment is being crossed here.

Besides, what was exotic server hardware not long ago is fairly mundane desktop territory today. With the added benefit of higher single core clocks on top.

It is natural for server technology trickle down to the mainstream.

Newer things often has fancies like warranty and R&D cost attached to it and it is on the high point of the tub curve. Those used server grade stuff doesn't have those fancies attached to drive up their prices, and being a few years down it is well in the bottom of the tub curve too. You do miss out on newer technology like energy savings and new instruction sets, but for a budget-limited machine build or a machine you intended to use privately for the decade to come, used server hardware cna make sense.

As of the single core clocks, overclockable Xeons can be pushed sky high just like their desktop counterparts and their lower stock temperature and lower power draw than the desktop chips of the same architecture can even affords them more overclocking overhead. As of the instruction per clock per core efficiency, the benchmark says it have barely improved for the recent decade.

[tggzzz]

Assertion: with modern processors the key factors are:

• the size of the L1/2/3 caches and latency accessing it
• the bandwidth to main memory and latency accessing it

Discuss.

[Simon]

Well the Ryzen is 16MB versus the intel 8MB. The Ryzen is running 2933MHz RAM which I think about the fastest I see available. I don't know about cache access time.

[Mr. Scram]

Assertion: with modern processors the key factors are:

• the size of the L1/2/3 caches and latency accessing it
• the bandwidth to main memory and latency accessing it

Discuss.

Most generic assessments fall apart on there being distinct architectures.

[technix]

• the size of the L1/2/3 caches and latency accessing it

Both brands have settled in a 2MB L3 per core formula. Given the fact that few software can run the same code across multiple cores (this is something optimizing compilers often use SIMD on, which is faster than multi-core processing) the total cache size makes less sense than cache per core.

• the bandwidth to main memory and latency accessing it

This is simply tied to the memory speed specs. And for an overclock-capable motherboard and processor (e.g. Ryzen on any X470, or E5-1650v2 on X79) those are manually tunable. Unless you are looking at non-OC chips (most of them Intel) there is little point looking into this spec on the CPU.

Well the Ryzen is 16MB versus the intel 8MB. The Ryzen is running 2933MHz RAM which I think about the fastest I see available. I don't know about cache access time.

Ryzen and Intel both have that 2MB per core ratio here. And with overclocking being so prevalent now that RAM speed spec holds little weight. Especially memory overclocking which is doable even on Intel's multiplier-locked chips.

[Carrington]

...

As of now the bang for the buck looks like something like this to me:
* Ryzen 5 2nd gen
* 16GB DDR4-2666
* B350 motherboard
* RX 570 or GTX 1060 6GB graphics card
* 256GB NVMe SSD for boot drive
* 2TB spinning rust as data drive.

Since applications are getting bigger and bigger, having 16GB RAM will help a lot. At least here on my machine even 16GB barely makes it with ~30 tabs in Google Chrome and I went to 32GB RAM a yamear ago.

...

Ryzen 7 2700x
Cheapest B450 mobo ($77)
DDR4 3200C16 8G*2
512GB NVMe (M8PeG, not recommended anymore, go with PM981 instead)
GTX1050Ti
SeaSonic 80plus Gold 550W
Cheapest chassis

Total: $1000

Or:

Ryzen 5 2600.
Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB, 3000MHz, CL15).
B450 Mainboard.
And now, depending on how much you want to spend:
GTX 1050 or GTX 1060.
256GB or 512GB (NVMe)
etc..

[Mr. Scram]

Or:

Ryzen 5 2600.
Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB, 3000MHz, CL15).
B450 Mainboard.
And now, depending on how much you want to spend:
GTX 1050 or GTX 1060.
256GB or 512GB (NVMe)
etc..

The R7 was chosen because it eliminated the need for a discrete video card.

[NiHaoMike]

And just to throw in a curveball, there's an Intel CPU out there that uses AMD IP for the GPU. I guess that's Intel admitting their own GPUs are not very good?

[technix]

And just to throw in a curveball, there's an Intel CPU out there that uses AMD IP for the GPU. I guess that's Intel admitting their own GPUs are not very good?

1) Intel never admitted that their GPU is any good anyway. Except that I’ll-fated Larabee which seems to be having a comeback as of late.
2) That chip still contains the Intel on-die GPU, and the display can be switched between the Intel and AMD graphics cards as if the AMD one is a separate chip.
3) It is not AMD GPU IP, it takes a whole separate chip. Those mobile chips are already CPU + PCH MCM to begin with, now this is CPU + PCH + GPU 3-way MCM.

[Simon]

Or:

Ryzen 5 2600.
Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB, 3000MHz, CL15).
B450 Mainboard.
And now, depending on how much you want to spend:
GTX 1050 or GTX 1060.
256GB or 512GB (NVMe)
etc..

The R7 was chosen because it eliminated the need for a discrete video card.

Mine does not have a GPU? I really don't get this putting GPU's in CPU's. it totally kills the performance, that is why laptops are always slow, as it is they tend to use a slower RAM and then you make that RAM work for the graphics as well. I prefer to keep them seperate unless an integrated GPU will be working on the same job as the CPU as another co-processor.

[Mr. Scram]

Mine does not have a GPU? I really don't get this putting GPU's in CPU's. it totally kills the performance, that is why laptops are always slow, as it is they tend to use a slower RAM and then you make that RAM work for the graphics as well. I prefer to keep them seperate unless an integrated GPU will be working on the same job as the CPU as another co-processor.

My mistake, I thought I read this in the thread. The benefit is that you don't need a discrete card, which means considerable power and financial savings, less noise and potentially a smaller case or motherboard. If you don't run graphics intensive tasks, it's a very attractive option. Just plug a monitor into the motherboard and be done with it. Modern IGPs are quite potent too.

[Simon]

R3s and R5s have them but they get ditched in the R7. I don't do anything intensive but a 4K monitor plus another HD can be an issue although Intel's HD520 in my laptop copes.

[drussell]

R3s and R5s have them but they get ditched in the R7. I don't do anything intensive but a 4K monitor plus another HD can be an issue although Intel's HD520 in my laptop copes.

I believe you're correct that the only Ryzen 7 CPUs that currently have GPUs in them are the mobile 2700U, Pro 2700U and 2800H.

I'm not sure exactly which desktop 2700 series version you ordered but none of the 2700E, 2700, Pro 2700, 2700X or Pro 2700X have GPUs in them.  I assumed you ordered the just plain "2700" model.  Regardless, it won't have a GPU in it. 

[technix]

I believe you're correct that the only Ryzen 7 CPUs that currently have GPUs in them are the mobile 2700U, Pro 2700U and 2800H.

I'm not sure exactly which desktop 2700 series version you ordered but none of the 2700E, 2700, Pro 2700, 2700X or Pro 2700X have GPUs in them.  I assumed you ordered the just plain "2700" model.  Regardless, it won't have a GPU in it. 

Given the power and thermal envelope there is next to no way for AMD or Intel to put both a powerful CPU and a powerful GPU in one chip package that makes sense for a mainstream desktop processor socket without it letting the blue smoke out. I am excluding high end server sockets which do have the thermal and power capacity but no way for the graphics signals to get out, or laptop chips which are large for the sake of it really being a SIP and has purpose built thermal solution on them.

The only Ryzen with integrated GPU are the lower end ones, and they still has a very inferior GPU in it. Intel never had a decent GPU to start with.

AMD actually learned something from the system builders preferring E3-1230's over i7's for high end mainstream desktop: E3-1230's are always a close approximation of the top tier mainstream desktop i7 from the same generation but lacked the integrated GPU, and decided not to even bother with built in graphics on high end desktop chips since nobody would bother even using it to begin with.

[David Hess]

I am currently in the process of specifying a system to replace my current AMD Phenom 940 workstation which runs Windows and Intel is not competitive on price because I want ECC just like on all of my workstations going back 10+ years which all still work.  That leave my decision between:

Ryzen 5 2400G   Zen   4( Cores   3.6(3.9)GHz   65W   $170   Includes Graphics
Ryzen 7 2700   Zen+   8(16) Cores   3.2(4.1)GHz   65W   $290   +PCIe Graphics Card

And a likely Asus motherboard costing about $100 although there may be some other options.  It is not always clear which motherboards support ECC and which do not but the Asus ones do.

I will probably go with the 2700 because I can make use of the extra cores despite the increased cost of the processor and having to buy a graphics card also.  The Ryzen 7 2700X is marginally faster for only $40 more but also draws almost twice the power.

The comparable Intel Xeon processors all cost as much or more than the Ryzen 7 2700 but have half the performance or less, draw more power, and if they have graphics it is terrible.  And their motherboards cost at least twice as much because Intel ties ECC support to the south bridge; you have to pay extra for it.  I suppose that is an improvement though.  When I built my Phenom 940 system, the Intel premium was even greater because all of their ECC systems required FB-DIMMs; just the cost of the memory for an Intel processor was as much as the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and GPU that I bought.

[David Hess]

Search eBay. There are a lot of cheap Xeon E5 chips (illegal, OEM ones, never supposed to be resold as part of purchase agreement, not listed in ARK) from China and Japan.

I got my E5-2696v4 (OEM version of E5-2699v4) for a bit short of half the price.

Don't get confused by the word OEM. They are not ES/QS. ES/QS are samples which are not fully qualified, while OEM chips are fully qualified and production-ready.

That is an idea but then I still have to put up with a more expensive motherboard, lower performance, and higher power.

Earlier in this project the E3-1246v3 and E3-1220v5 were on my short list of candidates but I took so long that AMD's Zen became available.

[David Hess]

Intel's older generation higher end consumer boards (X79, X99) support ECC out of the box, with no hacking needed. A $100 used X99 is all you need.

I considered something similar when I built my Phenom 940 but at the time the latest consumer boards from Intel which supported ECC were out of production and obsolete.

It is difficult to justify a used and out of production or soon to be obsolete system when a new one with better performance is of comparable cost.

FB-DIMMs are cheaper than regular DIMMs due to the large quantity from used market, and the incompatibility with regular mobos.

They are not but they sure were not then.  I have an Intel OR840 board which takes RAMBUS and supports ECC but I am sure not going to refurbish that no matter how cheap used memory is for it now.

[BravoV]

...  I want ECC just like on all of my workstations going back 10+ years which all still work.  That leave my decision between:

Ryzen 5 2400G   Zen   4( Cores   3.6(3.9)GHz   65W   $170   Includes Graphics
Ryzen 7 2700   Zen+   8(16) Cores   3.2(4.1)GHz   65W   $290   +PCIe Graphics Card

And a likely Asus motherboard costing about $100 although there may be some other options.  It is not always clear which motherboards support ECC and which do not but the Asus ones do.

Asrock X470 board, officially supports ECC memory too, and ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.

Edit : Official memory supported list -> https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X470%20Taichi%20Ultimate/index.asp#MemoryPR

[drussell]

...ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.

Uhhh...  Are you sure about that?  I thought it was only the Raven Ridge series (like 2400G) where it is only supported on the PROs.  I thought Pinnacle and Summit both all supported ECC (though it may not be officially listed anywhere in AMD's specs.)

I haven't tried it myself personally and I don't have any unbuffered ECC DDR4 anywhere here to actually try it and then attempt to force an ECC error to watch it and see if it actually works and reports (I would expect 1 bit correction and 2 bit notification and interrupt) but there are reports on various forums of it working on various processors including a plain 2700, being detected as running in ECC mode by various OSes and supposedly actually correcting and reporting detected errors.

Supposedly the biggest issue is finding unbuffered reasonably high speed DDR4 ECC DIMMs at a reasonable price.

[BravoV]

...ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.

Uhhh...  Are you sure about that?  I thought it was only the Raven Ridge series (like 2400G) where it is only supported on the PROs.  I thought Pinnacle and Summit both all supported ECC (though it may not be officially listed anywhere in AMD's specs.)

I haven't tried it myself personally and I don't have any unbuffered ECC DDR4 anywhere here to actually try it and try to force an ECC error to watch it and see if it actually works and reports (I would expect 1 bit correction and 2+ bit notification and interrupt) but there are reports on various forums of it working on various processors including a plain 2700, being detected as running in ECC mode by various OSes and supposedly actually correcting and reporting detected errors.

Supposedly the biggest issue is finding unbuffered reasonably high speed DDR4 ECC DIMMs at a reasonable price.

I don't use ECC for my desktop machine, but currently I use Asrock X370 board (X470 predecessor). quoted from the Asrock board spec web site.

-> https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X470%20Taichi%20Ultimate/index.asp#Specification

See attached below.

[drussell]

The ASRock B450 Pro4 specification page says:

- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Pinnacle Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933/2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933/2667/2400/2133 non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- Max. capacity of system memory: 64GB**
- 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots

*For Ryzen Series CPUs (Raven Ridge), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.

... seems to indicate that Summit and Pinnacle support ECC and only talks about the Raven Ridge needing to be PRO series to do ECC, otherwise not supported.

That aligns with what I have read elsewhere.

[drussell]

I don't use ECC for my desktop machine, but currently I use Asrock X370 board (X470 predecessor). quoted from the Asrock board spec web site.

Right.  That spec says the same as the 450...   According to your graphic above, on Raven Ridge, it has to be a Pro.  Pinnacle and Summit say support ECC.

[drussell]

Here is a report from someone using a Pinnacle Ridge, supposedly non-PRO, regular 2700 in ECC mode on an ASUS X470 Prime PRO:

BTW. I believe ECC is enabled and working.

Here is a little info of the CPU and os / kermel.

    jmd1 ~/shell-scripts # uname -a

    Linux jmd1.comcast.net 4.16.13-gentoo-20180603-1145-jmd1.comcast.net #3 SMP Sun Jun 3 11:52:55 EDT 2018 x86_64 AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

This tells me its enabled.

    jmd1 ~/shell-scripts # dmesg | grep ECC
    [ 8.557846] systemd[1]: systemd 238 running in system mode. (+PAM -AUDIT -SELINUX +IMA -APPARMOR +SMACK -SYSVINIT +UTMP -LIBCRYPTSETUP +GCRYPT -GNUTLS +ACL -XZ +LZ4 +SECCOMP +BLKID -ELFUTILS +KMOD -IDN2 -IDN +PCRE2 default-hierarchy=hybrid)
    [ 9.132922] EDAC amd64: Node 0: DRAM ECC enabled.

This tells me there have been 0 errors (I expect that from server experience ECC errors should be rare)

    jmd1 ~/shell-scripts # edac-util -v
    mc0: 0 Uncorrected Errors with no DIMM info
    mc0: 0 Corrected Errors with no DIMM info
    mc0: csrow0: 0 Uncorrected Errors
    mc0: csrow0: mc#0csrow#0channel#0: 0 Corrected Errors
    mc0: csrow0: mc#0csrow#0channel#1: 0 Corrected Errors
    edac-util: No errors to report.

This tells me the mode of error correction for the first rank

    jmd1 ~/shell-scripts # cat /sys/devices/system/edac/mc/mc0/rank0/dimm_edac_mode
    SECDED

Same goes for the 2nd rank

    jmd1 ~/shell-scripts # cat /sys/devices/system/edac/mc/mc0/rank1/dimm_edac_mode
    SECDED

Here is what SECDED means

    EDAC_SECDED
    Single bit error correction, Double detection