13-Way IBM POWER9 Talos II vs. Intel Xeon vs. AMD Linux Benchmarks On Debian

[bridgman]

Yeah, we are so evil.

"Here are a bunch of Epyc and Threadripper parts... you can do whatever you want with only one restriction - please don't benchmark the two side-by-side because we are trying to build brands and make sure it is clear that they are aimed at two different markets".

[bridgman]

maybe AMD decided to be "Evil" is a good way to make money... this means we really have to buy open-source IBM power9 to make sure we buy from "Good" people.

This was a concern raised at the start - no matter how good we were people would just keep moving the line that separates good from evil to move us back into the "evil" camp.

[coder]

*sigh* the lite + 8-core (not tested) is the configuration I'd actually buy.

[darkbasic]

This was a concern raised at the start - no matter how good we were people would just keep moving the line that separates good from evil to move us back into the "evil" camp.

That sounds like self-pitying. Peoples always wanted open firmwares down to the UEFI, there is no wonder someone prefers Talos systems to x86: they will always prefer the most libre solution available out there. Maybe they won't buy it because they don't have enough money, but there are LOTS of people who DO care about those things.

[Tomin]

That sounds like self-pitying. Peoples always wanted open firmwares down to the UEFI, there is no wonder someone prefers Talos systems to x86: they will always prefer the most libre solution available out there. Maybe they won't buy it because they don't have enough money, but there are LOTS of people who DO care about those things.

That discussion was about what AMD marketing said regards to TR and EPYC testing, not about "open sourceness" of the processors.

[oleyska]

Yeah, we are so evil.

"Here are a bunch of Epyc and Threadripper parts... you can do whatever you want with only one restriction - please don't benchmark the two side-by-side because we are trying to build brands and make sure it is clear that they are aimed at two different markets".

Yeah, I definitely feel like AMD is so evil, they gave an consumer cpu with ECC support.
Now every xeon based cpu owner because of ecc is crying due to your evil deeds!

Just kidding, loving my home server ryzen1700 with 64gb ecc

[chithanh]

Huh, AMD requested that to Michael? But I thought only Intel and nVidia were evil and AMD was the good guy?

maybe AMD decided to be "Evil" is a good way to make money...

Well you know the saying about incompetence and malice. I think that AMD marketing is only incompetent, not necessarily evil.

"Here are a bunch of Epyc and Threadripper parts... you can do whatever you want with only one restriction - please don't benchmark the two side-by-side because we are trying to build brands and make sure it is clear that they are aimed at two different markets".

This is where AMD is incompetent. When Intel released the $2000 i9 7980XE, it had no direct competition from AMD's Threadripper. Reviewers of course compared it to the (then) $1000 TR 1950X, but that restriction (along with AMD sleeping instead of providing Epyc systems to 7980XE reviewers) prevented reviews from including $2000 worth of Epyc CPUs in the comparison.

So the conclusions were inevitably, "If you have $2000 to spend on a CPU, go buy the i9" rather than "If you have $2000 to spend on a CPU, go buy Epyc".

And until the 32-core TR 2990X launches, the value king for multithreaded workloads are Epyc 7281/7301. A dual Epyc 7301 or single Epyc 7551P system will cost around the same as a i9 7980XE system, and perform much better in a number of workloads. However, we have not seen any direct comparison thanks to silly restrictions imposed on reviewers by AMD.

Do not assume that readers are incompetent and cannot tell whether a TR or Epyc CPU is aimed at them. They will clearly see the different strengths and weaknesses exposed in the reviews.

Now that we have announced 32-core TR parts maybe we can get the marketing folks to relax that. I'll see if I can figure out who to ask.

Maybe you could also ask them why Michael has not received any dual socket Epyc mobo yet.

[willmore]

Gee, if only there were a database of benchmark results you could use to make your own comparisons amongst an arbitrary set of machines.

[Michael]

Gee, if only there were a database of benchmark results you could use to make your own comparisons amongst an arbitrary set of machines.

Or people how to use OpenBenchmarking.org

[bridgman]

so in the end AMD just fuck them self. and next time i will buy IBM power9 just to make sure this "Evil" doing gets punished.

I'm just saying that your "threshold of evil" might be a bit low.

I don't disagree with the comments about us missing an opportunity to "visibly" top the 7980XE by using an Epyc SKU, although most of the articles comparing X1950 to 7980XE ended up concluding that while the 7980XE was a bit faster it wasn't worth the much higher price.

I still think halo products are worth having but not everyone agrees with that.