AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX & 2920X Will Ship At The End Of October

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX & 2920X Will Ship At The End Of October

We knew AMD was planning to release the rest of the Threadripper 2 line-up in October and now we finally know the precise date...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Threadripper-2920X-2970WX-Date

[edwaleni]

While the software is limited to Windows, AMD also announced today a Dynamic Local Mode to help force high priority workloads to CPU cores with local memory access. There are already other ways of achieving this on Linux.

Getting a little closer to asymmetry aren't we? I thought ASMP went out with Parallan in the 90's?

[6L3ZZ]

The end of the third paragraph mentions "12-core / 48-thread". Should that have been 12 and 24?

[gyscos]

with 3.5GHz base frequency and 3.5GHz turbo

Typo? Seems the turbo frequency is 4.3GHz.

[torsionbar28]

Getting a little closer to asymmetry aren't we? I thought ASMP went out with Parallan in the 90's?

It's not ASMP. It's called NUMA. Completely different concepts.

[DanL]

While the software is limited to Windows

What software?

[edwaleni]

It's not ASMP. It's called NUMA. Completely different concepts.

It was the assignment of specific workload types to specific cores that made me think of asymmetry. By doing so AMD is not treating each core equally any longer. I am not disagreeing with you, I am just saying what triggered the thoughts of AMP when I read this.

In an asymmetric multiprocessing system (AMP), not all CPUs are treated equally; for example, a system might allow (either at the hardware or operating system level) only one CPU to execute operating system code or might allow only one CPU to perform I/O operations. Other AMP systems would allow any CPU to execute operating system code and perform I/O operations, so that they were symmetric with regard to processor roles, but attached some or all peripherals to particular CPUs, so that they were asymmetric with respect to the peripheral attachment. Asymmetric multiprocessing was the only method for handling multiple CPUs before symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) was available. It has also been used to provide less expensive options^[1] on systems where SMP was available. Additionally, AMP is used in applications that are dedicated, such as embedded systems, when individual processors can be dedicated to specific tasks at design time.^[2]

Non-uniform memory access (NUMA) is a computer memory design used in multiprocessing, where the memory access time depends on the memory location relative to the processor. Under NUMA, a processor can access its own local memory faster than non-local memory (memory local to another processor or memory shared between processors). The benefits of NUMA are limited to particular workloads, notably on servers where the data is often associated strongly with certain tasks or users.^[1]

NUMA architectures logically follow in scaling from symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) architectures. They were developed commercially during the 1990s by Unisys, Convex Computer (later Hewlett-Packard), Honeywell Information Systems Italy (HISI) (later Groupe Bull), Silicon Graphics (later Silicon Graphics International), Sequent Computer Systems (later IBM), Data General (later EMC), and Digital (later Compaq, then HP, now HPE). Techniques developed by these companies later featured in a variety of Unix-like operating systems, and to an extent in Windows NT.

The first commercial implementation of a NUMA-based Unix system was the Symmetrical Multi Processing XPS-100 family of servers, designed by Dan Gielan of VAST Corporation for Honeywell Information Systems Italy.

[bridgman]

What software?

The software that implements Dynamic Local Mode on Windows (see link in the article) - basically keeps the most active processes on the cores with local memory. The Linux scheduler seemed to do a much better job of this than its Windows counterpart.

[DanL]

The software that implements Dynamic Local Mode on Windows (see link in the article)

So that would be Ryzen Master. I see.