Xeon Gold 6250 vs. EPYC 7F32 - 8-Core Server CPU Performance On Ubuntu 20.04

[zxy_thf]

Am I the only person thinking Xeon W should be added considering 7Fx2s are clearly targeting high end workstations?

[Michael]

Am I the only person thinking Xeon W should be added considering 7Fx2s are clearly targeting high end workstations?

I test with the CPUs I have. I do not have any Xeon W.

[mppix]

I like AMD, i really do, and they are great in the consumer space. However for us, two areas hold them back in the business/enterprise.

Intel has a much better sw ecosystem and some proprietary sw simply runs better on team blue, e.g. if it relies on mkl. I know there are hacks for that but there is no guarantee that will work tomorrow so that is a deal-breaker.

Also AMD is making rooky mistakes in the workstation market. I tried to put together some AMD single socket worktations. Today, you simply cannot buy neither a decent Epyc workstation motherboard (lack of I/O, e.g. sound, usb ports, etc) nor threadrippe mb, that lack certified ECC support across the bank (and RDIMM support if you need >256GB RAM).

So, unfortunately, we keep buying dual socket INTEL.

[PuckPoltergeist]

Only the crappy Inspiron line... I want to be optimistic, but I am not really. I really hope Dell will offer other lines with AMD products as well.

The newly released XPS is Intel-only, and that's a shame.

Seems Dell has ended their experiment with AMD and business equipment. The Latitudes with Raven are gone. It's sad, cause they offered Linux support with Laptops. That's still not common today.

[PuckPoltergeist]

Also AMD is making rooky mistakes in the workstation market. I tried to put together some AMD single socket worktations. Today, you simply cannot buy neither a decent Epyc workstation motherboard (lack of I/O, e.g. sound, usb ports, etc) nor threadrippe mb, that lack certified ECC support across the bank (and RDIMM support if you need >256GB RAM).

AMD isn't producing/selling mainboards. So how is this their mistake?

[torsionbar28]

I
Also AMD is making rooky mistakes in the workstation market. I tried to put together some AMD single socket worktations. Today, you simply cannot buy neither a decent Epyc workstation motherboard (lack of I/O, e.g. sound, usb ports, etc)

Let me get this straight, having 128 lanes of PCIe is not enough I/O for you? How is this possible, considering you get nowhere near this amount of I/O with intel? And with this mother lode of PCIe lanes at your disposal, you are not able to populate any of them with sound cards, usb cards, etc? Why not? Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but something here does not add up. Either way, I've been in IT for 25 years, and I have honestly never seen anyone point to "onboard sound and usb ports" as the hallmark of a proper workstation board.

[lem79]

The first company to sell a Ryzen 4000 series laptop with high-end build quality (e.g. XPS or Precision level) is getting my money. Insert Philip J Fry shut-up and take my money!

2000($) times this. Me too. And if there's a dGPU in there, it must be a Radeon. nVidia Optimus? Never again.

[CochainComplex]

Lenovo offers a considerable number of systems with AMD CPUs both in the business and consumer line ups. CochainComplex points out a problem with single vendor purchasing such as "we only buy Dell", or "we only buy Apple". When you do that you never know what the other vendors offer that may be more appropriate for your business (or school, or whatever) at a comparable or cheaper price point. For a somewhat subjective example, I talked to an Apple zealot the other day we were talking about the new "Magic" keyboards on the Apple laptops. He was gushing how much *better* they were than the old butterfly keyboards, and on and on... till I let him type on my Dell... he shut up real quick. Single vendor silos insulate you from seeing just how bad a product line may be, till you compare it to another silo. He never said another word about how "great" Apple keyboards are... instead he just pointed out Dell doesn't have MacOS. I just shrugged and we changed the subject. He wasn't going to convince me, and I wasn't likely to convince him.

That said, it takes a number of years to bring a new product based on a different CPU - even if the same general architecture - to market. Design, testing, firmware, drivers, even more testing... If AMD continues to repeatedly keep kicking Intel's ass at a lower price point, we may even see the vaunted Dell XPS feature AMD APUs. Apple meanwhile, will just switch to ARM with further vertical integration - current rumors are we'll see a Macbook with an Apple designed ARM processor next year. My guess would be the Air which already has anemic performance even compared to Apple's own silo.

Exactly - my employer has a contract with Dell. Getting non-Dell devices has to be justified. Once I picked some Lenovo with Ryzen and it was refused because there are Dell alternatives. I got only once a non-Dell for a measurement dedicated task in a rather rough environment - there was simply no suitable Dell available. This was already a fight.

So I dont even know how this can comply with the european public procurement law. Dell for sure gave the best offer for the the "wholelistic" package of service, maintenance stuff. etc. But as shown almost only Intel products in the business shelf.

[CochainComplex]

In the 'workstation segment' it is possible that Dell actually wants to "get rid" of some stock before offering AMD.

In the 'home segment', they do offer plenty of AMD:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/sr/desktops/amd-ryzen?appliedRefinements=5863

In the 'server segment' they do offer AMD, in fact for work I just got from them quote for 8 servers all AMD (64 cores) no problem

Considering the tremendous Power of the Threadrippers (since Threadripper Gen 1) Im wondering why there is non available Workstation with TR. Not a single alibi offer.

[CochainComplex]

I like AMD, i really do, and they are great in the consumer space. However for us, two areas hold them back in the business/enterprise.

Intel has a much better sw ecosystem and some proprietary sw simply runs better on team blue, e.g. if it relies on mkl. I know there are hacks for that but there is no guarantee that will work tomorrow so that is a deal-breaker.

Also AMD is making rooky mistakes in the workstation market. I tried to put together some AMD single socket worktations. Today, you simply cannot buy neither a decent Epyc workstation motherboard (lack of I/O, e.g. sound, usb ports, etc) nor threadrippe mb, that lack certified ECC support across the bank (and RDIMM support if you need >256GB RAM).

So, unfortunately, we keep buying dual socket INTEL.

Since when is MKL defacto std? It even works with AMD btw. Besides most software using it BLAS like liberaries can swap them rather easily. GraphBLAS, OpenBLAS, CBLAS, NVBLAS, ACML........