AMD Threadripper 3990X + RX 5700 XT System76 Thelio Major Performance After 2 Years

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Threadripper 3990X + RX 5700 XT System76 Thelio Major Performance After 2 Years

Next month marks two years since AMD introduced the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-core / 128-thread processor. All of our testing of the 3990X on Linux over the past two years has been with the System76 Thelio Major, which continues holding up well with that US-assembled workstation with hand-crafted enclosure from Colorado. With System76 having recently released Pop!_OS 21.10 as the latest update to their Ubuntu Linux derived operating system and upcoming two year anniversary of the 3990X, it made for an interesting time to see how the performance of the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X and Radeon RX 5700 XT within that workstation has evolved.

https://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=30823

[jaxa]

Rather than the OS, I wonder about the applications. I remember from AnandTech's original coverage that there was not that much benefit in many cases going from a 32-core 3970X to the 64-core 3990X. Similarly, going from the 3990X to the 3995X with 8 memory channels instead of 4 had very little effect on performance (although you could have a much higher memory capacity).

[Michael]

Rather than the OS, I wonder about the applications. I remember from AnandTech's original coverage that there was not that much benefit in many cases going from a 32-core 3970X to the 64-core 3990X. Similarly, going from the 3990X to the 3995X with 8 memory channels instead of 4 had very little effect on performance (although you could have a much higher memory capacity).

There are plenty of Linux workloads out there that can benefit from the cores/threads over the 3970X - https://openbenchmarking.org/vs/Proc...990X%2064-Core

[Lbibass]

Those GPU improvements are really awe-inspiring. AMD Fine Wine back at it again. I’d be interested in seeing if there were any differences on the Windows side as well, or if the Linux side was just really far behind when it came to Linux Compute.

[Mario Junior]

Those GPU improvements are really awe-inspiring. AMD Fine Wine back at it again. I’d be interested in seeing if there were any differences on the Windows side as well, or if the Linux side was just really far behind when it came to Linux Compute.

2022 and you people still falling for "finewine" meme? C'mon, guys! If the chip's performance has been increasing as the manufacturer releases new drivers, it's because the previous drivers were still immature and couldn't make the chip work with the expected and desired performance.

AMD is quite different in this respect compared to Nvidia, which already releases drivers with a much more advanced level of maturity than AMD.

[Lbibass]

2022 and you people still falling for "finewine" meme? C'mon, guys! If the chip's performance has been increasing as the manufacturer releases new drivers, it's because the previous drivers were still immature and couldn't make the chip work with the expected and desired performance.

AMD is quite different in this respect compared to Nvidia, which already releases drivers with a much more advanced level of maturity than AMD.

If I can buy a graphics card, and in a year or two expect 10-15% more performance than the competitor, which offered similar performance at a similar price point, why wouldn't I buy that card? It's a solid investment. Like, yeah. It'd be nice to have that performance out of the gate, but hey. Still a neat thing.

[stormcrow]

Rather than the OS, I wonder about the applications. I remember from AnandTech's original coverage that there was not that much benefit in many cases going from a 32-core 3970X to the 64-core 3990X. Similarly, going from the 3990X to the 3995X with 8 memory channels instead of 4 had very little effect on performance (although you could have a much higher memory capacity).

Windows only benchmarks aren't applicable to whether or not Linux systems benefit from the jump from 32 to 64 cores. The problem is also reasonably well known in Windows circles there's some issues with high core count, highly threaded applications. Microsoft appears to be aware of the problem, assuming it is a problem and not intentional. You can see there's an issue if you took a close look at the few programs that do show a large difference in performance with core counts (same number of cores, same program versions, but different performance) between 10 Pro and 10 Enterprise. Some of the problem might be MS gimping performance for Pro to push Enterprise SKUs. Some of the problem may also be poor coding practices for the program developers. Most games don't benefit from high core count CPUs, for example. Quite a few don't even benefit from anything more than 4 cores still.

[andrei_me]

Michael probably you will receive a review sample from AMD of their Zen 3 Threadripper, right? 🤤

[jaxa]

Michael probably you will receive a review sample from AMD of their Zen 3 Threadripper, right? 🤤

FYI: Only the PRO models are known to exist, e.g. the 5995WX.

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-pro-5000-chagall-zen-3-hedt-cpus-rumored-for-launch-in-march-2022/