Intel Core i9 7960X Linux Benchmarks

[tchiwam]

1700$ buys you an EPYC7401 or 7401P for less than 1700$ gives you 24 cores/48 threads ... More PCIe lines ... ECC... 8 memory channels...

[Wielkie G]

Ah ok, so I guess the interposer then is only for HBM2 configurations and so far there is no CPU product that implements it. Is that correct?

That would be right. AMD could change their strategy and use interposer for future multi-die Ryzen products, but that seems unlikely given the additional cost and manufacturing complexity it would generate.

[jrch2k8]

Another Meh X299 CPU, no ECC, more power draw and I suspect temperatures aren't awesome either. at $999 may make TR a tough choice unless you need ECC but at $1700 this is not even funny at this point. Also remember X299 don't support Nvme raids without an extra dongle and only with Intel M.2(which are meh as well), less usable PCIe and the on-board M.2 slots are through DMI(which I find idiotic at best for HEDT) capped at one X4 PCIe speed.

I guess the only reason this CPU exists is for reviewers, so Intel marketing can claim they have the fastest CPU and few hwbot overclockers like Dr8bauer and kingpin for the Lulz, otherwise I really can't find a way to justify this messy platform.

[oooverclocker]

The benchmarks look even better than expected. Unfortunately no ECC support so this gaming-CPU is useless for the purpose and probably unpractical because of the power consumption and heat.

[sdack]

A handful of excited enthusiasts does not a company make.

You must be talking about Phoronix surely.

[cjcox]

Close to twice the price, for less than twice the speed up in most cases, and it even manages to tie/lose in some scenarios. AMD really caught Intel unprepared. I feel AMD deserves a buy this time around, if only for pushing performance per price forward.

You also need to factor in volume, availability and options. AMD has never really measured up on those things, and that matters to companies.

A handful of excited enthusiasts does not a company make. I'm hopeful, but have bad memories of where this all led before (and AMD was looking a bit more corporate back then).

[sdack]

Yes already started some 4.12~4.14 on 7980XE a few hours ago.

In case you haven't seen it yet, there is the 4.14 kernel option "nopcid" to disable PCID support. A test of 4.14 with and without may reveal if it's indeed the source of the speed-ups. It could then save you from rerunning the 4.14 benchmarks on AMD CPUs or to delay these to a time when it's more convenient.

[audi.rs4]

Another very powerful product from the #1 contributor to the Linux kernel.
People who complain about the price over AMD ought to remember that AMD doesn't contribute anything to Linux outside of (sometimes) providing drivers for its own hardware. The trivial markup for a 16 core Skylake X -- which is also clearly a better value than cheap Threadrippers -- shows that you not only care about quality and innovation but that you want Linux to thrive into the future instead of dumping money on the company whose founder and CEO took kickbacks to testify in favor of Microsoft in federal court.

Thanks for the solid review too Mike!

Incidentally, now that these products are all out on the market, a writeup about the Open Porous Media benchmarks that use these new chips would be helpful.

chuckula If you think Intel is such a "great" company, you might want to take a look at this video, and see what stuff Intel is well known for doing.

https://youtu.be/osSMJRyxG0k

They are after owning market share, and will do whatever it takes to accomplish that. If that means contributing to the Linux Kernel to give there systems a slight edge, then that is what they will do.

Both companies are in the game to make money. And I don't see how you can say the 16 core Skylake X is "clearly better value". You can say the Skylake X 16 core is faster than the current Threadripper offerings. On average from the tests performed, it is 45% faster, brought up to that point by only 2 tests providing an 80% increase in performance, and 2 tests giving 3x the performance. The rest were 30% or lower, and in a few cases, a loss. So, as always, it depends on what you are going to be using the system for as to if it will provide any performance gains. The 7960X costs 80% more than the Threadripper. Not a clear better value in my book.

[Aeder]

Close to twice the price, for less than twice the speed up in most cases, and it even manages to tie/lose in some scenarios. AMD really caught Intel unprepared. I feel AMD deserves a buy this time around, if only for pushing performance per price forward.

[duby229]

There is no interposer on neither EPYC nor ThreadRipper. They use regular MCM on the organic package.

Ah ok, so I guess the interposer then is only for HBM2 configurations and so far there is no CPU product that implements it. Is that correct?