Linus Torvalds Switches To AMD Ryzen Threadripper After 15 Years Of Intel Systems

[wizard69]

Is there really that much difference between the Threadripper and Intel's latest offering?
Does Intel have anything in the works to counter with?

Intel is in really bad shape when it comes to High Performance Computing. I wouldn't be surprised if Linus sees better than 3X as the AMD support code improves in the kernel and compilers catch up. Often AMD is beating Intel with Intel optimized code.

It will be real interesting to see what AMD has in mind for the next Threadripper verison. For just about anybody with demanding work loads ThreadRipper is possibly the best choice in a desktop solution.

[ryao]

Intel is in really bad shape when it comes to High Performance Computing. I wouldn't be surprised if Linus sees better than 3X as the AMD support code improves in the kernel and compilers catch up. Often AMD is beating Intel with Intel optimized code.

It will be real interesting to see what AMD has in mind for the next Threadripper verison. For just about anybody with demanding work loads ThreadRipper is possibly the best choice in a desktop solution.

I would be surprised. The areas where the compilers tend to have the most opportunity to improve some things are explicitly turned off in Linux for performance reasons unless run in a context that allows it. In specific, floating point and vector operations are mostly avoided to enable context switches between the kernel and user space to be faster by not having to copy the floating point and vector registers.

The CPU model is also forced to something generic in most builds. Modifying it to use -march=native might improve performance somewhat, but is unlikely to be done by Linus because he presumably wants to test kernels that are suited for a wide range of processors.

Maybe someone will find a way to increase performance specifically for Zen 2, but I do not expect it.

[tygrus]

It's good news for AMD users and AMD sales.

I vaguely remember, Linus doesn't like change and is too busy for frequent computer HW/SW changes (apart from kernel testing). My best guess would be 10 cores from early 2017.

If Linus bought after ..
June 2016 - I'm guessing 10 cores Broadwell-E
Oct 2017 - upto 18 cores Skylake-X or 10 cores for half the price but 12 or 14 cores are more likely.
Jan 2019 - upto 18 cores Cascade Lake-X (a fraction faster Skylake-X)

32 core ThreadRipper could easily 3x beat the old Intel 10 cores for multithreaded compiling. The old non-X 8 cores would be further behind.
A 2017-2018 14 core Skylake-X would be interesting as a comparison. The current Cascade Lake-X is still limited to 18 cores and similar to Skylake-X but half the price. Having 32 AMD cores instead of 18 Intel cores appears quite logical.

Going from a SATA SSD to probably NVMe SSD would help keep up with the faster CPU.
It might take someone a bit longer to dig into the archives or ask him for more detail (answers when he feels like it), what the old system had.

[AJenbo]

Core i9 9900k takes about 3x the time of the 3970x to compile Linux 5.4

[HenryM]

Is there really that much difference between the Threadripper and Intel's latest offering?

look here https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...0x-3970x&num=9 for some interesting numbers, there might even be a bigger difference now.

[tygrus]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13748...res-2999-usd/3
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14513...-pcie-30-lanes

To get the top performance out of the Intel Xeon W you need average 400w and up to 500w peaks under full load. Definitely a noisy work partner and room heater.
The AMD TR can offer similar performance while keeping under 280w.

[DiDiDi]

These are not great times for Intel, that's for sure.

[tygrus]

Linus was also frustrated by Intel security risks and how Intel handled them eg. Spectre and meltdown. Things like, disable HT and suffer large performance loss with early patches.

[gregzeng]

So many innocent beginners here, as usual. It is not just the raw CPU hardware and the cost of the raw CPU.
INTEL very famous for demanding that a new motherboard is necessary for the new CPU. Rich beginners here do not mind shipping their hardware to the expensive experts, off line for a long period for adding new motherboard, new coolers, new cables, new GPU & CPU. No worries for them.
The smarties here prefer AMD. Less need for new hardware, less tedious changing times, expensive experts, hardware debugging, etc.
In the old days, Intel used to offer better CPU performances more often, at great financial & inconveniences. So for most think users restrained by time & financial budgets, AMD was more sensible.

[cjcox]

Dual .... Epyc... why... not??

(makes you wonder)