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

[coder]

The Threadripper is a great workstation processor - except that AMD fitted it out with a chipset best suited for the high-end gaming market. Most memory modules can't be used, since it doesn't support the buffered modules that is trivially easy to buy and use in a Xeon-based workstation.

As it is, the 256 GB limit is a real hard limit for me, that is hindering what I can do with it. And the large number of motherboards intended with just four PCIx slots is also a limitation - not all users wants four graphics cards and that's it.

It could be a case of artificial market segmentation, but given how reasonable EPYC pricing is, I don't consider it exactly unfair. You can get desktop form factor boards for EPYC, if you need more RAM and PCIe connectivity.

[coder]

All good points, but I think the small & cheap laptop use case is more than justification enough for APUs.

So no - claiming the product doesn't fit a niche just means you don't have any applicable niche - but the world is way larger than what you think. If you aren't in the market for this kinds of developing this kind of products, then you aren't an expert on the subject - so why then make the claims?

Sometimes, you encounter a level of stubborn ignorance that's simply impervious to logic and reason. This might be one of those cases...

[zyxxel]

All good points, but I think the small & cheap laptop use case is more than justification enough for APUs.


Sometimes, you encounter a level of stubborn ignorance that's simply impervious to logic and reason. This might be one of those cases...

You you think Templar is correct - that there really are no existing niche for this product? Or did you somehow miss the context you replied to?

[coder]

You you think Templar is correct

I'm a little sad that you have to ask.

No, I was agreeing with you. The stubborn ignorance on the subject obviously isn't yours.

[zyxxel]

I'm a little sad that you have to ask.

No, I was agreeing with you. The stubborn ignorance on the subject obviously isn't yours.

I thought you was on my side, but since your text only quoted me I felt a need to check again. Sorry for the confusion.

It's a rather common view on the net that if something doesn't perfectly match specific persons needs, then they can't see a potential market for other users when used in other niches.

Just as it's also a common view that based on to-days knowledge/technology/economy, companies/engineers must have been rather stupid to do what they did 20 years ago.

People center about themselves and here/now instead of trying to take one step back and consider what other views are possible and often way more applicable. It's a lot of me, me. So any phone of different brand than the own must be bad. Any music artist that plays a different music style than the favorite must be bad. And we get the processor wars, the OS wars, the programming language wars. All for the same failure to look at the world in a bit larger perspective.

[Zan Lynx]

Anyways, bottom line is that Renoir has the fastest GPU we have ever offered in an APU, other than custom game console designs which have MUCH higher memory bandwidth than the dual DIMM channels in a typical PC.

If only you (AMD) and Intel could keep OEMs from shipping hardware with single channel RAM. It's such a stupid move, but they can't seem to stop doing it.

[kcrudup]

If only you (AMD) and Intel could keep OEMs from shipping hardware with single channel RAM. It's such a stupid move, but they can't seem to stop doing it.

I'm sure there's many millions of people who buy these and not only don't know, they don't care, because the price is right. There's a market for low-cost hardware- why cut that out?

Phoronix is a bubble ....

[zyxxel]

If only you (AMD) and Intel could keep OEMs from shipping hardware with single channel RAM. It's such a stupid move, but they can't seem to stop doing it.

In many cases, single channel RAM is enough.

It's more a question of having correct information when systems are sold to end users.

[Zan Lynx]

In many cases, single channel RAM is enough.

And in many more case it isn't.

I have a Thinkpad T580 with the Intel iGPU and for some unknown reason it came with 16 GB in a single channel. It drops frames on the Windows desktop when plugged into an external 4K display. It isn't terrible, but what were they thinking, that someone's going to use a T580 without an external monitor? It's a nice screen, but really...

AMD APUs are even more crippled. Reviews I've read show performance can double just by adding that second RAM card.

[zyxxel]

And in many more case it isn't.

I have a Thinkpad T580 with the Intel iGPU and for some unknown reason it came with 16 GB in a single channel. It drops frames on the Windows desktop when plugged into an external 4K display. It isn't terrible, but what were they thinking, that someone's going to use a T580 without an external monitor? It's a nice screen, but really...

AMD APUs are even more crippled. Reviews I've read show performance can double just by adding that second RAM card.

That it isn't enough in many cases is irrelevant to if there should exist single-channel systems.

You own a car? In many more cases it isn't needed.
You own a house? In many more cases it isn't needed.
You own a ...

See a pattern there? It doesn't matter how many examples you can list where dual channel is good or needed - that doesn't change the fact that there are other situations where single-channel is good enough. So in the end, best is still to have available both single-channel and dual-channel systems but make sure that single-channel systems aren't falsely advertised or sold for situations where they aren't good enough.

But an APU is so very much more than a laptop. And a laptop for 12-year-old school students in one part of the world needs to fulfill way different requirements than a laptop for someone who plans to use an external 4k monitor.