AMD Ryzen now shipping

Started by PabloMack, February 26, 2017, 12:41:45 PM

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Oshyan

Well, I think by later in 2017 (Q3/Q4) we'll have a pretty clear idea of where AMD and Intel settle on price and performance. It will probably be a great time to buy a new machine no matter which you choose. AMD will almost certainly remain the price/performance leader, but Intel may have to cut prices fairly aggressively to remain competitive, so later this year may have some real deals.

The great thing is we know the Ryzen 1700, 1800, and 1800x are all great deals already today, and prices won't be going up on those CPUs, only down if anything (likely not down before the end of the year though I'd guess). So even if Intel doesn't shift much, we know that right now we can put together an entire high-end 1800x machine that will match or beat Intel's top-of-the-line desktop CPUs in rendering, and for *less* than the price of the *CPU alone* on the Intel side (i7-6900k, $1050USD currently).

- Oshyan

Oshyan

I found a Ryzen benchmark for Terragen 4. :D
https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-1800x-and-am4-platform-review/6

Unfortunately these guys use a very old benchmark from the TG2 days, so it doesn't match with our existing TG3 benchmark list results. Nor do we have any 6900k results on that list anyway. But we can see at least that the 1800x is very close in performance to the 6900k, and we also know that CPU is about twice the price of the 1800x, as previously mentioned. So the rendering performance seen in other apps seems to hold with Terragen as well, not surprisingly, and this just reinforced that Ryzen is a great choice for anyone planning to build a Terragen machine this year.

- Oshyan

Kadri


Looks like rendering will be fun ones again until we put 2-4 times more detail in our scenes :)

bobbystahr

Quote from: penboack on February 26, 2017, 02:34:55 PM
More info here http://www.anandtech.com/show/11143/amd-launch-ryzen-52-more-ipc-eight-cores-for-under-330-preorder-today-on-sale-march-2nd
I'm interested to see if one of the workstation builders offer workstations built around this which would give me more confidence to consider AMD as an alternative to Intel if I get round to building a PC later this year.

Well I may just be getting this in the near future as my builder is an AND dude and he's offered, if he can swing it, to replace the under-powered old tech one he put in my system with the new Ryzen...I am ever hopeful and will post when I know...soon I hope.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

bobbystahr

#19
Quote from: Matt on March 02, 2017, 07:18:07 PM
Who will be the first to test this with Terragen?


hopefully I will but promises from builders are like ice cubes in hot summer...they evaporate quite fast so I'm hopeful if not totally optimistic

EDIT
He came by and as y'all said, it was Bad RAM....he replaced it but it's a mystery as when he installed the RAM originally he did the same test and it came out Good. So i have a substitute 16G in her now and it's rendering well. But he's trying to get me an engineer's copy of the Ryzen in return for a review on it's performance with all my apps so not gonna upgrade the RAM now as Ryzen needs DDR4 and my current setup used DDR3. He  did wonder if TG4 is a RAM killer due to the mysterious condition of the RAM we tested as Good turning out Bad>
Anyone think there's merit in that query?
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Oshyan

#20
Do you know what brand the RAM is? Some brands are more prone to failure than others. Also if he's supplying you with potential engineer samples, perhaps he's using some "spare" RAM, engineering sample, second-hand, whatever, which would be more likely to fail as well. Bottom line is unless you know it's new, out-of-the-packaging and from a reputable brand (of which there are many), I would sooner suspect the source of the RAM than the use of it.

Generally speaking there's no way Terragen - or any app - can be a "RAM killer". I was in the IT industry for 15 years, hardware should almost never fail due to software issues. Even maximum CPU usage for days on end should be tolerated by a properly cooled CPU. Total RAM usage (100% usage) should not cause any problems for RAM either.

The only way hardware failure could normally be influenced by software is if the hardware is not as well cooled/ventilated as it should be for the stress being put on it. Terragen does use a lot of CPU and RAM, so it's possible that if your RAM got hot due a nearby hot CPU and inadequate cooling of one or both, then it may have caused some damage, but clearly the issue is not that Terragen is causing damage, but rather Terragen is using the hardware resources of your computer to their maximum capability and the hardware is not adequately configured for that use.

It's sort of like if you have a 500hp engine in a car, but the crank shaft can only handle 100lb-ft of torque and so if you apply maximum throttle, you break the crank shaft. Did you pressing on the gas pedal break the crank shaft? Technically yes, but it's because the car was badly designed (or not designed for a 500hp engine, at least). Same thing with a computer. You can build a computer that works OK under light loads, say it's for use in a school and they only need to do web browsing and Microsoft Office. That's fine. But if you try to use the same computer to do heavy rendering it might run into problems if it doesn't have a good CPU cooler and good ventilation. Laptops are a good example of this. Doing 24/7 rendering on a laptop is generally a bad idea because their cooling systems are designed for compactness, portability, and quiet, not maximum cooling (I know that several people here on the forums do rendering on laptops, so it's possible, just not ideal).

I want to stress however that, even in the case of inadequate cooling, hardware failure should be a rarity. All modern CPUs and motherboards have overheating protection where they'll just shut down before damage is caused if they're stressed too much.

Having said all that, I really hope you do get a Ryzen CPU, that'd be awesome!

- Oshyan

bobbystahr

Thanks for that Oshyan, I said I didn't think that was possible at the time. The RAM is VengenceLP DDR3  1600Mhz, 2 x 8G and I bought it at Memory Unlimited in town here. He's sending that back to them for replacement and I'm as I said holding off as the new less expensive mobo that I need for the Ryzen is dropping in price in April (from a reliable source) He says there's gonna be one at around $100.00 that will be good. It's a really good thing my Mom taught me patience first as otherwise I'd be a basket case of anger...no point gettin' mad about the uncontrollable which is what this seems to be.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Oshyan

I assume that's the Corsair Vengence. Corsair is definitely a reputable manufacturer, so shouldn't be an issue there, inherently. But every manufacturer has a few products that go bad occasionally. Maybe you just got unlucky.

I admire your patience! Hopefully it will pay off with a Ryzen at the end. That would really put a big boost in your Terragen game!

- Oshyan

bobbystahr

Yeah I though as much re: the RAM and it's basically a corsair system,case and all. Huge but lots of airflow and gigantic multispeed fans so I'm guessing we've been unbelievably unlucky with the RAM issue..he's doing his best but was all tied up with the Ryzen launch.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

PabloMack

Quote from: Oshyan on March 04, 2017, 03:22:58 PM... Oh, damn. I just discovered that apparently Naples is going to be base clocked at 1.4Ghz per core!

Looks like the 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X will be clocked at 4.0 GHz.

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-2990x-32-core-64-thread-cpu-specs-performance-overclock-leak/

Oshyan

Is the 2990X different than the 2990WX? The WX has a 3.0Ghz base clock, 4.2 max boost, but doubtful on all cores.

- Oshyan

PabloMack

Quote from: Oshyan on September 19, 2018, 06:36:15 PMIs the 2990X different than the 2990WX? The WX has a 3.0Ghz base clock, 4.2 max boost, but doubtful on all cores.

There are lots of references to both but all I could find is this: "AMD has always referred to the flagship as the 2990X, the added W to the 2990X and 2970X are peculiar. A theory floating around is that the W could stand for a water cooled version of the same chip, but that's just speculation."

WAS

Quote from: Oshyan on September 19, 2018, 06:36:15 PM
... but doubtful on all cores.

- Oshyan

Gosh I wish!

I have to say though I'm not sure boost even works on all cores on any AMD. When boost two of my cores see 4ghz while #0 and #2 will see max 4.2ghz.

Oshyan

Boost-all-cores does work in the right circumstances (temp envelope) on newer CPUs (Ryzen and Ryzen 2) as far as I've heard. Older AMDs, no.

Pablo, it wouldn't make sense for the W to refer to water cooled since AMD doesn't ship water cooling setups with any of its CPUs nor have any specific parts spec'd for that.

- Oshyan

PabloMack

#29
Quote from: Oshyan on September 23, 2018, 06:19:04 PMPablo, it wouldn't make sense for the W to refer to water cooled since AMD doesn't ship water cooling setups with any of its CPUs nor have any specific parts spec'd for that.

Yeah. That's what I've read. And its a good thing. I don't think water is a good thing to pipe through electronics. A passive freon-based cooler would be much better but I'm sure the EPA has something to say about that. I've seen a YouTube video of what looks like a Peltier Cooler. The down side is that more heat has to be removed than just that produced by the processor because the system is not 100% efficient.