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  • raystriker - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    I wonder if they made this to lure Apple away from Intel for the next Mac Pro o.O
  • close - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    If they don't plan on staying with x86 for at least a few more years it may not be worth investing all the time and effort. Both HW and SW require extra engineering. Nothing is out of the question, of course.
  • GruntboyX - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Unlikely. Apple is committed to ARM and I imagine Apple would be looking for a partner that could design the processor and chipset. If I am not mistaken AMD farms out the chipset development to outside partners. The exception being x570
  • Xajel - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    AMD only sources out the chipsets to free them selfs from the extra work and commitment of extra engineers. When ASMedia couldn’t do X570 on time (all because of PCIe 4.0 implementation as rumored), AMD made it, it was easy for them as they just redesigned the EPYC IO die stripping and adding and thats it.

    The chipset is nothing fancy, it’s just a bunch of interfaces coming from PCIe.
  • edzieba - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    "The chipset is nothing fancy, it’s just a bunch of interfaces coming from PCIe."

    A chipset is a significant amount of work, with direct impact to overall system performance. e.g. how you can see improved NVMe performance with a SSD connected to the Z270 via the chipset (and having to jump over the DMI link) vs. on X470 direct to CPU lanes. Then you have USB performance, which especially when it comes to latency can have a dramatic impact on perceived responsiveness for AV (e.g. webcams and video and audio capture) and for VR where latency is king.
  • Irata - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    That‘s the beauty of having 128 PCIe lanes directly from the CPU - a chipset will have zero impact on NVMe performance since drives do not have to go via a chipset.
  • Deicidium369 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    and even with the PLX chip would still have no impact. Storage is bursty - not a massive line speed at all time situation.
  • schujj07 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    All depends on the workload. If you are doing rendering you very well might have sustained storage usage. If you use it for a hyperconverged storage host, your storage will probably not be bursty either.
  • Hul8 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Does this platform even have a chipset? EPYC doesn't and this is most closely related to that.

    I'd venture a guess it's much more likely that OEMs will add separate PCIe HBA/RAID/USB controllers where the CPU's built-in connectivity isn't sufficient. (Like if they want SAS.)
  • willis936 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Chipsets really mattered 15 years ago. Most everything they do has been onboarded onto the CPU. I am surprised that we haven’t seen motherboards turn into simple breakout boards with low voltage power supplies.
  • Jvanderlinde - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link

    Oh they are coming. The next gen of DDR5 carries it's own voltage supply meaning the voltage supplies on the motherboard are becoming obsolete.
  • hecksagon - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Apple doesn't really play in this market. Sure the Mac Pro is used by a few companies to do some video editing. Nobody is using Mac to do CAD work or software development.
  • ERJ - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Mac's are huge in the software development arena. Not that they are developing Mac apps, but a lot of server side development is done from Macs.
  • Bluetooth - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    I use Mac for development!
  • 808Hilo - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    I stopped using Macs as a dev/delivery platform in 1998. Apple stopped using their own hardware and software for delivery very soon thereafter. A MacPro is not a viable production machine. No driver/late updates, no Nvidia support, 3-5 years behind current PC hardware, no AMD CPUs and still no decent software and massive vendor lock in. Add a 5% marketshare and now emulated software on emulated OS for the new Arm macs. Its always been a niche of a niche market. Selling your sw licence through the appstore costs an ARM (haha) and a leg. Apple has the biggest share on pornhub access and 70% are female.
  • bji - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    PLENTY of people do software development on Mac. It's a preferred platform for software development in my experience (I use straight Linux but I know a lot of people who prefer developing on a Mac).
  • Nahid070 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Yeah plenty of people but mostly developer for Apple platform and web based development.. But I believe that's a most case scenario in NA..
  • jospoortvliet - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link

    Half our company’s devs use Linux, the other half Mac... I know hundreds of software developers, only one that uses windows. I don’t think that besides Mac or Linux there is a serious software development platform... unless you build desktop software for windows and are forced to use it.
  • twtech - Sunday, July 19, 2020 - link

    What languages are you developing in? Visual Studio is only available on Windows.
  • guyr - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - link

    I was a corporate software developer for 30+ years, now retired. Very few corporate developers use Visual Studio, or even Windows. Unless of course their business *is* Windows-only software.
  • boozed - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Apple's ARM CPU design is in-house, manufacturing is outsourced.
  • WaltC - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Common error I see often. AMD alway, without exceptions, designs its own chipsets. What they sometimes/used to farm out was the *production* of earlier chipsets. that is likely finished, imo.
  • Deicidium369 - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    You do know that Apple already develops the CPUs in house, right? They just rebranded the chips as Apple Silicon - they have the talent in house.
  • yannigr2 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    They don't need to create a whole line of products to lure Apple. Just create for them a couple of custom models. And probably offered that to Apple, Apple declined, so they turned to the other OEMs.

    But I doubt OEMs will jump into it. I mean, if you look the P620 on the above slide from Lenovo and AMD's benchmarks for the TR vs the dual Intel configuration, even with a grain of salt you have to wonder how many will go for the P620 and avoid spending extra for the P920. This is the same case as in laptops, where OEMs intentionally cripple/limit Renoir models so that they don't end up with a mountain of unsaleable Intel models.
  • yannigr2 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    unsaleable > unsold
    .....obviously.....
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    I'd be surprised if it weren't a consideration, but I doubt it's something Apple would do.

    More's the pity, really. It's an ideal fit.
  • WaltC - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    I doubt they had a single thought about Apple...;)
  • OEMG - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    These will sell like hotcakes to AAA gamedevs.
  • twtech - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Yep - if I had known this was coming, I would have waited, but it's what I purchased my TR 3990x for. If we can swing it financially, this might become our new company standard workstation - it checks all the boxes for what we need and are trying to do.

    Epic is already on record saying they're going to buy them for their own staff - maybe Epic was even one of the companies behind the creation of this product.
  • kobblestown - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    The 2+1 chiplet configurations (12 and 16 core) will probably suffer from only having enough internal bandwidth for half of the 8-channel RAM bandwidth (https://www.servethehome.com/amd-epyc-7002-rome-cp... I imagine the rest will be available for the PCIe devices but it's still a bit of a bummer.
  • mczak - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    This is technically correct, albeit I'm not sure they really suffer that much, since it's not like you could actually get all that bandwidth to a single core in any case.
    But yes, if you have a workload with 16 threads which require maximum memory bandwidth, with the 32 and 64 core chips it's possible to distribute the threads along all ccd/ccx (don't ask me if the scheduler would manage that) so that all memory bandwidth is available, whereas with the 12/16 core chips it's not.
    Personally I'm not all that sure there's really much point in such a 8 channel configuration with a cpu with just barely above ordinary desktop-class performance in the first place, though...
  • lightningz71 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    I can only imagine that the two chiplet packages are aimed at software products that have a huge memory footprint, but don't particularly need massive amounts of throughput. Remember, Theadripper (base) is rather limited in maximum memory capacity, at a quarter of the max for this product.
  • extide - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    It's actually only 1/8th -- 256GB is 1/8th of 2TB.
  • Makaveli - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    You are both correct.

    What you posted matches the chart above. His post matches the P620 system above which is Limited to 1TB of memory.
  • Rοb - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    AnandTech had an article about memory transfer speed and latency over Infinity Fabric: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14694/amd-rome-epyc... (three pages), and STH had something somewhere (that I couldn't find) that with fewer than 64 cores the Infinity Fabric remains in place for the remaining (operational) cores to use; so CPUs with less than the maximum cores have better IF speed (except for the few Epycs optimized for 4 channel, probably derived from Epycs where the IF didn't pass the testing).

    The new ThreadRipper MUST have some shortcomings with existing "H" and "F" series Epycs (beyond a higher TDP) as AMD isn't going to cannibalize existing lineups - still it shows that Milan must have some clear improvement (beyond RAS); finding a webpage spelling out the non-obvious differences proves elusive.
  • TeXWiller - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    They could go with 3+0 and 4+0 chiplets with the more cache per core benefits. Memory bandwidth per core does increase as a function of disabled cores as well.
  • extide - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Then you would not want to disable and entire CCX. What you are thinking is how the 7302/7302P are done -- 4 CCD's each with 2 cores enabled in each CCX. 4 chiplets, 2 CCX's each, 2 Cores/CCX. The Ryzen 3300X uses a 4+0 config with an entire CCX and it's L3 disabled.
  • TeXWiller - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    It's too bad the cache limitation exists within the selection of current models. AMD's spec pages indeed tell the story of reduced L3 caches with the 12 and 16 core models.
  • Duncan Macdonald - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    These Threadripper Pro CPUs look very much like repackaged EPYC CPUs. As they are intended for workstations the power limit and the frequency have been boosted (compared to EPYC server CPUs) and the memory has been limited to 2 TB. (As very few workstations are likely to have even 1TB this is not a significant restriction.)
  • extide - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Yeah, I mean all of the Threadrippers are basically repackaged Epyc's. I bet these basically use the exact same socket (SP3) as Epyc as well.
  • FreckledTrout - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    True but these seem to have a fully enabled IO die. Will be interesting to see if these are really SP3 socket.
  • neogodless - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    https://thinkstation-specs.com/thinkstation/p620/

    Socket-SP3 (SM-LGA)
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    With the higher turbo frequencies these look like almost everything I would want from EPYC, except the 2-socket support. We have some loads with very variable number of threads and massive need for memory bandwidth.
  • Mikewind Dale - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    This is frustrating. EPYC is available retail, but ThreadRipper Pro won't be. Looking at that Lenovo, the only graphics option is Quadro, which is a waste of money for my purposes.

    I hope ThreadRipper Pro is eventually available retail, and/or I hope some other OEMs offer more flexible configurations.
  • Mikewind Dale - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    I just called AMD at +1-877-284-1566 and asked them to please make the ThreadRipper Pro available by retail and/or to OEMs with more flexible configuration options (e.g. no Quadro).

    The wait time was minimal and the customer service representative was receptive, listened to me, and gave me a ticket number. So that's the number to call: +1-877-284-1566.
  • Deicidium369 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Very limited use marketing gimmick - the have and will sell very few.
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    You could always buy the Lenovo and slap in your own GPU? I guess then you lose their full support for that part of the system, which isn't great.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    But then you've already paid for a Quadro you don't need.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link

    Most OEMs will let you do a Configure To Order build - I'd be surprised if these were *only* available to buy with a Quadro, as opposed to with no GPU. If they are though, then yeah - that'd be a real bugger!
  • twtech - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    If you are looking to buy more than one, you might want to check with resellers to see if they can get you configs that aren't available direct from Lenovo's website, either through a special order, or by combining parts for you in-house.

    Worst-case scenario, pick the cheapest graphics option they have, and simply replace it yourself - although you'll need to make sure the system is still configured with the PS connectors, etc., you need to do the replacement.
  • 8lec - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Yay for competition.
    Hip hip hooray etc etc

    Amd pls make a retail version available. Thx bud
  • Deicidium369 - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    This is a product for OEMs to be able to offer Pro branding
  • hubick - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Typing this on my Threadripper 3960X. OEM's are horrible, no way.
  • bernstein - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    real shame this is oem only, it's basically the epyc/threadripper cpu i wanted. but certainly not in an oem built system.
    i suspect many will feel the same.
  • Carl Bicknell - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Why are the clock speeds 100 MHz lower than the current 64 core Threadripper?
    Will the new 3995WX be faster than the 3990X ?
  • PixyMisa - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    It needs to allocate power to the 64 extra PCIe lanes and 4 extra memory channels, so clock speed takes a small hit.
  • flgt - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    The only downside to these systems are that the software companies are really starting to ruin them. We have a professional simulation program that costs around $50k a seat. However, if you want to use more than 8 cores you have to pay an additional $15k. If you're running open source software or internally developed software it looks like a great processor though.
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Imagine if back in the 1990s software companies had charged per Mhz - people would have been up in arms about it (and Cyrix / AMD would have made a mint from their PR processors).

    I'm not sure why charging per core is accepted now.
  • twtech - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    It seems like where they're eventually going is, you'll run a benchmark app on your system, and then they tell you how much it costs. If you make any hardware changes afterward, you may have to pay again.
  • Gigaplex - Saturday, July 25, 2020 - link

    If they charged per system, companies would just get one massive system and everyone would run off that.
  • Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    Thing is, that pricing makes it cheaper and more affordable for people who buy the low-core versions. This is what economists call "discriminatory" pricing, and it allows people who buy the low-tier product to be subsidized by people who buy the high-tier. Often, the low-tier price covers only the marginal cost of each unit, while the high-tier price covers fixed costs like R&D and real-estate.
  • ZoZo - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    If this is using the full EPYC I/O, why is there even a chipset? Wouldn't it basically be just a glorified USB controller to complement the 4 USB ports that the CPU provides? Who's going to use anything else from it?
  • PixyMisa - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    I'm not sure there really is a chipset. It could be running USB and SATA straight from the I/O die. Just needs a simple system controller chip so that it can boot.
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    I think the "chipset" provides RAS features as well, though I'm not certain on that front.
  • appleache - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    The main reason for oem only is probably that they can’t get motherboard maker to make another line trx40 just with 8 channels wiring. The potential market is not big enough to justify the investment for launching a new product line, when trx40 is already enough for diy retail market. Hopefully asus & msi etc will come up with their own Tr pro machine and start to sell the compatible motherboard to cyberpower etc.
  • brucethemoose - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    Thats awfully close to Milan, isn't? Unless Vermeer is (suprisingly) coming first, or "Zen 3 2020" is more of a Dec 31 paper launch.
  • psyclist80 - Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - link

    From what ive heard, Vermeer IS first this time 'round. Probably to hit that 2020 time frame, as validation takes less time on the consumer lineup. I suspect Sept 7 announce, with shipping ~1 month later.
  • Cllaymenn - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    I believe that Threadripper processors in PRO version or soon for enthusiasts for 2 processor boards will be created !!! That would be something amazing. First, it would be a decent competition for the powerful dual processor graphics workstations / workstations from DELL, HP, etc., which were doomed to Xeon processors. (EPYC have too low clock to work comfortably, smoothly on them in advanced simulation applications, special effects in movies, heavy animation scenes. Where you need a still strong one thread) And secondly it would be a great treat for enthusiasts who have a second time in computer history they could build extremely powerful computers with 2 high-clocked processors with a large number of cores, an unlimited amount of RAM with huge transfers, and the possibility of OC, computers exceeding all limits. Imagine a computer for work / home consisting of 2 x Threadripper 4995X 7nm +, ZEN3, 64-80 Cores, 3.4Ghz base, 4.5Ghz boost, 1TB fast 8 channel RAM, transfers from and to RAM exceeding 250GB / s, access times below 60ns . + Ampere / RDNA2 .. Such a computer would have more power than the fastest supercomputer from 2000 ASCI White! from CPU power alone! (Adding the power of RDNA2 or Ampere would probably beat the supercomputers from the next 1-3 years ... including Earth Simulator from 2002). The fun would be similar to the legendary platform for enthusiasts - EVGA SRX-2 + 2 Xeons 6 core with HT + OC to over 4Ghz .. Since then for several years it was not possible to build such monsters in the basement. And still such processors would not be a competition for EPYC (typical working mules for 24H work in large data centers and supercomputers)
    I think it would not be a problem for AMD to spend even TR3 with the paired function taken directly from EPYC since the CPU sockets are so similar.

    I count on the TRX80 enthusiast chipset that AMD mentioned in 2019!
  • Mr Perfect - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    This Threadripper Pro line would be perfect if it wasn't locked away behind the OEMs. In the past you could get low core count Threadrippers if you wanted lots of memory and IO, but didn't need a lot of cores. Why did that option disappear?
  • guyr - Friday, July 31, 2020 - link

    AMD is not Intel - they don't have the resources to make hundreds of variations of the CPUs they offer. So, they need to settle on a small number of configurations they believe they can sell in enough volume to make money. I had my eye on the 2950X; I worked in software development (now retired) and 16 cores was the sweet spot. I held out for the 3000 series for improved performance, so I'm likewise disappointed to see the 16-core part disappear (migrated down to the AM4 platform.) But I understand AMD's limitations. So, if I really want this, I'll have to move up to the 24-core part.
  • twtech - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link

    It's not too surprising that Epic is already onboard with this. This will be perfect for professional game development with Unreal. The question will be what it costs through resellers.
  • quadibloc - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I am disappointed that these chips are OEM only, since having double the number of memory channels is an obvious performance improvement that is valuable to all computer users, including gamers, not just people with workstation applications.
  • alpha754293 - Thursday, July 30, 2020 - link

    This is the perfect CPU for me. Faster than AMD EPYC and has the core count, frequency, and ECC RAM support that current 3rd gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs do not support (plus the 2 TB max memory cap vs. the 256 GB of Threadripper).

    I expect that it can be more expensive than an EPYC CPU, but it would be so worth it for me in the end.
  • guyr - Saturday, November 21, 2020 - link

    Directly from the AMD 3970X ThreadRipper page: "Quad channel DDR4 with available ECC support for reliable throughput."

    https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-thre...

    As for maximum memory, that apparently is limited by the largest size UDIMMs available, and not by the CPU. I just did some quick searching and found a couple sites mentioning 512 GBs.
  • Bytales - Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - link

    Its a shame really that the absolutly BEST Zen 2 CPUs wont be coming to consumers. For me personally its a CAPITAL SIN not to have ECC memory in a Computer. And XEON CPUs are just stupid. Stupidly priced, overpriced, pieces of silikon, designed to milk whoever gets to buy them. So a no go. Which is why i was looking forward for these CPUs. If they wont come to consumers, hopefully the ZEN3 version of these CPUs will be. I need 32CORE, ECC support, 8 chanell 3200 DDR4, and a good "gaming" motherboard with all the bells and whistles to go with it. Hopefully ZEN 3 will deliver this, but i guess ill have to wait a bit longer to get Threadripper PRO out of ZEN 3 !
  • guyr - Saturday, November 21, 2020 - link

    See my reply above. According to AMD, the ThreadRipper 3000 series has ECC support.

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