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Google were buying opteron back in 2006. Granted their stack is more larger and much more complex now, they might consider amd again if the performance and th

Google were buying opteron back in 2006. Granted their stack is more larger and much more complex now, they might consider amd again if the performance and the price is right. At the very least, it should force some deep discounts by intel.

simcop2387 9y ago
Actually at google's scale I'd expect them to also be looking heavily at Power/Performance which AMD seems to have an edge on in the consumer Ryzen's. That alone might be worth it for them to start buying.
- paulmd 9y ago
  Frankly, Ryzen's efficiency improvements are marketing nonsense. The only way they hit their TDP numbers is at single-core loads, under a full-CPU load they have fairly similar performance-per-watt to Broadwell-E. Of course that's on consumer chips with higher clocks for gaming - the math might be different when we get it down closer to 2 GHz. Anecdote time: my 5820K (4.13 GHz all-core at stock voltage) pulls 92W during a Handbrake encode. It pulls ~140W during a Prime95 run. I think that's roughly comparable to what 6C Ryzen is pulling at equivalent clocks - if not less. I just built a Xeon E5-2650v3 ES (10C at 2.3 GHz all-core) system last week for video encoding ($60 mobo from MicroCenter, $150 processor off eBay, threw the rest together from parts). It pulls 60W doing the same encodes, and hits roughly the same framerates. Single-thread performance is pretty bad though.
  - mtanski 9y ago
    Used Intel Xeon processor can be a great value... however, no enterprise is going to buy old engineering sample processors for their data centers.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - paulmd 9y ago
      Yep, that was just me bragging about my ultra-dirt-cheap video encoding build. I'm not implying in any way that that would be scalable for a datacenter. Although in a lot of ways it does appear to be more stable than Ryzen given its memory problems. Especially regarding ECC. I trust a relatively mature platform like Haswell-E much more than something like Ryzen where even basic memory functionality is touchy and ECC is entirely unvalidated. Given a budget build I know which I'd trust. I was more aiming at TDP figures there. Although I realize anecdotes are not super reliable data, I put the Xeon box together over the weekend and I was literally just looking at the power data last night to see how it was doing. I was worried about cooling at first, before I knew the TDP numbers it would hit. It's on a Hyper T4 and it didn't break 40C during an overnight x264 encode so I'm pretty happy with that.
      - mtanski 9y ago
        I think you're being a bit unfair here. 1. A lot of Intel consumer platforms (which Ryzen is) had early issues with DDR4 on Z170; there's lots of forum posts about that. 2. AMD said it was not going to be validating ECC for consumer processors. 3. Haswell-E you're referencing officially only supports up to DDR4 2133Mhz memory. Depending on your configuration Ryzen officially supports more (2666, 4000) 4. You're comparing a $1200 chip to $500 chip at retail. 5. You're comparing the TDP on processor running at 1 to 1.5GHz more. 6. ES samples tend to run at lower clock speed then official final processors with hopefully lower temperature as well. This just isn't remotely an apples to apples comparison. I'm curious what the comparison will look like once there's HPED AM4 chips. On the flip side I personally would not trust a ES chip personally. The chips are know to contain unfixed errata addressed in further versions of the silicone and a lot of motherboard do not contain microcode updates for those.
        happycube 9y ago
        It depends on the stepping of the ES chip - in the case of the 2650v3 there's an M0 stepping... and an M1 which is the same die as the production version.
        9y ago
  - atomi 9y ago
    > under a full-CPU load they have fairly similar performance-per-watt to Broadwell-E. Do you have a source for this?
    - paulmd 9y ago
      [0] CineBench R15: 1800X = 1620 @ 155.1W = 10.4 CB/W, 6900K = 1486 @ 160.5W = 9.25 CB/w [1] Prime95 SmallFFT, 1800X = 220W, 6900K = 187W (anecdotal evidence: the ~140W package TDP I observe with Prime95 on a 6-core (analogous to the 6850K) is just about right for 178W total system power at 80% efficiency, so their numbers ring true here. I just ran another Prime95 SmallFFT test and I came up with 133W package TDP on HwMonitor64.) [1.1] Prime95 SmallFFT: 1800X @ 4 GHz = 253W, 6900K @ 4.2GHz = 255W Basically AMD is low-balling their TDP here (they rated the TDP for like 1-2 core loads with maybe a mild load on the other cores, is the official word IIRC) and Intel is high-balling their TDP, something like mixed-allcore with a decent amount of AVX thrown in. In practice: both 8-core processors at default clocks are around 125W at a full normal (non-AVX) workload. Both 8-core processors are around 200W with an aggressive overclock. The 6900K tends to win modestly in most cases in either scenario (CineBench is like AMD's best-case). The general take was that the 1800X was a win on price vs the 6900X, not an overall win on performance or efficiency. To sum up, the processors are within 10% power consumption on any given workload which is pretty much neck and neck as far as I'm concerned (normal variability). It's a good result for AMD given their Bulldozer track record but it's not an obvious win in efficiency. Again, of course the picture for server chips at 2.5 GHz might look very different than the picture at 4 GHz but that's speculation. Sources: [0] https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-Review-Now-and-Zen/Power-Consumption-and-Conclusions https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-R... [1] https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-1800x-and-am4-platform-review/8 https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-1800x... [1.1] ibid
      - atomi 9y ago
        I don't know how well I trust your sources. Tom's Hardware shows typical 1-7% idle load for a Windows machine using Ryzen 1800x is about 14 watts. And your link shows power consumption idle for the same Windows at 70+ watts from .bit-tech.net and the other pcper shows almost 40watts. So you can see how that's a little contradictory. To be clear Tom's Hardware notes the numbers are for cpu only - not sure about your links. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951-11.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,49...
  - snovv_crash 9y ago
    Remember that Ryzen is built on a process that is optimised for mobile applications. The frequencies it is being sold at are well above its optimal power efficiency, and the limited overclocking potential agrees with this. In the Anandtech forums there are some benchmarks of underclocked, undervolted Ryzen and the performance/W is frankly astonishing. Well beyond anything Intel produces, and yes that includes 10C 2.3GHz Xeons, even modern ones. Moreover, the consumer Zen parts have the local power plane regulators fused off. Now, I don't know if this is due to design bugs or product differentiation, but if they do have them enabled for Naples that is another big efficiency bump waiting to happen. TLDR: you can't extrapolate the performance of server parts based on desktop parts, because of different silicon profiles and server-specific power features.
nine_k 9y ago
Google seem to invest heavily in Power 8.
- hoschicz 9y ago
  That's still years away

simcop2387 9y ago

Actually at google's scale I'd expect them to also be looking heavily at Power/Performance which AMD seems to have an edge on in the consumer Ryzen's. That alone might be worth it for them to start buying.

paulmd 9y ago
Frankly, Ryzen's efficiency improvements are marketing nonsense. The only way they hit their TDP numbers is at single-core loads, under a full-CPU load they have fairly similar performance-per-watt to Broadwell-E. Of course that's on consumer chips with higher clocks for gaming - the math might be different when we get it down closer to 2 GHz. Anecdote time: my 5820K (4.13 GHz all-core at stock voltage) pulls 92W during a Handbrake encode. It pulls ~140W during a Prime95 run. I think that's roughly comparable to what 6C Ryzen is pulling at equivalent clocks - if not less. I just built a Xeon E5-2650v3 ES (10C at 2.3 GHz all-core) system last week for video encoding ($60 mobo from MicroCenter, $150 processor off eBay, threw the rest together from parts). It pulls 60W doing the same encodes, and hits roughly the same framerates. Single-thread performance is pretty bad though.
- mtanski 9y ago
  Used Intel Xeon processor can be a great value... however, no enterprise is going to buy old engineering sample processors for their data centers.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulmd 9y ago
    Yep, that was just me bragging about my ultra-dirt-cheap video encoding build. I'm not implying in any way that that would be scalable for a datacenter. Although in a lot of ways it does appear to be more stable than Ryzen given its memory problems. Especially regarding ECC. I trust a relatively mature platform like Haswell-E much more than something like Ryzen where even basic memory functionality is touchy and ECC is entirely unvalidated. Given a budget build I know which I'd trust. I was more aiming at TDP figures there. Although I realize anecdotes are not super reliable data, I put the Xeon box together over the weekend and I was literally just looking at the power data last night to see how it was doing. I was worried about cooling at first, before I knew the TDP numbers it would hit. It's on a Hyper T4 and it didn't break 40C during an overnight x264 encode so I'm pretty happy with that.
    - mtanski 9y ago
      I think you're being a bit unfair here. 1. A lot of Intel consumer platforms (which Ryzen is) had early issues with DDR4 on Z170; there's lots of forum posts about that. 2. AMD said it was not going to be validating ECC for consumer processors. 3. Haswell-E you're referencing officially only supports up to DDR4 2133Mhz memory. Depending on your configuration Ryzen officially supports more (2666, 4000) 4. You're comparing a $1200 chip to $500 chip at retail. 5. You're comparing the TDP on processor running at 1 to 1.5GHz more. 6. ES samples tend to run at lower clock speed then official final processors with hopefully lower temperature as well. This just isn't remotely an apples to apples comparison. I'm curious what the comparison will look like once there's HPED AM4 chips. On the flip side I personally would not trust a ES chip personally. The chips are know to contain unfixed errata addressed in further versions of the silicone and a lot of motherboard do not contain microcode updates for those.
      - happycube 9y ago
        It depends on the stepping of the ES chip - in the case of the 2650v3 there's an M0 stepping... and an M1 which is the same die as the production version.
        9y ago
- atomi 9y ago
  > under a full-CPU load they have fairly similar performance-per-watt to Broadwell-E. Do you have a source for this?
  - paulmd 9y ago
    [0] CineBench R15: 1800X = 1620 @ 155.1W = 10.4 CB/W, 6900K = 1486 @ 160.5W = 9.25 CB/w [1] Prime95 SmallFFT, 1800X = 220W, 6900K = 187W (anecdotal evidence: the ~140W package TDP I observe with Prime95 on a 6-core (analogous to the 6850K) is just about right for 178W total system power at 80% efficiency, so their numbers ring true here. I just ran another Prime95 SmallFFT test and I came up with 133W package TDP on HwMonitor64.) [1.1] Prime95 SmallFFT: 1800X @ 4 GHz = 253W, 6900K @ 4.2GHz = 255W Basically AMD is low-balling their TDP here (they rated the TDP for like 1-2 core loads with maybe a mild load on the other cores, is the official word IIRC) and Intel is high-balling their TDP, something like mixed-allcore with a decent amount of AVX thrown in. In practice: both 8-core processors at default clocks are around 125W at a full normal (non-AVX) workload. Both 8-core processors are around 200W with an aggressive overclock. The 6900K tends to win modestly in most cases in either scenario (CineBench is like AMD's best-case). The general take was that the 1800X was a win on price vs the 6900X, not an overall win on performance or efficiency. To sum up, the processors are within 10% power consumption on any given workload which is pretty much neck and neck as far as I'm concerned (normal variability). It's a good result for AMD given their Bulldozer track record but it's not an obvious win in efficiency. Again, of course the picture for server chips at 2.5 GHz might look very different than the picture at 4 GHz but that's speculation. Sources: [0] https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-Review-Now-and-Zen/Power-Consumption-and-Conclusions https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-R... [1] https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-1800x-and-am4-platform-review/8 https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-1800x... [1.1] ibid
    - atomi 9y ago
      I don't know how well I trust your sources. Tom's Hardware shows typical 1-7% idle load for a Windows machine using Ryzen 1800x is about 14 watts. And your link shows power consumption idle for the same Windows at 70+ watts from .bit-tech.net and the other pcper shows almost 40watts. So you can see how that's a little contradictory. To be clear Tom's Hardware notes the numbers are for cpu only - not sure about your links. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951-11.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,49...
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  Remember that Ryzen is built on a process that is optimised for mobile applications. The frequencies it is being sold at are well above its optimal power efficiency, and the limited overclocking potential agrees with this. In the Anandtech forums there are some benchmarks of underclocked, undervolted Ryzen and the performance/W is frankly astonishing. Well beyond anything Intel produces, and yes that includes 10C 2.3GHz Xeons, even modern ones. Moreover, the consumer Zen parts have the local power plane regulators fused off. Now, I don't know if this is due to design bugs or product differentiation, but if they do have them enabled for Naples that is another big efficiency bump waiting to happen. TLDR: you can't extrapolate the performance of server parts based on desktop parts, because of different silicon profiles and server-specific power features.

nine_k 9y ago

Google seem to invest heavily in Power 8.

hoschicz 9y ago
That's still years away