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Wow! Hard to believe I would ever, ever, ever see AMD on the top of that list! Amazing! Forget about the price, just amazing to see AMD at the top, now factor i

Wow! Hard to believe I would ever, ever, ever see AMD on the top of that list! Amazing! Forget about the price, just amazing to see AMD at the top, now factor in the price and wow Intel is screwed. Not because of this one release, but because they are getting pounded from all angles. Intel's strategy of limiting the PCI throughput to hold GPU manufactures back is over, and these AMD cpu's are going to be paired super well with GPU makers, mostly Nvidia but of course their own ATI, which is really going to making Intel look sad soon. Boat loads of major players have been irked by Intel holding back PCI throughput, AMD let it rip, and "thread ripped" too!

thethirdone 9y ago
> Intel's strategy of limiting the PCI throughput to hold GPU manufactures back is over, and these AMD cpu's are going to be paired super well with AMD, which is really making Intel look sad soon. Boat loads of major players have been irked by Intel holding back PCI throughput, AMD let it rip, and "thread ripped" too! In what way does the increase in PCI lanes stop holding gpu manufacturers back? To the best of my knowledge a single GPU doesn't use more than 16 lanes. Only multi-gpu systems are held back by the PCI lanes. So I can see threadripper being great for supercomputers, but I don't see how it affects Nvidia or AMDs GPU section.
- MattSteelblade 9y ago
  The vast majority of Intel's lineup--at least for the last few years--is only 16 lanes.
  - thethirdone 9y ago
    I get that, but given that GPUs currently can't use (for physical connector) / don't benefit from more than 16 lanes. Unless you are using multiple GPUs or another PCI device, you would not benefit from more than 16 lanes. How does that hold GPU manufacturers back?
    - siberianbear 9y ago
      Some parallel computing problems are best solved by one CPU and a lot of GPUs. In some of these problems, inter-GPU communication is important. If you have each GPU using a single PCI lane, then the compute power can be bound by iner-GPU communication bandwidth.
      - thethirdone 9y ago
        Yeah, there are definitely cases for threadripper's PCI lanes. But a single GPU is not one of those cases.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      That sounds suspiciously like a chicken and egg problem. If the dominant CPU could only use 16 lanes, it makes sense to not put too much effort into supporting more if they can't be used effectively (other than being able to point at Intel as the problem and thus piss Intel off).
      - thethirdone 9y ago
        I don't think it is a chicken and egg problem. There are several of CPUs that support > 16 lanes, so a high-end GPU (paired with a high end CPU) could use more lanes if it needed it. Currently it seems 8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 is not quite enough, but 16 lanes is plenty. So we'll need a few years to get up to utilizing 16 lanes completely. At which point 4.0 may be ready.
    - dis-sys 9y ago
      16 lanes is required unless you are ready to give up 20% gaming performance on latest games. see the side by side comparison below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=8KOTiee5RqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=8KOTiee5RqA on top of that, many people want to stream their game video when they play their games on full speed, then a couple NVMe SSDs eat those lanes as well.
      - daemin 9y ago
- _coldfire 9y ago
  Multi-gpu systems are why graphics cards are scarce.
johncolanduoni 9y ago
How many GPUs get anywhere near saturating 16 lanes?
- bhouston 9y ago
  In CUDA applications, all the time.
bigbugbag 9y ago
How is Intel screwed by this ? They just have to cut on their overexcessive margins due to lack of competition for a while. If they are screwed it's by their own choice to abandon desktop and server CPUs to bet all on mobile.
- compton_effect 9y ago
  Well Intel isn't screwed at all. Shareholders are just gonna be angry when Intel is forced to lower margins and they see a drop in profit. Also, while Intel maybe winning the mobile (really only laptop) market now, ARM is slowly catching up. It's really only a matter of years before say someone like Apple chooses to ditch Intel in favor of using their own A processors in their computers.

thethirdone 9y ago

> Intel's strategy of limiting the PCI throughput to hold GPU manufactures back is over, and these AMD cpu's are going to be paired super well with AMD, which is really making Intel look sad soon. Boat loads of major players have been irked by Intel holding back PCI throughput, AMD let it rip, and "thread ripped" too! In what way does the increase in PCI lanes stop holding gpu manufacturers back? To the best of my knowledge a single GPU doesn't use more than 16 lanes. Only multi-gpu systems are held back by the PCI lanes. So I can see threadripper being great for supercomputers, but I don't see how it affects Nvidia or AMDs GPU section.

MattSteelblade 9y ago
The vast majority of Intel's lineup--at least for the last few years--is only 16 lanes.
- thethirdone 9y ago
  I get that, but given that GPUs currently can't use (for physical connector) / don't benefit from more than 16 lanes. Unless you are using multiple GPUs or another PCI device, you would not benefit from more than 16 lanes. How does that hold GPU manufacturers back?
  - siberianbear 9y ago
    Some parallel computing problems are best solved by one CPU and a lot of GPUs. In some of these problems, inter-GPU communication is important. If you have each GPU using a single PCI lane, then the compute power can be bound by iner-GPU communication bandwidth.
    - thethirdone 9y ago
      Yeah, there are definitely cases for threadripper's PCI lanes. But a single GPU is not one of those cases.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    That sounds suspiciously like a chicken and egg problem. If the dominant CPU could only use 16 lanes, it makes sense to not put too much effort into supporting more if they can't be used effectively (other than being able to point at Intel as the problem and thus piss Intel off).
    - thethirdone 9y ago
      I don't think it is a chicken and egg problem. There are several of CPUs that support > 16 lanes, so a high-end GPU (paired with a high end CPU) could use more lanes if it needed it. Currently it seems 8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 is not quite enough, but 16 lanes is plenty. So we'll need a few years to get up to utilizing 16 lanes completely. At which point 4.0 may be ready.
  - dis-sys 9y ago
    16 lanes is required unless you are ready to give up 20% gaming performance on latest games. see the side by side comparison below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=8KOTiee5RqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=8KOTiee5RqA on top of that, many people want to stream their game video when they play their games on full speed, then a couple NVMe SSDs eat those lanes as well.
    - daemin 9y ago
_coldfire 9y ago
Multi-gpu systems are why graphics cards are scarce.

johncolanduoni 9y ago

How many GPUs get anywhere near saturating 16 lanes?

bhouston 9y ago
In CUDA applications, all the time.

bigbugbag 9y ago

How is Intel screwed by this ? They just have to cut on their overexcessive margins due to lack of competition for a while. If they are screwed it's by their own choice to abandon desktop and server CPUs to bet all on mobile.

compton_effect 9y ago
Well Intel isn't screwed at all. Shareholders are just gonna be angry when Intel is forced to lower margins and they see a drop in profit. Also, while Intel maybe winning the mobile (really only laptop) market now, ARM is slowly catching up. It's really only a matter of years before say someone like Apple chooses to ditch Intel in favor of using their own A processors in their computers.