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Windows 10 vs. Linux Performance On AMD Threadripper 2990WX
- vkazanov 8y agoTL;DR It seems that Windows doesn't like NUMA architectures all that much... Unlike Linux where the new Threadripper rocks.
- hs86 8y agoDid this ever change for macOS? When they still sold dual socket Mac Pros, macOS was ~30% slower is some benchmarks compared to Windows on a similar machine due to the lack of NUMA support. After that, the Mac Pro was `innovated` and since then Macs only had uniform memory access and I wonder if their developers ever solved this issue. After the long neglect of their file system this might be another part of Darwin that is behind their competition for the next couple of years.
- RantyDave 8y agoThe threadrippers are still only single socket. Honestly, with the way processors are going right now, I think multi-socket may become a thing of the past.
- hs86 8y agoThey are single socket but the arrangement of their CCX means that we have NUMA even on a single socket system. AnandTech has some info: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11697/the-amd-ryzen-threadripper-1950x-and-1920x-review/3 https://www.anandtech.com/show/11697/the-amd-ryzen-threadrip... This results in a gaming mode which disables some cores to achieve higher fps in not NUMA-aware games. Afair, this is even worse with the new 32 core CPUs.
- jjm 8y agoMulti cores with Infiniti fabric means actual multi CPUs. NUMA is real and no you don’t need multiple sockets for multiple CPUs.
- ksec 8y agoI think that would be the reason why Apple haven’t choose AMD yet. On the hand it has taken years if not over a decades of HPC and Server work that Linux had this fully tested and tuned. I wonder if Windows or Mac will ever be on that level. Any one knows how good is NUMA on FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DF BSD?
- hs86 8y agoFor the state of NUMA on FreeBSD it seems like drewg123 (and HN comments in general) is a good source for: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=freebsd%20numa&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=freebsd%20numa&sort=byPopulari...
- ksec 8y agoLooks like BSD's NUMA current situation aren't very good at all.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoInteresting to see OpenSUSE performing so well. It was one of my first distros way back in the late 90s (when it was just SuSE Linux) but it seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhat and I certainly haven't looked at it for a long time - I'm a full time Fedora user now. I'm going to have to revisit it soon.
- opless 8y agoI wouldn't bother. It's still quite horrid.
- Bootvis 8y agoAt least explain why you think it's horrid.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoPersonally, I tried it and had issues with package availability. It reminds me of RHEL without EPEL. Granted, there might be an equivalent that I didn't know about. EDIT/PS: this was particularly unfortunate, because ironically I really liked the package manager itself and the rest of the system was pretty decent.
- cyphar 8y agoHave you looked at Packman (one of the more well-known unofficial repos), or OBS (https://build.opensuse.org/ https://build.opensuse.org/)?
- diffeomorphism 8y agoI thought it has quite a bit of software but splits it into more repositories (and handles many repositories better): https://software.opensuse.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=steam https://software.opensuse.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=steam
- krylon 8y agoI run openSUSE on three desktop machines at home (2x Tumbleweed, 1x Leap), and I am mostly very happy with it. Hardware support is relatively good, and the system is fairly stable. Tumbleweed breaks things sometimes, but I would say that is to be expected on a rolling release distro. Thanks to snapshots, I can always roll back to a working state if something does break. To get a fully usable multimedia-capable desktop, one has to add a few package repositories, but that happens on other distros, too.
- Jhsto 8y ago"Not only Youtubers test on Windows, virtually the whole tech reviewer community tested on Windows exclusively. And many concluded that Threadripper problems were due to memory problems, and only few blamed Windows for it." https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1040679-a-look-at-the-windows-10-vs-linux-performance-on-amd-threadripper-2990wx?p=1040719#post1040719 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoron... Still, over 2x increase in performance on Linux over Windows seems insane.
- ksec 8y agoThere are reasons why it is called the WinTel alliance. Fortunately Linux dominate the server market now, hopefully this will give AMD some breathing space.
- api 8y agoNever ascribe to conspiracy what can equally well be explained by stupidity... or in this case a broken scheduler.
- cptskippy 8y agoBroken or optimized for a different set of processors? Don't forget that AMD can submit changes directly to the Linux Kernel but has to request or help Microsoft to make changes to Windows.
- api 8y agoOh I'm sure they're optimized for Intel, but that's easily explained by Intel's near-monopoly for the past 10 years. Now that AMD is gaining market share again we'll probably see this change. MS doesn't want to look bad in benchmarks.
- cptskippy 8y agoWe saw a similar situation when AMD released the Bulldozer line of CPUs and it took a minute for Microsoft to release a Hot Fix to address the issue. https://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the-bulldozer-scheduling-patch-tested https://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the-bulldozer-scheduling... The reality is that Windows doesn't recognize the new CPU and so it's not using a scheduler optimized for it. Where as AMD could have upstreamed any necessary changes for Linux to fully support it months ago.
- artellectual 8y agoI think HN hammered the site. It's down now.
- Mashimo 8y agoUp for me, also reddit linked to it too.
- Mashimo 8y agoWhy is ffmpeg better on Windows? (With the exception of clearLinux)
- hhorceface 8y agoAre you reading the graph wrong? It says "Seconds, Less is Better".
- lnx01 8y agoYes. Windows 10 took 6.27 seconds, with the exception of Clearlinux all the Linuxes took 8+ seconds.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoNot only that, why is there such a huge difference between ClearLinux and Ubuntu/OpenSUSE? Most video encoding, I assume, happens on linux machines these days. If switching a distro can result in such drastic improvements, it can result in massive savings for the big players, like Youtube and Twitch.
- Eochei5h 8y agoIf it's related to the thread scheduler yes. If it's related to compiler flags then the big sites probably have their own optimized builds of the encoders already.
- snuxoll 8y agoHard question to answer without knowing what compiler was used to build the binary, what version of the code was built, what build settings were used, etc. Video and audio encoding tools are the perfect example of software that will have wildly different performance characteristics depending on compiler optimizations; making comparisons between different operating systems a really unscientific process unless you use the same toolchain across all of them.
- sologoub 8y agoInteresting results. Anyone know why the difference between the different Linux distros? (Ubuntu in particular)
- RayDonnelly 8y agoCompiler flags mostly.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoAlso different compiler versions; I would expect gcc 7 vs 8.1 vs 8.2 to make a difference.
- DblPlusUngood 8y agoDifferent Linux kernel config options, probably. Different options can drastically affect performance.
- BurningCycles 8y agoI believe the main impact comes from Ubuntu using Linux 4.15 and GCC 7.3, while the other distros tested used Linux 4.17 and GCC 8.1+.
- the_grue 8y agoSo WHY is Windows slower? What effect can OS conceivably have on CPU benchmarks? Off the top of my head I can think of preemptive multitasking and memory allocation implementations (the latter shouldn't influence pure CPU benchmarks much, but it can influence 7-Zip results), any better guesses?
- ygra 8y agoI wonder whether Windows Server SKUs do differently, perhaps due to different scheduler optimization choices.
- dogma1138 8y agoThere is no difference, in fact they might be slower as they are on older kernels.
- magicalhippo 8y agoScheduling threads is probably a big one I imagine. If Windows schedules two threads from the same process working on a shared dataset across two different NUMA nodes then memory latency can shoot up, from what I understand. I've also noticed that Windows is very fond of passing hard-working threads around all the cores in turn, rather than letting them hog certain cores. Pretty sure that doesn't improve cache behavior etc.
- swebs 8y agoThere was a very good post about that a few years ago. It probably doesn't explain this specific case, but it is a fascinating read nonetheless. >I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-we-are-slower-than-other-oper/ http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w...
- the_grue 8y agoThanks, that's really interesting, even though the author toned much of his initial satire down in a later update.
- rataata_jr 8y agoI don't have a windows machine. But I think Threadripper must have been focused for Windows since most desktop users are Windows users after all.
- mizzack 8y agoThe CPU in question--the 2990WX--has the added "W" for "workstation", whereas the lower core parts (which don't seem to be affected by the Windows scheduling issue) do not have the "W" denotion. Most TR users I know are running Linux or hypervisors.
- wemdyjreichert 8y agoDefinitely. Not a gaming box; more for pros.
- pimeys 8y agoI'm actually considering an update to my developer workstation. The 2950X with 16 cores would be in a nice price point, with 64 GB of RAM and NixOS with a modern kernel to drive that beast. The only thing that bothers me is the energy usage. For 180W it costs quite a lot to run this, especially in Germany where electricity is not cheap.
- Retric 8y agoYea, Germany electricity is ridiculous. At a more reasonable 10c per kWh that’s 1.8 cents per hour and 157$ a year assuming 100% useage 24/7 vs $1799 for the CPU. Hardly going to break the bank, real world costs vs another similar CPU and you might hit 100$ worth of electricity over a 5 year lifespan.
- pimeys 8y agoI pay about 0.38€ per kWh and thinking of 8 hours per day usage, compiling heavy Rust and C++ projects, gaming at night. I could get my electricity prices down to 0.24€ per kWh if I'd spend some time switching providers every year. The 1950X (16-core) is now about 760€ here in Europe, and the upcoming 2950X (16-core too) seems to go to the same or a bit lower price point. Now the price of electricity is already a much larger percentage of the purchase price, but the convenience of cutting time out from the compilation might be worth it. Of course with so many cores, it is a good idea to get 64 GB of RAM, which adds to the energy bill. A template-heavy C++ project will eat RAM for breakfast, `make -j8` and 16 GB will definitely swap.
- Retric 8y agoSpending 4x as much on electricity for well under 1/3 as long means it's still well under 200$ per year before considering what your other CPU is going to cost you. IMO the base price is a much larger consideration as again you don't use 180W in non 100% use situations which is going to be 90+% of the time for personal coding use.
- anc84 8y agoIn Germany we care about sustainable life on this planet.
- wemdyjreichert 8y agoForget the 32-core processor; these guys installed arch? Hardcore.
- mizzack 8y agoI know you're joking, but they used Antergos which is a snap to install.
- wemdyjreichert 8y agoExcepting laptops w/ Nvidia Optimus stuff & power management. Easier than stock, but still arch. Thank goodness for the arch wiki.
- friesen 8y agoTBF, Optimus and power stuff aren't too much easier on a distro like Ubuntu (granted, they have come a long way). I usually end up having to look it up in the Arch wiki anyhow. Thank god for that site.
- jrs95 8y agoI wonder what the performance would look like if someone got macOS running on it...personally I’m not looking forward to another expensive Xeon based Mac. Sure, it’s not overpriced based on the hardware they’re using. But there’s much cheaper options to get the same performance, and a small fraction of Mac Pro/iMac Pro users even need ECC RAM. The iMac design also has some inherent thermal issues which make it not the best choice for a high performance desktop system to begin with. So, all that considered, I’ll probably be building a Hacktintosh even if I have to pay the premium for an i9 instead of something Ryzen based. Although I believe people had gotten first gen Ryzen chips working, so it seems like a TR Hackintosh should be possible. I just can’t sit around waiting multiple minutes every time I go to compile a decently sized mobile app (iOS dev being the only reason I have a Mac to begin with)
- dingo_bat 8y agoLooks like Microsoft has been wasting time on stupid UI changes and not enough on multi-core performance.
- teddyh 8y agoWhat an odd assortment of distributions to test. I would have expected the “Leading Distributions” according to LWN to appear: https://lwn.net/Distributions/#lead https://lwn.net/Distributions/#lead But no Fedora, no Slackware, and, perhaps most perplexing, no Debian.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoI can guess why he chose what he did. Ubuntu is still pretty much "the lead" distro for your average Linux Desktop user. Antergos and Tumbleweed are both Rolling distros and likely to be "bleeding edge" as far as any kernel changes, making them more likely to work with the recent AMD hardware. Clear Linux is the oddball out. Larabel uses it alot in his performance testing articles. The distro is maintained by Intel and they do some specific performance tuning to the kernel to work better with their chips. As a result, it usually edges out in performance on some tests[0]. That's probably why he included it. [0]https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-linux-10way&num=4 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-li...
- MBCook 8y agoStrangely the article is basically useless on my iPhone. All the graphs go off the side of the screen so unless you rotate into landscape you can’t tell any difference in performance. Very odd error for a benchmarking site.
- lostmsu 8y agoSadly, no compiler benchmarks.
- bitL 8y agoHow about testing on Windows Server? Still the same issues?
- digi_owl 8y agoI seem to recall some similar results back when AMD first released their APUs with the shared FPU setup, and Windows barfed because of its scheduler. Everyone still blamed AMD for making a crap CPU design...
- supernovae 8y agoWe had this debate with all Ryzen CPU's already. This quirk of windows isn't particular to threadripper by any means, we debated this with the 1700/1800 cpus
- sas41 8y agoI had to register to say this, but for anyone who is looking for a Tech Youtuber who does Linux performance and compatibility testing, and has a good technical knowledge in CS, I cannot recommend "Level 1 Techs" enough, Their content is very high quality, their host, Wendell, has in-depth knowledge in many aspects of CS, hardware, software, etc. Their website[0] has links to their various Youtube[1] channels and their forum, which has a really neat community. [0] - https://level1techs.com/ https://level1techs.com/ [1] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4w1YQAJMWOz4qtxinq55LQ/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4w1YQAJMWOz4qtxinq55LQ/