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Abandoning x399 is silly; AMD effectively cut-off entry level HEDT folks (24 core is minimum now; 8-12c is a plenty for e.g. Deep Learning researchers) and upse

by bitL 7y ago

Abandoning x399 is silly; AMD effectively cut-off entry level HEDT folks (24 core is minimum now; 8-12c is a plenty for e.g. Deep Learning researchers) and upset previous enthusiasts that invested a lot of $ for the possibility of a future upgrade (boards in the range of $350-$650). Given that EPYC Rome up to 32 cores can run in 1st gen EPYC boards with just BIOS update, it's difficult to understand the decision (unless they cut the corners for TR1/TR2 boards). I don't see any reason not to release backwards-compatible TR3 even if they had to limit frequency/TDP on older boards... I had plans buying 64c TR3, but I'll be skipping this and next gen and buy TR5 with DDR5 in 2021 instead.

vbezhenar 7y ago
I somewhat agree. I don't need 24 cores and 12 would be more than enough for me, but proper ECC support, workstation-grade motherboard, 4 memory channels, big L3 cache are nice to have.
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  fwiw ECC support and workstation-grade motherboards are both features you'll find on AM4 platform. "workstation-grade motherboards" being a standard feature across the entire X570 lineup, even, as PCI-E 4.0 signaling requirements basically forced it. TR3 does have larger L3, but the 3900X isn't a slouch either with 64MB of it.
  - account42 7y ago
    > TR3 does have larger L3, but the 3900X isn't a slouch either with 64MB of it. And L3 scales with the number of chiplets, which rooughly scales with core count, so a 16 core TR would "only" have 64MB L3 too unless they used garbage chiplets with half of the cores disabled.
kllrnohj 7y ago
They changed the interface between the CPU & the chipset, that appears to be the main breakage. Specifically they doubled the width of it, not just bumped from PCI-E 3.0 to 4.0. Instead of an x4 connection it's now an x8 connection. It does suck, but since they also seem to have dropped any of the lower-cost SKUs it's probably not a motherboard upgrade that's going to stop you from dropping $1400 on a CPU. And if you really were considering a 64C one, it's hard to believe a price difference of ~$400 will matter on what's going to likely be a ~$4000 CPU. It's a ~10% price difference.
- bitL 7y ago
  They could have just released x399-compatible TRs that would have been e.g. frequency/TDP/voltage limited with just older PCIex, or make it configurable. They didn't need to do that for new EPYCs anyway so there obviously was a way (new EPYC socket was needed only for >32c parts). I planned to bump my Zenith Extreme TR with 128GB ECC RAM to 32c from this gen and use it for e.g. gaming, while investing into a TRX80/WRX80 64c TR. Now I am actually pretty upset; I'll rather invest into a bunch of RTX 8000. They went from something I was looking forward to in the past year to something I'd like to forget about ASAP, like with final GoT season... I might even become an Intel fanboy now.
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    > They didn't need to do that for new EPYCs anyway so there obviously was a way (new EPYC socket was needed only for >32c parts). Epyc has a different PCI-E layout from Threadripper and always did. > I planned to bump my Zenith Extreme TR with 128GB ECC RAM to 32c from this gen and use it for e.g. gaming I mean you still can, it just costs slightly more expensive than it otherwise would have? And instead of selling 1 used part you now sell 2? Like I said I agree it sucks, but you seem to be really blowing this out of proportion. I'm far more annoyed at the missing lower-end SKUs than the motherboard cost. Where's the update for the 12-core where the platform IO is more valuable than raw core counts? > I might even become an Intel fanboy now. You're going to become a fanboy of the company that never does backwards compatibility just because you didn't get 3 generations of backwards compatibility on 1 out of 3 platforms?
    - bitL 7y ago
      > blowing this out of proportion The best way/time to express disappointment is to do it right away and in full force. If AMD were on IMDB, they would get 1/10 for handling this. I have all rights to behave emotionally instead of rationally anyway. Used TRs sell for peanuts, the same for mobos (no demand for used stuff; look at what actually sells instead of what is listed for months), it would be going from $1.5k to $400, writing off like $1.1k in the process. And there will be plenty on eBay soon, putting even higher downward pressure (both AM4 3900x and 3950x now beat all TR1/2s up to 16 core, sometimes even 24c). The missing low-core parts is another thing that wasn't well thought out in all this, I agree. As for Intel, they were always upfront about the need to change mobos with almost every new generation (the last few were exceptions); I also never had so many issues with any Intel pro board that I had with ASUS Zenith Extreme, their "flagship" TR mobo that can't even run 2x Titan RTX properly...

by bitL 7y ago

vbezhenar 7y ago

I somewhat agree. I don't need 24 cores and 12 would be more than enough for me, but proper ECC support, workstation-grade motherboard, 4 memory channels, big L3 cache are nice to have.

kllrnohj 7y ago
fwiw ECC support and workstation-grade motherboards are both features you'll find on AM4 platform. "workstation-grade motherboards" being a standard feature across the entire X570 lineup, even, as PCI-E 4.0 signaling requirements basically forced it. TR3 does have larger L3, but the 3900X isn't a slouch either with 64MB of it.
- account42 7y ago
  > TR3 does have larger L3, but the 3900X isn't a slouch either with 64MB of it. And L3 scales with the number of chiplets, which rooughly scales with core count, so a 16 core TR would "only" have 64MB L3 too unless they used garbage chiplets with half of the cores disabled.

kllrnohj 7y ago

They changed the interface between the CPU & the chipset, that appears to be the main breakage. Specifically they doubled the width of it, not just bumped from PCI-E 3.0 to 4.0. Instead of an x4 connection it's now an x8 connection. It does suck, but since they also seem to have dropped any of the lower-cost SKUs it's probably not a motherboard upgrade that's going to stop you from dropping $1400 on a CPU. And if you really were considering a 64C one, it's hard to believe a price difference of ~$400 will matter on what's going to likely be a ~$4000 CPU. It's a ~10% price difference.

bitL 7y ago
They could have just released x399-compatible TRs that would have been e.g. frequency/TDP/voltage limited with just older PCIex, or make it configurable. They didn't need to do that for new EPYCs anyway so there obviously was a way (new EPYC socket was needed only for >32c parts). I planned to bump my Zenith Extreme TR with 128GB ECC RAM to 32c from this gen and use it for e.g. gaming, while investing into a TRX80/WRX80 64c TR. Now I am actually pretty upset; I'll rather invest into a bunch of RTX 8000. They went from something I was looking forward to in the past year to something I'd like to forget about ASAP, like with final GoT season... I might even become an Intel fanboy now.
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  > They didn't need to do that for new EPYCs anyway so there obviously was a way (new EPYC socket was needed only for >32c parts). Epyc has a different PCI-E layout from Threadripper and always did. > I planned to bump my Zenith Extreme TR with 128GB ECC RAM to 32c from this gen and use it for e.g. gaming I mean you still can, it just costs slightly more expensive than it otherwise would have? And instead of selling 1 used part you now sell 2? Like I said I agree it sucks, but you seem to be really blowing this out of proportion. I'm far more annoyed at the missing lower-end SKUs than the motherboard cost. Where's the update for the 12-core where the platform IO is more valuable than raw core counts? > I might even become an Intel fanboy now. You're going to become a fanboy of the company that never does backwards compatibility just because you didn't get 3 generations of backwards compatibility on 1 out of 3 platforms?
  - bitL 7y ago
    > blowing this out of proportion The best way/time to express disappointment is to do it right away and in full force. If AMD were on IMDB, they would get 1/10 for handling this. I have all rights to behave emotionally instead of rationally anyway. Used TRs sell for peanuts, the same for mobos (no demand for used stuff; look at what actually sells instead of what is listed for months), it would be going from $1.5k to $400, writing off like $1.1k in the process. And there will be plenty on eBay soon, putting even higher downward pressure (both AM4 3900x and 3950x now beat all TR1/2s up to 16 core, sometimes even 24c). The missing low-core parts is another thing that wasn't well thought out in all this, I agree. As for Intel, they were always upfront about the need to change mobos with almost every new generation (the last few were exceptions); I also never had so many issues with any Intel pro board that I had with ASUS Zenith Extreme, their "flagship" TR mobo that can't even run 2x Titan RTX properly...