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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

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...
    - kllrnohj 7y ago
      > As for Intel, they were always upfront about the need to change mobos with almost every new generation AMD never said TR4 was forwards-compatible. They did say that for AM4 & for Epyc SP3. Hindsight is 20/20 yada yada but the lack of forwards-compatibility promises should be treated as rolling the dice on that.
      - bitL 7y ago
        I think everybody expected it as people even booted EPYCs in TR4 boards. https://www.techpowerup.com/241072/an-epyc-threadripper-der8auer-gets-epyc-cpu-working-on-x399-motherboard https://www.techpowerup.com/241072/an-epyc-threadripper-der8...

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...
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    > As for Intel, they were always upfront about the need to change mobos with almost every new generation AMD never said TR4 was forwards-compatible. They did say that for AM4 & for Epyc SP3. Hindsight is 20/20 yada yada but the lack of forwards-compatibility promises should be treated as rolling the dice on that.
    - bitL 7y ago
      I think everybody expected it as people even booted EPYCs in TR4 boards. https://www.techpowerup.com/241072/an-epyc-threadripper-der8auer-gets-epyc-cpu-working-on-x399-motherboard https://www.techpowerup.com/241072/an-epyc-threadripper-der8...