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I wondered when I can buy a AMD workstation with official ECC support, looks like that will finally be possible in September. Hope the price will be OK. There

by muro 6y ago

I wondered when I can buy a AMD workstation with official ECC support, looks like that will finally be possible in September. Hope the price will be OK. There are higher base frequencies but lower turbo on the new TR Pro vs Ryzen 9: | name | CPUs | base | turbo| | 3955WX | 16/32 | 3900 | 4300 | | 3945WX | 12/24 | 4000 | 4300 | | 3950X | 16/32 | 3500 | 4700 | | 3900XT | 12/24 | 3800 | 4700 | Edit: the new, much higher TDP is not welcome news.

lliamander 6y ago
> the new, much higher TDP is not welcome news. The TDP is (in part) because the Epyc IO die consumes roughly 100W by itself. You can still cool a Threadripper on air though.
tiffanyh 6y ago
I firmly believe that TR (with their higher base freq) + ECC would be the ultimate SERVER. The TR 3970x in particular is amazing for a server. It's 32 core, all running at a base freq of 3.7Ghz. It's amazing to have that kind of high clock with so many cores.
- neurotixz 6y ago
  This is probably part of the reason why it's OEM-only. That way AMD can control where it's used, avoiding it competing with it's own EPYC server chips.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    It's good point but sad for DIY.
  - wmf 6y ago
    It's probably the same price or more expensive than EPYC anyway so AMD doesn't care which one you buy.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  People typically run EPYC's at 4 sockets per U of rack space (2p-2u4n: 4 dual processor nodes in 2U). With these, you'd be lucky to get 1/4 of the density, more likely 1/8. Any savings on chips would be more than eaten up by rack fees.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> I wondered when I can buy a AMD workstation with official ECC support, looks like that will finally be possible in September. Hope the price will be OK. You don't have to wait. The current Ryzen 3000 series processors support ECC. ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte have several Ryzen 3000 motherboard options that support ECC RAM. Example: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Pro-WS-X570-ACE/ https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Pro-WS-X570-ACE/
- binarycrusader 6y ago
  Yes, but only a limited UDIMM variant which makes it much harder to source memory for. It's gotten a little easier over the last year, but these new Pro variants will have support for RDIMM, LRDIMM, etc. DIMMs which will make it much easier to find memory at a reasonable price.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    16GB and 32GB ECC UDIMMs are easy to find and reasonably priced: https://www.cdw.com/product/samsung-ddr4-32-gb-dimm-288-pin-unbuffered/5899887 https://www.cdw.com/product/samsung-ddr4-32-gb-dimm-288-pin-... The real advantage of the PRO processors is that they support 8-channel memory and have more PCIe lanes. The higher TDP spec might allow for higher all-core turbo, too.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      > The higher TDP spec might allow for higher all-core turbo, too. Same TDP spec as the existing non-pro threadrippers - 280W. > The real advantage of the PRO processors is that they support 8-channel memory and have more PCIe lanes. Those are advantages yes but the other DIMM types means you can also actually exceed 256GB of RAM, which with 64-cores is definitely also a bottleneck on the existing Threadripper lineup
      - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
        > Same TDP spec as the existing non-pro threadrippers - 280W. The current 280W TDP Threadrippers are 24, 32, or 64 core. These new Threadripper PRO parts have 280W TDP even down to 16 and 12 core parts.
parsimo2010 6y ago
You can already buy workstations with Epyc CPUs and have been able to for a while. ECC memory and more of it, plus extra PCI-E lanes.
- muro 6y ago
  Not from big OEMs, unfortunately.
DCKing 6y ago
Regular non-pro Threadripper has officially supported ECC from the start: https://www.amd.com/en/products/ryzen-threadripper https://www.amd.com/en/products/ryzen-threadripper The usual distinction is that Threadripper regular takes unbuffered ECC, whereas Threadripper Pro and Epyc take buffered ECC. But they're both ECC.

by muro 6y ago

lliamander 6y ago

> the new, much higher TDP is not welcome news. The TDP is (in part) because the Epyc IO die consumes roughly 100W by itself. You can still cool a Threadripper on air though.

tiffanyh 6y ago

I firmly believe that TR (with their higher base freq) + ECC would be the ultimate SERVER. The TR 3970x in particular is amazing for a server. It's 32 core, all running at a base freq of 3.7Ghz. It's amazing to have that kind of high clock with so many cores.

neurotixz 6y ago
This is probably part of the reason why it's OEM-only. That way AMD can control where it's used, avoiding it competing with it's own EPYC server chips.
- fomine3 6y ago
  It's good point but sad for DIY.
- wmf 6y ago
  It's probably the same price or more expensive than EPYC anyway so AMD doesn't care which one you buy.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
People typically run EPYC's at 4 sockets per U of rack space (2p-2u4n: 4 dual processor nodes in 2U). With these, you'd be lucky to get 1/4 of the density, more likely 1/8. Any savings on chips would be more than eaten up by rack fees.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> I wondered when I can buy a AMD workstation with official ECC support, looks like that will finally be possible in September. Hope the price will be OK. You don't have to wait. The current Ryzen 3000 series processors support ECC. ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte have several Ryzen 3000 motherboard options that support ECC RAM. Example: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Pro-WS-X570-ACE/ https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Pro-WS-X570-ACE/

binarycrusader 6y ago
Yes, but only a limited UDIMM variant which makes it much harder to source memory for. It's gotten a little easier over the last year, but these new Pro variants will have support for RDIMM, LRDIMM, etc. DIMMs which will make it much easier to find memory at a reasonable price.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  16GB and 32GB ECC UDIMMs are easy to find and reasonably priced: https://www.cdw.com/product/samsung-ddr4-32-gb-dimm-288-pin-unbuffered/5899887 https://www.cdw.com/product/samsung-ddr4-32-gb-dimm-288-pin-... The real advantage of the PRO processors is that they support 8-channel memory and have more PCIe lanes. The higher TDP spec might allow for higher all-core turbo, too.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    > The higher TDP spec might allow for higher all-core turbo, too. Same TDP spec as the existing non-pro threadrippers - 280W. > The real advantage of the PRO processors is that they support 8-channel memory and have more PCIe lanes. Those are advantages yes but the other DIMM types means you can also actually exceed 256GB of RAM, which with 64-cores is definitely also a bottleneck on the existing Threadripper lineup
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      > Same TDP spec as the existing non-pro threadrippers - 280W. The current 280W TDP Threadrippers are 24, 32, or 64 core. These new Threadripper PRO parts have 280W TDP even down to 16 and 12 core parts.

parsimo2010 6y ago

You can already buy workstations with Epyc CPUs and have been able to for a while. ECC memory and more of it, plus extra PCI-E lanes.

muro 6y ago
Not from big OEMs, unfortunately.

DCKing 6y ago

Regular non-pro Threadripper has officially supported ECC from the start: https://www.amd.com/en/products/ryzen-threadripper https://www.amd.com/en/products/ryzen-threadripper The usual distinction is that Threadripper regular takes unbuffered ECC, whereas Threadripper Pro and Epyc take buffered ECC. But they're both ECC.