Discussion Zen 3 Threadripper coming to DIY later this year...

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eek2121

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This may be under discussion; however, I did not see an active thread for it. According to AMD, Threadripper Zen 3 chips are hitting DIY later this year:

We also expect to make these processors available to our DIY community later this year.
(source: VideoCardz)

An unexpected, yet welcome/pleasant surprise to be sure.

Don't expect the parts to be cheap, however. Most of the motherboards are north of $500, and that is easily the cheapest part of the build. Still, a welcome change from AMD. Cheers to AMD for surprising even me. 😏
 

moinmoin

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To be fair the writing has been on the wall since when the minds behind Threadripper, Jim Anderson (to Lattice Semiconductor) and James Prior (to SiFive), left AMD back in 2018.

As I mentioned in the past I'd personally have preferred AMD to rename Threadripper Pro to Epyc Workstation since that's the audience these products live for: No longer the Ryzen (of which the Threadripper brand started as an extension) enthusiastic consumer audience but the Epyc (in which pricing Threadripper now has to fit in) professional audience.
 
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nicalandia

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Well, they are cheaper than EPYC of the same core count, and they run at a higher clock rate.
Same Feature Set that EPYC(8 Channels, same PCI Lanes) and 4.5 Ghz Single Core boost of Zen3 High Performance While Reign Supreme at the UHEDT?


Back in the worst days of Intel at Desktop. Tech Jesus said about the "High" Price of the 5950X(Only $50 more) "What are you going to do? Are you going to buy Intel? Well the worst days of Intel at the UHEDT are not over yet(Sapphire Rapids is MIA)
 

Timmah!

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To be fair the writing has been on the wall since when the minds behind Threadripper, Jim Anderson (to Lattice Semiconductor) and James Prior (to SiFive), left AMD back in 2018.

As I mentioned in the past I'd personally have preferred AMD to rename Threadripper Pro to Epyc Workstation since that's the audience these products live for: No longer the Ryzen (of which the Threadripper brand started as an extension) enthusiastic consumer audience but the Epyc (in which pricing Threadripper now has to fit in) professional audience.

That would not really help, they could name it whatever they want, but the fact remains, they once offered certain product range inbetween regular desktop and workstation/server, which they dont anymore. Thats the sad part here.

Let me rephrase Tech Jesus. "What are you going to do about it? Buy Intel?"

Obviously, there is nothing to buy from Intel at all at the moment. But you never know, perhaps when they finally release that Fishawk Falls platform, it will be on lower end as replacement for former Core-X, whatever the new naming scheme is. Though, i am not holding my breath. If AMD is not offering it, Intel certainly wont.
 

moinmoin

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That would not really help, they could name it whatever they want, but the fact remains, they once offered certain product range inbetween regular desktop and workstation/server, which they dont anymore. Thats the sad part here.
For that matter I don't really consider it sad that AMD doesn't offer a heavily crippled Epyc platform any more. With Zen 4 Siena may be able to offer a "lower cost" Threadripper Pro platform, but let's not kid ourselves that we will ever see the low pricing of first gen Threadripper again, that has been taken over by standard Ryzen (which I still hope will expand to 24 cores sometime soon-ish).
 
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Timmah!

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For that matter I don't really consider it sad that AMD doesn't offer a heavily crippled Epyc platform any more. With Zen 4 Siena may be able to offer a "lower cost" Threadripper Pro platform, but let's not kid ourselves that we will ever see the low pricing of first gen Threadripper again, that has been taken over by standard Ryzen (which I still hope will expand to 24 cores sometime soon-ish).

If it does expand to 24C, then i will be content more or less OK even with mainstream platform, threadripper be damned. And it will expand no doubt, the question is, whether it will be on AM5 or we will have to wait for it for next socket in 3+ years. I am afraid it might be the latter.
 

nicalandia

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If it does expand to 24C, then i will be content more or less OK even with mainstream platform, threadripper be damned. And it will expand no doubt, the question is, whether it will be on AM5 or we will have to wait for it for next socket in 3+ years. I am afraid it might be the latter.
With Zen4C it will sure expand to more than 24 cores for sure
 

Schmide

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Although the prices are high, it makes sense to me. AM5 with its quasi quad ddr5 from below would certainly put pressure on true quads like sTRX4. Not to mention the lag time for higher end processors to make it to the threadripper platform. The pcie5 basically doubles the IO.

Even if there isn't competition from intel, AMD has to compete with itself.
 
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nicalandia

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eek2121

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IMO AMD definitely needs a quad channel platform with more cores/PCIE lanes than Ryzen, but less than Threadripper. Maybe quad channel DDR5, and 32-40 PCIE 5.0 lanes with the high frequencies of top end Ryzen chips and a high power limit. They could reuse the same socket, just with a different IOD and chipset, or possibly create a new AM5 pro socket that is smaller than the current TR socket.

Such a SKU would target smaller shops as well as gamers and independent content creators.

Of course, it won’t happen unless Intel forces their hand, but one can dream…
With Zen4C it will sure expand to more than 24 cores for sure
Zen4c is cloud only. It is not coming to desktop.
 

Atari2600

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IMO AMD definitely needs a quad channel platform with more cores/PCIE lanes than Ryzen, but less than Threadripper
What is the use case? Will ddr5 not supply sufficient bandwidth on a dual channel setup unless said use case would benefit from an 8ch system?
 

tomatosummit

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Mar 21, 2019
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IMO AMD definitely needs a quad channel platform with more cores/PCIE lanes than Ryzen, but less than Threadripper. Maybe quad channel DDR5, and 32-40 PCIE 5.0 lanes with the high frequencies of top end Ryzen chips and a high power limit. They could reuse the same socket, just with a different IOD and chipset, or possibly create a new AM5 pro socket that is smaller than the current TR socket.

Such a SKU would target smaller shops as well as gamers and independent content creators.

Of course, it won’t happen unless Intel forces their hand, but one can dream…

Zen4c is cloud only. It is not coming to desktop.
Assuming there are still 32pcie lanes on the desktop cpus then I think just exposing those would go a long way to filling the hedt void even with 'only' 16 core cpus and dual channel memory. and give an actual reason for high end motherboards to exist.
I'm thinking;
16 lanes (GPU optional 8+8)​
8 lanes (network/storage option for 4+4)​
4 lanes (network/storage)​
4 lanes (pch/chipset for leftovers)​
You get a wide array of options from a simple x16gpu + 3nvme drives to a specialised 3 x8accelerators with high speed networking.
Obviously won't go all the way to workstations but I feel there was a market that TR1 really knocked out the park that has been left dormant.
 

Schmide

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Assuming there are still 32pcie lanes on the desktop cpus then I think just exposing those would go a long way to filling the hedt void even with 'only' 16 core cpus and dual channel memory. and give an actual reason for high end motherboards to exist.
I'm thinking;
16 lanes (GPU optional 8+8)​
8 lanes (network/storage option for 4+4)​
4 lanes (network/storage)​
4 lanes (pch/chipset for leftovers)​
You get a wide array of options from a simple x16gpu + 3nvme drives to a specialised 3 x8accelerators with high speed networking.
Obviously won't go all the way to workstations but I feel there was a market that TR1 really knocked out the park that has been left dormant.

Well the leaked x670 is

20x pcie5
8x pcie4 split between ASMedia usb4 and x670 downstream daisy chain
+ dedicated DP/hdmi/usb32/usb2/gpio/HD audio that probably equates out to another 4x pcie4

~ 26 pcie5 lanes or 52 pcie4 lanes
 
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tomatosummit

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Well the leaked x670 is

20x pcie5
8x pcie4 split between ASMedia usb4 and x670 downstream daisy chain
+ dedicated DP/hdmi/usb32/usb2/gpio/HD audio that probably equates out to another 4x pcie4

~ 26 pcie5 lanes or 52 pcie4 lanes
24 pcie 5 lanes are 24 pcie 4 lanes, there aren't magically twice as many of them even if they're capable of higher transfer rates, the rest is all pch junk that goes through the shared interface.
Then the 4 new pcie lanes is good but on desktop usb4 is about as useful as a chocolate teapot so I hope some manufacturers do the right thing and don't waste those lanes.
and there are still 4 more locked away.
 

eek2121

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What is the use case? Will ddr5 not supply sufficient bandwidth on a dual channel setup unless said use case would benefit from an 8ch system?

Early iterations of Threadripper were all quad channel. There are some workloads that benefit, however it is mostly just to check a box in the features list.

My point was that there is a gap between high end Ryzen and low end Threadripper. AMD could do well to service that gap. It would also allow them to shift the Threadripper branding back to enthusiast level and to spin out an EPYC workstation.

Alas, they do not appear to be doing this.
 

DrMrLordX

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Would it be economically and technically feasible to use some kind of lane splitter to split a single PCIe5 channel into two PCIe4 channels? Something tells me that it isn't supported by the protocol.
 

tomatosummit

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Would it be economically and technically feasible to use some kind of lane splitter to split a single PCIe5 channel into two PCIe4 channels? Something tells me that it isn't supported by the protocol.
Techically possible yes. Pcie switches have been around since the start.
The PCH on motherboard is pretty close to that. Four lanes in and it switches between it's various out going mmio (pcie+usb+sata) lanes.

Financially I'd say not really. There are some motherboards that have such switches but they're either expensive 'pro' tier stuff or specialised bespoke parts, rare in consumer parts.
 

DrMrLordX

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Apr 27, 2000
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Techically possible yes. Pcie switches have been around since the start.
The PCH on motherboard is pretty close to that. Four lanes in and it switches between it's various out going mmio (pcie+usb+sata) lanes.

Financially I'd say not really. There are some motherboards that have such switches but they're either expensive 'pro' tier stuff or specialised bespoke parts, rare in consumer parts.

Okay I figured it could be done with the way that southbridges/chipsets work. But yeah it would cost in area and transistors to make it happen so. Hmm.
 

Atari2600

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Nov 22, 2016
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Early iterations of Threadripper were all quad channel. There are some workloads that benefit, however it is mostly just to check a box in the features list.

My point was that there is a gap between high end Ryzen and low end Threadripper. AMD could do well to service that gap.

I know, I have a 2950.

But with DDR5, the equation changes. So the subset of workloads that would benefit from quad channel but wouldn't justify a proper professional level octa channel solution will have substantially decreased IMO.

Assuming 16c is top end desktop for next generation or two, what is the proportional increase in cpu performance vs memory bandwidth from zen3 to now?