Thoughts on the new Intel X299 platform?

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Message 1882879 - Posted: 9 Aug 2017, 21:38:55 UTC

I know it's pretty new, but I had started considering refreshing the MB in my CAD system here at the shop, it's an X99 with a (soon to have 2) 1080Ti in it. I have been hearing about the newest latest and greatest that Intel is throwing out (my guess is in the attempt to distract everyone from AMD's new Threadripper,) I did a little perusing on the web and YouTube, and ran into this video What does a $250 7640X CPU do to a $490 X299 Motherboard?

First of all, Holy cow, for the uninitiated, does it ever go over things pretty succinctly, and honestly doesn't paint a very flattering picture of Intel at this moment, or the compromises and confusion they are foisting on their customers. And my take on what he says, after watching it all carefully, is that it's pretty much all true. I believe that after hearing what they are trying to pull on us consumers with their megabux high end (read = what should be mid to upper mid range, not $1000-2000(!) CPU's), this (probably formerly) exclusive Intel CPU user is most likely going to be building his next system with an AMD CPU. I think the last time I put one together was sometime around the mid 90's. Wow.

As seeing as there isn't a significant difference between the X299 and the X99, would it just be smarter to go with one of those for people who still want to run Intel CPU's and want to upgrade their older systems? I did read in the comments of the video suggesting just that, but then replies to it mentioned that those boards really haven't come down in price at all either, which is a little surprising since they are now a gen behind. But maybe that has to do with the conclusion this video makes, and the mfg's know it, and figure why lower the prices if people will still be willing to pay them.

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Message 1882880 - Posted: 9 Aug 2017, 21:52:28 UTC - in response to Message 1882879.  

There's no need to go for a X299 mobo or even a i9 CPU. There isn't any significant gain over the previous Broadwell chips and MoBo.
The next question is if you plan on building an intel system, what are you expectations. Once you figure out what you expect from your system, you can decide on how best to approach building it.

AMD new chips and GPUs should prove interesting. I wouldn't mind building one myself but don't like the idea of having to use Windows 10....
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Message 1882888 - Posted: 9 Aug 2017, 23:39:10 UTC - in response to Message 1882880.  

...

AMD new chips and GPUs should prove interesting. I wouldn't mind building one myself but don't like the idea of having to use Windows 10....

Go Linux.

Works well.

Take care not to get too drunk on the freedom from Licensing restrictions! ...


Happy fast crunchin',
Martin
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Message 1882889 - Posted: 9 Aug 2017, 23:40:56 UTC - in response to Message 1882880.  

... but don't like the idea of having to use Windows 10....
Having to? No possibility of running 7 on it?? WTH? What's this BS about CPU specific OS's? It's an x86 proc, right? Or are we now in a post x86 world? If so I missed that memo. If it doesn't run all the latest and greatest features of the Proc, I don't care. But you're saying that during the Win 7 install, the OS pops up and says that it is not a compatible CPU? And no workarounds? Wow, just wow.

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Message 1882890 - Posted: 9 Aug 2017, 23:49:21 UTC - in response to Message 1882889.  

... but don't like the idea of having to use Windows 10....
Having to? No possibility of running 7 on it?? WTH? What's this BS about CPU specific OS's? It's an x86 proc, right? Or are we now in a post x86 world? If so I missed that memo. If it doesn't run all the latest and greatest features of the Proc, I don't care. But you're saying that during the Win 7 install, the OS pops up and says that it is not a compatible CPU? And no workarounds? Wow, just wow.

Welcome to the New Marketing whoring where "compatibility" is a rebranded Marketing insisting that you MUST UPGRADE every 6 months...


Call that freedom? ... 'cos I don't!

IT is what we allow it to be...
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Message 1882894 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 0:03:34 UTC - in response to Message 1882889.  

While you might be able to install Windows 7 on a threadripper, AMD only provides drivers for Windows 10 and MS will not provide updates to any Threadripper running anything but 10. So there you go....
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Message 1882895 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 0:06:38 UTC
Last modified: 10 Aug 2017, 0:07:59 UTC

Oh, and Zalster, after watching that vid, my expectations are about 0 for improvements over the previous generations (at least in the versions of the new procs that are priced below stratospheric levels, that is), really doesn't appear to be anything significant. And to get into the higher core counts, and more PCI-E lanes, you're talking 1-2k for just the proc. Insane. I thought the Extreme editions up until now at a grand were pretty crazy, but this takes the cake. Who in their right mind would buy one? If I had that kind of money to burn, I'd just build a killer Xeon system and be done with it.

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Message 1882897 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 0:12:00 UTC

I'm not really sure what the purpose of the i5-7640X & i7-7740X are. They are slightly higher clock versions of the i5-7600K & i7-7700K for LGA2066.
Probably one of the first reasons to even go with a LGA2066 setup is quad channel memory. Which those CPUs don't give you.
Another reason to go with LGA2066 would be for the extra PCIe lanes. The i7-7800X & i7-7820X only give you 28 PCIe lanes
So it doesn't sense to me to go with anything less than the i9-7900X for a LGA2066 x299 setup.

If I needed a single socket system with a lot of cores I might consider a Xeon Phi x200 CPU setup. It would be interesting to see how an OS handles a 72c/576t processor.

For now I'm just considering getting an i3-8350K and a Ryzen 3 1300. Then putting them side by side with the same clock settings and see how well they crunch. Since most crunching doesn't translate well to standard benchmarks.
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Message 1882933 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 5:14:06 UTC - in response to Message 1882897.  

Hal, checked out that link, as I'm sort of a core junkie, and those #'s piqued my interest. I see a few interesting things about those. The fastest one appears to be the 7290. It's clocked at 1.5 GHz with a turbo of 1.7, a TPD of 245 watts, 6 memory channels and only 36 PCI-E lanes. Looking at the specs, I didn't see HT mentioned as it being capable of that, and a suggested price of $3210. How did you come up with the 576t, multiple CPU's in one system?

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Message 1882948 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 7:23:54 UTC

I saw an interesting comment on a review of a Threadripper system. Seems that a single socket Epyc motherboard is in the same price range as the high-end Threadripper motherboards and the 24 core CPU is only $50 more than the 16 core 1950X. And it has 128 PCIe lanes and 8 memory channels.
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Message 1882963 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 12:05:01 UTC - in response to Message 1882933.  
Last modified: 10 Aug 2017, 12:08:12 UTC

Looks like this is a 72 core, 288 thread thing:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon_Phi/Intel-Xeon%20Phi%207290.html

So 2 of these in a system results in 576 threads
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Message 1882980 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 14:26:40 UTC - in response to Message 1882963.  

I'd idly wandered past the Xeon Phi pages a few days ago, now that they are available to order in the UK in a workstation format.

But I think the 68-core Phi itself is configured as a coprocessor, not directly available to either Windows or BOINC. But we won't know for certain until somebody buys one...
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Message 1883008 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 18:10:38 UTC - in response to Message 1882963.  

Ahh, gotcha, I didn't realize that there were 4 threads per core, not 2 as on the normal HT we're all used to. Thanks for the clarification!

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Message 1883042 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 21:13:43 UTC - in response to Message 1882980.  

I'd idly wandered past the Xeon Phi pages a few days ago, now that they are available to order in the UK in a workstation format.

But I think the 68-core Phi itself is configured as a coprocessor, not directly available to either Windows or BOINC. But we won't know for certain until somebody buys one...

2 people here, 1 of them being Ivan, have tried them, but they couldn't get them to work with BOINC.

Cheers.
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Message 1883050 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 21:44:40 UTC - in response to Message 1883042.  

That sounds like a challenge...
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Message 1883054 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 21:58:27 UTC - in response to Message 1882980.  

I'd idly wandered past the Xeon Phi pages a few days ago, now that they are available to order in the UK in a workstation format.

But I think the 68-core Phi itself is configured as a coprocessor, not directly available to either Windows or BOINC. But we won't know for certain until somebody buys one...

Unless Intel is releasing them with different names in the UK I think that site might have some mixed up info.
Currently on Intel's site they list the Phi x100's as add-in cards and the Phi x200's as LGA3647 CPUs.
There is no mention of a 7220A. There is a 7120A add-in card but it is only 61 cores. The 68 core CPUs are 7250's.
Since it they have been released I have been considering something like a SuperMicro setup https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/tower/5038/SYS-5038K-I.cfm with the 7230.

For some reason I was thinking these had 8:1 HT but it looks like it is actually 4:1. Which may still prove interesting. However it's not '$3500 for base components' interesting. At least not to me.
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Message 1883058 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 22:52:25 UTC - in response to Message 1883054.  

Well, that was what piqued my interest.

I can think of lots of questions:
--can a Phi run an x86 app unmodified?
--can it run a windows x86 app unmodified?
--what is it about the app that makes it run on the Phi, not the standard CPU?
--does intel supply a launcher/dispatcher/wrapper which can initiate any given app on the Phi?

--can BOINC define a Phi coprocessor? (yes, there's a 'roll your own' option)
--can a given BOINC app be defined to run on the r-y-o copro? (yes, app_info should take care of that, subject to the first group of answers)

--will a BOINC server allocate tasks to an anonymous app on a r-y-o copro?
--will the SETI server allocate tasks to an anonymous app on a r-y-o copro?

Any more, before I pony up 8 months of pension?
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Message 1883060 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 23:03:02 UTC
Last modified: 10 Aug 2017, 23:06:19 UTC

Richard, you may want to have a chat with Ivan to find out what problems he ran into with them first before making the leap. ;-)

[edit] Though it was quite some time back now that he played with them.

Cheers.
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Message 1883061 - Posted: 10 Aug 2017, 23:09:34 UTC - in response to Message 1883060.  

I think I'm due to meet with Ivan's boss in Paris next month (and Ivan himself, if he makes it) - it would make sense to wait until then. I'll be busy anyway.
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Message 1883085 - Posted: 11 Aug 2017, 0:51:53 UTC - in response to Message 1883061.  
Last modified: 11 Aug 2017, 0:55:35 UTC

Jetting off to Paris. Wow! Somebodies arrived it looks like. ;-)

Doh! Was curious so I checked, it looks like it's about an 2 hour or so train ride from London. So much for the glamourous high rolling lifestyle. It's pretty much like me going to Chicago from here. 7 or so hours in a car, (we don't really do trains in any serious way over on this side of the pond) or 50 minute (in the air time, not including all the Airport BS) flight. Another day in the park for you I suppose.

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Message boards : Number crunching : Thoughts on the new Intel X299 platform?


 
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