Author Topic: Interior Benchmark - AMD vs Intel  (Read 3568 times)

2018-01-01, 17:12:03

Mattschia

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Hello Everyone, I've done some testing during the holidays and I tought to share the results bacause it could be useful for people who want to build a workstation.



Settings: 4k resolution | 25 Pass | GI 16 | Light Samples 4

INTEL 7980XE 18 Cores (36 Threads) @3800 Mhz (AVX):

Rays/s total 12.850.000
Time: 00:15:45


AMD Ryzen 1700 8 Cores (16 Threads) @3800 Mhz (AVX/2):

Rays/s total 4.200.000
Time: 00:45:20

(Combined Time in DR: 00:12:50)

Being both CPUs at the same frequency, if we consider a core to core comparison Intel CPU has 2,25x the amount of performance on paper, however in real life with Corona the performance is almost exactly 3x.

I think this is a mixture of slightly better IPC and full AVX implementation by Intel but maybe I'm missing something else.

Of course if we consider price/performance/power ratio AMD is the clear winner here (500,00 vs 2.500,00 EUR now for MB+CPU and 170W vs 450W) but I believe that in our field hardware cost for this type of consumer grade systems is quite manageable and what is left over time is a huge performance difference.

I thought this could be an interesting comparison as those 2 are the reference CPUs at the moment for a cost-oriented consumer workstation and a performance-without-compromise one, I believe the above numbers can easily transfer to AMD Threadripper and lower Intel i9 processors as well since it's actually the same architecture.

I expect that AMD 1950x at the same frequency would complete the above render in exactly half time with 00:22:00 vs 00:15:45 of the 7980XE.

This comparison is only good for Corona and in particular 1.7 version, the official benchmark uses version 1.3 core and after some testing i've noticed a smaller performance gap between the 2 architectures, not sure what happen under the hood but something is changed and most review websites are not telling the whole story in real life application.

2018-01-01, 21:50:12
Reply #1

Juraj

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Thanks for the test, really good info. Given that Threadripper does scale almost linearly from Ryzen, I would take your estimated extrapolation to be rather correct :- ).

Anyway, if I can ask, what is your 7980XE setup ? Board and CPU cooler mostly. Also what stable overclock did you manage ? The i9 despite its price shows promise to me due to two things 1) Terrible thermals..but not limited architecture and I've seen stable clocks in 4.2+ Range 2.) Ram is so terribly overpriced it's almost laughable, and for 128GB workstations, the price of CPU almost fades making the total cost of systems much close to each other.

That still makes i9 7980XE + 128GB ram + 1080ti obscenely priced machine but, it's what it is.
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2018-01-01, 22:25:13
Reply #2

Mattschia

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Hello Juraj , I'm glad that this test can be useful.

I get your point regarding price or Ram, it's a shame really. However that is common for all platforms nowdays so when i considered the value of the CPU I left them out.

My thermals are very good but I delidded the CPU and I ran a custom made waterlooling loop with an EK Fullcover..  temps never go above 65deg in overclock and 40degs at stock and here it's pretty warm. I downclocked a little for the test because Ryzen and Threadripper rarely go above 3.9Ghz, but normally I run the 7980XE at 4.4 GHz.

Mind that Corona triggers AVX frequency that has a negative offset, in my case it's limited to 4.0 Ghz on all cores.

My MB is the Asus x299-A, it's the cheapest that Asus makes for this socket.

Honestly it's a very good platform, as long as you delid the CPU or ask the shop to do it.

2018-01-01, 22:34:01
Reply #3

Juraj

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What on earth...you delided 2k chip :- D ?

Did you by any chance run comparison on temperatures before and after delid in the same setup ?

I am going full custom loop on next build too but deliding something of this price...crazy. Wish I had your nerve ;- ). I would absolute love to run 7980XE at 4.4Ghz given silicon lottery would smile upon me.

And I am actually surprised that i9 has also AVX-clock, I seriously thought this was only a feature of v3/v4 gen Xeons. Could it be because this chip shares so much with it ?
I presume it underclocks all the cores not just selectively as Intel claims it should.
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2018-01-01, 23:24:09
Reply #4

Mattschia

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Eheh I've done worse. It's actually quite simple with the right tools, look for some video online.

Talking about frequencies 4.4 it's actually averge for a delidded chip, most people are in the 4.6/4.7 range but they probabilly don't have the pc rendering 24/24 eheh.. anyway, real frequency in Corona is lower as I've mentioned because AVX instructions run hotter. This chip has 2 AVX offset, one for the classic 256 and a new one for AVX-512 just like xeons. But it's up to you to configure if you want to run at lower multiplier or not and how much offset.. i wish xeons were so configurable as they used to be.

You can expect a reduction of 12-15deg from delidding anyway.. if you don't break it of course, in that case it will be much much colder lol


2018-01-02, 00:23:39
Reply #5

Juraj

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It's not matter of deliding, I can do that on something like 7700k any time of the day. But doing that on something with pricetag of 7980XE feels like going to casino after heart attack. That's some serious playing with fire territory to me, way beyond my comfort zone.
Hence I was more interested how particularly does it affect this specific CPU only.

You have my deepest admiration. I wonder how many people even did it to this chip. (perhaps outside of the youtube fetishistic community)
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2018-01-02, 00:40:22
Reply #6

agentdark45

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Delidding a 7980XE...got dayum!

Personally I'm holding out on the rumours of a Zen 2 Threadripper variant by mid 2018. Hopefully RAM prices will have also calmed down by then.

Vray who?