Author Topic: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)  (Read 517261 times)

2019-05-13, 20:15:43
Reply #345

Juraj

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I'm happy to report that it's all going well so far after 1 day. The RAM is clocking in at 3000, and I'm seeing average temperatures of around 68 degrees under full load.

68 under load ? Thats a lot imo on default clock/voltage. On my totally stock BIOS settings im getting (without undervolting) 58C with NS14 ( single fan ).

I wouldn't say so necessarily, here are readings from Aorus Xtreme with Heatkiller IV ( best cpu block on market ) connected to 240mm rad with full-speed ran NoiseBlocker 140 and all-core boost at 3.5Ghz have temps of 67C.
That's full system 300W power draw at Blender Test.
MSI MEG might have different default bios setting to Aorus, mine (MEG) had PBO switched to expert mode and that is quite voltage hungry for some reason. I never compared PBO behavior with later bios updates.



https://www.kitguru.net/components/leo-waldock/gigabyte-x399-aorus-xtreme-review-w-amd-2990wx/6/

Phoronic's tests though do show average 58 for stock settings on Asus ROG Extreme.



That said, could be anything from heatsink seating to fan profiles, to software used to monitor temperature readings (super inaccurate) to what package is being run. Cinebench and Blender are less intense than Corona.
« Last Edit: 2019-05-13, 20:26:52 by Juraj Talcik »
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2019-05-13, 21:10:32
Reply #346

Designerman77

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As a Mac user, I had put an eye on Win-workstations, especially at Threadripper, since they impress with countless cores.


My old iMac (2012) was struggling with thermal problems when doing hard render jobs all day long, I was quite sure I would switch from Mac
to a properly cooled Win workstation with huuuuge fans and liquid.

After comparing prices of Win-workstations with those of latest iMac Pro... the conclusion was that: same components in a Win box will cost not much less than the ready to go-Mac... and you still don't have a display. Especially not a 5K.

Honestly... I was super sceptic and kind of afraid to throw that much money at Apple again, especially having had thermal problems with old models from 2012.

BUT... good Lord. What a nice surprise came on my desktop with the iMac Pro ! Basic config, absolutely no upgrade. 8 core, 32 Ram 8GB Vega-card.
No fancy numbers.

Render times up to 10 x faster than the 2012 iMac 3,4 Ghz i7 !
Temperatures at full load ? A bit warmer than my hand ! No kidding.
Fan Noise? Nothing. Never.

Benchmark Treadripper around 23.000, Xeon W around 18600.
Okay, a bit slower... slower than very fast... :)))
I can live with that.

Maybe more investment for the Mac at the beginning... but no investment of tens and tens of hours of internet research for components, assembling, fiddling around in the BIOS, not working drivers, etc. etc. etc.
In this time you don't earn money !

At the end, I'm not sure if assembling PC yourself really saves that much money.


 

2019-05-14, 14:36:40
Reply #347

arqrenderz

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As a Mac user, I had put an eye on Win-workstations, especially at Threadripper, since they impress with countless cores.


My old iMac (2012) was struggling with thermal problems when doing hard render jobs all day long, I was quite sure I would switch from Mac
to a properly cooled Win workstation with huuuuge fans and liquid.

After comparing prices of Win-workstations with those of latest iMac Pro... the conclusion was that: same components in a Win box will cost not much less than the ready to go-Mac... and you still don't have a display. Especially not a 5K.

Honestly... I was super sceptic and kind of afraid to throw that much money at Apple again, especially having had thermal problems with old models from 2012.

BUT... good Lord. What a nice surprise came on my desktop with the iMac Pro ! Basic config, absolutely no upgrade. 8 core, 32 Ram 8GB Vega-card.
No fancy numbers.

Render times up to 10 x faster than the 2012 iMac 3,4 Ghz i7 !
Temperatures at full load ? A bit warmer than my hand ! No kidding.
Fan Noise? Nothing. Never.

Benchmark Treadripper around 23.000, Xeon W around 18600.
Okay, a bit slower... slower than very fast... :)))
I can live with that.

Maybe more investment for the Mac at the beginning... but no investment of tens and tens of hours of internet research for components, assembling, fiddling around in the BIOS, not working drivers, etc. etc. etc.
In this time you don't earn money !

At the end, I'm not sure if assembling PC yourself really saves that much money.

Lol man, you said its just warm to the hand, i bet its like 90º c in there     

2019-05-14, 16:05:12
Reply #348

Designerman77

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Lol man ?

I tell you... mine doesn't overheat at all. Even when Corona renders on full power for 20 minutes, the air from the vent is - as I said - not much warmer than my hand.

How many degrees are around the CPU... that's another thing.

Anyway, I never understood why WIN users like to ridicule Mac users.
Because of the "higher price"... oh and the non-scalability?
Well, if your own time for online research for components, self-assembling, setting up all drivers until the "hell-of-a-machine" works, is worth NOTHING... then maybe the WIN-solution is cheaper.

In my last employee-job, I worked on a brand new WIN-machine with latest, very powerful components.
You wanna know the story?  ... Despite crazy calculation power - Illustrator was lame as hell, almost freezing. The same with Powerpoint.
Rhino(CAD) "didn't like" the drivers of the video card and was running slower than on my 7 year old !!!! iMac.

We spent days until it ran more-less normal. Despite the help of a colleague who was a graduated programmer.

Such I have never experienced in 15 years on a Mac.

Long story short: as a user of BOTH systems... WIN-PCs and OSX / Mac-PCs I can only say that: there is not the slightest reason to ridicule Macs.

Me personally, I am happy and quite fascinated about WIN based render-monsters and don't exclude that one day I´ll buy one.

But it´s still a fact, that Windows itself plus building your PC yourself from components that don't necessarily harmonize together, can be a pain in the ass.

Quite regularly I read about "complete crashes" and all sort of weird problems with self-built PCs here in the Corona forum.
I´m not glad about that and not making fun of the people.

And by the way... even my 7 year old iMac NEVER gets hotter than 75°C directly at the CPU-heatsink. Without 6 x 120 mm Fans and liquid cooling.

So how can you seriously believe that an iMac Pro will get around 90°C, when it has a cooling system that is more efficient by 80 % ???

That's indeed "LOL"



Good luck and much success to all colleagues with Win-PCs.

2019-05-14, 18:12:00
Reply #349

lolec

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I use a PC and I never argue with MAC people online, I guess if you value at NOTHING the time and energy you spent arguing with strangers online on arguments where no one ever changes their mind, then the MAC makes sense.

But knowing that the PC is flawed and that arguing is futile, I just don't argue and save even more money!


- My comment is tongue in cheek, of course. My point is that there are better things to do and that I've never seen anyone be convinced or changed their mind, so why bother? No platform is objectively better at EVERYTHING, individual needs vary, everyone will continue to use whatever they think is better for them.





2019-05-14, 18:28:53
Reply #350

PROH

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I think the biggest question here is: why are you hijacking a Threadripper thread with a subject that has absolutely nothing to do with Threadripper?

Please don't answer here, but if you find it important to continue, then start a separate thread, thanks.

2019-05-14, 18:47:57
Reply #351

Designerman77

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lolec ...

my time ( 5 minutes ) and energy I spent in exchanging opinions with colleagues who use win PCs is not wasted, since I think that learning from others is never a waste of time.
Why you have to get offensive?

Also interesting that exchanging experiences - is comprehended as "arguing" here in this forum.


2019-05-14, 19:02:54
Reply #352

Designerman77

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Hey PROH...

I think the bigger question is why you call someone's general interest in YOUR PC topics "hijacking a thread" ?

Also your formulation " please don't answer here " ...   ???
Ehhhhm... oh...kaaaay.

No worries, you will not be bothered anymore by non-treadripper users... :))))

2019-05-14, 19:11:52
Reply #353

lolec

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I clearly stated that my comments were meant to be taken lightly and jokingly.

One can argue though, that the time spent researching, building, debugging a PC is time well spent because you learn from that too.

Arguing doesn't mean "fighting" but the act of presenting arguments, which we all are.

I'm sorry that I didn't recognize that was such an emotional subject for you and that you would take comments personally, that was not my intention.



2019-05-14, 19:13:58
Reply #354

PROH

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The title of this topic is: "Threadripper 2990WX" - not: "why I love my iMac"

BTW - 3dsMax only works on Windows, no matter how good/bad it is.

2019-05-14, 19:28:08
Reply #355

Designerman77

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Hey PROH,

thanks, that's a polite answer. I appreciate.

So, sorry to everyone, I never meant to tell "why I love my Mac".
Just found your thread quite interesting and thought that maybe someone will be interested in my experience... even if it´s off topic.

Feel free to erase my comments, if you are the moderator. You are right, they are off-topic.

Wishing you the best guys!
« Last Edit: 2019-05-14, 19:37:27 by Designerman77 »

2019-05-14, 22:04:58
Reply #356

michaltimko

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That said, could be anything from heatsink seating to fan profiles, to software used to monitor temperature readings (super inaccurate) to what package is being run. Cinebench and Blender are less intense than Corona.

Yea i noticed better temps and voltage management with latest bios from 03/2019 also better memory compatibility (mostly overclocking)

Anyway

Sorry for interrupting your Mac related discussion guys but i noticed weird thing today.

Having default XMP enabled (3000/14) with stock CPU clock.

Corona : 41s / Cores capped at 3.175ghz
Cinebench : 11 000pts

XMP enabled with just memory multiplier changed to 29.33
Corona : 40s / Cores capped at 3.4 Ghz
Cinebench : 11 600pt

Any idea whats going on here ?

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2019-05-15, 19:13:47
Reply #357

Juraj

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Any idea whats going on here ?


Of course, it's very simple. You aren't running Mac :- ).
(No idea, my wager would be the difference is due to BLCK multiplier)


Now to this interesting discussion we have about merits of Windows vs Mac machines. I will go point by point and later point out it is very Apple™ and Oranges but why not play the game nonetheless :- ) ?


1) "Hassle". This isn't due to Windows vs Mac nature but the nature of Bespoke (+home)-build vs Prebuilt Machine. You can buy prebuilt Windows based workstations just as well from Dell,IBM, HP, Boxx,etc. They will also feature partly (though not to an extent of current-gen iMac) custom sourced hardware that's guaranteed to work together as it was pre-tested. Downside is huge price premium, lack of repairability outside of official channels due to custom hardware (mostly mainboard + PSU, but often the case as well).


Issues mentioned in this thread are mostly multiplied by the niche nature of enthousiast platform that was rushed to market, made in small orders and wasn't paid enough attention by 3rd party vendors (particularly the business of selling motherboards is very thin margin so even if brands like MSI create 'Halo' product for niche platform, it doesn't mean they paid attention to it to an extent that corporate deployed platform would. Everyone going this route knows there are risk involved. Risks with big payoff in price and performance.


I can (and have done so for family members and friends) build simple PC/Workstation on more mainstream platform (or pro-grade like Xeon) within hour and no complication ever after.


2) Price & Performance payoff. Now here I will show just how much the difference is actually. Because the aggregated Passmark score you have quoted is very misleading (it doesn't scale well and it's aggregate of lot of single-core processes, IPC has not grown much over the years. Basically, 8-core will load Chrome page just as fast as 32-core monster, so the scores will be similar), it basically doesn't even apply at all to Corona rendering. Better example is Cinebench R20, which perfectly scales in all situations.


Your configuration (iMac Pro, 8-core base model, 27" display) uses Xeon W-2140B from 2017. The multi-threaded score is 3700, rounded up.
Threadripper 2990WX has a score of 11 500+ at base-clock, and can go up to 13 000 with good cooling (like the workstation I have built for Veronika, on page 9?).

So it is 3 times faster. But that is expected because we are comparing and 8-core vs 32-core. Nothing to do with Windows or Mac, but lot to do with Threadripper vs Xeon pricing.


You absolutely can build 2990WX + 32GB + Vega 56 for the price of iMac pro minus monitor. Let's see the math (Amazon US prices):


Threadripper (2990WX=1622$, Aorus Xtreme 429$, 32GB DDR4 3000 CL15 179$, Fractal Case Define R6 149$, Noctua UH-14S TR3 79$, Vega 56 276$,  1TB Samsung 860 EVO 147$, 750W Seasonic Platinum 119$, 10GBE is on-board)

TOTAL:2,999$ (wow heh) + 27" LG 5K Ultrafine (this the panel Apple uses and this is the display they sell separately) 869$ = Grand Total 3869$

So we paid 30perc. less for 300perc. of the performance. And we have easily repairable, upgradable workstation with display we can swap or replace anytime.

To get closer to Threadripper 2990WX, we have to upgrade to 18-core version ( Xeon W-2191B ) but which has low TDP for cooling purposes so the all-core boost is just slightly above 2.3GHz, rendering the performance to be roughly half of 2990WX.
The price would jump to 7390$ Now the dirty equation would be half the price for twice the performance.

Of course, not all is fair above. iMac is all-in-one PC, it's made for creative professionals, but those creative professionals are meant more to be photographers, 2D artists, etc.. It's not rendering machine by any mean.
And there are Windows alternatives which are just as expensive and weak, for example Microsoft Surface Studio 2 which has all the same benefits and drawbacks like the Apple one but is arguably superior also but that is different topic altogether. Since you wrote this in Threadripper 2990WX thread, I compared the Apples&Oranges you brought :- ).

« Last Edit: 2019-05-15, 19:49:36 by Juraj Talcik »
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2019-05-15, 22:06:16
Reply #358

Nejc Kilar

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Well put Juraj, kind of agree with you on all the points.

Still, people sometimes prefer the UX of a given platform and put great value in having official support even if it means paying more for less performance. It is actually a good thing. Personally, I'm happy everyone gets their pie and has a choice. If you like it, by all means invest in whatever you feel like supporting :)
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2019-05-15, 22:29:41
Reply #359

Designerman77

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Juraj & nkilar,

both good points.

Juraj, thanks for the time you took to show your perspective on this topic.

I can only say, that after 15 years of work as an industrial designer, I learned that nice numbers don't tell you everything about the workflow with a specific machine.
In my opinion... the OS or the "harmony" between components often make the difference between a smooth workflow and the moments when people literally threw their machines out of the building... :)

However... I'm sure one day, one of those Threadripper monsters will make it into my office.

Greetings.