Ryzen

sechs

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If the CPU is at 100% all day, then shouldn't you use a faster CPU?
I expect a CPU to be at 100% for a short period and then idle most of the time.
Sure, if my main use for the computer was burn-in testing and benchmarking the CPU....
 

LunarMist

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I've been a proponent of the 80% utilization paradigm as the baseline for so many years.
 

Handruin

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I'm glad to see more progress is on the horizon for AMD.

AMD's Senior Vice President, Forrest Norrod, has unveiled some major details of their next-gen Zen 3 CPU architecture in an interview with The Street. According to Forrest, we can expect to see some major performance uplifts with Zen 3 based products, coming from various factors such as new chip architecture and an enhanced process node.

 

Stereodude

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They don't even have the Zen 2 Threadrippers out the door yet and they're already talking Zen 3... Figures. :unsure:
 

Stereodude

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Presumably we'll get the reviews of the 3960X & 3970X tomorrow on their release day. Who knows for sure though...
 

Handruin

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I'm tempted to see if my local Microcenter has any tomorrow. I haven't seen anything listed.
 

LunarMist

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Does a new motherboard's BIOS support the new CPUs right out of the box?
 

Handruin

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It's possible but not probable. The x570 board I was looking at has the cpu support in a bios update made on 9/17/2019 but that doesn't mean it would be on the board I would buy.
 

sedrosken

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I think AMD will still send you some crappy AM4 Athlon for flashing purposes if you need it. You just have to send it back.
 

Newtun

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Some motherboards can flash their BIOS without an installed CPU.
 

Stereodude

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Does a new motherboard's BIOS support the new CPUs right out of the box?
On which motherboard platform? And which new CPUs? The 3960X and 3970X require a new chipset, so any motherboard for them will support them out of the box. Things on the desktop Ryzen 3xxx is a little less clear depending on which chipset you're try to drop them in. I'm not sure if the Ryzen 9 3950x will work in all x570 boards enough to flash the BIOS to a version that officially supports it (or not).

Linus seemed less than impressed with Intel dropping their new Core i9 10980XE just a few hours before the embargo on the 3960X and 3970X lift. I like the blurred lines in the benchmarks. :ROFLMAO:


In a similar vein Anandtech decided to not publish their Core i9 10980XE review until the AMD embargo lifts so the 3960X and 3970X can be included in the benchmark graphs.
 

Handruin

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Microcenter had the 3950X for a little while and at MSRP with a $30 off bundle when bought with a motherboard. I had one in my cart online but got sidetracked with other stuff and they went out of stock pretty quick. That made my decision easy to wait.
 

Handruin

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On which motherboard platform? And which new CPUs? The 3960X and 3970X require a new chipset, so any motherboard for them will support them out of the box. Things on the desktop Ryzen 3xxx is a little less clear depending on which chipset you're try to drop them in. I'm not sure if the Ryzen 9 3950x will work in all x570 boards enough to flash the BIOS to a version that officially supports it (or not).

Linus seemed less than impressed with Intel dropping their new Core i9 10980XE just a few hours before the embargo on the 3960X and 3970X lift. I like the blurred lines in the benchmarks. :ROFLMAO:


In a similar vein Anandtech decided to not publish their Core i9 10980XE review until the AMD embargo lifts so the 3960X and 3970X can be included in the benchmark graphs.
He is pretty bullshit with Intel. I love this comment in youtube: "You know you seriously messed up when a canadian is mad at you… ".
 

Stereodude

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Nice list Chewy! The few X570 boards I'm considering are listed to have BIOS flashback without CPU.
But does a 3950X not even work in an X570 with an older BIOS. I would expect it to POST, but maybe not work optimally until it's flashed, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean it's just a different variant of a supported processor series.

I remember back in the day sticking Intel CPUs that weren't officially supported in old motherboards (remember the slotket?) but the system would work. I can see a Ryzen 3xxx not working in an x470 board without the BIOS update, but that's a bit different.
 

Handruin

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But does a 3950X not even work in an X570 with an older BIOS. I would expect it to POST, but maybe not work optimally until it's flashed, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean it's just a different variant of a supported processor series.

I remember back in the day sticking Intel CPUs that weren't officially supported in old motherboards (remember the slotket?) but the system would work. I can see a Ryzen 3xxx not working in an x470 board without the BIOS update, but that's a bit different.

I don't know if it will work in an older BIOS enough to get it updated. I may have misunderstood the point of the spreadsheet indicating the ability to flashback without CPU. I assumed that meant it could be flashed without the 3950X to get it to the right version but possibly not. I was also looking at the X570 chipset list, so maybe the X470 would have some additional issues. I only have two other AMD CPUs but they are AM3+ socket so I couldn't use those to update. I got time to read more reviews and make a decision.
 

LunarMist

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He is pretty bullshit with Intel. I love this comment in youtube: "You know you seriously messed up when a canadian is mad at you… ".

I don't quite understand why the young guy is ranting, but it's typical for the internet. (n)
I wish they'd hire some writers that would just publish the test results without editorializing. I miss Ra.
 

LunarMist

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But does a 3950X not even work in an X570 with an older BIOS. I would expect it to POST, but maybe not work optimally until it's flashed, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean it's just a different variant of a supported processor series.

I remember back in the day sticking Intel CPUs that weren't officially supported in old motherboards (remember the slotket?) but the system would work. I can see a Ryzen 3xxx not working in an x470 board without the BIOS update, but that's a bit different.

I had problems with two series of Athalon XP CPUs and new mainboards that wouldn't boot with them due to the BIOS. That's why I'd rather have a new chipset with the new CPU.
 

Handruin

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I don't quite understand why the young guy is ranting, but it's typical for the internet. (n)
I wish they'd hire some writers that would just publish the test results without editorializing. I miss Ra.
He's voicing what many of us are thinking anyway. Intel is doing damage control as AMD has been continuing their momentum with their new products.

If you want more results and reviews, check out Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus around the 4 min mark:
 

LunarMist

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It seems like the single cores are about the same or maybe the 3950X is a bit faster per core than the 3970X due the heat dispersion.
Anyways, I'm not seeing much need for all those cores of the better CPUs. I just need to figure out how to live with the measly number of PCIe lanes provided by the lower grade CPUs.
 

LunarMist

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I'm not sure how the lanes are divided on the PCIe bus. I need a video card, 10GbE SPF+ Ethernet, SATA/SAS controller, and ideally two M.2 SSDs. I could probably live with one M.2.
 

Handruin

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GPUs can use fewer lanes and be fine at x8. If you plan your IO cards out in advance it might be fine. Keep in mind if you went with an AMD x570 motherboard which can use pcie 4 adapters, you can get by with half as many lanes assuming you can find adapter that use PCIe 4.

GPU: x8
10Gb SFP+ x4
SAS controller: x8
M.2: x4
M.2: x2
 

LunarMist

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Maybe I could use a 4x PCIe card for SATA to save some lanes? Most of them are cheap so I'm suspicious.
 

Stereodude

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You really should stop worrying about things that don't matter. What exactly are you worried about? Can you point to any sort of review or data that shows the slowdown on otherwise comparable systems caused by a lack of PCIe lanes?
 

Stereodude

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Can you point to any sort of review or data that shows the slowdown on otherwise comparable systems caused by a lack of PCIe lanes?
I mean in the applications that you're (LM) planning to run.

I could similarly be fretting about only dual channel memory instead of quad channel, but it doesn't seem to matter per the benchmarks in the x264/x265 video compression results I've seen posted so far. The 3970X has twice the cores as the 3950X and more memory bandwidth courtesy of quad channel memory, but delivers only 2x the performance of the 3900X (12 cores) not the 3950X (16 cores).
 
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LunarMist

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I'm not an expert in the PCIe architecture, but several previous boards have hardware shared lanes. Therefore a device will simply not be recognized if there is a conflict. Examples are M.2, PCIe, SATA, Thunderbowls and other integrated devices.
 

Chewy509

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I'm not an expert in the PCIe architecture, but several previous boards have hardware shared lanes. Therefore a device will simply not be recognized if there is a conflict. Examples are M.2, PCIe, SATA, Thunderbowls and other integrated devices.
That's entirely on the motherboard layout, and nothing to do with the chip... Most motherboard manuals should give you the PCIe lane to physical slot assignments.
 

LunarMist

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I know that the 16x slots degenerate to 8x. That is fine with me, but the total number of slots on many boards is well over the number of PCIe lanes so something has to give. I had a bad experience with the Asus and the last two Gigabytes boards died too early. Now I have the two MSI that have been working fine nearly five years, but which x570 boardshould I buy that will last for 4+ years? The websites only have the O/C performance and silly LED interests in mind. o_O
 

Chewy509

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Unfortunately the information you're after is buried in user manuals (if you're lucky) or the specification documents. That's your research to do.

Here is one example from Tyan: https://www.tyan.com/Motherboards_S8020_S8020AGM2NR-EX
If you look at the spec sheet: ftp://ftp.tyan.com/datasheets/DataSheet_S8020.pdf
on page 2 is a nice block diagram that highlights:
3x PCIe x16 slots are PCIe G3 x16
1x PCIe x16 slot is PCIe G3 x8
2x M.2 (2280) are PCIe G3 x2
Some of the USB3.1 are off the CPU, and others are off the X399 chipset.
The PCIe x4 slot is off the X399 chipset, and so on.

So from the block diagram you can work out if this board is for you or not?

PS. This is not a recommendation or endorsement of this board, just using it as an example. However it does seem to meet your needs other than coming with 10GbE onboard and SAS. (both easily corrected with add-on cards).

Re: M.2 only being x2 slots, note: PCIe G3 is 8Gb/s per lane (so 16Gb/s for a x2 slot). There is no reason you couldn't use M.2 / PCIe add-in cards either if this is limiting.

Another example is the: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SPA-TF
Under key features they clearly list the shared slot architecture, so nothing is hidden. You just need to do this research yourself (if these details are that important to you).

You need to understand most review sites are aimed at gamers (people with more money than sense) and are largely marketing sites for the manufacturers... Unfortunately sites like 2cpu.com have slowly died, and once highly technical sites like ArsTechnica are catering for the more mainstream users...
 

LunarMist

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Yikes! Some of those x570 boards are $750. :( I never paid more than $300 before for MB. What is so special about the AMD chipset?
 

Handruin

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Yikes! Some of those x570 boards are $750. :( I never paid more than $300 before for MB. What is so special about the AMD chipset?

Asus makes workstation motherboards if you don't want all the gamer stuff. The X570 has pcie 4 which is a bit special. No need to spend $750 on a board unless it has a sas controller and 10gb built in. Those can be worth the extra cost sometimes.
 

LunarMist

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I found this slide. The big question is if those "16x Graphics" lanes are only for graphics or if some can be used for the SAS/SATA HBA?
From reading multiple mainboard specs, the first two PCIe slots are normally the primary 16x (either 16x, 0 or 8x, 8x) and the third is a 4x slot that would be from the X570 chipset. Boards additionally have various combinations of 1x slots, and SATA and NVMe ports. I can live with some of the offered options if the drive HBA can use the 2nd slot in 8x mode as the NIC would be in the 4x slot.

x570-chipset-block-diagram.jpg
 
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LunarMist

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What would you use for the RAM? According to AMD the Rhizome 3950x needs DDR4-3200, but I can't find any 3200MHz 32 GB modules. The 32GB modules are only available in slower speeds such as 2666. The other option is 4x16GB, but 64GB total RAM seems low going into the 2020s. :(
 

Handruin

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What would you use for the RAM? According to AMD the Rhizome 3950x needs DDR4-3200, but I can't find any 3200MHz 32 GB modules. The 32GB modules are only available in slower speeds such as 2666. The other option is 4x16GB, but 64GB total RAM seems low going into the 2020s. :(

I personally don't need 32GB DIMMs so I was considering going with a pair of these:

Do these not work for you?
 
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